onwards and upwards… northwards?

Got up early-ish, packed, threw my stuff in the car and drove north.  Stopped in BN to eat Noodles for lunch.  It’s funny, the food at the Noodles there always seems to be more tasty than the STL noodles.  Hit dense fog about 70 miles from my mom’s, dense like can’t see more than 20 feet in front of you dense.  I slowed down to 50mph which may well have still been too fast, but cars were still passing me going 70mph.  Perhaps this is the advantage of having fog lights on one’s automobile?  That they’re actually useful in fog?  Anyway, fog turned to rain about 20 miles out, I was glad to finally arrive.  JA came over and we had rouladen for dinner, delicious, and then went to an Ice Hogs game.  It was a pretty good game, nothing much exciting happened.  Came home, ate cheese and crackers and my leftover noodles and hung out with my mom.  Tried to call Charlie and there was no answer so I went to bed.  He called back latelatelate and we had a bleary yet cheery chat until we were both falling asleep on the phone.

 

Got up early to take Charlie to his eye doctor appointment (one of the downsides of his lack of vehicle).  He had apparently been up since 4 after falling asleep at 8pm the previous night.  We did a little window shopping at the mall and went to le Target to pick up a few odds and ends (like draino for my defective shower).  Went back to my place, had some lunch, had an afternoon nap, cut Charlie’s hair.  Got gyros from the gyro place in the loop for dinner.  Hung out with C. and M. in the evening to watch basketball and played Oblivion later on.  Ate leftover chinese food at 2am, came back to my place to feed the cat and returned to Charlie’s apartment to sleep.

 

I was woken up at 4:30am when Charlie came to sleep at my place after hanging out with the men at the man-house. We got talking and before we knew it the sun was up and it was 8am, so we decided to go to IHOP again and eat more pancakes. I had the carrot cake ones again and Charlie had the strawberry cheesecake ones, which sounded slightly strange but were also really delicious. Then we went to the mall to have a little morning walk, which we did rather sleepily.  After that we went to Charlie’s place and played Oblivion. I only lasted an hour or so before I fell asleep around 11am and started dreaming about his roommate doing heroin. At this point I was so tired so I suggested we take a nap, which we did, and we got up again around 3. More Oblivion, Hon’s Wok for dinner, some sports watching, more Oblivion, Charlie fell asleep on my lap and I put him to bed and went home. I had trouble falling asleep, rather funny after only sleeping 4 or 5 of the last 36 hours.

 

pancakes ahoy!

Slept in til noon when I was woken up by Charlie who had stayed up all night in an attempt to return to a normal sleeping schedule.  He wanted to go to breakfast and so we went to IHOP, because he craved some combination of pancakes and hash browns.  Or perhaps it was the bacon.  At any rate, he didn’t even end up eating pancakes, he had some sort of veggie/egg filled crepes and I had carrot cake pancakes with a side of all the hash browns/bacon/whatever that Charlie wanted to eat.  I was mostly interested in the pancakes, which were amazingly delicious.  Run, don’t walk, to an IHOP and get carrot cake pancakes if you like carrot cake at all.  They were moist, carrot-y, and full of flavor.  I had debated getting the pumpkin ones but I was really glad I went for carrot.  Although, the success of the pan-carrot-cakes makes me think the pumpkin ones might also be exceptionally delicious and now I want to go back soon to find out.  IHOP’s marketing ploy has succeeded!  Then we went to the bank and came back to my place; Charlie took a nap and I did stuff around the house.  In late afternoon the winter malaise took hold of me and I crawled back into bed to nap with him.  He went to basketball around dinnertime and I ate dinner, did laundry, caught up on correspondence, and took a shower in my still non-draining shower.  Must get draino soon!

 

blizzard!

So there’s a local TV commercial against drunk driving where the drunkard sets off in their drunky-mobile and then the announcer intones in a terribly ominous voice: “NEVER MADE IT HOME!!!”. I suspect it’s the kind of thing you’d need to see to understand why it’s funny, but Charlie and I crack ourselves up over it and incorporate it into related themes. Failed to put on shoes with good traction before walking on icy sidewalks? NEVER MADE IT HOME!!! Didn’t wear a seatbelt for a 40 second car ride? (Hey, it’s cold). NEVER MADE IT HOME!!! Anyway, I don’t even remember why I thought this was worth mentioning, other than it’d be funny to remember for posterity. Charlie slept at my place and we vaguely got out of bed in the mid-afternoon to eat some food and assess how much snow had fallen, but eventually we succumbed to the winter malaise and spent the rest of the afternoon in bed.

At this point the forecast predicted 2-4 inches of snow and about 1 had fallen, I sneezed at their predictions. Our excessive bed-time ended in getting lucky and then as we were preparing to go to dinner, Mac called. He got invited along to dinner and honestly, I like Charlie’s friends (Mac in particular) but sometimes they are so slow to get going. We didn’t head to dinner until about an hour later, at which time a blizzard had developed. Macaroni Grill was our original destination but we only made it to Hanley Rd. before we figured it might be a better idea to choose a closer destination. We headed to Cicero’s instead, where we enjoyed tasty pizza and possibly even tastier alcoholic hot chocolate. Just the thing for blizzard conditions! I think my favorite part of snow is when it’s falling. It’s never as pleasant after it freezes into ice slicks a few days later and gets all grubby in the streets. Then the 3 of us came back to my place and hung out for a while before heading over to the ugly sweater xmas party at M.&L.’s place. Ugly sweater party was fun, I drank some alcoholic cider and ate too many cookies and had unintentionally hilarious conversations about kegel devices with a sizeable group. We lingered there til 3am, Mac and Charlie and I being the last to leave. The snow had stopped by that point, and there was a good 5 inches on the ground.  None of us were tired so we went back to Charlie’s place where we hung out with C., not doing anything interesting. I fell asleep on Charlie’s lap at 4:30am and slept at his place.

 

RIP honda

Today was the appointed day to return to central IL to get Charlie’s stuff out of his (totaled) car.  We dragged ourselves out of bed around 10 and I discovered that Charlie had gone to Qdoba in the early AM to get us breakfast burritos.  There was a little too much queso involved but on the whole they’re really tasty, and apparently cheaper than the regular burritos.  Drove up there, went to the tow yard and bludgeoned our way into the car.  It wasn’t in that bad of shape, 3 doors opened without trouble but we had to give the trunk a series of vigorous kicks to get it open.  I managed to unscrew the rear license plate but the front one was attached with bolts instead of screws, so we had to throw the front bumper in my car on top of piles of sports equipment and camping goods.  Had lunch at Panera and drove back to St. Louis.  Charlie ditched me to go out with his friends; I was kind of bitter having done him a sizeable favor.  I went to the old navy and then hung out at B&N the rest of the evening.  I talked to Charlie at 1:30 am, he was drunk and stuck downtown at a dance club and wanted to depart, so I picked him up and took him to steaknshake.  It had started snowing with some vigor by this point and it was rather enjoyable to drive through the deserted city with all the snow falling.  Brought Charlie back to my place, got lucky, and went to sleep at something like 4am.  God, my sleeping schedule is so mis-aligned.

 

Charlie slept at my place and despite going to sleep early, he wouldn’t get out of bed because he didn’t want to talk to the insurance people about the tragic state of his wrecked car. We both seemed to be having the winter blahs, where it’s barely daylight outside and cold and nothing interesting is going on and you spend too much time in bed because it’s warm, blah blah blah. We finally dragged ourselves out of the house to go eat dinner at tasty thai, which was nice. It was raining and cold so we went to the mall to walk. I find the mall to be ok as long as I don’t go there too often. We walked and walked and walked, for close to 2 hours. It was good to get some exercise. I went to the restroom while we were there and Charlie wandered into the jewelery store that’s right next to the restrooms and when the salesguy asked if he could provide assistance, Charlie told him no, my girlfriend is in the bathroom but she’s not worth more than $20. OK, I kid, he didn’t actually tell the guy that because he didn’t want to make an awkward, but we agreed it would have been funny if he had.

We came back to my place and Charlie got to work (he has taken to using my computer since his laptop screen is jacked, see here) and I baked mince pies and read a book. The mince pies turned out well, if a teeny bit overcooked. I didn’t burn the pastry or anything, I just like it a little softer than it turned out. Still delicious. I went to bed and Charlie worked all night long.

 

Charlie never made it over to my place, which I suppose can be forgiven since it was cold/rainy/icy and he no longer has a car.  I called him in the afternoon and he was still fast asleep, I offered to come over and cuddle him but when I got there he was still really asleep.  So I did his laundry and went to target/the joes to do grocery shopping for both of us instead.  I know, I am kind and thoughtful, what can I say.  After that he and I watched the international world cup of men’s volleyball for a little while and then he went to basketball.  He came over to my place after that and showered and we went to steaknshake for dinner #2 (we had shared a microwave meal earlier).

Before and after eating, we saw a bunch of fire/police vehicles heading east on Manchester and decided to go see what the spectacle was.  We’ve never seen a warehouse or the Schlafly brewery burn down, for example, and were curious as to what might be going on.  Sadly, despite our best efforts we could not find anything that would suggest a need for 6 firetrucks and several cop cars, other than a block in Maplewood that had no power.  Funnily enough the power came back on right as we were driving through it.  So instead we took a tour around town to look at xmas lights, down to Tower Grove and Grand and then back along Chippewa because I was still hungry and held out some absurd hope that maybe, just maybe Ted Drewes would be open at 11pm on a monday in December.  We came back to my place, got lucky, and passed out by 2am.

 

tree time!

I lazed in bed a lot today and Charlie lazed even longer (he slept at my place).  I got up and got the xmas tree out of the basement and assembled it and dragged Charlie out of bed to help decorate it.  We did that, it was fun and rather festive to have the tree installed.  It adds a certain holiday je ne sais quoi to the living room and it’s my only xmas themed decoration.  Then we ordered indian food to go, got lucky, and went (slightly late) to pick it up.  Went to Charlie’s place to eat while watching a Celtics game and then he went to do beer making stuff with the man friends and I went to the B&N.  After that I watched TV and read some Guns, Germs and Steel (my current reading effort).  He came to sleep at my place verrrrry late at night, having been beer making and going for late night pancakes.

 

tasty little chopses

Man, I was sore in the arms today because of rock climbing.  I did stuff around house, thought about playing disc golf, realized it was 32 degrees outside.  Called Charlie and invited myself over for cuddles.  We did, in fact, cuddle, as well as eat leftover noodles and get lucky.  Came back to my place where we had pork chops, trader joes stuffing and peas for dinner.  The chops were pretty good, great flavor but I overcooked them a wee bit.  The stuffing smelled SO GOOD in the pan, but upon eating it the flavor was not up to snuff.  A case of not enough seasoning packet to excessive breadcrumbs, perhaps?  Or maybe just not the right seasonings that I like in stuffing.  Charlie agreed it wasn’t up to stovetop standards.  Then we acquired C. and went to the gym, where they played basketball and I ellipticalled.  Then back to my place to shower, after which we were going to go to SnS but instead ended up at Mi Ranchito with Mac and CW.  I had chimichangas which were delicious, although I’m going to try to remember to order them without sour cream, because I don’t eat it and it just melts into a mess everywhere.  After that we went to Mac’s place to hang out, chat, watch a Phish tour DVD, and play mario cart.  That Phish DVD did an excellent job of convincing me the members of Phish are not people I’d ever want to hang out with.  Back to my place, where I did dishes and read and went to bed and Charlie worked.  A rather pleasant day, all in all.