Walking in sunshine

[muckefuck]

It's still unusual enough for the Old Man to spontaneously propose an outing (this may yet change as the retirement honeymoon starts to fade) that I try to indulge him as much as I can. Unfortunately, he has a knack for picking days when I'm recovering from late nights. He must've thought he had a surefire winner when he suggested hitting our local used bookstore today, but it was after one a.m. before I got to sleep last night so my initial reaction was, shall we say, less than entirely enthusiastic. But a few more pointless games of bleary solitaire and I'd warmed to the idea so we struck out together over mostly clear pavements.

The exceptions were the corners, and monshu was weighed down with a packed tote of paperbacks for resale, so he took them very gently. (I gained a new respect for him on the way back when I volunteered to carry the bag and gave up after five minutes when I found myself hurting in three places that had been fine moments earlier.) But it was mild winter weather--sunny, still, just below freezing--so it felt find being out. I used to think those memes contrasting 40°F in, say, California and Minnesota were exaggerations, but belatedly I realised I had the season wrong. 40°F in fall and Chicagoans pull out winter jackets. 40°F in "spring"--particularly after a brutalising subzero winter--and we revel in a lack of layers.

He didn't have a clear idea where he wanted to eat lunch and we whittled away possibilities (quite swiftly, in fact, because half of them were closed) until we were left with a choice between a Balkan kebab shop and Royal Coffee. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone who knows their military history that victory belonged to the Ethiopians. The GWO got the traditional sampler and every dish was terrific but, alas, too spicy for my treacherous gut. So instead I had lox on a goyishe bagel (what his former boss would call "round bread"). But I splurged out with the coffee, which is only a little bit bitterer than Metropolis so quite drinkable mochaed and with an extra spoonful of sugar. The Turkish coffee took more sweetening than that and was surprisingly generous; the little cevze held at least two-and-a-half little cupfuls. So if I'm not able to sleep tonight, I know what to blame.

Unfortunately the ostensible aim of the outing--picking up some new fiction for monshu to read when he finishes with Stephen Fry--was a bust. Armadillo's Pillow no longer buys books for store credit (which is why we ended up lugging the damned tote back home) and had a disappointing selection of SF/F. I made out only slightly better: O'Doherty's Booker Prize-nominated Deposition of Father McGreevy (Irish lit month is fast approaching), Klaus Mann's Mephisto, and a novel of Algeria called Des feux mal éteints by someone named Philippe Labro. In other words, nothing I couldn't've lived happily without. Worryingly, the shelves were in more disarray than usual, making me less than sanguine that further browsing would've turned up much more.

Comments

[come-to-think.livejournal.com]

I once cut into a supermarket bagel and it *crumbled*. The manufacturer, I imagined, deserved a crumbly lifesaver, a crumbly truck tire, and a crumbly sphincter.