I went on an impromptu rampage through the neighborhood tonight in search of brownie mix tonight. Amazingly enough, however, you apparently can't buy brownie mix anywhere but a grocery store--which was not within a 3-block radius of the el stop. However, I did learn a few neat things about my neighborhood:*
1. The Happy Food Spot on Lincoln carries six different kinds of orzo. They also sell CRUMPETS. I didn't even know what these looked like, but in the package they looked a little like small English muffins.
2. The German deli further up on Lincoln sells all kinds of stuff, much of it I can't even pronounce. They force their salesgirls to wear little lace tiaras in their hair, though, which has to be a sticky negotiating point. I was impressed by the bread on racks by the door, especially "Land Brot," whatever that is.
3. I don't know why this disappointed me, but Walgreen's did not sell brownie mix. There was a nice-looking recipe for chocolate chip cookies on the back of the cakemix box, but they didn't have chocolate chips, etc., etc. I could feel this saga spiralling endlessly out of control, so I went home.
Don't even get me started on the quality of the "grocery stores" near my office. Looks like it's peanut butter cookies for us on Wednesday.
Came home and there was a message for us to go to the neighborhood association potluck next Tuesday. Ordinarily I would avoid these kinds of events, but these days any event I don't have to plan, finance, promote, or write about sounds good to me. At any rate I'd like to know a few more people around here. The anonymous generic nature of my parents' apartment complex creeped me out a bit.
Maybe this will give me the impetus to do some stuff around my house and building this spring. I'm tired of endless working and never achieving anything but words on a screen, or on a page.
Today would have been George Harrison's birthday. Amazingly All Things Must Pass has its own .com suffix now.
The Chicago Tribune ran a story today about how all the New York literati don't want to do the group book read that Chicago did last fall with To Kill a Mockingbird. Alas they did not reproduce online the photo in the paper of the mayor flailing in a furious blur like a serial killer. The caption says he's "amused" but I don't see him smiling.
*Yes, I admit it, I have lived here for six months and am still in discovery mode. This may go on for several years.
Posted at February 25, 2002 08:41 PM