duck-shaped pain

(Avail yourself of the whole story by visiting Part One and Part Two�)

10. Crawfish cakes, cheese grits, corn muffin, eggs, coffee and rain, Wishbone

Next morning, I woke up extremely refreshed. Coffee was served. Email was checked. Clothes were put on. And, after all that, we were up in time to go get breakfast.

It had been humid the day before. A moderate level of humidity, I'm sure, to those who are used to it. But I spent most of the day feeling like I had bathed in adhesive. My hair, usually sort of straight, was gangly andpuffy. [1] There are words that I do not ever want to have associated with me if possible, and "puffy" is one of those. Now it was raining, which is OK in and of itself, but not OK as an allusion to future humidity. But, for the moment, sprinkling was acceptable.

Wishbone, the restaurant we went to for breakfast, was packed. Rainy mornings really bring out the brunch in people, so there were folks waiting everywhere. We gave our names and joined them for awhile, and then noticed that there was no waiting out on the (covered) patio. H. asked if we could sit there, and got seated right away. And it was dry, too, although there were little spatters and drops here and there.

Several parties of very loud people followed us out there, and they all got served first (bastards) despite being seated after us. Maybe it was because of all the bloody marys they ordered -- happy fun time breakfast drunks must tip more, especially when what they're drinking costs $6 a glass.

I ordered some crawfish cakes. I hadn't had crawfish in a while, and this crawfish came topped with hollandaise [2] H. selected the corn cakes -- big corn pancakes topped with red pepper sauce (something which, after tasting a bite of, I realized I should have ordered, as well), some cheese grits, and then insisted that I have some cheese grits as well (which were very good). S. had biscuits and gravy, which looked good, but I didn't try them. To me, there is only one true order of biscuits and gravy, and I will not be dissuaded.

Breakfast was great. The coffee was good, and the slight chill and the dampness outside made it taste even better. [3] The breakfast drunks at the next table were none too happy about it raining (maybe you shouldn't have sat out on the patio, then) and complained loud and strong about how the rain might interrupt the sports-themed activities planned for the day. Occasionally they would involve passerby in their conversation, but we did not join in. What would we say?

We drove downtown, as it was time for my second dose of museum fun in as many days: the Art Institute of Chicago museum. I had picked it over the Museum of Contemporary Art because I spent a bunch of time looking at recent stuff during my trip to San Francisco earlier in the year. I figured it was time to look at something else.

The museum was huge. I wasn't expecting it to be huge, but it was a pleasant surprise. H. and S. and I split up, to cover more ground. We got there in the afternoon, and since it closed at 5 (none of the museums in Chicago, oddly enough, stayed open very late), I figured out what I really wanted to see first and then tried to catch up on the rest.

I spent the longest amount of time in their Asian art galleries. They had two -- one devoted to works from China, Japan and Korea and another to Indian and Southeast Asian art. The former was essentially one Buddha statue after another, and the latter featured Ganesh after Ganesh after Ganesh. Which was totally fine with me -- that's what I wanted to see.

One of my favorite things in the museum was an exhibition of some modern woodblock prints by a Japanese artist named Hiratsuka Un'ichi. I've always liked woodblock prints (although attempts to make my own have always failed) -- the roughly hewn images and stark black-and-white coloration touch me in a good place -- but his were much larger and more intricate than many I've seen.

After I finished with the Asian art, my goal was to get through as much of the museum as possible without having to deal with a lot of people. It was busy, so this was sort of a challenge, but there were areas where this was easier than in others.

Not a lot of people in photography. Not a lot of people in contemporary art. Which meant that I could look to my satisfaction. There was an exhibit of later (as in right before he died) Edward Weston photographs which was pleasing, and they had a surprising amount of works by Gerhard Richter (who I like, but not just for the obvious reason [4]). This took up a lot of time, though.

Finally, since I had looked at everything else (or at least I thought I had -- I found out, later, looking at the map, that I had missed an entire wing of the building), and wasn't ready to go to the gift shop or to sit down and wait for H. and S. (who I ran into in the gift shop, incidentally), so I decided to go where the people were: the Impressionist room.

I poked my head in, looked around, and remembered, oh yeah, I don't like any of these paintings. Sorry to all of you who were perhaps expecting a report on that.

Then I braved the shop. I wanted to buy some postcards of the art I liked, but they had none of it on postcards, and many things that I didn't like (and actually a lot I didn't see or didn't remember -- brain full after three hours) were widely available, whether on a postcard, a shirt, a tote bag, or -- oh yes -- boxer shorts. Museum gift shops ca have some nice things every once in a while, but for the most part, it's a cavalcade of artwork on umbrellas and other embarrassing gifts.

After the museum, we were all tired. There was a lot of mental work and a lot of walking, and that translated to sheer exhaustion. It was more than time to go back to the apartment. We took a short drive around to look at buildings from the car (fatigue plus rain equals looky-loo from the back seat) and then it was couch time.

11. Pad siew!

Bending part of my personal rule to avoid buying things from places with any of the words "Ye," "Shoppe," "World," or "Planet" (there are others) in them, we had Thai food for dinner. From a place called Thai Planet. Interesting. It was an all-noodle night: my pad siew, S.'s noodles with peanut sauce, H's something�noodly (I was tired and forgot the name, which is wrong, since it was Thai food and all). But it was good, and even better with beer.

This night was sort of a repeat of the previous night, but I had no complaints. Watching many forms of TV that I did not have access to at home with excellent people and excellent beer and insane cats is a perfect way to spend part of a vacation.

12. Cinnamon rolls, coffee, and foamy milk

The next morning was pretty relaxed. Since I had done all of the things I really wanted to do while I was in Chicago, I was fairly open to doing just about anything. I had to be at the airport at 3, but other than that, anything sounded fine. I wasn't in the mood to do anything that required serious thinking or learning, though, so H. suggested that we go to this big huge mall that was fairly near the airport. There would be silly stores, and we could provide color commentary on the various mall people. I agreed.

We got there soon after opening, so it wasn't too crowded. I didn't have anything that I really wanted to buy (which didn't stop me), so I was happy to go from store to store, looking for shoes with H. and S. We went in the silly teen clothing stores, and even to the silliest teen clothing store of all -- Hot Topic. I marveled at their enormous number of Weezer CDs for sale and then was sad when they didn't have any decent Simpsons figures for sale (there was only Kent Brockman left, who is no one's favorite character). I tried to figure out how pleather pants would fit into my life. I looked at journals, too, but they all had vampires or fairies on them, and I figured nothing I wrote would live up to that.

H. and I went in to the Sanrio store just long enough to have our blood sugar rise. Then I remembered I was going to Asia, where there would be many impossibly cute things to consider purchasing. Then we went to Sephora, and smelled the smelly things. H. and I were very excited about the selection of Demeter fragrances. We both bought a bottle of the Earl Grey Tea scent, and H. bought three others.

They had just opened an Apple store in the mall, and we went in. It was very white and spacious and sort of frightening, and there were a lot of people, so we couldn't even look at the computers. We left in something not quite disgust, which was lessened when they handed us each a plastic tube containing a t-shirt as a walked out the door. [5]

The refreshing thing about this mall was that it was just a mall -- a big box full of stores and hot buttery pretzels. In Colorado, our malls must have themes -- whether it's a Rustic Ski Lodge or a Secluded Canyon or A House Full of Things You Can�t Possibly Afford -- so, it was nice to see something that wasn't pretending to be something completely non-mall-like. No big plastic rock formations to be found in the middle of this mall.

The biggest amount of purchasing time was spent in this shoe store that was going out of business. They had many shoes, and they were all very cheap. There was an entire wall of Birkenstocks on sale, but not one of them -- not even ugly styles or pairs in bad colors like beige -- was in my size. Actually, the visit was a total strike-out for me in terms of shoes, as my size seemed to be completely missing wherever I looked, like a mini-rapture, only involving size nine. I did, however, pick up many pairs of SmartWool socks, which were being cleared out for cheap. I will never have to buy socks again.

The mall was becoming more crowded and my flight was approaching, so we left, driving by Ikea [6] on the way out so I could see what one looked like (blue, crowded). Then we drove to the airport (gray, crowded) and I got some coffee and we watched people and said our goodbyes and then it was time for me to leave.

(You'll notice I went to neither a bookstore nor a record store during this trip, easily a first for me.)

13. Fries.

The flight to Cincinnati was uneventful. The airport was a lot like it was four days prior, but this time I had two and a half hours to kill. The bookstore proved to be only worth minutes of fun, and the "newsstand" even less. I decided to get some food and the only thing that looked freshly cooked were fries. So I had those. Which was a good decision, since they turned out to be free. The guy in front of me had a food voucher from one of the airlines, which was worth $25 (must have been some delay, since the most I've ever wrangled out of an airline was one for $4.50) and his meal ended up being nowhere near that amount. So he "bought" everyone in line behind him food, too. Free things taste that much better.

Waiting to board the plane back to Denver served as an important illustration in what happens When People Don't Listen. The original plane for the flight had mechanical problems, so they got a different plane, but one which was much bigger than what had been anticipated. This meant that everyone had to get a new seat assignment before they got on the plane, a fact which was announced many times to the waiting crowd.

It wasn't a subtle or easily misunderstood announcement, either. "Everyone getting on this plane must get a new seat or they will not be allowed to board." But when they started boarding by row, people acted like this was something new, something designed entirely to make their day go less pleasantly. There were some tussles, no tears (thankfully), and this group of surly college volleyball players got really upset.

14. Chicken foccacia thingie, one single solitary strawberry, bottle of water, slice of icky Gouda cheese, chocolate cookie.

In the end, though, there was nothing to be upset about. The new plane was so much bigger than the expected one that everyone got an entire row to themselves. No one to the left of me. No one to the right of me. Too bad the meal wasn't better.

Landed in Denver without trouble. Found Little Honda again without effort. Paid less than I thought for parking. Drove to south, south Denver and slept. Uneventful drive home. Then the deluge started with work and now I'm ready for another vacation.

[1] The experience with my hair helped me make a decision I've peen putting off: whether or not to cut my hair off before I go to Thailand. The disadvantage of doing so is that I don't like the way my hair looks short, but the advantages are plentiful: not having a big heavy pile of hair on my head, not having an enormous puffy head, being able to not have to lug a hair dryer around, looking butch. Chicago, I assume, has pretty minor-league levels of humidity in comparison to Thailand, and if I can't handle 48 hours of hair mishaps domestically, I should probably try to avoid them if possible while abroad.

[2] I will eat anything topped with actual hollandaise sauce. True, no one has challenged this statement and dared me to eat crickets Benedict or anything like that, but I still feel comfortable saying that.

[3] Coffee always tastes better when it's cold and gross outside, I think, which is as good an explanation for the Pacific Northwest as anything.

[4] Cover of my favorite record ever, you know.

[5] White, with a blue Apple logo on the front with the name of the mall under it. On the back, "Shop different." On one hand -- hey, free shirt. On the other hand -- where I am I going to wear this? And why so ungrammatical?

[6] You laugh, but I have never ever been to one, let alone lived anywhere where there was one. What is banal to some is hopelessly exotic to others, especially those who have no sources of half-decent cheap shelving where they live.

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