Henna in Downtown Portland in March. Brrrr.

Today is my first day back at the Portland Saturday Market after a more than 3 month hiatus. It's a sunny clear day this first weekend in March but it is sooo very cold.

My booth is all set up and attracting a good amount of attention.

Working outside in Downtown Portland is not for the faint of heart. In addition to being at the mercy of the elements, we also have a large homeless population, many of whom are on drugs or mentally ill or a combination of the two.

Today felt like spring as several tweakers happily went about doing jobs for the city that no one else would ever think to do. One jolly toothless chap cheerfully cleaned debris out of the rails for the MAX line while shouting "wiener dog!"

His encore performance included standing in the now empty Skidmore Fountain and scream-singing "Hello darkness my old friend..." which is pretty much the next best thing to the actual Sound of Silence. Simon and Garfunkel eat your heart out.

Squeaky clean MAX rails (left). Skidmore Fountain (right). Not pictured: enthusiastic tweaker dude (because It would have been too rude to actually take his pic).

Now we are enjoying the tunes of a young boy on piano. He really rakes in the tips from the tourists who haven't caught on that this "prodigy" only knows four songs. I've heard Fuer Elise played at lightning speed six times in the past thirty minutes. I'm still happy though, it's only March after all.

I would be frozen by now except that we have good pho downtown and I thankfully have a heated blanket courtesy of @alexbeyman so I'm staying cozy. Mostly.

Artistic selfie of me nearly freezing my ass off.

It's surprisingly busy downtown today and I've had a great deal of happy and generous customers but I am so looking forward to a nice hot bath later. In the mean time, I am happily doing henna, petting cute puppies and looking forward to warmer days ahead.

Xoxo,
Amanda

Cute Puppy.