2.4.2015
It's cold in Chicago. Really, really cold.
The pictures I see online in social media and on TV during national coverage of Blackhawks games show a frozen Lake Michigan, an icy Chicago River, plumes of steam billowing out of every rooftop and generally frozen-looking, well-bundled people. I see these images and can hardly believe I endured eight Chicago winters. But I did.
Of the several side-splitting anecdotes I could write about, the recent news about coffee and its health benefits for people who drink about a pot a day (which Linkey Loo Robot and I certainly do) got me thinking about sad tale of coffee on an absolutely frigid Chicago morning.
It was a Friday morning in December, a few weeks before Christmas. In keeping with tradition, a proto-TNSC had met the night before and the revelry was great, as a holiday and time off were rapidly approaching. And, y'know, it was Thursday.
I had been served several drinks in dirty glasses the night before, and I felt terrible that morning: I had a screaming headache and there were several times I was sure I was going to puke on the bus and my fellow passengers. I actually got off the bus a stop early to try to use the cold to help me feel better. It did because it was so harsh. This was the kind of cold that froze your eyelashes together when you blinked. No shit.
I reached my normal bus stop and the Koffee Kiosk beckoned me in. I visited it often and the nice gal behind the counter knew me. She said, "would you like to try my special Christmas blend this morning? It's on the house!" I said no thanks, just the biggest regular hot caffeinated coffee you have. She pressed on. "Are you sure? It's my special blend and it's my treat!" After a while of politely declining, her persistence won out.
"Okay, thanks." I said, accepting the giant paper cup that was so hot I could feel it through my gloved hand.
Outside I took the lid off to let it cool some, and the sub-zero temps obliged in a block or two. I braced myself and took a sip.
...
It was syrupy sweet. It probably had peppermint, holly, mistletoe and chimney soot oil in it. "Christmassy" flavors all. I spit it out and poured the rest out in the gutter and watched it violently steam for almost six seconds before it iced over.
I was sad and felt bad. Then I went to work and drank a pot of food service coffee.
Tonight - The Homestead (but you already knew that)
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Firecracker!
2.3.2015
Growing up, I had a pal my age who lived only three houses away. Let's call him Phil. We went to school together until high school, when we went to different schools, but we still hung out a lot.
I saw Phil nearly every day, because we had a grapefruit tree that (I'm told) had absolutely delicious
fruit, and he came and got one for breakfast. I also saw him when we listened to records, watched movies, or, y'know, smoked the reefer.
The kids he met at his school were really different from the ones I met at my school and his pals introduced him to "alternative" art and music and often times really powerful weed.
One school night I went out to dinner with my soccer team after practice and ordered and wolfed down loaded tater skins. They were cheesy, bacony, covered with sour cream and I would see them again!
Later that evening, Phil came over right as I was leaving to take our dog for a walk. He joined us and while we walked, he showed me this neat collapsible "water pipe" and then he demonstrated its use. I gave it a go and it worked well. We took turns breaking it in as we walked Cassie around the block.
As we neared his house, he said, "My sister Melissa just got back from a trip to China and she brought me some weird candy. Wanna check it out?" I said okay and Cassie and I waited as he ran in and got the candy.
They were fruity disk-shaped candies called "Haw Flakes." We thought the name was hilarious and we held the "awwww" of Haw when we said "Haw Flakes" and cracked each other up. It was really, REALLY funny, if you catch my meaning.
It was getting late, so we called it a night. I took the dog home, washed up and went to bed. As I laid there, the room began to spin quite fast, and before I knew it, realized I was about to throw up. A moment later I reverse-ate my once tasty loaded tater skins. That seemed to help, because the room stopped spinning. Even better, my brother heard me ralph, thought I was sick and took pity on me by cleaning up my trash can, which now contained my tater skins.
The next morning, as I was leaving for school, Phil came to get a grapefruit.
He said, "dude, I fucking threw up last night."
I said, "so did I!"
He said, "do you think it was the Hawwwwww Flakes?"
I said, "no. I think it was the killer bongs."
We laughed. Hawwwwww Flakes!
Tonight - The Armory Club
(blatant tie-in - no pun intended - to the "rom com" of the week, "50 Shades of Grey.")
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
Growing up, I had a pal my age who lived only three houses away. Let's call him Phil. We went to school together until high school, when we went to different schools, but we still hung out a lot.
I saw Phil nearly every day, because we had a grapefruit tree that (I'm told) had absolutely delicious
fruit, and he came and got one for breakfast. I also saw him when we listened to records, watched movies, or, y'know, smoked the reefer.
The kids he met at his school were really different from the ones I met at my school and his pals introduced him to "alternative" art and music and often times really powerful weed.
One school night I went out to dinner with my soccer team after practice and ordered and wolfed down loaded tater skins. They were cheesy, bacony, covered with sour cream and I would see them again!
Later that evening, Phil came over right as I was leaving to take our dog for a walk. He joined us and while we walked, he showed me this neat collapsible "water pipe" and then he demonstrated its use. I gave it a go and it worked well. We took turns breaking it in as we walked Cassie around the block.
As we neared his house, he said, "My sister Melissa just got back from a trip to China and she brought me some weird candy. Wanna check it out?" I said okay and Cassie and I waited as he ran in and got the candy.
They were fruity disk-shaped candies called "Haw Flakes." We thought the name was hilarious and we held the "awwww" of Haw when we said "Haw Flakes" and cracked each other up. It was really, REALLY funny, if you catch my meaning.
It was getting late, so we called it a night. I took the dog home, washed up and went to bed. As I laid there, the room began to spin quite fast, and before I knew it, realized I was about to throw up. A moment later I reverse-ate my once tasty loaded tater skins. That seemed to help, because the room stopped spinning. Even better, my brother heard me ralph, thought I was sick and took pity on me by cleaning up my trash can, which now contained my tater skins.
The next morning, as I was leaving for school, Phil came to get a grapefruit.
He said, "dude, I fucking threw up last night."
I said, "so did I!"
He said, "do you think it was the Hawwwwww Flakes?"
I said, "no. I think it was the killer bongs."
We laughed. Hawwwwww Flakes!
Tonight - The Armory Club
(blatant tie-in - no pun intended - to the "rom com" of the week, "50 Shades of Grey.")
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
Thursday, February 12, 2015
DIXN (REDUX)
2.2.2015
I was coming across the bridge the other morning and the casual carpool driver's car had some bad shocks so while Jughead was super funny I had to put down my Archie's Pals and Gals Feb '06 issue because I just couldn't concentrate. (I've been known to boot from reading in the back seat of a bouncy car and I didn't want to out myself as being a total puss in front of strangers.) So I stared out the window instead and listened to the driver's preference radio station: An all-day salute to German Waltzes.
I always play "What's for breakfast" while coming across the bridge in the morning. That's where you look out the window and you try to guess what the next driver is scarfing down. Most often it's coffee or a bagel but sometimes it's fruit. Occasionally it's a breakfast burrito or yogurt. One time I saw a guy eating chicken legs and throwing the bones out the window. Fun.
I also like to try to memorize license plates. Geez I have a great time. I tend to get thrown off by vanity plates because instead of memorizing them I try to figure them out. Some are easy and lame: "DEBZGTI" or "RAYDRZ." Others are
easy and annoying: "PETAGAL." Then there are the curious ones. I started figuring on what the white Accord was thinking when he got the vanity plate "NOSHRTZ." I had a couple guesses. He was a Team USA women's soccer fan or an avid titty-bar patron. I was distracted when another car then went by with a "CUBSWN" plate. I couldn't figure what it meant. I'm sure it wasn't grounded in reality.
It's not often when I get a second chance to think of a plate but with "NOSHRTZ" I did. I was walking from the drop-off to the office that morning when I passed "NOSHIRTS" guy getting out of the Accord, having just parked it. "NOSHRTZ?" I asked. "I play a lot of pick-up basketball," he said. Figured. STUPID.
Tonight - Lucky 13 - Beer Fest - featuring Sierra Nevada
(cash only)
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
I was coming across the bridge the other morning and the casual carpool driver's car had some bad shocks so while Jughead was super funny I had to put down my Archie's Pals and Gals Feb '06 issue because I just couldn't concentrate. (I've been known to boot from reading in the back seat of a bouncy car and I didn't want to out myself as being a total puss in front of strangers.) So I stared out the window instead and listened to the driver's preference radio station: An all-day salute to German Waltzes.
I always play "What's for breakfast" while coming across the bridge in the morning. That's where you look out the window and you try to guess what the next driver is scarfing down. Most often it's coffee or a bagel but sometimes it's fruit. Occasionally it's a breakfast burrito or yogurt. One time I saw a guy eating chicken legs and throwing the bones out the window. Fun.
I also like to try to memorize license plates. Geez I have a great time. I tend to get thrown off by vanity plates because instead of memorizing them I try to figure them out. Some are easy and lame: "DEBZGTI" or "RAYDRZ." Others are
easy and annoying: "PETAGAL." Then there are the curious ones. I started figuring on what the white Accord was thinking when he got the vanity plate "NOSHRTZ." I had a couple guesses. He was a Team USA women's soccer fan or an avid titty-bar patron. I was distracted when another car then went by with a "CUBSWN" plate. I couldn't figure what it meant. I'm sure it wasn't grounded in reality.
It's not often when I get a second chance to think of a plate but with "NOSHRTZ" I did. I was walking from the drop-off to the office that morning when I passed "NOSHIRTS" guy getting out of the Accord, having just parked it. "NOSHRTZ?" I asked. "I play a lot of pick-up basketball," he said. Figured. STUPID.
Tonight - Lucky 13 - Beer Fest - featuring Sierra Nevada
(cash only)
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
Thursday, February 05, 2015
Black Ice
2.1.2015
A year and three days ago, our local ice rink shuttered. It had a slow but inevitable descent, and when its last day was announced, we lamented its demise and our loss. We still feel it; our "backup" rink is four times as far away, it caters to skaters paying big bucks to learn figure skating and who play in their in-house youth hockey league, it subjugates the public skaters and those of us who want only to exercise and to get our kids private lessons on large sheets of ice (the public skate is on a converted rollerskating rink - much smaller than the 200-foot NHL rink reserved for the big payers).
I miss our old rink a lot. We had many months of great lessons, sessions and other hijinks there. The crowd was much more pedestrian than that of our "backup" rink. There, the parents drive in in big fuckin' SUVs, deploy their asshole kids and lapse immediately into smart phone or tablet trances - without paying one iota of attention to their asshole kids' practice. At our old rink, sure, there were folks enraptured with their devices, but many more huddled together, shared snacks, camaraderie and interest in what was going on on the ice.
So when we knew that it was our last public skate at the old place, my pal who I met there decided to make custom CDs with the music WE wanted to hear while we skated, just like the show tunes and Disney theme songs the figure skaters practiced to. I compiled a playlist and burned it. I asked the awesome staff dude to play a track and he said he'd play the whole thing. And he did. It was the first time we heard good music there, even though all the other bad music didn't matter, since it was bad music at OUR rink.
Here's my partial route when I switched on the "Map My Ride" app while on the ice:
I don't remember leaving the ice so severely that one lap.
And here, of course is our playlist from that last day.
Tonight - The Residence. (by several requests)
Warm up & dry off by the faux-erplace.
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
A year and three days ago, our local ice rink shuttered. It had a slow but inevitable descent, and when its last day was announced, we lamented its demise and our loss. We still feel it; our "backup" rink is four times as far away, it caters to skaters paying big bucks to learn figure skating and who play in their in-house youth hockey league, it subjugates the public skaters and those of us who want only to exercise and to get our kids private lessons on large sheets of ice (the public skate is on a converted rollerskating rink - much smaller than the 200-foot NHL rink reserved for the big payers).
I miss our old rink a lot. We had many months of great lessons, sessions and other hijinks there. The crowd was much more pedestrian than that of our "backup" rink. There, the parents drive in in big fuckin' SUVs, deploy their asshole kids and lapse immediately into smart phone or tablet trances - without paying one iota of attention to their asshole kids' practice. At our old rink, sure, there were folks enraptured with their devices, but many more huddled together, shared snacks, camaraderie and interest in what was going on on the ice.
So when we knew that it was our last public skate at the old place, my pal who I met there decided to make custom CDs with the music WE wanted to hear while we skated, just like the show tunes and Disney theme songs the figure skaters practiced to. I compiled a playlist and burned it. I asked the awesome staff dude to play a track and he said he'd play the whole thing. And he did. It was the first time we heard good music there, even though all the other bad music didn't matter, since it was bad music at OUR rink.
Here's my partial route when I switched on the "Map My Ride" app while on the ice:
I don't remember leaving the ice so severely that one lap.
And here, of course is our playlist from that last day.
We sure miss the place.
Tonight - The Residence. (by several requests)
Warm up & dry off by the faux-erplace.
bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!
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