It's a God thang

The weather was sheets. Gray. Buildings faded into the fog. Monochromatic. We aahhed, though. We saw the city in clarity, as much as a brain is clear, during the marathon, we saw the crisp lines on race Sunday. The explorative part of our trip was fuzzy edged, such as,

Prior to the race we ate grilled Cuban sandwiches & Cuban coffees at a place called Cafecito's. We all know how I feel about that. On my appreciation of the Cuban coffee, Al said, “I’ve never seen someone lick a coffee cup clean.” The rest of the trip I spent alert-probing another Cuban coffee joint – but much to my chagrin, never found another. On the L a tall, brown-eyed preacher man kept prodding people's shoulders, talking with a deep boom cadence, about the whites, the blacks, money and pancakes. "It ain't a white thang. It ain't a black thang. It's a God thang." We heard his croon in our heads for days.

Monday night we planned for a dinner at our place in Old Town, hosting Scott the Fox’s aunt & uncle, who were wine & beer connoisseurs. We had heard about them the whole trip, the flavors they would bring to our tongues. As the group laid out an incredible meal of smoky cheeses, apple, bread, jam, a kale & chevre salad, roasted sweet potatoes & barbecued chicken breast, I walked miles to thrifting land, fingering the fabrics of recycled Chi-town. Back at home we met his family who had brought a case of viognier, French dry whites, a couple French red’s & pumpkin ales. We talked over the dinner table for hours about wine, about how uncle got mugged 3 times, how aunt had only been mugged the once, about brain surgery, about jobs & museums. It was, in consensus, our favorite night there – one spent inside a home which was a home because of the way we all were together within it.

Our three-story walkup was a vrbo in a part of town that had seen evolutions of inhabitants. The trees lined the street with embrace, shifting into fall with sun yellow leaves, with long alley’s, the powerlines with signs warning of rats. Each home was gated or fenced in, most with spiders and cottony webs decorating them, pumpkins on the stairs leading in. The grocery store was called Jewel Osco. On one street was a clean white poodle on a walk, on another, gamble-games & sing-a-longs. We were so limparific. Al caught shit from a passerby, "Gurl, what's wrong with your leg?"

Most mornings we spent in old town, making family breakfasts of skillet, eggs, potatoes, peppers, waffles, and many pots of coffee. We got a good sense of the L, traveling for lunch or pubs or the riverwalk. IndigenousPeopleColumbusDay held a parade through town as we walked along in the drizzle that would wet our every day there. We had some really great beer. I might have missed out on the brunches, Hot Doug’s, which was my deepest desire, a truly authentic slice of Chicago pizza or the caramel corn, but beer – we nailed that one – and I’ll thank Scott the Fox for that.

Originally we planned to do a self-guided TuesBrewsCruise on bikes through the city, but, the weather was unforgiving so we altered it via the L. Starting uptown at Hopleaf, we sat in the darkly lit backroom & sampled from an extensive beer menu. This ended up being my favorite place - starting with a double IPA, Pipework's Ninja vs. Unicorn (Unfiltered double IPA brewed w/over 5lbs. of hops per barrel, 8.5%), sips of a mead & cider peach fuzz blend, and finishing with 5 Rabbit's Vida y Muerte (5 Rabbit's seasonal harvest ale celebrating Dia de los Muertos, A 'Miuerzen,' based loosely on the German Oktoberfest/Marzen style, rich & caramelly. Fermented w/ale yeast for slight fruitiness and brewed w/dulce de leche, 6.3%). The meal: a sour-soaked apple salad with bleu cheese & roasted cauliflower, pomme frites, stealing from others the mussels and braided & broth-soaked bread, goose liver pate on toast & onion tart. The server was amazing; had cool cloroxed hair, shaved at the sides, long and gelled back down the center.

After, we checked out a thrift shop with proceeds benefiting the LGBT called the Brown Elephant, where T got a new outfit for the night. Ran across the street for a shot of tequila. Ran beneath sheets of rain, standing under the lip of eeve of someone’s house waiting for the bus for Half Acre, a craft brewery, where all the men wore Seattle-branded caps, art of bears and sasquatch fed the brick and rough wood walls (check out their website it's sassy).

 

We watched the rain fall harder than any Washington rain would, sampling every beer on their menu, beginning with a flight of IPA’s: Space IPA (House IPA, crafted to highlight the beauty in balance, features a dark amber malt bill supporting a lush citra nose and tropical, citrus hop flavors). Annica, an India Pale Ale (Far flung exotic notes of tropical fruit and electric pine squat on chewy shoulders of grain. With some semblance of balance, the mighty Mosaic pounds its chest above all. Brewed in collaboration with 3 Floyd's Brewing Co.), and then every other beer on their menu, incl. American Dark Ale Sticky Fat (As brown as a bear's hind quarters, this beer is laced with piney, resinous hop character, and backed up with plunging levels of chocolate and roast. A toast to the things that keep us on our toes). 

Danced beneath the rain towards Beercade ("don't grow up, it's a trap") for punkin ale & others, the bar an arcade full of free duck hunt, mortal combat, nba, pacman, tron, and pinball machines. I hadn’t played mortal combat since I sweaty-palm-played against my brother in a house in the wood-hood. It was magic. All buzzed & wet we headed home, ordered a couple large pizzas, opened a bottle of champagne & lounged.

Our last morning, we walked to a main drag for coffees at a French bakery called La Fournette, which served hot pressed sandwiches, croissants & macarons of earl grey & lavender. I had a large cappuccino & walked alone down the street, calling my mother, who said, “Come home. We’ll get that pube checked out.” But I didn’t want to leave.