Category Archives: food

Mine Sweeping

Posted by dkrashb on

We attempt to go for a walk this morning.  But it’s getting late by the time we leave so we are forced to do the short loop through the park.  We realize that someone new must have moved into the neighborhood because of the dog poop on the sidewalk.  There are three separate piles along the way.  Each one looks older than the last, like the piles are from three separate days.  I wonder if the new dog owner is French–they’re not allowed to pick up dog poop because it’s someone’s job.

Stopping short of doing forensics on the dog poop piles, we walk around cautiously, avoiding getting any on our shoes successfully.  Then, we are greeted by three women, each with a small dog.  We’ve met these women and their dogs before–these women pick up after their dogs.  The little dogs have fun racing around together, but they don’t stop for a pet.  Although one is willing to let you throw its ball.  Today, we let them go on by without attempting to pet them.

Convinced that there is no dog poop to step around in sight, my eyes go to the sky.  I am hoping to see the Red-Shouldered Hawks who hunt in the park, but instead, I spot a flock of much smaller birds hanging out in the tree tops where they are back lit and there is no hope of getting a good look at them.  From their size and shape, I would guess they were a group of Cedar Waxwings, but who knows.  The call of the White-Throated Sparrow catches my attention.  I point it out to Pat, but he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, having failed to notice a bird was singing.  I realize he is probably thinking about our dogs, long gone, and missing them.

I try to imagine having a dog again.  I feel certain that some day, a dog will walk into our lives and stick.  But, for now, we are dogless and content to remain so for a while.  In the meantime, we console ourselves by petting other people’s dogs.

We return home and I work.  Our walk seems to have been symbolic of what I will face during my work day–I seem to spend most of my day trying to avoid land mines.

At the end of the day, it’s getting late and we have nothing to eat in the house.  It’s been raining since mid-morning, but it’s not that cold.  We decide to walk over to the Japanese restaurant by Coolidge park.  I pull on a rain jacket with a hood and find an umbrella.  We make our way carefully, leaping over deep puddles that have formed, dodging the splash from cars, and peeking from under our hoods before crossing the street.  I can’t help but feel my entire day has been about avoiding traps and obstacles.

When we get to the Japanese place, we discover it’s not open on Mondays.

We head for the Italian place at the end of the street.  It’s the restaurant furthest from our place on this strip, which means another block of dodging puddles.  But, we are happy to learn that tonight there is a special.  Fat Tire for $2.50 a pint and 20% off all pizzas.  We decide to give their pizza a try.  At the end of our meal, we discover that we’ve just eaten the cheapest meal we’ve ever had in Chattanooga.  Since the Japanese place tends to be the most expensive, we’re happy that they were closed today.

Now that we are warm and full, it’s time to go back out into the rain.  I pull on my raincoat and steel myself mentally.  We rush through the darkness, holding the umbrella so that it partially covers both of us. When Pat tips the umbrella, the water runs off onto my shoulder and into my purse.  I straighten the umbrella in his hands several times before I finally take over holding it.

We run across the streets, black silhouettes against headlights.  I realize we should have worn something with reflective strips on it.  Instead of avoiding mines, now we are dodging bullets.  When we make it back to our building, a man with a backpack is sitting on the steps up to the entry.  The steps are sheltered.  We assume he is homeless and trying to get out of the rain.  We greet him and continue on by, entering the security code to get into the building and making sure no one follows us in.

We walk into our place dripping with rain.  I strip off my rain jacket and find a spot to set the umbrella so it can dry.  After shaking away the wet, I get myself ready for bed.  I feel as if I survived some sort of test today.  Walking in the rain, especially after dark, always feels like an adventure.  I wish the end of my work day gave me the same rush that walking in the rain does.

Chocolate Chunks

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s our final evening on this trip to Columbus, we will have dinner with friends we met when we were neighbors int he Walhalla Ravine.  They are picking us up tonight, in the alley behind the house where we’re staying.  We stand in the garage waiting for them.  When a car comes up the alley, we try to judge if it could be them or not.  In the dark, the glaring headlights obscure the shape of the vehicle behind it.  It’s impossible to tell.  When a car stops several houses before they one we’re at, we step out and wave.  But they aren’t looking our way and we are unsure if it’s them or not.

Eventually, they see us standing in the road and pull up.  It is them.  We arrange ourselves in the truck, me and Cindy in the back and Jeff and Pat up front.  I tell Jeff that  there is a home OSU game and that George suggested taking North Broadway to avoid traffic.  North Broadway is the opposite direction from where we want to go and seems out of the way, so Jeff decides to take us straight through the heart of campus instead, hoping to take Neil Ave to Lane Ave.  We’re eating at a new restaurant in Upper Arlington, so this would be the most direct route.

Unfortunately, as less optimistic Columbus locals might have predicted, Lane Ave is closed through campus.  Had Ackerman been open, there might have been some hope of getting out that way, but the bridge is being replaced and we cannot get over the river.  We head back up Lane in the opposite direction we want to go.  We next try going down Pearl Alley.  It’s back-to-back traffic with no where to go.  It’s now about time for our reservation.  I look up the restaurant and let them know that we’re on our way, but caught in game traffic.  They say it’s no problem, so we all take a deep breath and relax as Jeff wrestles his way through the thick of OSU football traffic.  We end up on Fifth Ave eventually, working our way back to Lane.  After a few more turns through traffic, we make it to Lane Ave feeling like we’ve gone on an OSU safari.

A half an hour after our reservation, we arrive at the restaurant.  Fortunately, they still have a table for us and we sit down to enjoy “Asian Fusion.”  I’m always a little perplexed by “fusion” restaurants.  Somehow, the use of the word “fusion” in the context of food makes me think they are preparing two or more distinct styles of food and then searing them together with a blow torch or something.  Given that this has never turned out to be the case, I find myself wondering why they don’t say “blend.” Or how about, “Americanized <type of food>.”  Is there something inherently appetizing about the word “fusion” that I’m just not getting?

In any case, the food is OK.  It’s a background to catching up with our friends, so I can’t say I really care that it’s not exciting enough to distract me.  Not that I don’t like to combine visiting with friends with really good food.  But, not great food goes down a lot easier when smothered in friendly conversation.

These friends have not been reading my blog, either. This is a relief to me.  First of all, I hate repeating myself, something I do more and more often even without considering the blog.  Second, Cindy is an editor for a newspaper and I’m not sure I can handle the pressure of knowing a pro is reading my blog.

We have plenty to talk about.  But, sometimes recounting what we’ve done just seems dull.  The thing I really want to talk about is how bad I am at hang gliding.  Really, it’s the realization of what it’s like to be really bad at something and to keep struggling and struggling to learn it that fascinates me.  Jeff and Cindy seem to get this.  The experience of a level of empathy that I’ve never really fully experienced for this type of situation before.

We swap stories of what we’ve been up to and what our plans for Thanksgiving are until all the food is gone and it’s time to wrap up and head out the door.  I suggest we walk over to Graeter’s for dessert.  After all, it’s our last day in Columbus and we have yet to eat any Graeter’s since arriving.  We all agree and head out the door.  It’s surprisingly warm for mid-November.  I expected to be freezing all week, but there has been only one day that was bitterly cold so far.  The wind is kicking up, but it actually has a balmy sort of feel to it.  This is good because it’s hard for me to enjoy ice cream when I’m shivering.

The black raspberry chip is as delicious as usual.  The big chunks of dark chocolate melt from too-cold chocolate into a creamy mouthful of goodness just like always.  I have tried a lot of ice cream in my life, but none has ever compared to Graeter’s.  Not famous Italian ice in Rome, not farm fresh ice cream in Utica, not Tilamook dairy ice cream in Oregon, not Ben and Jerry’s, and not even home made.  I will take Graeter’s Black Raspberry Chip, the only fruit-flavored ice cream I’ve ever liked, over any of it.  The transformation of the chocolate from solid to liquid in your mouth is a religious experience.

We sit and talk over our ice cream before venturing back across the street to the car.  There are teenagers in this place.  I try to remember being an age where you want to be out doing amazingly fun things but you don’t really know what to do, so you go back to something age appropriate that you know you like.  Oh wait, that’s now.  And look, we all ended up at the same place.

Crazy Kinks

Posted by dkrashb on

I wake up early, aching with pain.  It’s the pain that awakens me.  I lay in bed in protest.  If I ignore it, perhaps I will be able to go back to sleep.  But I ache worse that I’ve ached in a really long time.  Each hand has three completely numb fingers.  Pain shoots down my shoulders and into my arms when I turn my head just a fraction of an inch.  I try to re-position my head by pushing with my legs and sharp stabbing pains in my legs remind me of the muscles I pulled yesterday.  My neck is so stiff that I cannot turn my head to the left.  I lay there for a moment contemplating whether there is anything in reach that I could just smash over my head in the hope that it would make the rest of my body hurt less.

Instead, I accept that I really must heed the call of nature and push myself to upright using my hands.  As I move into a vertical position, the pain in my neck now shoots up into the back of my skull as well as down into my shoulder and lower back.  I wish I had a detachable head like a barbie–I could set it aside until my neck healed and then put it back on.

I shuffle my way to the bathroom, moving my shoulder slowly in circles as a I make slow progress across the room.  I am suddenly grateful that our apartment is so small that it’s not far to walk to get to the bathroom.  I am not, for the fist time in my life, grateful that I don’t have the equipment to stand when I get there because sitting is no fun and getting up again is even worse.

I make it back to the kitchen and start up the coffee.  While it’s brewing, I gather together my yoga props.  There is no question in my mind that restorative yoga is going to be the first order of business today.  I use my neck pillow under my neck in each of my poses, hoping to relax some of the spasming muscles that are making me so miserable.  I do a thread-the-needle pose in the hope of stretching my neck.  Child’s pose ends up being the pose that does the most to alleviate the pain.  With my arms extended as far as I can reach away from my body, my forehead resting on the floor (that took a while), and my shoulders shrugged up to my ears, I finally feel the sharp pain in my neck starting to ease just a little.

Having stretched my neck as well as all my other sore muscles as much as I can for now, I decided to relax on the couch.  My neck starts to spasm more painfully almost immediately.  I move to the desk chair instead.

I sit in the desk chair with my head propped on its neck rest and feel the stretch up the back of my neck.  This does a lot to help with the pain, but I’m still uncomfortable enough that I lean back in the chair and sit there without trying to do something.  Pat comes out and turns on the TV.  I sit and watch whatever he turns on.  This is going to be a good day to just rest.

However, eventually, we get hungry.  Deciding that we really do need to get up and move if we hope to heal, we agree to walk across the river to eat lunch.  We walk over to the Walnut St bridge and down to Market St, looking for a place we thought we’d seen before and wanted to try without really remembering what it is.  We find ourselves outside the Hair of the Dog Pub, which has a Sunday brunch menu.

We walk inside and find one of the few pubs in the area that allows smoking in doors.  Fortunately, there is no one smoking this morning.  Unfortunately, many decades of smokers make it smell like someone is smoking anyway.  We decide we can tolerate it and take a table.  We both order the Hashish breakfast.  While the name is fun, we pick it because the description sounds tasty.

While we wait on our food, we each sip a beer (it is, after all, now afternoon).  I’ve decided to try Beck’s Oktoberfest while Pat goes with something I’ve never heard of.  Oktoberfest is still going on in this pub, with special German beers available through the end of November in celebration.  A couple comes in the front door, looks around, and then walks over to us and asks us if we want a coupon, sets a sheet of paper on the table and leaves.  It turns out it’s a two-for-one coupon on entrees.

The food arrives and it’s an enormous plate of hashbrowns covered in cheese and eggs and bratwurst.  I like it a lot.  Pat likes it except for the bratwurst.  I end up eating most of his brat and still nearly cleaning my plate.  Not sure, but I’m not thinking this is going to help the way my jeans have been fitting lately.

On the way home, we stop at the aquarium gift shop to look for baby gifts.  We’ve passed by several other baby stores, but I want something cute and cuddly for our friends’ new daughter and I remember seeing funny stuffed animals at the aquarium.  After selecting an adorable big-eyed, pink sea turtle for the baby and a super stretchy rubber octopus for her older brother, we head on home.  The head of the octopus is a soft, stretchy ball that expands into a clear yellow that allows you to see little white balls inside when you squeeze it.  I end up squeezing that octopus all the way home.

We collapse in our respective chairs when we get home.  Me with ice and a neck pillow and Pat with pillows and blankets.  We settle in to watch a show on Porsche collectors and I manage to nod off for an afternoon nap.

From Here to New Jersey

Posted by dkrashb on

There’s no food in the apartment and I’ve skipped breakfast.  A meeting cancelled, opening up just enough time in my calendar to run out and eat, which my growling stomach has turned into a top priority.  Pat comes home just in time to join me and I suggest we go try an Italian restaurant we spotted the other day while out walking.

We head down the street, taking the shortest route to the restaurant.  When we get there, we’re slightly confused.  There’s a door on the right that walks into what appears to be a large kitchen area with 3 women standing around in it.  Then there’s a door straight ahead that looks like it goes into a cookware store.  We go in the front door and look around.  Yes, it’s a cookware store.  The women come around and I ask if they serve food.  They do not.  They give us their schedule of cooking classes and demonstrations and tell us about a wine dinner coming up.

This is all grand, but my stomach is growling and the clock is ticking.  We thank them and head back down the street.  Since I have Italian in my head, I suggest we go a little further to an Italian restaurant we know is a restaurant.  We get there and the place is dark.  They don’t serve lunch.

We head back towards home, deciding we will stop at the Urbanspoon Diner we passed on the way.  We open the door and discover a tiny little place with very friendly waitresses.  We’re seated and handed menus and brought drinks.  Just about then, a family of 6 walks in.  The waitress makes a fuss over them, pulling together two tables of four and arranging chairs and learning that they are from New Jersey.

I’m not sure why she finds the fact that they’re from New Jersey so amazing, but it’s clear she feels the need to be extra nice.  We watch while she gets the family seated, introduces them to a couple of regulars on the other side of the family’s table, takes their drink orders, and brings out their drinks.  By this time, we are also watching the clock.

Fortunately, the waitress notices our angst and excuses herself from the New Jersey family and comes over to take our order.  I decide to try the pecan-crusted chicken, which she assures me I will like.  Pat picks the pork and beans, which she tells him is her favorite.  She then tells us that one of the rowers from the Head of the Hootch asked for her favorite this past weekend and she told the rower she couldn’t recommend it because the rower was about to get on a plane.  Pat and I laugh, but I silently hope Pat isn’t going to be home much of the afternoon.

In the meantime, the father from New Jersey has gone over to the regulars’ table and gotten into a loud discussion about Joe Paterno.  The couple seems to think that a guy from New Jersey has the inside scoop because he lives in closer proximity to Penn State than Chattanooga.  But when the NJ father says he doesn’t think Joe will resign, they argue vehemently.  They end up betting $5 that Joe will resign and the guy from NJ promises to come back and pay it if Joe does resign.

For me, this whole conversation is a news flash.  I realize that I haven’t seen or heard any news beyond updates from the Wall Street Journal that pop up on my phone, which I have mostly been dismissing unread, for weeks.  Between being overly busy at work and having a lot of things to do and see outside of work, I just haven’t had time or interest in keeping up.  So, I am completely taken by surprise that there could possibly be any kind of controversy around Penn State and Joe Paterno, who for as long as I can remember has been considered the most upright guy in college football.

Normally, I would google immediately, but our food arrives before I have time.  The food is hot, fast, really good, and extremely plentiful.  While I work on my chicken, the NJ father tastes his sweet tea.  The waitress asks how it is and he says, “That’s good!  Better than McDonald’s!”  I assume he’s making a joke, but his son says, “Really?” incredulously.  It occurs to me that McDonald’s may be the only place to get sweet tea in New Jersey–it’s the only place I’ve ever heard of having sweet tea in Ohio.

I eat every bite of my dinner-sized lunch.  Pat reminds me that in the South, lunch is dinner and dinner is supper.  While this could explain the portion sizes, I think they have the same menu at supper time, too.  In any case, I enjoy the food–the chicken is moist and tender and I haven’t had chicken in a really long time.

When we finish up, we have to get back quickly as I need to get on a conference call.  But Pat’s hamstring has been acting up again; he can’t walk too fast.  The long strides seem to be what irritates his muscle.  I suggest he take shorter strides faster, but he thinks this will look stupid.  I visualize Fred and Barney revving up their Flintstone cars and tend to agree.

We make it back just in time for me to join my call on time.  As I settle back into my office chair and perch the back of my head on the neck rest, I lean back, take a deep breath, and wish we were in Spain where we’d now have time to take a nap before returning to work.

As the call goes off on a topic not related to me, I think about the New Jersey family and wonder what they will be doing this afternoon.  I think about the last time I was in New Jersey–in the beginning of my career, it was a place I went every two weeks.  Now, I don’t think I’ve been there since 2006.  I think back to a weekend trip I took out there to see a girlfriend.  We took the train into Manhattan and spent the day wandering around and then the evening seeing Mama Mia on Broadway.  But, then, someone says my name and I am pulled back into the conversation and back into my chair in Chattanooga.

Main Street Market

Posted by dkrashb on

It’s Wednesday. We plan on going to the Main St Market tonight, but it’s only open from 4-6PM. It’s a true farmer’s market with less craft stuff and more food stuff, from what we’ve heard. We’re hoping to find good local produce priced more reasonably than the Greenlife Grocery store. But, in order to get there with time to shop before they close, I will need to take a break from work no later than 4:45PM.

I am having one of those busy days with a calendar so full of meetings that I just keep collecting action items throughout the day. I manage to get some things done during the last call of the day, but I have only 45 minutes to make sure I get anything I need today from anyone in my time zone so I can finish up on the other items I need to get done today after I get back from the market. This, of course, takes longer than expected and we find ourselves rushing to get to the market at the last possible minute.

We grab our bikes and get downstairs as fast as we can. Then we realize rush hour has started and we need to revise our planned route. We will take Walnut St bridge instead of Market St, although it seems wrong that we would not take Market St to the market. It’s a beautiful fall evening to be out riding, even at rush hour. Once we make it to Walnut and start our way up this wood-surfaced bridge, the old nursery rhyme “To market, to market” starts in my head to the rhythm of our tires rolling over the wood planks. We, however, will not be buying any of the nursery rhyme items.

As we exit The Walnut St bridge, we realize we have the problem that we don’t actually know where we’re going. The Main St Market is somewhere on Main (yep, figured that part out all by ourselves) between Market St and Broad St. We know where Market and Broad are, but not where Main St is. We want to stay on Walnut as long as possible to avoid traffic, but we aren’t sure if Main and Walnut intersect. We cruise South and decide as long as we keep going South, we have to hit Main at some point. This turns out not to be true. Or, at least we run out of road before we hit Main. Then we have to go West to get to another road that goes South and we find the roads so confusing that we aren’t sure whether we could have gone around Main or not and are unsure of whether we’re too South or not South enough. We pull over and google.  As one might have predicted, we are not South enough.

We find just how South we need to be and head on down the road, finding the market just where google says it is. We are somewhat relieved that there are not that many tents set up–we wouldn’t have had time to peruse them all if it would have been a big market. Although fewer tents means fewer options, given that the season for fresh produce is winding down, I don’t know that even having 10 more vendors would have made the selection significantly more varied.

We circle our way around the market, selecting fresh green beans, gorgeous yams, and a bunch of multi-colored radishes that resemble a bouquet of flowers. Then, we get to a stand with wheat and wheat flour. I am tempted to buy some wheat four just to see if it works for bread, but I remind myself how long it’s been since I last made bread and decide I’m not likely to take up bread making as a hobby any time soon. Instead, we strike up a conversation with the wheat farmer and learn that he teaches Spanish at one of the local schools and farms wheat in his spare time. He tells us that he has wheat all year long here and that the market stays open, although the hours go to 4-5 in December when there isn’t enough light to see after 5. I had forgotten about the short days coming–I guess the longer duration of daylight savings time has me thrown.

Next, we visit Lou and Eddie’s stand. We met them at the Oktoberfest market and have been enjoying their honey for the past few days. Although we have met them inly two times briefly and as customers, I feel like we’re visiting old friends. Lou takes me to a cheese maker’s booth and has me try the cheeses. The cheese maker suggests the milder of her two cheeses to try with slices of honeycomb (also purchased on Sunday). I then return to Lou’s booth and we end up chatting about hair while Pat and Eddie finish their conversation. Eddie tells us he’s going to be semi-retired soon. I suggest he should label his honey “Limited Edition” and charge more.

Next, we hit the last few stands, getting a few purple peppers and a small, heavy loaf of whole wheat bread with a crisp crust. Pat selects the bread and then asks how much it is. We are both surprised when the baker says it’s $6–the produce has all be very reasonably priced.  Pat nearly hands it back to her, but doesn’t since he didn’t ask before she bagged it. We contemplate the loaf of bread and wonder if it’s baked with gold, which would explain both it’s price and it’s weight. As we walk away, I wonder if we got the “let’s see how much you fools are willing to spend on bread” price and if, perhaps we were supposed to barter.

As we return to the honey stand to say our good-byes (we really didn’t need to rush so much to get here after all), a car goes by in the street and a man with a bull horn leans out the window and starts saying things. Everyone looks puzzled–either the bullhorn or alcohol has garbled the man’ speech and no one can understand what he’s trying to say. Fortunately, he moves on.

On the way back, we decide to turn off Market St early so we can avoid going up a really steep hill to the Walnut St bridge. However, we had failed to notice on the way out that Walnut is one-way between the bridge and where we are and we are now going to the wrong way.  Because the road is narrow and has parked cars, we decide not to risk it and go around the block instead.  As we wait to cross a fairly busy intersection, a guy with a bullhorn drives buy, also barking unintelligibly from the car window.  I ask Pat, “Was that the same guy as over at the Market?”  and Pat says, “There was a guy with a bullhorn at the market?  What’d he say?”  I have to laugh because of course, no one knows and I am also amused that Pat was apparently engrossed in a conversation to the extent that he missed a guy with a bullhorn.  In any case, since the odds of there being two such men with bullhorns seem smaller than the odds of there being one, I have to assume that it’s the same guy, driving around Chattanooga looking for people to shout something at.  I wonder if he is just having fun and doesn’t care that no one can understand him or if he actually believes he has an important message that everyone must hear and doesn’t realize no one can understand him?  Either way, it’s clearly a poor choice of communication methods.  One of my favorite (mis-)quotes from Emerson pops into my head:  “Who you are shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say.”  The fact that the bullhorn makes the shouting literal in this case makes me smile.

When we return home, I roast the sweet potatoes and green beans in the oven while Pat prepares salmon.  We try the bread and it’s good, but not $6 good.  I go back to work between cooking and eating and then manage to finish up the critical items I needed to get done today in another couple of hours after we eat.  I am wound up after working late all week and take my iPad to bed with me in the hope of getting my mind off work enough to fall asleep.  When at last I drift off, I think of the man with the bullhorn one last time and smile.

Thai Smile

Posted by dkrashb on

Pat and I decide to try a new restaurant tonight–Thai Smile.  We passed it on the way back from the market last Sunday and made a note that we wanted to try it. After all, how can anyone resist going to a restaurant called “Thai Smile”?  In spite of the catchy name, it’s a miracle that we actually remembered it–we have a long history of spotting places we want to try and then forgetting all about them.

We head outside and debate whether we should take the Market St bridge or the Walnut St bridge because neither one of us can remember exactly which street it’s on.  We decide to take the Market St bridge because I’m convinced it’s East of Market and Pat is convinced it’s West of Market.  That way, we’ll be in the middle.

When we get across the river, Pat is sure we need to turn right and I am sure we need to turn left.  Fortunately, I have my iPhone.  Instead of wandering around lost, I google it.  How did anyone ever get anywhere before the advent of the smart phone?  As it turns out, we are both wrong.  The restaurant is dead ahead of us on Market St.  Go figure.

We head on down the road and find Thai Smile just one block away.  I’m not exactly sure what the name is supposed to convey–does going there mean you get to see what a Thai smile looks like?  Does a Thai smile look different then, say, a Chattanoogan smile?  As we walk in the door for the first time, I’m hoping it means the Thai food will make the patrons smile, because there isn’t a whole lot of smiling going on amongst the staff.

But, what they lack in friendliness, they make up for in efficiency.  We are seated, have received our drinks, and are placing our order so quickly that it makes me wonder if McDonald’s could learn a thing or two.  Fortunately, when the food comes out, it cannot be mistaken for McDonalds.  Not even McDonalds in Thailand.  I’ve ordered Pineapple Curry, a dish I’ve had only once and it was at a Thai restaurant in London.  I’ve ordered it with shrimp, which is always a little nerve wracking.  But the curry, well, it makes me smile.

I admit that the presentation on the Thai iced tea threw me when they first brought it out.  Oddly, they serve it with whipped cream on top.  I’m not quite ready for iced tea, even as sweet as Thai iced tea, to come with whipped cream on it.  Perhaps it’s important to come up with ways to increase the sugar content of what they serve to appeal to Southern taste buds?  I don’t know what made them think it was a good idea, but I decide the best approach is to separate the whipped cream from the tea and consume each separately.  This works for me and the tea is delicious.

Pat has the Shrimp Pad Thai and it makes him smile, too.  So, we are up two smiles and it’s probably the cheapest dinner we’ve had in Chattanooga (all right, partly because they don’t serve alcohol).  The only problem with the Pineapple Curry is that there’s so much of it, I can barely get through half the serving.  I ask for a box–the flavor is just too good to waste.  I carefully scrape the food into the box and spoon the curry sauce over it, trying to squeeze in every drop of goodness.

Full, warm, and not broke, we head on down the road.  We decide to walk back over the Walnut St bridge just because it’s a nice night and we could use the extra walk after having a big dinner.  As we enter the bridge, we see the bear man sitting off to one side.  The bear man can usually be spotted on the Walnut St bridge or its vicinity.  He is a large, black man who is most likely mentally ill.  He lives in many layers of clothing, including a fur hat with ear flaps and a big coat, that he wears at all times.  He was wearing the same stuff when it was 110 degrees out in August.  If the wind is right, we usually smell him before we see him.  He smells like a bear.  Or at least like bear scat.  His appearance is not far from a bear, either, between his size and his fur hat.

Perhaps because I have a Thai smile tonight, I feel like I should do something for this man who lives on the bridge.  He is one of the few homeless people that hangs out on the riverfront who never asks for money.  I turn to Pat and ask if I should give him my leftovers.  Pat thinks this might be an insult, to give someone leftovers who hasn’t asked for anything and may or may not feel like leftovers are something he wants to eat.  I feel uncertain, but given that the man appears quite well fed, decide it’s presumptuous to give him food and, to Pat’s point, leftovers could be insulting.  As we pass him, my box of leftovers suddenly feels large and heavy in my hands.

Moments later, we pass another homeless man, this one the polar opposite of the bear man–a skinny white guy in a plaid hunting jacket.  He asks Pat if he can help out with some cash for a meal.  Interestingly, when Pat and I are together, homeless men frequently ask Pat for money.  They never ask me.  Instinctively, I know they are more successful with men than women, but I can’t explain why that would be.  Pat tells him he doesn’t have any cash, but asks if the man would want my leftovers.  He says, “Sure!” enthusiastically.  I say, “It’s pineapple curry.” He responds with a Thai smile.  I hand over my leftovers regretting only that I don’t have a fork and napkins to go with it.

The weight of both the leftovers and my guilt now lifted, the scenery suddenly looks brighter.  I notice how brilliant the leaves look in the remaining light.  I look up and am amazed at how many stars are already visible in the evening light.  I smile at Pat and feel grateful for having such a kind man in my life.  For at least a few moments, all feels right with the world.  Now I know why it’s called Thai Smile.

Sunday Market

Posted by dkrashb on

This morning, we will return to the Oktoberfest market, but this time to buy produce and honey.  We pack a couple of grocery bags into my panniers and head to the elevator with our bikes.  We’ve worked out a routine to fit both bikes in the elevator, but I always forget what it is, enter the elevator the wrong way, and end up having to pick up my bike (heavy with gear) and swing it around the make room for Pat.  Each time this happens, I think I should let Pat go into the elevator first, but then I forget the next time.   This is partly because he stands back to let me go in first, which I think is a secret ploy to amuse himself because he laughs at me every time.

We do make it into the elevator eventually.  And the elevator, which has been remarkably better behaved of late (or else we’ve just developed our elevator button pushing skills to its liking), takes us to the first floor with only a slight pause after closing the doors before it starts to move.  We roll our way out the door and down the ramp to the parking lot where we stop to put on helmets and sunglasses.  Unfortunately, I put my helmet on first and then remember that I can’t fit my sunglasses under my helmet unless I put them on first.  I take the helmet off, put on the sunglasses and replace the helmet.

I think it’s taken us longer to get ready to ride than the ride will take.  But, finally ready, we hit the road and head up towards the Walnut St Bridge.  Having safely crossed the river, we work our way through downtown, back towards the Tennessee Pavilion for the second day in a row.  Pat comments as we approach the Pavilion only a few minutes later about how much faster it is to ride a bike 2 miles than it is to walk.  Even at our slow riding pace, it’s about 3X faster.

When we get to the market, it’s far more crowded today than it was yesterday.  I guess all the regulars of the Sunday market are here today along with the extra crowd attracted by Oktoberfest.  There is no place to put our bikes and we didn’t bring a lock anyway, so we walk them through the pavilion with us.  This works well in that it allows me to use my panniers as a shopping cart.

Pat crosses in front of a woman who is, predictably, out of shape.  She has to pause for a couple extra seconds while Pat rolls his bike by.  He overhears her comment to her friend “they shouldn’t allow those in here.”  Pat tells me this and I look around.  There are parents pushing strollers, people in wheelchairs, even a man pulling a wheeled cart with oxygen on it.  I find myself thinking I’ll be walking around her wheelchair in a few more years if she doesn’t start taking care of herself and decide it’s OK if she has to walk around our bikes in the interim.

We work our way around the produce section, picking up some gorgeous bib lettuce (and I don’t call bib lettuce “gorgeous” often), watercress, and another lettuce whose name escapes me.  I also pick up some goat cheese and then we head over to see Eddie and Lou, the honey and candle makers.  Eddie gives us tastes of three different honeys and we end up buying a jar of sourwood honey with a hint of blackberry juice.  Apparently, there were overly ripe berries that attracted the bees enough that it slightly changed the flavor of the honey.  It’s really good.  I had no idea that there was that much control over what the bees collect nectar from that you could end up with honey that was from only one type of flower.  Eddie and Pat are busy chatting about other things or I would have asked more questions about how this works.  Along with the honey, we also buy a honeycomb, which Lou tells us is really nice to slice and serve with cheese.

Next we look for bread.  We’re disappointed by the first bread vendor in that all of their crusts are soft.  We walk/roll over to the second vendor and find only their baguette has a crisp crust, so that’s what we buy.  Next, we look for apples and tomatoes.  We’re disappointed to learn that the vendors there don’t have heirloom tomatoes and the first vendor doesn’t grow their tomatoes organically.  However, the second vendor doesn’t use pesticides or herbicides, although she’s not certified organic.  We buy some of her tomatoes and then head over to the apples.

This is where I get into trouble.  I have a very specific way of placing my fingers on apples and exerting gentle, even pressure so that I can tell if an apple is crisp without bruising them.  The woman selling the apples gets upset with me because she doesn’t want her apples bruised.  While I can understand that she can’t have everyone coming over and squeezing her apples all day and, therefore, she can’t let me squeeze her apples even if I have a special talent for it (is this starting to sound like it’s no longer rated PG?), she really didn’t have to be rude.

Unfortunately, she is having troubles with her inner jerk today.  And this causes my inner jerk to rise from the little snooze she’s been taking.  Imagine the introductions:  “Inner Jerk, meet Inner Jerk.”  Fortunately, before my inner jerk can get one word out, I say, “OK, Thanks,” and run off as quickly as I possibly can, leaving Pat standing with both our bikes, unable to follow.  I recognize that Pat is not behind me relatively quickly and circle back around realizing I’ve left him stuck.  As I get close to the apple stand, I approach from an angle where the woman is unlikely to see me.  I explain to Pat that I need to get out of there and we head off, apple-less.

We ride back a different route, working our way up to Walnut St early so as to avoid a very steep climb up to the bridge.  Unfortunately, it turns out part of Walnut St is one-way the wrong way and we have to take a detour to get back to it.  But, we make it to the bridge safely and navigate the tourists successfully, returning home with our goodies in a much better mood.

I can’t wait to try the honeycomb and immediately slice up some bread and start spreading goat cheese and honeycomb on it.  The bread is more of a “if you can’t find good bread and you need something in a pinch” variety of bread and the goat cheese is good but typical, but the honey comb makes it all seem special.  I am hooked.

The Deserted Office, Desserts, and Death

Posted by dkrashb on

Today is Wednesday.  No workout this morning.  No face-to-face meetings scheduled.  But my calendar is full of conference calls.  When Pat drops me off at the office, I go upstairs to discover an empty floor.  Those who were there the day before are all either off, working from home, or traveling today.  There is no one to say hello to, no one to catch up with, not even anyone to ignore.  I find this oddly distracting.  Given that I even have calls through lunch, I find myself wondering why I bothered to come in at all.  I do not rate a window office, so I sit in my empty office with no view and miss my home office with a fantastic view.

An interesting thing I have learned about myself in the age of ADD:  I need low-level distractions in order to focus.  It’s as if I need to give the “Squirrel!” part of my brain something to do so that it stops nagging at the rest of my brain when I’m trying to concentrate.  Background noise at the office helps.  Just knowing there are people outside my door helps.  When I work at home, I have an easier time remaining focused on an intense task when my husband is home doing something on his own than if I’m home alone.  I’ve found that listening to music helps in the absence of other distractions, but that’s not possible when on conference calls.  Within an hour, I am coming out of my skin.

I don’t know what exactly it is that I experience when there is not enough going on at once–is it anxiety, boredom, hyper-activeness?  I’m not sure.  All I know is that I begin to work on one thing, I think of something else and open that, then I think of something else and open that.  All while I’m on a conference call.  Before I know it, I have about 40 documents open, 8 instant message conversations going, I’m halfway through answering 9 emails, and I’m in a complete state of confusion as to whether I’ve actually accomplished anything or not.

Complicating this state of task-hopping (let’s face it, there’s no such thing as multi-tasking) is the memory factor.  Another thing I’ve learned about the scattered mind combined with a faulty memory is: when I start to do something, it often creates a memory of having done it.  Whatever the function is in my brain that checks of to-do items, starting a task can trigger that little check.  Once the item is mentally checked, I forget all about it.  So, the more task-hopping I do, the more items I’m at risk of believing I’ve completed when in fact, they are only partially done.  To combat this, before I close things, I carefully look at each window I’ve opened, figure out why I’ve opened it, and then determine if that item is complete or not.  When I have a day like today with back-to-back conference calls where I’m able to just listen for my name during the first one (giving me the opportunity to open a lot), but the rest of them I have to listen and participate (preventing me from finishing anything I opened during the first call), I will often get to the end of the day and not have time to do a graceful shutdown, so-to-speak.  Then, I put my laptop to sleep and hope it will wake up later and that I will remember where I was with all the stuff that’s still open.  Of course, the more stuff I leave open, the more likely my laptop will hang and require a reboot, which essentially reboots my memory right along with the laptop.

It’s the end of the day, we have dinner plans with friends we haven’t seen in two months, and, as predicted, I have too many things open and must put my laptop to sleep and clean up later.  Given that our friends are expecting a baby in about 2 weeks, I imagine we will not be out late and I will have time for this tonight.  But, I hate going to dinner with things hanging unfinished both on my laptop and in my mind.

After a day of isolation, getting together with friends is even more welcome.  Our friends include a little one who arrives in his mother’s arms half asleep.  I try to remember what it feels like to have to jerk yourself out of sleep, rouse yourself and be social.  He’s only 4–too young to have learned that skill set yet.  He wants to be held by his mother, tiny and nearly 9 months pregnant.  She holds him and I wonder how that’s possible.

Our small friend does come to life during dinner.  He makes it through his meal with the promise of ice cream dancing in his head.  There is a Graeter’s next door.  Even though we still have Graeter’s in the freezer at our hosts’ house, I am just as excited about going next door after dinner as the 4-year old.

Outside, there is an event for a dog rescue.  One woman has a tiny Chihuahua on a leash.  He poops toothpaste-consistency yellow poop on the patio without his owner noticing.  I think back to our Mastiffs and how I used to tell my friends that with Mastiff poop, you worry more about tripping over it than stepping in it.  The Chihuahua’s poop is about 1/40th the size, just like the dog.

I watch as first one dog steps in the soft pile, then another.  I tell a volunteer and she gets out a bag, but before she can clean it up, the Chihuahua owner steps on it, completely covering the mess with her Ugg boot.  Amazingly, when she takes another step, it’s as if the entire pile has desinegrated and been absorbed into her sole and the patio pavers, leaving only discoloration behind.  The volunteer looks at me and says, “Was it her dog who pooped?” I answer in the affirmative and she winks and says, “Retribution!”

After enjoying a scoop of pumpkin pie ice cream, watching the dogs, and watching our small friend attempt to play “Cone Hole” (Graeter’s humor–an ice cream place’s name for “Corn Hole”), we say our good-byes and head on home.  It’s barely 8:00PM.

When we arrive at our hosts’ house, we eat some more ice cream and talk about the news of Steve Jobs’ death.  Oddly, I feel more likely to buy an iPhone 4S because Steve Jobs died.  There is no logic to this and I cannot explain it.  We ponder what the impact will be on Apple and whether they can continue his legacy when he was so heavily involved in the details.

I find myself wondering what his personal life was like, if he was happy, if the legacy of Apple was worth whatever he sacrificed.  I wonder what was most important to him and if he believed, in the end, that he lived his life according to his values and his priorities or if he struggled with regrets over the things he didn’t do.  Then, I begin to wonder if building something like Apple is more or less important or valuable than building a family or anything else that someone dedicates their life to.  But, this is too deep for contemplation right before bed, so I let the thought drift away as we say our goodnights and head upstairs.

Fitting in Friends

Posted by dkrashb on

On the second day in Columbus, I start off my day by working out with my old workout partners. By old, I mean “former,” because I am not far enough behind them in age to call them old. This means getting up early enough to get completely ready and wake Pat up so he can get up and take me to the gym by 7:00AM. When I get there, I drop off my stuff in the locker room and head outside for my familiar loop through the local park. When I make it to the restored prairie area, I’m surprised by a new crop of yellow flowers blowing brilliantly against the browning foliage. It’s beautiful in the sunrise glow–I enjoy this start to my day.

The workout is more of a social event, although one of my partners isn’t there. We catch up on what’s going on and swap gossip while we workout. The workout goes by quickly and I’m soon on my way to the locker room and then rushing off to my office. The morning flies by and before I know it, it’s time to take one of my friends out for her birthday. We debate where to go and then decide on the Longhorn Steakhouse, not to be confused with the Longhorn diner in Chattanooga. When we arrive, another friend is sitting at the bar eating by herself. We join her and enjoy catching up. I suppose the odds of running into a colleague at a restaurant that’s right around the corner at lunch aren’t that astronomical, but since going to lunch has become a rarity for most of us, it seems almost miraculous that the three of us have run into each other this way.

At the end of the day, I call Pat in time to get him to come pick me up so we can meet more friends for dinner. Tonight, we are taking our hosts out to dinner. We are all meeting at our favorite Mexican restaurant. I told myself that I was going to try not to eat so badly while in Columbus. After only gaining a couple of pounds during our two weeks in Germany, I will gain 5 in 4 days in Columbus if I don’t have some self-control. Unfortunately, all my resolve dissolves in just a sip of margarita and I find myself ordering a shrimp chimichanga. Oh well, maybe I can walk the fifteen miles to work tomorrow morning.

We eat and laugh, a lot. I wonder how many calories laughter burns? After dinner, Pat and I decide to stop at Graeters to pick up dessert for all four of us. While I don’t exactly understand the mental process that goes from “Oh, my, I’m going to gain weight!” to “we really should eat Graeters while we’re here since we don’t have Graeters in Chattanooga,” once the thought of Graeters Black Raspberry chip ice cream enters my mind, there is no turning back. We pick up two pints of black raspberry chip and a third of mint chip for George.

When we get back to the house, each of us sits around the living room with our bowl of ice cream discussing the announcement of the iPhone 4S and the reaction. I go to bed with my belly full of ice cream and my head full of questions about the new iPhone. I’m not all that excited by the prospect of upgrading, but I’ve been waiting a long time, so I will have to investigate further tomorrow. Right now, sleep is all that’s on my agenda.

In Search of Dinner

Posted by dkrashb on

Since we have returned late from our afternoon of hiking, we return to the hotel to quickly clean up and then hunt up a place to eat dinner. For some reason, I decide to put a little make up on and try to make myself presentable. I suppose I am thinking of the three men we encountered at dinner the night before when we sat at the bar of a crowded restaurant and Pat said they were making comments like we didn’t belong there. I don’t know what wearing make-up has to do with improving this situation, but I take a couple extra minutes to put it on anyway.

Now that I am wearing the fanciest outfit I brought with me–skinny black pants, a red sweater, and ballet flats–we wander around on the cobblestone streets looking for food. As it turns out, my feet are bruised from our long descent on a rocky trail–one of the two disadvantages of hiking in fivefinger shoes (not counting the odd looks). Each step reminds me how many stones I stepped on with nearly bare feet.

As we wander around on tired legs, we pass large clumps of bicycles. It seems there is a parking shortage for bicycles in Freiburg; some bikes are parked with a lock only through their own wheels, having no stationary object left to lock them to. There are virtually no cars in the old part of town. When one does venture through, they drive slowly, allowing the pedestrians walking down the middle of the road time to clear the way. It seems that car parking is limited to the outskirts of town and hotel garages.

We wander around past crowded restaurants, many full of university students eating mounds of fried food from baskets; it’s a university town. We pass those restaurants up as well as the “Wein” restaurants with their more sophisticated clientele–the wine is tempting, but it feels wrong to drink wine in Germany when the beer is so good. We wander past a restaurant that advertises its daily special as “fresh killed rabbit” and keep on going again. Finally, we end up back in the main plaza around the cathedral and choose a table outdoors at a restaurant across from where we had lunch the day before.

There are three restaurants here, their outdoor tables distinguished by the furniture style and the color of the umbrellas. We sit at the third, close to the restaurant entrance, hoping to be noticed since it is late to be sitting down for dinner in this small town. As we sit, we overhear an inebriated American one restaurant over and several tables down. He speaks so loudly, he might as well be shouting. Every person in the area can hear every word he says. He complains about the tables having numbers on them. I find it interesting what annoys people. There have been many times when I have been highly annoyed by something that seems petty and not worth the energy to others. But usually it comes down to something that ultimately makes me feel stupid. Like door handles that look like they should be pulled when they really must be pushed. It doesn’t take too many times smashing your face into a glass door that didn’t open when you’re not paying attention before you get annoyed by misleading door handles. Although, I have to admit that even now, imagining my face pressed against the glass from the view of a person on the other side makes me laugh out loud. But that is beside the point. Most of the time, what I find annoying depends on whether it makes me look foolish in some way and how cranky I am at the time. I try to remind myself of this when I want to dismiss someone as a nasty person–I have been that nasty person more times than I care to admit. But in this case, I am at a loss to explain why the noisy American is so perturbed by table numbers or why he feels compelled to shout his irritation to the world. I find myself wishing he would shut up, feeling like he reflects badly in all Americans. After all, those of us who are quiet go unnoticed while the rambunctious make a lasting impression.

The food comes. Pat has ordered cordon bleu for me. The German version is made with pork instead of chicken and I actually like it better than the French version. The pork is tender and juicy and the salty ham and creamy cheese set it off just right. It’s a huge amount of food, but this doesn’t prevent me from snagging a few spaetzle noodles from Pat’s plate when he’s not looking. I have a weakness for spaetzle. We enjoy our dinner, cleaning our plates, but we are too full for dessert.

We return to the hotel slowly, bikes with headlights passing us on the walkways as we go. The night is cool and the moon is rising, about half full. I try to remember if it’s waxing or waning–the top portion is lit, so the old trick of a “D” for “dying” won’t work tonight. I decide it must be waning and I realize that I did not buy a new tripod before the full moon, as I had promised a photographer friend I would after shooting horribly blurred shots of the full moon in August. I make a metal mote as we continue our stroll. The cathedral bells start ringing and are then echoed by another church’s bells in the distance–it’s 10PM and I have stayed awake all day. By the time we return to the hotel and get ready for bed, I fall quickly into a deep sleep.