The Death of Imagination

The liturgical and meteorological calendars were in synch this weekend. Sometime between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, the last of the snow abortions vanished from our street and the first daffodils appeared. Elsewhere I saw a forsythia in bloom, but otherwise the trees and shrubs have been holding back. Sunday was a glorious day to be out, which is fortunate because I ended up walking all the way to Andersonville and halfway back.

monshu felt up to the challenge of catering his first dinner of the year, so we asked Nuphy and Diego to share our largesse. Sadly, Diego and Uncle Betty have split, so he brought along a mutual friend for murky reasons of "concern". The latter said little, but he was in a room of big talkers, most of which weren't particularly sober, so that was no surprise.

We had lamb, of course, and lots of it since the Old Man prepared two racks of chops just in case. Also cheesy polenta and some homebaked bread which came from the widower of monshu's former neighbour across the hall. Scooter had suggested we pull out the ice cream from his freezer for dessert, but the GWO had already prepared panna cotta and asked Diego to bring fruit to top it with.

After two late nights, I was dreadfully tired but fought it all the way. Nuphy wanted to hit the road early in any case, since it was the season opener for the Cubs and he wanted to be safely out of the North Side before the game ended. By happy coincidence, they were playing the Cardinals, so once everyone had gone, I slipped downstairs and caught the last seven innings. For a good 15 hours, my hometown heroes had more wins than all other teams combined. Now they simply share the top spot with two other teams.

Wasn't sure the game was going to come off today. Not due to weather (please, we're Chicagoans!) but because the GM's new roomies were moving in. I was prepared to host if need be--I was really counting on the diversion in advance of Tuesday's operation--but fortunately for monshu it didn't come to that because one of the other players made the offer first. And not only that, I realise now that I think about it that it was the player most convenient to me. But although he's the same distance as vianegativa, he lives closer to the Lake. Snow had been falling softly since the night before, but it wasn't until after noon that the winds began picking up force. Still, it was an easy walk over up until the last block. The winds through the alley paralleling the viaduct were nasty and had covered the path in about a foot of drifts.

For reasons never fully explained but apparently involving a shopping trip, the GM arrived late, which allowed us about 45 minutes of slightly awkward chat. His soon-to-be roomie (not one of the movers-in) had found a cellphone in the snow which he placed on the table. About ten minutes into the game, it rang and what should've been a terse exchange--"Here's the address, come pick it up" became ridiculously protracted. They were close enough it actually took less time for them to actually come and fetch the phone than for us to explain to them where the hell it was.

It was another satisfying session (although I do hope we have one soon which doesn't revolve almost entirely around a single combat) and we went an extra hour to compensate for the delayed start. We'd already agreed to have dinner together anyway, so no spousal negotiations were need. When bopNgrill didn't answer their phone, I volunteered to go out around the corner and check it out. The benjamin of the group volunteered to come with, and took the precaution of soliciting a Chipotle order as well.

Good thing, too; the burger place was closed and had been since 4 p.m. Next door--whether on account of the snow, the sportsball, or both--there were more employees than customers and the manager was out front finishing up a six-foot snowman. In what resembled a reality-show challenge, my companion dashed back and forth in the food line reading off orders for the group. Since he was worried about stumbling on the way home, I took both bags.

We came back to find the game on but no one paying it much mind. Until the halftime show, that is. ("I'll take 'Ways To Tell Everyone In the Room Is Gay' for $100, Alex".) There was so much to love, from the trippy H.R. Puffinstuff-inspired "California Girls" (does it count as jumping the shark if your backup dancers are but you don't actually leap over one?) to a totally respectable performance from Missy Elliott. Not long after, we girded ourselves against the elements and headed out.

The drifts were deeper and more frequent walking home, but at least the wind was at my back. It was eerie to see the streets so empty so early. Two or three times, I thought I might have to stop and help someone unstick their car, but they managed to rock themselves into forward motion. Our street was so changed, I was halfway across it before I recognised it. I knew I was back when I saw how clear the sidewalks were; Scooter's out there right now, in fact, giving them another pass.

But no snow day for me tomorrow. Can't really complain about that although the commute in is going to be no damn fun at all. But how disappointed would we be if we'd gone the whole winter without one really solid snowstorm?

Turtle wanted dim sum and her wife was willing to drive despite the dusting of snow, so that's how we ended up in Chinatown today. I wasn't thrilled with our last visit to Phoenix so I Googled dim sum places and found positive reviews of Cai (彩蝶軒). I'd actually been in there before long enough to inspect a menu, but it was evening and I wasn't thinking dim sum. It was near eleven when we arrived and the place was packed, so they offered us the unusual choice of sharing a table.

That worked out very well for us. The table easily sat twelve and, as they were another party of four (a young couple, toddler, and baby) they were no closer to us than if we'd sat at two different four tops. It was a little awkward being all in row, but there was enough of a curve that we could all see each other and since the table was up against the window in a semi-private room off the main dining hall, it was more than quiet enough for conversation.

Some might consider it a disappointment that there were no carts, but I've learned that the best dim sum places dispense with them so they can cook food to order. This meant foregoing the instant gratification that's generally a hallmark of doing dim sum, but the compensation was a number of freshness and variety. There were several dishes I'd never seen before, so of course we had to order them.

The standout winners were the fried green chive dumplings. This were much finer and flatter than those I've had at Thai restaurants and, as a result, much crisper. I'm not a huge spare rib fan, but theirs were tender and tasty and contained a surprise ingredient: gravy-soaked chunks of some starchy tuber, possibly kabocha. The only real misfire was the "pork wrapped in bean curd crepe", which looked amazing but tasted just okay. The ordinary vegetarian bean curd rolls were every bit as good and easier to handle.

One desert would've been plenty, but since I'd neither seen Malayan sponge cake with papaya nor black sesame dumplings before, we had to get both. We had the problem that our order sheet had already been marked up, plus we changed our selection and I didn't know how to make sure we didn't accidentally order something we didn't want. So I just flipped the tally sheet over and wrote out the names of the dishes longhand in my awful Chinese calligraphy. The waiter was amused.

I double-checked the typed version he brought back for accuracy and noticed an odd discrepancy: Where I'd written 黑麻糍, the slip had 黑麻磁. I was thrown because (a) I thought I'd copied it exactly and (b) I thought I recognised 磁 as a character meaning "magnet(ic)". I was right; it is. But I noticed that 糍 is unusual enough that for its entry in the Lin Yu-tang dictionary, there's no encoded character, only an image. So possibly the word processor had to substitute a homophone.

Lin Yu-tang doesn't even have a definition for 糍 on its own, only as part of the compound 糍粑 cíba which is glosses as "a glutinous paste, which can be steamed or fried". 粑 also lacks its own entry. I suspect it may be a variant of the 巴 in 鍋巴guōba "rice crust [on the sides of a rice pot]". This in turn raises the possibility that the etymological meaning of the first character is "magnet", in the sense of a paste so sticky that it clings to the pot like a magnet would.

Whatever the origin, it's a must-order for this place. The inside is a mellow custard. Turtle wondered if the sweet wasn't a sort of visual pun on a thousand-year egg, the purplish rice paste resembling the stained white. The sponge cake was as light as any I've had and the papaya was sweet but not sugary. It was the last dish to arrive, after everyone had sworn they couldn't pass another bite. It made liars of us all.

I can't speak to price because, in an impressive display of reflexes, Turtlewife swooped onto the check before monshu could make a move. He was equally unsuccessful in his attempt to buy some Suntory Yamazaki at the local liquor store, but I found my sweet olives at Aji Ichiban. On the way down, we had discussed pulling up to the side of the lake to watch the whitecaps slam into the rocks, but after our excesses, we all just wanted to be snug at home before the food coma hit.

Our shopping goals were modest enough: a hat for monshu, a wireless device for me. But I got overwhelmed with the range of choices and the Old Man, seeing my distress, asked, "Do you need a time out?" So we headed to the Macy's next door and, after wandering through the entire mens' section, learned they didn't have the one thing he'd checked in advance to see if they had. We looked at North Face and found only camouflage and grotty tropical prints, so we retreated to the confortevolezza of L'Appetito, where I spent a frustrating five minutes trying to access my e-mail on the GWO's phone.

At that point, I was rescued by a "where are you?" message from lhn and headed out into the cold rain again in order to meet him, prilicla, a subdued hisregard, ladytiamat, and--as a special surprise--My Remaining Author Friend Who Is Not princeofcairo at Bar Toma where, to my delight, they had already ordered calamari and a couple of pizzas. After Water Tower Place, it felt like a pool of sanity in a sea of tourists, with a cozy interior and an extremely solicitous staff.

For over an hour the topic of conversations was books--books! I work at a bleeding library and, with the exception of one colleague, no one ever talks about books with me for anything approaching an hour! Too bad I won't remember any of the good YA series they recommended to me for my niblings. Then we began to think dessert. hisregard originally suggested Ghiradelli, but when it was determined our next stop was the Bipartisan Manse in Hyde Park, he switched to Firecakes for fancy donuts. So yum! MRAF broke off to rendezvous with a houseguest, prilicla headed back home, and lhn ferried the rest of us to Hyde Park.

I couldn't even attempt a summary of all the topics we covered in our South Side salon. It was a full-spirited return to the days of bantering around the Skiffy table, but minus our youthful insecurities and the living embodiments of them. I didn't want to, but eventually I had to interject a reminder to order dinner, which was delivered to us from old stalwarts Snail. And I really didn't want to leave, but clintswan was coming over to my house and I wanted to be there to meet him. By some miracle, I made it from the bus stop on Hyde Park Blvd to the Loyola stop on the el in almost exactly one hour. But it was all for nought, since my buddy was still busy with laundry and I began to pumpkin after 10 p.m. Hope he had a good time at Bear Night while I was in bed!

BIL took the boys home before us so Sis and I could do a little more to help Stepmom cleanup from Christmas Eve dinner. We opened the door to find a handlettered note on a stool reading "Cookies this way!→". This turned out to be the first in a series culminating in a pair of notes next to a plate of cookies and a container of carrots helpfully advising Santa "The cookies˅and milk are for you and the carrots are for the rendeer (note: give one glass of milk for the rendeer)". The sheer amount of overthinking which went into the project is so recognisable to me from my own precocious childhood that an hour later I can't stop smiling.

The paella was a success; I managed to get through the whole preparation without my back giving out once. It helped that we had our whole village on the task: my sister stirred, my brother minced, SIL watched a pot of broth. We forgot only one ingredient, and it was once of the least essential (parsley). We learned a lesson about not getting the seafood from the Chinese market on Olive; the mussels and crab legs from Dierberg's were ultimately a better buy.

Perhaps because he'd run himself ragged trying to find that one gift for my youngest nephew, striking out at three different stores, Dad managed not to get into it with anyone. We ate too much, we laughed a lot, and my Stepmom gave me my first official wedding gift. All-in-all, I'm pronouncing Phase 1 of Project No-Stress Christmas a resounding success.

Today fall came back for the briefest of visits. The official high was 10°C and if you were standing in the sun in a sheltered spot, it felt even warmer. We took advantage of it by making two trips to Andersonville, one in the morning to dispense with the weekly "Clark errands" and one in the evening for dinner at Ombra. In between, I slipped on a flannel shirt and some work gloves and seized the last chance to get some gardening done.

At this point, it's basically cleanup. I filled the compost with slimy hosta leaves and dessicated lemon balm stems. As I was making a pile of the dead catnip, the neighbour's cat came along and made herself comfortable in it and I left her to it as I pruned back the clematis. I also took some snips from the smoketree and the lilacs, but more work will be needed before they're properly shaped. Finally, I took down the hanging baskets, tossed out the dead greens, and potted up the ivy to take indoors. (The wirevine was a dead loss, of course.) The warmth had thawed the top inch or so, but I had to hack through the frozen soil beneath.

Among the places we visited on the morning trip were Gethsemane, where we picked up a wreath and some decorative stems, and La Colombe, which is a welcome addition to the neighbourhood. (Maybe next time I won't be adjusting to new medications and can try a cup of their coffee.) In evening I popped into Alley Cat Comics and scored a Bechdel graphic novel for half off and we visited Walgreens for some soap and Kleenex only to find a raving crazy lady screaming at a cashier for supposedly withholding her cigarettes.

Dinner was good. I talked the prick of a host into giving us one of the prime booths so the Old Man would feel comfortable and chatted up the bartender about aperitifs. She recommended the Carpano Bianco and we liked it so much we went out in search of it afterwards, but no one seems to be carrying it yet. But the real pleasure of the meal was just sitting and feeling cozy with monshu. It was his way of rewarding me for my "help" over the past week and I couldn't ask for a better one.

I keep waiting for the crash to hit from the five hours of sleep I got last night, but so far I'm still purring. Maybe my little power nap worked after all? I'm worried this means the payment to the piper tomorrow is going to be that much worse, but I can deal.

I don't want to say too much about dinner yesterday with my cousin's wife and daughter since my brother is jealous enough already, but let's just say it went well. Nuphy suggested a brewpub around the corner from his house which has become his new Stammlokal due to deleterious personnel changes at the Gage. The place is called "Moxee" [sic] and specialises in seafood. He was more enthusiastic about the salmon than I was; I thought it made for a damn good sandwich but regretted not trying the crabcakes, since they might just have gotten them right.

For dessert, we shared the derby pie. Scores well on taste, but I have to take points off for not using whole pecans. (I know, I know, there's a shortage on and all, but still.) And though I was tempted by the house kölsch, I thought the 3% ABV yuzu-flavoured Berliner Weiss was a safer bet. Obviously more of a summer beer, and so mild that even monshu didn't make a face when I gave him a sip.

The opera I've already written about. Thanks to a ride from the aforementioned cousin-in-law, we made it there in good time. It's a shame my pleasant buzz didn't last longer, but that's how it is now that the 147 isn't running late and I'm forced to cast my lot in with the assholes of the el train. I took comfort knowing that, this morning, the memories of their assholishness would have faded while my recollections of the performance would still be strong. And so it was.

What also helped (and which is ultimately responsible for my irresponsible bedtime) was the infamous Highlighter Party, which I finally succeed in crashing. I couldn't do it last year because my older brother was here. I couldn't do it the year before that because I had trouble getting over myself and I couldn't do it the year before that because I didn't know about it. It was everything I'd been led to believe, good and bad.

Among the good, the Madison bears were there, one of them more trashed than I've ever seen him. That was amusing. After they'd gone, I spotted a quote from the Dreigroschen Oper on someone's back and that kicked off a fun conversation about opera, German, Germany, and related topics. I may yet be called upon to make good on some conversation practice.

Today I expected to be draggy and sore, but my back was good enough I was able to do some raking outside and I managed to stay on top of my chores. Better get back to them, though, before my grace runs out.

It was an ambitious weekend--German Day, followed by Pre-Bear Night Cocktails, and then a Chinatown trip the next day--which became even more ambitious with the news that one of the Madison bears was coming down to crash for the night. I survived it all, but I expect a reckoning tomorrow.

I'd forgotten all about our annual repayment of our debt to General von Steuben until Nuphy mentioned to me he was going. I passed his invitation on to monshu, who was surprisingly receptive to the idea. That's how we found ourselves on the roof of Gene's Sausage Shop on one of the most heartstoppingly gorgeous days in recent memory noshing on sausage and holding a seat for the Funny Little Man. Naturally, we weren't the only people to hit upon this idea, and when a polite stranger asked if there was room at our table for her and two of her friends, we invited them to join us.

Before they began speaking, I took them for ordinary whitebread Midwesterners. Wrong. They were all Pacific Northwesterners. Two had grown up on Bainbridge Island, the offspring of transplanted Californians with roots in the Azores. The third, who was married to the woman who first approached us, was an ethnic Latvian from eastern Washington. He had an adorably broad accent which you could easily have taken for Canadian. The woman's brother lives in Chicago now with his Iranian wife. He speaks some Chinese from his semester abroad in Beijing, so Nuphy got to try out both his rusty Mandarin and his rusty Latvian. No rusty Swahili, however, to try out on the Azorean Bainbridgian who'd done her semester abroad in Tanzania.

We could've chatted with them for another hour, but I could see the Old Man was getting antsy, so I took us to ground level for some gelato at Paciugo. We checked out the fair itself almost out of a sense of duty. I found myself fascinated by the controlled chaos of the midway, but after monshu had spotted his Karnavalprinz in the pheasant-feathered hat, there was nothing more to distract him from the enervating effects of the press of bodies, so I hustled us into Merz Apotheke and thence back to Gene's for some quark and rye.

Meanwhile, Madison Bear had made it to town and was having a cider at Nôrse while he waited for word from us. I took him to our local Thai for dinner and he retreated downstairs to "freshen up" while I putzed the upstairs clean. The expedition had taken more out of me than I'd thought and I found myself almost exhausted, but I figured I'd perk up when guests began arriving. Scruffy was first, looking almost as worn out as me now that he's back on his term-time schedule. Meanwhile, Fig, who was supposed to arrive early in order to inspect the garden had some kind of CTA crisis and bailed.

Compensating for that, the Tamaulipeco kept his word and graced us with his presence. Even more surprisingly, Scruffy confessed to me and interested him later and began pumping me for info. We were at the bar at this point, and it was becoming crushingly obvious that the second wind I'd hoped for hadn't arrived and wasn't going to. Given my druthers and the absence of any feeling of hospital responsibility, I'd've stayed home altogether. I was glad I'd gotten out if only for the opportunity to see clintswan as perky as a Pikachu, but after the umpteenth yawn, I told our out-of-towner to let himself in when he saw fit and came home to crash.

Fortunately, we were doing dinner rather than dim sum, so we didn't have to depart the North Side until after 3 p.m. the next day. This gave me the chance for a nap after I'd seen our houseguest off to his brunch date. We made excellent time and we able to hit a grocery and a teashop before our scheduled rendezvous with Nuphy at Feida. He'd caught some wild hare and taken Shank's mare all the way, which left him oddly belligerent as we made our way back to Chinatown Square to consider possibilities. We didn't know what we wanted except somewhere we hadn't been before.

We managed to pick someplace new and familiar at the same time: a place we'd never been that was at the same time a fiefdom in Tony Hu's culinary empire. The name Lao Mala means "old spicy", so I knew I was in for it despite ordering only the blandest food on the menu (tong choy, potato shreds, and unseasoned chuanr) and sneaking only a few bites of what Nuphy and monshu were eating. The food was good, but not better than the best we'd had in each category (something the FLM kept reminding us of incessantly).

As they tried to figure out the bill, I dashed up to the top of one of the towers to try to spot the rising moon. I was foiled by the skyline to the east, even once we'd climbed back up to the El station. Only after the train started moving did our lovely moon pop out from behind Hilliard Towers. It was all but full, but pale in intense sunlight of a cloudless dusk; not until the train reemerged on the North Side did it begin to come into its own. We made good time back home and finished the evening with some mooncake and fresh lychee on the porch. The Old Man had a glass of Piesporter Goldtröpfchen; I contented myself with some ginger tea--and the satisfaction of a weekend spent out and about for a change.

[Fuck it. It's post something like this or get into more pointless arguments on FB.]

#1

We arrived at New Wave Coffee on Friday to find Stan taking out the trash. I ran up to him and gave him a no-hands hug. "Have you been to Longman & Eagle yet?" he asked. "We just got here!" I said. "It's a little early in the day to start drinking!" Not if you're an artist, though. He said he orders the "PBR breakfast" there and when they ask, "Are you sure you want the PBR?" he's like "Uh, yeah[*]!"

Nuphy took a wrong turn leaving the station and stumbled in around twenty minutes later. With that in mind, I decided to proceed cautiously, getting my bearings at every corner and circling around the square before heading up one of the radial streets. Even so, he thought we were headed north instead of south at one point. After hitting City Lit Bookstore and exploring the monuments in the square, we doubled back to Lula Café for lunch.

After that, it was back to Uncharted Books, which had opened in the meantime. Then we parked the GWO at another café before striking out along Milwaukee. Nuphy said he'd come to walk, but after getting a scoop at a gelateria, he toddled back to monshu and left me to explore on my own. Though Stan had suggested there might be some interesting stuff near the theatre, it petered out quickly. I turned onto Diversey, which is totally residential in that stretch, and then headed back myself.

Longman & Eagle is so unassuming we weren't sure we had it until we were upon it. We went to the back bar for the outside seating; I'd go back again for the utterly simpatico barman, who was willing multiple times to run to the front to see if they had some liquor we were interested in (such as the Angel's Envy or some ginger liqueur for Nuphy). The Old Man was able to complete his survey of Islay (though both the untried Scotches turned out to be produced by Bruichladdich).

I instead went for perhaps the priciest Manhattan I've ever had because I called my rye (actually, the barman suggested James Oliver) and my vermouth as well (Carpano, natch). I followed that up with a Rittenhouse Sazerac. Then Nuphy scooted off and we went on to have one of the best meals I've ever eaten in Chicago: appetisers of rabbit au jus and veal brains (though I think the favas stood out most in that dish) and then seared tuna for monshu and a "duo of pork" (tenderloin and belly) for me.

The server was outstanding. The only flaw I could find in the entire experience was that the hush puppies (one element out of many in my entree) were room temp instead of piping hot. I ordered an intriguing "house shot" of Letherbee's Malört combined with Dolin Génépi and it came with a discreet little candle on the side since monshu had tipped him that it was my birthday. Dessert was black sesame mini-donuts with lime gelée and coconut gelato and it was amazing. I stumbled home drunk and happy--and surprised to be back home in about and hour and a quarter, despite taking the Clark 22.

#2

Bigbones assented so readily when I invited him and Miss Cleveland to Ombra on Saturday that I assumed they'd been there before. They hadn't. Miss C had some issues with our server, who wasn't one to linger, but none with the food as far as I could tell. The menu was completely different from our last trip, which meant no pesce en saor for me. But the calamari were very good, and there were fried squash blossoms stuffed with ricotta.

I considered a spritz, but was lured instead to order their take of the Manhattan, a "San Marco": Templeton, Carpano, Averna, and raspberries. Initially I mused that it was too smooth, but Miss Cleveland took a sip and told me to "quit complaining". I got a lot of grief from him that evening. It was almost a relief to slip away to meet Scruffy (despite their best attempts to delay me) and leave monshu to enjoy their company a while longer.

#3

I arrived at SoFo at only ten after eight, so within the negotiated window, and expected to find only Scruffy keeping the table warm. But, no, there were at least a half dozen pals of one or both of us there already, and twice that by half past. I wanted to make up for contributing nothing to the cost of the cake by buying some beer, but chalk this down as the first gay bar I've been in that "don't do pitchers". (Somehow, not surprised.)

If the L&E Manhattan was the most expensive Manhattan I've had in Chicago, SoFo's might've been the most overpriced. Not that it was bad, but that and a beer set me back $23. That brought me up to almost the perfect point of drunkenness, but then clintswan appeared and couldn't resist doing a shot of Goldschläger with him. That pushed me over into the realm of self-consciously modulating my voice and watching my steps so no one would know how besotted I was.

We had cake, then the party moved out to the patio. At some point, I glanced around and couldn't find Scruffy or most of my other friends; they'd slipped away like thieves. By 11 pm, the Otter Night crowd had taken over and the place was getting crowded. Forty-five minutes later, when it became time to clear the patio (damn neighbours!), I decided to slip away myself.


[*] Rendering the "well duh" intonation through typography is a challenge.

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that everyone's abuzz about, a debate broke out in a friend's Facebook feed and it made me a bit wistful for the days when we used to have those here, with proper threading and a font size that didn't make me squint like a lizard. So wistful, in fact, that it made me consider posting about the issue here to see what I could stir up, but the more I considered the amount of effort it would be to research and write something intelligent and worthwhile, the more I shrank from the task.

So I'm afraid it's another post about who I've hung out with and what I've been eating, I'm afraid. I took out the boots again and had the least bit of trouble since I started, thus nourishing the hope that they may one day become comfortable enough to wear regularly. It's getting harder to find novel directions to go in. This evening I headed west to Ravenswood and then north to Morse before turning back.

My first charming discovery was at least two houses with sizable patches of sweet woodruff in their lawns. My second was the warmth radiating off of west-facing brick-faced walls; in the cool of the evening (it's about 18°C now), it was very noticeable. My third was a woman spray-painting American flag t-shirts on the parkway in front of her complex. My fourth was a troupe of actors rehearsing Much Ado About Nothing in the dog park down the street. (I can thank them for a rudimentary understanding of the distinction between "stumbling up" and "stumbling down".)

After I left for work this morning, I texted monshu a comment about having forgotten my gum. He took this as a request to buy more (there's a post about Gricean universals in there). So when he made a quip about having some chocolate frosting to spread on graham crackers, I took this as a serious assignment and swung by the store for bittersweet chips that I melted in the double boiler. You would think from his reaction I'd performed a service for more thoughtful and less self-interested.

I managed to forget I had tomorrow off until I received notice of an early approval for timesheets. In years past, we've received invitations to Independence Day barbecues, but it's been a while and we're not equipped to host one of our own. So we may simply jaunt downtown to see the Matisse and have some Cubans. I'll be social enough on Saturday, when I hope to host a successful cocktail night to wash out the taste of last month's bust.