i'm pretty sure this is why we don't live in wyoming, or colorado, or utah, or, and especially, montana.

one of the most often told origin stories of the marty/troy relationship deals with where we live. when people learn that i grew up in colorado, the first thing they ask is why we don't live in colorado now (versus st. louis).

of all the couples that live in st. louis, 90% of ...

our family was at ted drewes, a famous dessert shack in our town. after putting in our order we stepped to the side to wait for our treats. a group of old guys took our place at the order window. the first of them said, "i'd like a hot fudge sundae with extra-extra hot fudge and the seniors discount."

after completing his sentence, he turned to the two old guys behind him and said, "i bet you didn't know about the seniors discount."

the consented they did not. he flashed a schoolboy's smile.

then he caught marty's eye and before he could say anything to her she said, "and i didn't know about the extra-extra hot fudge."

his schoolboy smile got a bit younger and a touch wider at her clever quip.

biking one or more of the kids to art-hill in the bike carrier or a beautiful day for some lazing in the grass and kite flying will stand, for me, as one of the more picturesque and quintessential moments of having young kids. few memories warm me like the safe and warm times these days brought and this image takes me back, right back to that hill at that moment. ...

for those that might not know, st. louis has a tradition where the trick or treaters have to (are supposed to) have a joke to tell before getting candy. this ritual initially annoyed me but has grown on me over the years. here are the kids' jokes this year:

ANTHONY
how do you tell if you have a dumb dog?

ALEX
what do you call an elephant in the arctic?

BELLA
what do ghouls and ghosts wear?

i'll let you chew on those over the weekend. i'll post the answers next week.

marty has started telling bella (12) she is getting too old to trick or treat, news that proved reasonably devastating to both bella and i. for bella, more than the dressing up or the boons of the candy, she loves the challenge of hitting as many houses as possible in her allotted window. obviously she has gotten dramatically better each year, namely through good planning and strategy. the last two years she's graduated from the orange plastic pumpkin container to the pillow case to carry her candy, the inside sign of a real gamer. as for me, i'm one who believes, that like with many facets of life, one's entry into and out of halloween deals more with their personal love of the ritual than an actual age. so as long as one is willing to engage in the rules and requirements of the tradition, one is eligible to play. i feel i aged out of the dressing up thing at around seven but surely know several people, my age, that haven't lost their love of it yet. more on bella's status as a pillowcase carrying participant in years to come i'm sure.

something that has become my favorite part of halloween in our home is the post-trick-or-treating trading session that happens just inside the doorway. bella introduced this practice a few years back and early on it proved to be little more than her figuring out how she could get her favorite candy from her brothers' bags. in this routine, each kid dumps out their bucket and starts assessing the stock, pulling their favorites aside. this obviously leaves a less coveted circle of candy before them which they start offering for trade.

does anyone like almond joys? almond joys here.

yes. yes. i want them.

what do you got?

i got ... i got ... i got skittles.

ok. skittles for almond joys. here's three. you got three?

yes.

their hands exchange the goods quickly and begin the desperate search for the next trade. now that everyone is older, the bartering is much more even, heated and raucous. last night we had three extra kids over and the decibels hit new heights--although this happens with birthday party pinatas too and while there are more kids, there is less variety which makes things a bit more sedate. last night's trading was a furious affair given the ages of the kids and volumes of candy. the craziest bidding war happened when bella raised a mini pack of swedish fish over her head with both hands looking like she cradled a sacred chalice above her. she loudly called out "swedish fish! i've got one bag of swedish fish here!" this announcement silenced the room as everyone stopped and stared over bella's head. they then looked down and started calling out candy names. when someone said kit-kat bella lit up and said yes. when someone heard her response, they yelled "i'll give you two kit-kats". you know what happened next. the one bag of swedish fish ended up going for eleven kit-kats to alex. when bella stepped over the segregated ponds of candy to alex's spot, he counted out six kit-kat packs in her hand while she held the prized swedish fish in her other. when he stopped at six she looked at her hand.

whoa buddy. where's the rest?

what?

you bid eleven.

yeah.

there's only six here.

but there's two in each pack. that's twelve. so really, you're getting an extra one.

(after a pause) ok. since you're my brother, i'll let that slide. but next time, no funny math.

i felt bad for anthony as he had problems reading the candy names so just had to hold things over his head and in a tinny voice shout, "i have these. does anyone want some of these?". his small call couldn't compete with the din of the room so i'd see what he had and tell him the name so he could upgrade his marketing to, "i have a heath bar. does anyone want a heath bar?" which usually did better to get the attention of the frenetic, sugar-addled audience.

and this, this post-collection ritual, is mostly why i think bella should be allowed to continue trick-or-treating. what would ever happen to the candy trading-floor were she to be benched. she brings an attitude and fierceness to the affair i don't think will be easily replaced. and bella and i are not the only ones thinking on her potential forced retirement. while we were between houses with a lit porch light anthony told me that because this was bella's last year trick-or-treating they, the three kids, were going to create a 'candy bank' they each put candy into each year so that when mom said they were all too old to trick-or-treat anymore, they would still have some halloween candy. i wonder how a limited supply of stock would amp up the trading floor. i could see it getting physical right quick.

and speaking of cogent points made by my seven year old, while playing twenty questions with anthony's classmates at his room party earlier in the day, anthony raised his hand. when i called on him his question was mildly different than the others kids questions. one kid's first question to a new game was not 'is it an animal' or 'is it bigger than a breadbox', but "is it an ardvark?". when i said no it was not an ardvark, the next kid i called on asked, "is it blue?". when i said no it was not blue, the hands continued popping up. when i called on anthony, he asked, "what kind of matter is it?" all the adults all looked at each other and then to me for the answer. here i had the embarrasing task of having to say i wasn't sure aside from the fact that the thing i was thinking of did have matter. my first grader then assisted me by adding, "no dad. i mean is it solid, liquid, or gas?". now that i could answer but wished he said that in the first place so i didn't have to so publicly reveal to the room why i chose the liberal arts over the sciences. they say with modern studies there comes a point where parents will not be able to help their kids with their homework. i think that point has come at an embarrassingly early age for me.

my favorite halloween tale from this year came from one of marty's students.

when st louis kids trick or treat the majority of folks (e.g. those who grew up in the lou) require a joke or trick before giving out candy. thus, the lead up to the big day involves in addition to choosing your costume, finding the joke you will tell hundred plus times that evening while you make your rounds.

how strictly a house chooses to enforce the joke/trick rule varies widely. in the day after re-hash at school, one of marty's ninth grade students told of unique practice he runs at his door. if he guesses the punchline to a kid's joke, instead of candy, he gives them a piece of american cheese, individually wrapped of course.

as a collector of thoughtful human moments, this particular thought and subsequent practice holds a prominent spot on my wall of noteworthy artifacts.

this is a saint louis centric post. for any fans, rabid or otherwise, of The Future Antiques (site), be advised they moved. this is the store that specializes in 50's and 60 gear like games, kitchenwares, art decor, and of course old school ice crushers! when i first found them they were on cherokee street which claimed our city's best mexican cuisine. then they moved to south grand where you went if vietnamese food was your thing. as of today they are on chippewa (6514), just down the way from ted drewes custard house. talk about two tasty birds!

and if you don't live in st. lou, perhaps you'd enjoy this past story partly about tfa back when it was still on cherokee.

yesterday i mentioned some things anthony deems pleasing to the palate, today i thought i'd share some i call tasty. this occurs to me as i recently went out for dinner with a couple of friends and stumbled into an wonderful dish, a cornbread dusted tilapia which is a very pedestrian name for a very tantalizing treatment. with the food still lingering on my taste buds, once home, i searched for a recipe. instead of seeing how to make it myself, i found the very dish i was after being touted as one of the 25 best options to be had in my city. of the twenty-five, as of three hours earlier, i'd only experienced one of them. you should know, i (and/or marty) don't get out all that much.

25 saint louis dishes you need to order now

while i am not someone i would call a foodie, i am someone who makes rich food a part of his routines, so the next logical step was to craft my list of the best eats in stl. they include:

cornbread dusted tilapia at cyranos
i'm going to start here because this is what got the ball rolling. this is a place known for their desserts. their bread pudding has been called one of the best in the country (perhaps because of its mid-west stylings). but their tilapia was easily the best piece of tilapia to ever sit before me.

chargrilled pork at lemon grass
i was introduced to lemon grass by a vegetarian. he told me that even with over sixty items on the menu, he thought that over half their sales were for their chargrilled pork. the first seventy times i ate at there it is what i ordered. then i tried the chargrilled shrimp and now choose between those two depending on my mood.

spicy beef noodle soup at wong's wok
there was this hole in the wall chinese place near my where i lived that served a special dish on fridays and saturdays called spicy beef noodle soup. it consist of a large bowl loaded with noodles and a chunks of seasoned and stewed beef on top. if you went by this place on fridays or saturdays you would always see no less than seven to twelve of these bowls on the tables with ravenous patrons hunched over them, piling the piping noodles onto a large spoon with their chopsticks before eagerly bringing it to their mouth. initially, it was hard to ask what the dish was because most of these folks spoke very little english.

as an aside, the people here have taught my kids several chinese words one of which aleo still uses to send me off in the morning.

mango roll at i heart mr sushi
i've been routinely eating at i heart for about seven years now. at my peak i was eating there three days a week. since their mango roll was first slid before me i've never eaten there since without ordering one.

garlic and onion shrimp at pho grand
the mark of how good this dish is is that all humans you come in contact with for the next three days will know and hate you for having this dish it but you just won't care. exclusion and solitude are a small prices to pay for such a flavorful experience.

shrimp and brie stuffed salmon at mccormick and schiffs
the original comes from jake's seafood in portland but through mergers and acquistions it has been brought to my backyard. surely not as good, but still ridiculously good.

beef kabob at cafe natasha
the people and atmosphere at cafe natasha are wonderful. the kabobs are even better.

whatever they're serving at the farm haus
i've just recently discovered this place but my first experience was over the top. and i have to say whatever they're serving becuase that is how they run the place. you come in for lunch, the only thing on the menu is the blue plate special. it's different every day but whatever it is that day is what you can have, aside from choosing between sweetened or unsweetened tea. i went on a friday which was breaded fish, rice, beans, and hushpuppies. these would be four things i'm not even particularly fond of and my salivary glands are still trying to come to grips with the culinary tryst. decadent. i hope to next go when they're serving bacon wrapped meatloaf with mashed tater tots.

know one i don't, please drop me an email, even if it's from another city as i'm next going to share a few national gems i know of.

in response to some feedback i received regarding yesterday's post.

1. i did not mean to imply saint louis has not shown any signs of the recession. i was saying saint louis was showing less signs of the recession than my friend's city was. out of respect for his personal situation, i'm not going to get into specifics, but they have public services looking at potential layoffs of 80% of staff and an 85% reduction of physical locations. and this from an organization that has never in its history laid a single person off, and that is a history that includes our country's great depression. in recent years my employer has not issued raises, instituted a hiring freeze and in a few instances laid people off. but i find this quite innocuous compared to firing 80% of your staff outright.
2. i was trying to be funny. i've long been told i'm one of those guys who is only funny when he's not trying to be funny and that my attempts at being funny always fall short and thus, me trying to "bring the funny" is ill-advised. this point is duly noted.
3. i agree the only really funny part of the post was my friend saying in-bev should have pushed the arch into the river as they rumbled through town and people reported visions of a giant big-boy like character stomping through saint louis and dragging the clydesdales behind him like a set of pet wiener dogs and knocking stuff over everywhere like a petulant child.
4. and for those that asked if my friend who said the funny line had a site and if so would i share it with them because then they could go straight to the funny guy and not have to wait for me to sprinkle his humor into my content. the answer is no, he does not have a site. he used to but no longer does. so there. you're stuck with me.

a friend was telling me about how his city and employer are being ravaged by the recession. i was shocked by his descriptions of rampant business failings and layoffs, mostly because i'm not seeing anything near those levels in my own city. a few minutes into the conversation the reason behind the difference occurred to me; my city has been in a state of recession for over fifty years where his city has not been.

saint louis has slowly siphoned off their significant local businesses long ago so we don't really have a whole lot left to die on the vine. especially with the fall of Anheuser Busch, our last truffula tree. when i made this observation, my friend, quick as a whip, added that when in-bev took AB they might as well have pushed the arch into the mississippi on their way out of town with one of our city's last and most storied family jewels.

so number seven on the reasons saint louis is a good place to live; we're conveniently recession proof given we have no businesses left to fail.

there is a question i've been meaning to ask the saint louis crowd for awhile now and after my trip back west, the question has turned to a fiery itch. the question is where can i get a proper sopapilla in this town. the sopapillas of colorado and new mexico are billowy and fluffy and served with honey. the sopapillas of missouri are flat and oil-laden and served with a dollop of ice cream and a layer of chocolate syrup (in attempt to mask their abject terribleness).

the first person who points me to an edible saint louis sopapilla gets a free lunch at that same establishment, paid for by me. a plus side is you'll get to eat lunch with me because once i discover this place, i'm never leaving.

good and proper sopapilla

poor and miserable imposter

traversing life successfully usually means doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done. living in saint louis, there is extra truth in this statement twice a year. the first is doing what needs to be done to stay cool in august and the second is doing what needs to be done to get through allergy season.

friday was halloween. anthony was a clown. alex was spiderman. and bella wore a self-made costume announcing herself as a star princess. our neighborhood is one of the lucky ones where halloween is still alive. we on average get about a hundred kids. this year marty stayed to dish out candy and i ushered our cadre onto the busy nighttime sidewalks.

in saint louis, the custom states that you must either do a trick or tell a joke before obtaining candy. these days enforcement of the rule varies from house to house but it is best to have something ready should the human with the candy bowl challenge your preparedness. not yet verbal enough, anthony did a trick. it was jumping up and down. sometimes he'd give people one big jump and sometimes he'd give them a flurry of quick bounces. either way it went the little blonde boy in a clown costume hopping for candy proved to be a crowd pleaser. one thing we didn't account for while practicing anthony's trick in the living room is that he'd often be doing his antic while on the top step of a short flight of cement or brick stairs. we had no catastrophes but it did raise the thrill-factor considerably. alex told a joke. his joke was, 'what did the baseball glove say to the baseball?' after people would say i don't know what the baseball glove said to the baseball alex would animatedly give the punch-line, 'catcha later!'. when giving the answer he had this great verbal peak on the backend which always won smiles. a couple of times he forgot the answer. on these doorsteps everyone would stand waiting and alex would be looking at the ground thinking hard. if somebody went to say something he'd hold up his hand and say, 'don't tell me, i know it' which also was grin-inducing. in addition to making her costume, bella also made up all of her jokes. some i can remember ... how do you compliment a cat? you tell her she's purrrfect. or, how do you compliment a cow? you tell him he's utterly awesome. bella left the boys and i in the dust about three houses in to run ahead with some of the neighbor girls so i'm not sure how well it went over but given the size of her haul, she didn't get turned away from too many doors.

the one oddity of the evening was a full-grown man dressed in a spot-on michael myers costume, mechanics jumpsuit and all. (clarification: this is the halloween movie guy and not the comedic austin powers guy). this lumbering, man wandered the neighborhood and was obviously alone. he did not go up to any doors, nor did he talk to anyone, nor did he carry a candy bag. he just roamed the sidewalks and would occasionally stand motionlessly staring at people from a distance. more than once i found him staring at me. i held his gaze from across the dark street until he'd become engulfed by kids and parents racing by or my own kids would beckon me to the next house. when i'd turn to look back he'd be gone. then i would see him several houses later again looking at me or at seemingly nothing. i overheard more than one mom say that someone should possibly call the police about him given his seeming lack of purpose or belonging. i didn't chime in but will say i wish one of them took the initiative. that guy was freaking my chili out.

one of the very last old, saint louis movie houses closed a few months back. several years ago it was absorbed by landmark when they came to town along with a few of the other small, privately held theaters. for several reasons landmark decided to cease operations of the hi-pointe theatre, originally built in 1922, and shuttered its windows.

but then, with the release of the new batman film, the hi-pointe's lights mysteriously came back on. while showing my support at a 10:15 viewing, i was told that a landmark employee based out of chicago quit his job, leased the space and is resuming operations of the historic theatre as a private business venture.

oh, and i was also told that next week is free popcorn week. so grab your girl or guy and take in heath ledger's farewell performance, which is worth seeing, in one of saint lou's last theaters with character. and i'd call about the popcorn. i may have heard that wrong or it may just be a few nights or whatever. i just don't want anyone getting pissy with me because i botched a detail. but, either way, at the hi-pointe you can actually load up at the snack bar for less than ten bucks.

and i have to comment on something said in the article linked to above. in it landmark ceo ted mundroff says that part of their decision was based upon the fact that "people prefer to go to multiplexes." i'm going to pause for a moment to collect myself before continuing. ok. almost there. alright. i think i can proceed now. let me start by saying HEY TED! SHUT THE HELL UP! and please, please, please don't ever again apply you imbecilic and self-serving notions about movie culture to me again. feel free to say your mother prefers multiplexes or your neighbor or some college frat brother, but don't ever imply that this is the true choice of the people. unless you are equating the sheer paucity of options left to the consumer after the corporations razed the land.

typically when i go to a movie theater i go to see A movie and i don't take my seat and reflect at how pleased i am that there are fourteen other movies playing at the same time in the same building as the one i actually came to watch. because you know what ted. the second i walk down the aisle of your multiplex theatre the first thing i feel is claustrophobic and that is because you shrunk and shrunk and shrunk the rooms so you could shoe-horn two or three or five more screens into the complex. but once i find my seat and sit down i'm welcomed by the inviting feel of a piece of fabric stapled to a piece of cardboard glued to a metal chair that is welded to a string of twenty other chairs so that when the four hundred pound guy eight seats away hefts himself out of his chair mid-film to refill his rubbermaid size tub of day-old, butter-it-yourself popcorn the whole row rocks because all the damn seats are connected to one another because the are cheaper by the dozen. but thankfully my mind doesn't dwell on this nuisance given the explosions and music and screams emanating through the wall of the films playing on either side of the room i'm in, movies, mind you, i did not come to see OR hear. so ted mundroff, someone may have put you in charge of a movie theatre chain and told you to do good but it is not because of your love of film or knowledge of the theater-going experience or even because you know what movie-goers like, want or need. it is because you know how to work a casio calculator and your gifts could just as easily be applied to shoes, valves or tampons. so again, don't ever pretend that you have my or any other customer's best interest in mind. it insults your patron's intelligence and reveals your lack of it.

and ted, there ain't a multiplex in this nation that has better:

• urinals
• marquees
• ticket booths
• style
• or class

than the hi-pointe. you pompous douchebag!

it was big news when it happened. it continues to be a bit of a thing around here, rightfully so. that is the sale of anheuser-busch (AB) to a belgium-based company for 52 billion dollars.

in 1999 i began planning to leave my employer after the company was purchased by an out of state bank. i put a single condition on the new job. the condition was this: i would only work for a company that would never be purchased. at the time of this missive i narrowed my local options down to two. the first was a well-endowed, private university and the second was this storied beer mill. they were the two institutions i felt were immune to and bigger than the standard ills of corporate greed. i guess i was wrong about one of them.

i was lucky too because my first job offer actually came from AB. in the end i turned it down for a couple of unrelated reasons. first i couldn't see dedicating myself to the promotion of alcohol. i myself don't drink and am more times than not annoyed by those who do. secondly, they had a long-standing policy of not giving vacation during the first year of service. they considered this point not negotiable and wouldn't budge. coincidentally, i felt the same and now, because of this dual stubbornness, i sidestepped a major professional catastrophe. had they been humane and granted me a respectable amount of vacation up front i may not have been paying attention when an opportunity opened up at my second employer of choice and where i currently hang my hat, in a building named anheuser-busch hall nonetheless.

but back to the acquisition. i don't know how many people realize how bad this development is for saint louis but it is a true and real tragedy. i read the article and almost wept crossing phrases like ...

The companies will, however, sell off "noncore assets" that they would not name to raise some $7 billion to finance the deal.

seven billion dollars! if that isn't a call in the night that the pillagers have crested the hill i'm not sure what is. i surely have experienced such language before and will say this is a mournful day for saint louis (and many other affected states) and not just because an iconic beer baron fell but because one of our cities last historic institutions just became a line-item in another company's ledger. a company who has no interests in the surrounding communities other than what they can trim and bleed from the people and real estate. AB has been part of the landscape for so long, it's hard to have a realistic notion of just how much they routinely re-invested in the city and subsequently, how severe the imminent raping will be. we are so far from corner taverns and neighborhood businessmen where the merchant's kids and your kids shared the same schools and the proprietor knows your name and what kind of house you own and what sort of drink you like after work that we're completely numb to the implications of it all. professional pride has been replaced with collective apathy and distrust. and whenever that is the case, community pride ain't never far behind.

even though i didn't join your ranks or consume your product, i was a big fan of what you did and am sad to see you fall. rest in peace AB. rest in peace.

it was twenty years ago today that i left colorado. i had just graduated high school and was headed to saint louis to attend college. it was not my choice. i had forfeited my option to stay in the state by not taking control of a situation earlier. this was one of my first severe lessons in life. as i pulled off I-25 and onto I-70 east i recall repeatedly looking into the rear-view mirror, watching the mountains dissipate in the distance. i couldn't cry outright because my home-town pal snake was cheerily riding shotgun next to me. his jovial spirit was certainly a by-product of his golden two-way ticket.

time has shown, leaving fort collins and colorado was one of the best doses of medicine i ever ingested. staying there would have stunted my emotional growth more than a pack a day habit would have stymied my physical maturity. leaving the serene shelter of fort collins granted me not one but two re-inventions of myself (the first of which lacked some of the potential i thought possible). it allowed me to shake off my adolescent conditioning and live a life governed by natural instincts rather than societal expectations. i'm unable to quantify how this change in approach improved my life and ultimate fulfillment other than to say it was immense.

another unanticipated boon of the change was oddly enough my theatre-going. before moving away, i had never gone to movies alone. after the move, i went solo quite frequently (having no one to go with) and found it to be wonderfully liberating. i've actually tested this theory against real-life folks and find it to be mostly predictable. that is, people who live in their hometown seldom or never go to movies alone and those who have had some major change in geography will sit alone without compunction if not by preference. i know it's sad to to insert this sophomoric discovery in with such a heartfelt reveal but i'm disproportionately proud of this observation.

i do have great adoration and warmth towards colorado and love saying i am from the state. a pre-boom, pre-california colorado where kids rode bikes into the mountains without helmets, routinely ice-skated on wild lakes and always knew on which horizon the sun would set. i may return one day but will do so as a different person and with different expectations. and thanks to in-town family i love and a job i greatly enjoy in saint louis, i will patiently do so many, many years from now.

residing in saint louis in the summer months is comparable to living inside a combustion engine doing 120mph on the autobahn. and if you weren't bred and born in the region, your body is simply not equipped to gracefully handle the climate. i sweat so much here it's unfair to even call it sweating because a distinct property of sweating is that it is intermittent. when your body constantly exudes fluids it is really more an act of leaking, which is what i call what i do in saint louis, leak. as for the leak-season, it starts in mid-june and ends in late-september. the native residents don't really get why outsiders leak so, in part because they themselves never leave the city (for reasons i don't yet understand) so they don't realize there are environments in this nation and on this planet that have less than ninety percent humidity.

recently i was working with a colleague in my office. when we were done talking i left and biked home for lunch. the moment i walked in the door marty reminded me of something i forgot. so i jumped back on the bike and made the five minute trek back to my office, ran upstairs and logged onto my computer to get what i needed. after a moment the same colleague i was working with earlier walked back into my office to ask me a question. she paused at my desk staring at me oddly. i, in a distracted state, asked what she needed. she posed her question and i answered it. i noticed she remained standing there and i turned to find her staring at me wordlessly. when she realized i was looking back at her she lowered her gaze, turned and left.

dismissing her oddness, i resumed my own work. i felt a drop of sweat roll down my temple. i swiped it with the sleeve of my shirt. in doing so i realized that the material of my oxford was completely soaked through, like see-through soaked through. as i flitted the shirt around trying to cool off and air out it occurred to me that this woman was probably seriously perplexed that she was in my office moments earlier and i was fine and when she returned twenty minutes later i was drenched in sweat. she of course didn't realize that i made not one but two half mile sprints on my bike in the 94 degree, mid-day swelter. and because she didn't know this i now work with a woman who secretly fears the leader of her project team is free-basing heroin behind the closed door of his office.

what she's forgetting is that missouri is the nation's leading producer of crystal meth, not heroin.

click to enlarge

one week ago was my six month anniversary at the new job. the biggest factor of this milestone is i can now take vacation time (i can also get sick). coincidentally, bella had yesterday off school so i cashed in my first official vacation day. marty had invited bella's entire kindergarten class to join us for the day at a pumpkin farm. she had several takers and it was shaping up to be a lively day in the country. then monday morning we woke up to this ...

so what does any sane, hookey-playing family do with a free day, no plans and torrential rain. we go to the zoo! the saint louis zoo is a real city gem, one of our finest. we spend quite a bit of time there. you could say it is our family's amusement park, and it doesn't hurt that it is in biking distance, although, we left the bikes at home on this wet day.

the moment we walk through the zoo's gates, alex starts; "train daddy. i want to ride the train. where's the train daddy? is the train sleeping? are we walking to the train daddy? do i hear the train?" if you hadn't guessed yet, the zoo has a train. it can carry something like 50-75 people on its nearly two mile run and has four stations along the way. alex personally thinks a zoo is more about this miniature locomotive than about exotic wildlife.

given the weather i was not confident the train would be in operation. as we approached the desolate station i saw a man in a conductor's hat sitting behind a fogged ticket window. i asked if the train was running. with a sigh, he said it was. he picked up the phone and said into the receiver, "i got a family of five at the living world station". he then hung up. it was here i realized the train was scheduled to run but was sitting warmly in the garage because of the few patrons at the zoo, none were requesting a ride on the outdoor steed. and then there's alex looking up from my hip, "train coming daddy?". yes alex, train coming. i could only imagine the startled expressions and gravelly curses exchanged between the two mason-like men who got the call. after our attendant had summoned the train, we learned there was a problem with our membership tickets. given the engine was en route, the ticketeer gave us a free pass. when the train pulled into the station a few minutes later marty and i expressed our gratitude to the two rain-slickered engineers who were extra-gracious about the task.

our family then shared in a personal tour of our city's zoo with bella and alex smiling widely in the very front seat. the conductor gave us the real-deal announcing the animals and amenities over the train-speaker just as he would for a sunny-saturday crowd. little did he know i, or even alex, could have probably done the same spiel straight from memory. although, at one stop he did say "we're coming up on the river's edge station, please have your tickets ready, but since you don't have any tickets, don't worry about it."

by the time we got home, we were collectively drenched and starving. we all stripped in the foyer and headed to the kitchen for soup, left over manicotti and oven toast. we capped the late-lunch with stove-top coco garnished with bella-cut mini-marshmallows and headed up for a viewing of monsters inc. while crowded on the couch, sharing a fleece blanket.

it has been too many month's since our family has enjoyed such a private and focused day. here's to remembering to slow the ride down every now again, even if you end up with wet underwear while on it.

this is my third wednesday of eating lunch up at bella's school. now feeling chummy with the crew, i asked if anyone knew what they would be dressing up for on halloween. this question was met with a resounding yes followed by an inventory of characters. i then asked if they knew what joke they would be telling while trick or treating (a definitively saint louis thing). this culminated in a barrage of impromptu knock-knock jokes most of which punch-lined with the word 'dumb-head' or 'poop-head' and as best i could tell i was always the one in the simple/fecal-headed seat. the melee climaxed with this final knock-knock joke which i was actually pretty excited about in the early stages.

VICTOR
knock-knock

TROY
who's there?

VICTOR
for real, you've got spaghetti on your pants.

TROY
for real, you've got spaghetti on your pants who?

VICTOR
no. you really do have spaghetti on your pants. look. (he points under table where i see a smallish pile of meaty pasta resting on my knee)

TROY
oh, dang. i thought that was your knock, knock joke.

VICTOR
i said 'for real'.

TROY
yes you did victor. you did say 'for real'. sorry i didn't pick up on that.

if these youngsters don't get a little more precise in their consumption of food, these wednesday lunches may be short-lived.

hey cocker.

hey jack.

what can i get you?

pastrami, hoagie roll, provolone.

what kind of soup you want with that?

no soup today, but thank you.

hell with you! go to the back of the line. (then to the decrepitly old lawyer standing behind me) what can i get you young man?

this is how the lion-share of my transactions began at two...

these days, as we all know, i live in saint louis, which in the month of august means i live on the face of the sun. in saint louis, we have an outdoor theatre called the muny. Thin When Tan Girl and her man treated marty and i to West Side Story last night. at the show's intermission when the lights came up i looked around and thought to myself how stinking uncomfortably hot all these people looked. when i turned to my theater-mates, they looked quite startled and exclaimed 'wow. troy. you look ... awfully ... shiny.'

is it my fault i have rich, moist skin?

speaking of rich, moist skin, West Side Story is my all-time favorite musical. it holds this esteemed position for two reasons. firstly, one of the two mormon girls i was hopelessly in love with in high school played a pivotal part in my school's senior year production of it. and secondly, this same girl would sing the musical's songs to me after school when we drove around in her family's car that smelled like vomit. (this mixture of sensory input caused a real schism in some of my brain's memory pathways later in life. fortunately for me, i have rich, moist skin so i'm not expected to be all that together, mentally at least.)

ok, i've got some bad news for you all. well actually it's bad news for me, but in my mildly egotistic world, that extends to you as well. i was recently told my job was toast. that isn't exactly right. i was told my job was moving. to portland. now don't get me wrong. i love portland. i think it's the most centered city i've seen. but let me tell you something about my life (for a change).

after bella was born a year and a half ago, my mom came out to visit and help. she then returned home and promptly quit her very posh job in pittsburgh to take a very evil job in saint louis just so she could be closer to this tiny non-speaking, non-sleeping bundle of late nights. this was one of the many examples of living by your priorities i've witnessed in my mother.

when my boss was discussing the relocation package i explained that it would have to cover 7 homes and 26 humans. when asked to expound on this need, i countered that that is what it would take to move 4 grandparents, 5 of 7 siblings and a whole gob of screaming cousins to portland because i wasn't going without them, cool city or not. the boss blinked.

so i have two interviews today. i have a couple more in the hopper as well should these not pan out. wish me well at 10 and 2 (cst). otherwise, i'll see you in the unemployment line with an unwashed bella and shoeless marty.

and, by the way, when my parents came over for dinner last night and bella went running to the door with flailing arms and indecipherable greetings, i knew my choice was the right one, regardless of today's outcome.

typically one million strong are at the arch on the fourth of july. not this arch, the actual gateway arch which this one is certainly modeled after and resides along the fabled route 66. when i first moved to saint louis, i used to go down to what was then called the vp fair or vale prophet fair. it is now simply called fair saint louis. they renamed it after someone found a picture of the origin...

the best thing about living in the city of the super bowl's losing team is the parade scheduled for downtown on the next day during the afternoon rush hour is canceled.

the worst thing about living in the city of the super bowl's losing team is the work restrooms seem to be extra cantankerous from the culinary offerings at all the super bowl parties. although i imagine this could be the case all over the country, the digestive tracts of many a rams fan seemed to be hating life a little more than usual on this particular day.