duck-shaped pain

Not long ago, I was complaining about the 50 hour work weeks I had to endure.

Now I have the exact opposite problem. Today, I worked for a stunning hour and a half. I came in, there was nothing to do, managed to eke that much productive time out of the place anyway, and then went home to nap.

All I ask for is some sort of consistency. This gets old after awhile.

Had a breakfast burrito yesterday, in the exciting town of Idaho Springs, Colorado.

Not much goes on in Idaho Springs. It's too close to Denver to be any real sort of destination, so its main purpose is as a place to get gas, or for people to stop in to get pizza or other food on their way back home from the mountains. It was once a mining town, and has the quaint old Victorian architecture to show for it, but what anyone really does there is always a question.

I forgot to eat before I left Denver, so when I got to one of the many Idaho Springs exits, I decided to get off. Where to eat was the next question. The Kings' Derby? Not a great place, I hear, but I've seen the sign for it so many times that I've always been curious. Jiggie's Cafe, where all the cops eat? My choice of many fast food places? Who knows.

I ended up parking on Main Street and going into the first place that was open, called (appropriately, unimaginatively) Main Street. Exposed brick walls, mismatching furniture. Cheery waitresses. No clever, themed meal names -- just basic, deadpan descriptions. Waffle Breakfast. Eggs and Links.

I needed something that combined eggs, potatoes, and sausage. I hoped to add pancakes, but this proved to be impossible without incurring additional expense. The breakfast burrito looked my best option for combining the other three.

It was good. Kind of small. I'm used to restaurants that are involved in some sort of battle to create the world's biggest breakfast burrito. I've encountered ones over a foot long. I've seen ones that filled up entire platters. I've watched people eat ones filled with both bacon and sausage. This one was petite. It filled up the plate to which it had been assigned, but that was petite, too. (I wouldn't have minded so much if the burrito hadn't been $7, but mountain towns, even pointless ones, tend towards the expensive side.)

But, there were special bonuses. The restaurant made their own sausage. Chicken apple sausage, which was both better and spicier than it sounds. Tender potato chunks. Plus, yolk. The waitress actually asked how I wanted the eggs in the burrito cooked -- surprising, since breakfast burritos always come with scrambled eggs -- so over easy it was for me. Runny yolk and green chili combined -- good fuel for a long drive.

While I was eating, two other people came in. A man and a woman, both wearing white t-shirts with the arms cut off, tight black jeans, big black cowboy hats and beaded chokers. They sat down, and the man did the talking. The waitress noticed that they looked a bit piqued, and the man replied, "Well, there was a big disturbance up at the ranch, so we decided to come to down and start our drinking."

It was 9 in the morning.

They both ordered the "biggest bloody Marys you have." The waitress came out with these enormous glasses of red fluid, the size of big plastic soft-drink cups you get at gas stations. Each had what appeared to be an entire stalk of celery sticking out of it. They guzzled them down, and then ordered one waffle, split between them. Plus more drinks. The waffle as a whole was tiny compared to what they were drinking. Split in two, it was even smaller. Nothing like starting off the day right.

I now have a notify list. I was bored. You might be, too, so you might want to join. You can read more reasons to join here or just fill in and submit below�.