Corn Maze and David Sedaris

I felt how ridiculous my life is when I typed that title...
Anyway, Matt invited me to dinner and a corn maze in Gahanna with his people.

He picked me up from Easton, so of course we went on a hunt for the perfect dark gray coat that doesn't exist. He made me go into Abercrombie, where I had never been before and would happily have avoided for the rest of my life. First issue there: I seriously felt like I was choking on the smell in there. And it lingered on my jacket for about 20 minutes after we left. Second issue: I can't help but be embarrassing, so I walked around marveling at my surrounding as if I were on a safari. I managed to snap this picture while Matt wasn't looking. The mancessory display of ribbony, leathery bro bracelets... behind glass like diamonds or something. I just didn't understand it there.

Then it was on to Los Jalapenos, a Mexican restaurant in Gahanna, because authentic Mexican food always hides in the suburbs. The decor in this place was hard freaking core. I wasn't sure what to expect when the first door we walked through looked like it was stolen it from a cheap model home, but I was pleasantly surprised by the tasteful scenes of authentic Mexican life painted on the backs of all the booths, the tops of all the tables, and on all of the chairs. I got vegetarian enchiladas and realized after eating the first of 3 that they were not, in fact, all filled with cheese, but one had guacamole filling, the other spinach. Food that you have to plan out before eating is just out of my league.

Then we drove way out Morse Rd past Gahanna school district and into the creepy boonies of Ohio to the corn maze. There was a terrifying port-a-potty moment, some naive discussion of winning colorful suckers for collecting all the clues within, and we were off. This was he view pretty much the whole way through. I don't think I ever actually looked at a map, so I did a lot of following and a lot of scooching myself out of the leading position. The big argument among group leadership throughout the maze was whether or not it was a good idea to take a right at every turn until we made it through. We ended up getting 3 out of 8 clues and asking a teenage maze employee how to get out. I almost died about ten times slipping in muddy patches and thunking my foot in holes, but I felt satisfied that I had done something autumnal.

Okay so I followed that hillbilly moment by seeing David Sedaris at the Palace Theater. I realized when we got there that I had only ever been to the Ohio Theater, which somehow in my mind counted as both. I took this picture of the outer sitting room from the inner sitting room leading to the bathroom. Pretty swanky. Their bathroom is bigger than my apartment. I sighed a few times in  there.

I really wish you could see this better. I'm sure you've been there before, but I was really excited by the fire place. There were two light bulbs under a gold grate with big amber rocks on top. At what point in history was this a realistic fake fire? Okay, ran out of steam and my nephew is yelling (joyful yelling, so it's cute).

Federal Hill, Columbus Day Parade, and My Favorite Building in Providence

 Welcome. That is what pineapples mean. This post will be long, but mostly because of pictures. You think you are a picture-taking addict? I've gotten used to taking pictures at all kinds of inappropriate times and inappropriate places. That...sounded bad.

Anyway, Imma introduce you to Federal Hill, Providence's for-serious little Italy. I looked at an apartment near Federal Hill, and when we drove onto Atwells Avenue and saw little old men playing checkers on the sidewalk, I felt certain I wanted to live there. (And then neither of the apartments were available/in my price range and I got it over it a little bit.)

Federal Hill is pretty much just Italian restaurant after Italian restaurant, one after another after another. Apparently the block also features some of the best restaurants in the country (according to some magazine; yes, this is very well-documented stuff I'm talking about.) I've only been to one - when my parents came - Cassarino's. It was pretty swank, but it was so much food that I had three people's leftovers for a week. You can see the sign for it here...

 

Oh, what is that enormous creepy thing waving to you from in front of the sign, you ask? 

Oh, just a puppet. 

A giant puppet.

Another view. He's worth it. He's actually from some kind of puppet-making and performance group in Providence called Big Nazo. You're rethinking this whole "Lexington is so much cooler than Providence" thing now, aren't you?

Let me back up - Providence does not just have random puppets walking the street. I happened to hit up Federal Hill just as they were having a parade for Columbus Day. (Also, who celebrates Columbus Day?) I had known there would be a Columbus Day Festival, but it was just serendipity that I came right as the parade was happening.

More parade stuff:

These guys WITH A CANON followed right behind a group of military guys WITH RIFLES who would just shoot their rifles (on cue) into the air, all at once. The guys with the canon would also shoot canons - they did it like three times in front of me, and my ear drums have not been the same since.

 

I hope you can see this. There were a lot of really random groups dressed in historical costumes. These guys, in Roman ware, followed guys who looked like Revolutionary soldiers. I hope you can see the guy in the middle wearing a bear pelt over his head.

I did  not realize it until now, but I love Shriners. Their hats, their tiny cars, their little-old-man-ness: what is not to love? This is "RI Shriner's Hillbilly Clan" float, which made nooo sense to me whatsoever. They pretended to try to wrestle someone out of the old-fashioned latrine that's behind them and yelled "HOWDYY" at us several times while wearing overalls. It all made me miss the Midwest very much.

So many random cultural floats. This one is about El Dorado and featured four girls in what essentially amounted to Princess Leia outfits. Disturbingly, three of those girls looked to be about eight years old.

More cultural floats. The whole band managed to fit into the back of that thing.

Now for some random pictures of Federal Hill, so you feel like you were walking along next to me, trying not to buy meatball subs and cannoli:

(This is the square on Atwells. Gotta love that fountain.)

I love it when buildings look this tacky.

I went into this place called Venda Ravioli. They're an Italian grocery store, and it's like a tiny, smelly heaven. I promise I took pictures of stuff besides meat; this was just the only picture that didn't come out blurry.

So after I walked up and down the festival twice and didn't buy anything because I'm poor and apparently a sadist (who goes to a festival that is pretty much just food and doesn't eat?), I walked onto Broadway, a street parallel to Atwells, and not crowded. And look what I found:

A reminder of the ole C-bus. I feel like maybe the "Opening Soon" is some kind of message to me, but right now I can't create any really bad metaphor around it.

And lastly, I've been meaning to show you my favorite building in all of Providence, and I finally took a picture of it.

It might be hard to see why it's my favorite building unless you enlarge it. Over the front door-arc thing is this Greek-God-like guy looming over everything. The building is like a soft-angled triangle on the weirdest shaped street possible, and I reach it right before I go into downtown. Every time I see it, I'm in awe. I have absolutely no idea what happens inside that building, but it's got to be fantastic. Or really boring. There's a copy place and a bank on the other side of the street.

Lexington, KY

Okay, a week later I'm finally getting around to posting because it has taken me this long to realize the USB charger that came with my phone lets me get pictures directly from my phone without having to email them to myself. I feel smart.

I will now prove to you that Lexington is cuter than Providence and clearly cuter than Columbus:

First stop, Magee's Bakery for the world's most delicious cake. It's like bathing in a sea of vanilla frosting in there. Had we not been on a mission, I could easily have sat down and eaten every cupcake in the place.

This mural has been there since I was in elementary school and my dad would take us to get a doughnut on the way to school on Fridays. I did not include a picture of my elementary school, which is right around the corner, because it is probably the world's ugliest building and they've changed the playground about 15 times since I went there, and isn't that really the only part that matters?

Next stop: Kroger's on Romany (That's what the sign reads in the same burgundy that it was when it used to be called Randall's... they don't like change in my Grandmother's old neighborhood).

Benedictine!!! The most delicious substance known to man. It's cream cheese, cucumber and onion flavor with a little green food coloring to make it look inedible to people from other states. We got some for sandwiches and I got some to take home because for some reason Ohio doesn't understand the appeal of squishy green cream on white bread.

I included this picture partly because I miss that sandwich and partly to show that everything in my Grandmother's tiny retirement home apartment (of course still much bigger than mine) is cute. She hired a decorator when she first moved. I would have taken a picture of the adorable chair I was sitting in, but she had already seen me take a picture of my lunch and I didn't want to further the impression that I have compulsive picture-taking issues (which I do).

I helped her transfer photos from an old album to a new one, so I got to look at some great family photos. Photos always come with stories, so I heard some good old ones and a couple of crazy new ones. My favorite was learning that my Great Great Grandfather, who was a very well-respected judge in Frankfort completed school only to 2nd or 3rd grade and learned law by reading books in the office of a lawyer he worked for. Keep in mind that my grandmother is 92, so that happened in the mid 1800s. I'm pretty sure Kentucky's educational standards for public figures have since been raised.

This is Old Glenary, the mansion my Grandmother's family owned in Frankfort. It's only called "old" because it burned completely to the ground and has since been rebuilt. Now that I know that I come from the kind of family who names their houses, I have to think of a good name for my apartment. What makes a semi-basement almost studio apartment sound stately? Side note: I found out that the country estate, Lemon Hill, owned by my Grandmother's cousin Ed's family before he died, was purchased by Kevin of the Backstreet Boys... I've been in a Backstreet Boy's house. WHOA! Are they officially NKOTBSB now or was that only for their tour with New Kids on the Block? Not important.

This is the house my momma grew up in. She lived on the most beautiful street in Lexington. The woman who bought this house from my Grandmother when she moved in the 1970s let us come once to see it. People are so polite there. My Grandmother still calls to check up on her now and then. It is enormous on the inside. I think there might have been a fireplace in my mom's bedroom. She told me that when she was a baby, there was a maid who dressed her twice a day because her mother wanted to see her in "two pretty dresses every day" (if you can imagine that being said in an old timey southern baby voice, you'll get the idea). I'm not sure they were always new dresses, but this gives some idea of the difference in living standards from one generation to the next.

We walked around the UK arboretum to see the tree my uncle donated in my Grandmother's name. It was all decorated for fall with scare crows made by different schools, churches and whatnot scattered along the path. I got lots of gravel in the shoes I bought the day before to wear to lunch with my Grandmother so as not to look like a bum in front of all the retirement home residents and took way too many pictures. I shared this one because his old-timey mustache is so very current.

I took this picture on our way out of town. This is the enormous house where we stay whenever we visit. My mom's cousin and his wife own it. That stuff on the lawn is blankets covering my aunt's more delicate plants because she was worried it would frost overnight and kill them, so don't go thinking that even classy Kentuckians leave crap all over their lawns. You can imagine how small my apartment felt when I got home.
What I learned from this post: I am a big fan of run-on sentences that stop making sense halfway through and have to be reread for clarity.