Category: Before

I live in that building there — the one in the middle, The Washington Mutual Tower, up on the fiftieth floor. It’s pretty nice, but it can be a pain when the dog wants to go out. We have to go all the way down for him to do his business, and then we have to go all the way back up again.

And I have a dog. I live in that building and I have a dog.

The bank is just downstairs, which is convenient. But there aren’t any grocery stores in walking distance. Rent is easy to afford — it’s only $36 a month — but I had to make a non-refundable pet deposit (for the dog that I have).

The dog doesn’t really get along with some of the neighbors, so I try to keep them apart.

If you order the garden burger off the sandwich menu, it’ll cost $7.25. On the burger menu, a basic hamburger costs $7.25. But a note at the end of the burger menu says that a garden burger patty or a chicken breast can be substituted for an extra fifty cents. That garden burger will cost you $7.75. The menu is still internally consistent: The garden burger on the sandwich menu has onions, lettuce, and tomatoes. The hamburger has all that, plus it has pickles. An “add pickles: 50 cents” note could be added to the sandwich menu for clarification.

There’s a series of canoe-themed bus shelters on Eastlake. This one is covered in fragments from Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees.

I’m staying at Samantha’s for a few days while a newly poured floor is settling in my hallway. (Who would imagine that a floor could come out of a bucket. That’s something that might happen in a Looney Tunes cartoon.)

I’m at a cafe on Eastlake sitting at the window watching the traffic roll by. On the other side of the window, on a sidewalk table, there’s a vintage (mid-20th century) coffee can serving as an ash tray. Something has been burning inside the can since I sat down. There’s a steady plume of smoke that’s only just starting to fade.

There’s a little orange dog waiting outside and looking unhappy. People who pass by lean down to pet it, first holding out a hand for it to sniff — a bit of dog petting etiquette that I usually forget.

This was posted with Azure, a Movable Type posting client that works on internet-connected Palm-based PDAs (and presumably anything that runs the Java Runtime Environment). Setup was easy and it has an intuitive UI. Let’s see if this is posted.

Olive Way

For kicks, I put together a Beans for Breakfast calendar for next month. This is a normal paper calendar with all the usual holidays pre-marked, but it’s decorated with a photo from Beans for Breakfast instead of a picture of a cat with a ball of string or a Drabble comic. Print it out, pin it to your refrigerator*, and try to write in the inconveniently small squares.

The files are 134 KB PDFs, which require Adobe Acrobat Reader to open:
Printable February 2004 calendar in 8 1/2″ X 11″ Letter Size (for patriots)
Printable February 2004 calendar in A4 Size (for the metrically inclined)

*PS: Don’t pin it to your refrigerator.

Over by the window a man describes the history of every dish on the menu to the woman across the table from him. While she’s not quite enraptured, she does seem mildly impressed.

We’re seated next to the fish tank. The fish — big Koi goldfish — are nipping at every available surface in their search for sustenance. They go for the aquarium walls, the shells and coral, and even chew on each other.

The pair at the other table are ordering. The waitress asks, “How spicy?”

The guy hesitates and explains, “I usually like it really spicy, but since we’re sharing and this is your first time, we might want to keep it down at two stars.”

A small group is seated at a table just behind me now. “We put out leaflets, and a couple of weeks later we have a mass march, but then what happens? How are things different?”

Back at the window: “The thing about Chicago is that it’s a hub.”

One of the fish is vacuuming rocks up off the aquarium floor.

The guy at the window table, one last time: “You mean you’ve never had a lost weekend?” It’s a first date, no question.

I called 911. “I’m at Pike Place Market – First and Pike. Someone has collapsed in the middle of the street.”

The dispatcher pressed me for details that I didn’t have. “It looks like we’ve already got someone on the way. Thanks.” I hung up and got back to eating my sandwich.

There was already a crowd huddled over the fallen man. After a couple of traffic light cycles, they picked him up and carried him to the sidewalk where they laid him out.

There was a siren and traffic made way for a fire truck.

I asked a rhetorical question, “Why do they always send both a fire truck and an ambulance?”

Fire fighters jumped out of the truck. A woman wearing business attire reached up from the huddle and shook one of the fire fighters’ hands. The fire fighter was wearing latex gloves.

The crowd wandered away as the fire fighters got to work. The woman was gone within thirty seconds of the handshake.

One of the fire fighters carried a big yellow case over from the truck.

Samantha described the details that I wasn’t noticing. “They’re shocking him.”

“What? Is that what that is? Do they have those paddles? I don’t see it.”

“Yes. They’re shocking him. He just moved.”

“He did? Where’s the ambulance? I guess it’s a good thing that they do send a fire truck.”

The fire fighters helped the man sit up. They left him up for a minute before gently prompting him to lay back down.

Another siren. The ambulance pulled up next to the fire truck. The paramedics talked to the fire fighters briefly, then rolled out a gurney, lifted the man onto it, and hauled him on board.

The ambulance headed up Pike – no flashing lights – and the fire truck followed a moment later. That was it. Samantha and I continued eating our sandwiches. Actually, I think I had pizza.

Happy Birthday, Dad

It’s a big round birthday today for my dad. I looked around a bit and found this picture of him from a few years back.