duck-shaped pain

Sunday morning was Coconut Pancake Time. There was no debate about this, no alternate suggestions allowed -- there would be pancakes for breakfast or something was going to get broken.

M. and I were staying in a pretty nice place over by The Airport That No Longer Is. This was a place that was once in high, high demand, being across the street from Stapleton and all. But then the new airport opened and it was left without a purpose. Strange, though, it had the will to not go completely in the toilet, and so it offered quiet and convenience at a good price. It has to be reasonably priced -- there is absolutely no reason to stay in that part of Denver now that there is no airport there. Compete or die, I guess.

The spot where the airport once stood was odd, though. Last time I spent any time out there, it was still mostly standing. There's still parts of it here and there, but the vast majority is gone. A big empty lot stands in its place -- not that Neglected sort of empty or even a Sad sort of empty, but rather a This Thing Just Disappeared Into the Sky While I Was Looking At Something Else kind of empty.

While pleasant, the hotel was still a long way from coconut pancakes. Unfortunately, every livable or desirable spot in the DenBoulMetroPlex is far away from coconut pancakes -- therein lies their allure.

It's not just that they're good. It's not that you wake up thinking about them at odd times of the night. It's not that they're extremely coconutty. It's that you really have to want them in order to get them, as getting there requires at least a 20 to 30 minute drive and a wait at least twice that long to get a table. Planning has to be involved. There has to be thinking at times of the morning when one would rather not.

So we drove down to the pancake restaurant [1], way down in south Denver, home of the scary suburbs. [2] On my way, I thought, is this the best time to go? Are there going to be a lot of people there at this time? [3] What would be the best exit to take? [4]

When we got there, the wait was not as long as I feared, only 15 or 20 minutes. When my mom and I ventured down there on Mother's Day (bad idea) we waited around for about an hour and a half -- 90 minutes that we completely forgot once the food arrived.

I'm used to running into people I know in Denver, since I lived there for five years and all. But I never see anyone I know that far south -- there's like an invisible boundary that separates the acceptable from beyond the pale. It used to be at about Evans Boulevard, but I think it moved south a bit, to Hampden or so, after they opened up a big thrift store down there. But past that line, buses run weird times and houses get bigger and you just feel out of place. So I was surprised to see someone I knew at the pancake place, also waiting in line.

Someone I knew is the operative term here, not someone I like. Okay, not someone I dislike, either, just someone who is. It was M. (not the M. I was with), a chick who is friends with my friend S. and also knows a ton of people I know, but who never got around to becoming friends with me, or vice versa. We saw each other, long enough to wordlessly acknowledge that the other was there, but not going any further than that.

Our table was called. My friend M. tasted his coffee. Then he tasted his orange juice. "If the food tastes as good as the coffee and the juice does, it's going to be a good breakfast." I assured them that it did, that it would be worth the drive down there.

Then the pancakes arrived. M. got blueberry. I got (of course) coconut. Six or seven little pancakes, sprinkled with toasted coconut and accompanied by hot citrus syrup. A breakfast that one could frame. Food that would make a really nice postcard. For about a second. Until I ate it.

I did not make it though all of the coconut pancakes. M. made it through his, determined not to let another breakfast beat him (he was subdued in a fierce battle with biscuits and gravy a few days prior). After that, we just sort of digested for awhile, staring off at the delicate china hanging on the wood-paneled walls.

Sunday was devoted to the real reason anyone goes to Denver -- shopping. Book shopping and then record shopping. The real needs in life that do not involve coconut pancakes.

I thought going to the TC at Cherry Creek would be easier, because of the parking (the other one is in downtown and does not have free parking), but I was wrong, wrong, wrong. It was the weekend of the big art festival, and people out for a cheap time were milling about, all not buying anything.

To make up for their loss, all parking vendors in the area were charging several body parts for the use of a space. I almost got suckered in for a bit, but then though, "What would a mall employee do?" Since there's a mall right there and all. And since I used to work in that mall. So we turned around and I drove in the sort-of-secret employee entrance to the mall parking lot. And there was a space sitting right there. The whole thing was much easier than it really should have been.

I spent not as much money as I could have at the TC. I did shell out for a Thai phrase book, the new issue of Gastronomica and a book called Mountain City which looked interesting. M. bought many, many Terry Pratchett novels. More than I could count.

Records were next. We went to Wax Trax because M. wanted to buy a Johnny Cash shirt like mine, but unfortunately, they stopped carrying them. We wept. Then we consoled ourselves with other purchases.

I bought:

• Re-Inventions: The Best of the Vanguard Years, Sandy Bull

• Pelo, The Aluminum Group (used)

• The Wayward Bus/ Distant Plastic Trees, The Magnetic Fields (also used)

  Little Red Songbook, Momus

• Agaetis Byrjun, Sigur Ros (hi, adamw)

M. also bought some CDs, but I am lame and have now forgotten what they were. One of them was Safe As Milk. There were others. I apologize.

After I dropped M. off at the airport, it started to rain. It had been threatening to do so for awhile, so I didn't pay attention.

Then it started to really rain. Like being flushed down a toilet. The wind blew. Not the best time to be on a major interstate highway. But I kept going, through the rain and the breeze and other forces that conspired to force my tiny car off the road.

After a while, it was hard to see. The rain was coming down that hard. My crack Oregon in January rain driving skills combined with the fact that I'd driven on this stretch of interstate hundreds of times before combined to keep me going. Until I got to Arvada, though. Then I just decided to give up. I drove to my mom's and holed up there for a few hours, watching it rain in between Food Network programs.

Everything was remarkably clean afterwards.

Then I drove home.

[1] Sure, it's a chain, but coconut pancakes need to be shared with all the world.

[2] Not the sad suburbs. Those are north and east.

[3] Um, it was Sunday morning. So, duh, yes.

[4] Even though the restaurant was on Orchard Road, the Orchard Road exit off I-25 turned out to be the wrong one to take. Even though we got there, we had to take a baffling and pointless detour through some over-priced residential neighborhoods first.

previous | next