Friday

food / Friday / memories / photo — Comments Off on We are leaving the week behind
21
Feb 20

We are leaving the week behind

Quite a few years ago we impulsively pulled into a Sonic. I feel silly saying that because, really, how often does one pull into Sonic as part of a plan? We’re coming back from the beach and decided we wanted blizzards. We parked, the guy’s voice came over the little speaker and we placed our order, feeling a little like we were in a different era. Maybe they’d skate our snacks out to the car. Maybe it would be just like you imagine.

We aren’t Boomers and the guy wasn’t a carhop. He shuffled slowly, painfully, aimlessly, like there was nowhere to go. Like he didn’t know which of the other empty spaces this order was supposed to go. Like he didn’t know what to say.

“We’re out of spoons. Can I interest you in a fork?”

The blizzard is an ice cream with a thick viscosity, but, no, you can’t interest me in a fork. (We went to the drive-thru at the McDonald’s next door and said they’d forgotten our spoons and they, of course, gave us two.)

That was the precise wording, though. “Can I interest you in a fork?” So polite and, yet, absurd, that we committed to memory, added it to the lexicon and turned it into a perma-punchline.

The Sonic orbited a grocery store. I just measured the distance on Google Maps. It is 618 feet away. So my near-incredulous “Walk across the parking lot, walk into that Publix and buy a box of plastic spoons,” remains on point.

Today I got to make the joke again. Because we went to Chipotle (again) and they were out of forks.

Chipotle on Kirkwood, I observed, should join forces with the Sonic on Whitemarsh Island. Between them, they could maybe they could put together a full set of plasticware.

Have you ever tried to eat rice with a plastic spoon? It can be done, but you shouldn’t try to do it if you can help it.

Also, that same out of order note has moved down the line.

Gerald, the fictional third shift leader in charge of liquid refreshments, really is the worst.

Here’s the classic Friday evening photo. See ya, work week:

There’s not much better than putting it all in the mirror, is there? And sometimes if the car is pointed in the right direction you get lucky with the sideview.

One of the few things better? Terrific pizza:

We went to Indianapolis for the night, which meant we went to nearby Carmel for a decent pie. Because, again, in a college town with 46,000 students, you can’t get a superlative slice. Mellow Mushroom should always be closer. We’d be there every week.

food / Friday / photo / video — Comments Off on Happy Valentine’s Day
14
Feb 20

Happy Valentine’s Day

And a cold one it is. But the sunny is out, and it became one of those days when the sun made all the difference. If you were dressed in the appropriate amount of layers.

This was the view this morning. Just look at that fog rolling of the creek.

Here is my official work Valentine:

That’s a giant sloth skeleton. Well, it is a 3D-printed recreation of a giant sloth. Story goes that he was discovered on the banks of the Ohio River in the 19th century. Sometime later he was donated to the university and the fossilized remains were on display in a science building. Then, in the 1940s, the bones “got thrown out.”

There’s a bigger story there. That story may be lost to history, but anything told, misremembered, perhaps obfuscated and then glossed over 80 years later becomes an easy recitation of “facts.”

Eventually, it was decided by the Office of They that the sloth should be put back on display as a part of the university’s ongoing bicentennial celebration. Only, no one has the bones. But better than fossils, we can reprint them. Technology is grand! Some of the bones were apparently not lost to history, carelessness, conspiracy or whatever it was. And they were used as a model, along with careful consultation of other ancient sloth specimens. Ultimately, it became a collaborative effort among several aspects of the university, which was probably the most important thing. Our part is … hosting the sloth. The original didn’t sit in this building, but this one is, for a time. The orientation is unfortunate. It is pointing at the newspaper’s offices and it really shouldn’t. Apparently he’s going on tour after Spring Break. A very slow tour, I’m sure.

Had a cookie:

I walked down to the local little cookie bakery where they make custom-ordered treats. Made a video of it for a friend, shared the cookies with some people in her honor. I made sure to enjoy one for myself.

And I saw this on the way to the car after the day’s work was done. Tulips! Sun!

I want to be heartened by this, but I won’t be tricked. Not this year. I remember the video from this morning, after all. And I’ve come to realize: after you see the first tulips here, you still spend two months in sweaters and coats. Three winters, lesson learned.

OK, here’s an important part of the cookie video:

Happy weekend! Find yourself a cookie. Probably you deserve it.

Friday / photo — Comments Off on That time of year
7
Feb 20

That time of year

So we’re doing this again …

It’s as good a reason as any to stay in your box.

The amounts of snow have been negligible, at least. But it has been cold enough to sow. And it always looks like it, of course. And that’s the trouble, this time of year, isn’t it? The calendar says we’re about to turn into the second week of February. Now, where I’m from — by routine and habit and reasonable sensibilities — that means we’re aboooout a week away from seeing those first little green sprigs and shoots of spring.

Where I am, it means I have two more months of gray skies. What that means is we have to find two months of stuff to talk about without complaining overmuch. It’s annoying, really. It annoys me, being annoying about being annoyed. Maybe I need a good, all-encompassing, immersive hobby. Also, it’s going to snow again on Sunday.

But tomorrow, it’ll just be cold. One day we’ll stop doing that, perhaps. In April.

Friday / journalism / links / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Winter snow on Friday
31
Jan 20

Winter snow on Friday

Just three short-long months ago I stood outside and shivered while pumping gas and watching the snow. It was notable because it was Halloween and three long-short months ago. And now, today …

To be fair and just, which we always are on the Internet, it has been a mild winter so far. You shouldn’t say things like that, because even with the qualifier “so far” you imply that it is over. It is not over. If you used the “… so far” formulation that’d look ominous, like you were going for drama or fright night. Which might be appropriate, or overwrought. It’s weather, so it is difficult to tell. And if there’s one thing that we know is not allowed on the Internet, it is the inappropriate jumping to conclusions or an overwrought and emotional reaction.

We’re going to have sunny skies (for a change) and the low 60s on Sunday. Winter will, no doubt, return in short order.

Anyway, cold, slow day today. I suppose the two might be correlated. Probably not, but it’s an easy connection to make, and that’s really what the Internet is for.

The following things aren’t related, but they are two signs of these times. Not all of the times, but, indeed some of them.

Somehow, I thought there’d be more of a ceremony, or at least done after hours. Anything to keep it from looking this pitiful.

Locally, the newspaper, which has been a part of two corporate transactions under recent moons, is losing it’s local printing operation.

This is how it continues. We’re well past how it begins. The printing will take place up in Indianapolis. It isn’t far, but it’ll mean a few professionals will lose their jobs locally. And this local paper will be put in a queue with the bigger Indianapolis Star, whatever other papers and contract jobs must be done. Then the design of the actual papers will be moved out. You’ll see, or perhaps you are already seeing where you are, formulaic layouts done by specialists who are trying to crank out two more front pages before their lunch break. It consolidates jobs, and the technology helps, but it compresses the work. We see papers that fall into formulas and a lot, a lot, gets lost along the way. A bit of institutional knowledge here, local history and importance there.

Perhaps it matters less these days. Newspapers, sad to say, have a reduced importance because they have a reduced readership. This isn’t pure nostalgia. Part of it is, sure, but there’s a lot to be said about the function that a truly healthy newspaper can provide to its community. I believe in that more fervently than I do in a newspaper. I’ve always been married more to the ideal of the service, the function, the role, than the medium. It just so happens that well-attended newspapers are, or were, the best medium we had for that. This isn’t chicken-or-the-egg stuff, but it feels like it. The economics of the industry are such that closing presses is the next step in trying to keep something solvent, for a time, before the inevitable selloffs take place. When Warren Buffett is getting out …

This is how it continues.

family / Friday / photo / running / video — Comments Off on Good pace, pizza and pucks
27
Dec 19

Good pace, pizza and pucks

The holidays are over, the holidays continue. Christmas has a way about it, doesn’t it? So much build up, so much frantic build up in these shorter holidays years, and then you hit all of the parties and family fun and then … there’s that paper pile, your presents and the now empty tree. Good thing we’ve come to think of all of this time as being about the people, then. Good thing we’ve had the time to spend.

We are fortunate that way. It’s back home and back to work for most people, but we are able to enjoy an early start and a delayed ending to the holidays. So the holidays continue.

Nice run this morning. I ran around the park where The Yankee played as a child, where we took our engagement pictures in a nor’easter 11 years ago last week. It’s much warmer today, thanks. Also, the roads have been freshly paved.

We went to Pepe’s for pizza salad. They make the best salad pizza you can find anywhere.

Truly great stuff. And my in-laws were nice enough to bring us, and to share. They’re kind people that way.

Here’s Frank Pepe. He opened his first restaurant in 1925, after he ‘d come to the U.S., returned hom to fight in the Great War and then returned to America and found his way into the restaurant business. We’re dining at the third one, which opened decades after he died. The guy in this photo has no idea there are going to be a dozen stores bearing his name.

He started out making two pies and selling them off his head. And now here we are. The server did not bring out our pizzas on her head, which was a bit of a disappointment, but that was the only disappointment.

After dinner, a dilemma! We went to a minor league hockey game. The Wolf Pack at the Sound Tigers, in a battle of compound nicknames. The Sound Tigers are the home team, and a part of the Islanders organization. The visitors are in the Rangers farm system. You’d cheer for the home team, because they’re the home team. But this is a Rangers family. So this was a confusing time. A confusing time mollified by my new favorite past time.

Who knew they needed a go kart on ice? They ran this guy out in between segments of play and he was purely a stall. The promo was watching two guys race across the ice putting on a fire fighter’s turnouts. They were too fast, so this guy got to do his laps.

The Sound Tigers won 5-1. Also, it was teddy bear toss night, which was great fun to see. After the first goal people toss their new stuffed friends onto the cold, cold ice as part of a toy drive.

If only we’d known, we could have continued the giving. It should never end, after all.

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