The Coffee Table

I am sitting on the couch in our family room. In front of me is our coffee table. It has a top (obviously) and one shelf underneath it. The thing about it that's intriguing me right now is what is currently on top of and what is on the bottom shelf of the table. I think the contents actually tell quite a bit about our family.

It is definitely not a decorative coffee table (which is not to say it isn't good looking--it is--but it's not just a puff piece of furniture which serves no function). It is absolutely functional.

I'll start on top (which almost always needs a nice spray of Windex): Bananagrams and Uno and two empty coffee mugs. That's it. And a lot of fingerprints.

Last night there were five of us playing what we like to call "No Apologies Uno" at this table. Two parents, two siblings, one girlfriend all playing for the win. When you slap down the "Draw Four" card, you can't say you're sorry. You just have to slap it down with purpose and attitude with no regrets. If Steven has called out "card alert!", that means some player is down to fewer than five cards, which means if you're sitting next to that player and you have a "reverse" or a "skip" card then you should not be afraid to play it, and you should be prepared to accompany your power play with a nice stare down or a sinister laugh. Uno brings out sides of us that you might not otherwise know exist.

Following three games of family Uno, Steven and I played a game of Bananagrams. Allison, Steven's girlfriend, had never played before so she watched and helped him out. It was a VERY close game--down to one tile. I won't even tell you who won because it didn't matter. It was just a fun, good-natured ten minutes.

The bottom shelf is quite a bit more cluttered than the top of the table. There are three piles of stuff, so I'll go pile-by-pile.

Pile #1: several Zits books (the comic strip compilation), a Far Side book, an Exploratorium visual book, a Runner's World magazine, A Bon Appetite magazine, a couple of Time magazines, A National Geographic, a book (The Light We Cannot See), and a small ceramic bowl that Olivia made in art class in high school that is currently filled with a game that she made for me and Dave last Christmas.

Pile #2: the Uno box, the Xfinity channel list brochure, the game Utter Nonsense, two books that I have on my reading list (Mary Coin and After You), and the dictionary that I received at my high school graduation.

Pile #3: A VERY large National Geographic world atlas, the game Double Shutter, a couple more Time magazines, and the book Fates and Furies, which I got for Christmas.

If I were a sociologist, what would I make of our family based on what's on our coffee table?

Since I actually know what all this stuff actually represents to us, it's hard for me to approach it with an unbiased eye. So instead I'll just tell you what it all means to me:

There are games on the table because we have played games together since the kids were born. We have, over two decades, gone from Candy Land to Pretty, Pretty Princess to Monopoly to Risk to Settlers of Catan, with dozens more games in between. Our current favorites are, as indicated by their position on top of the table, Bananagrams and Uno. We are not especially competitive with each other in general, but there definitely are certain games that bring out our snarky side. "Utter Nonsense" is a game where you pick a card from the "Accent" pile, and then pick a card with a ridiculous phrase to say using that accent. You can see how this could wind up mildly (or grossly) offensive. If you're the sensitive sort, you should probably sit out games at our house.

I'm a bit of a news junkie. The piles of magazines are mostly mine, although Dave reads the Time and the National Geographic as well. I run. I lay claim to the Runner's World. As well as the Bon Appetite. I'm not a gourmet cook by any stretch. Mostly I love reading the articles about food in places I have been or would like to go, as well as the column by Andrew Knowlton. He talks about his cooking and his family in a very relatable way. Occasionally I will clip out recipes (and by clip out, I mean tear out entire pages), and then if I don't throw the pages away by mistake, there's a chance I may at some point try to cook the recipe. It NEVER looks like it does in the picture.

The Xfinity channel guide is there because we just switched to it and we don't know the channel numbers yet. We watch a fair amount of TV. Olivia can practically quote you all nine seasons of "How I Met Your Mother."

The Zits books and the Far Side technically belong to Steven, although we have all enjoyed them over the years. Zits perfectly captures the high school teenage boy, or maybe it just perfectly captured our particular high school teenage boy. Far Side perfectly captures our family's sense of humor, which tends to be on the side of the sarcastically absurd.

The dictionary, as I mentioned earlier, is mine. It's on the coffee table because if I'm reading or watching television and a I come across a word I do not know, I like to look it up. It's not that I have to look it up. I enjoy looking it up. I like learning new words. I think it's probably more general--I like learning. Period. But looking up words is fun to me.  The kids all look up words on their phones or computers. I like the feel of turning the pages in the dictionary. I like to see how quickly I can find the word. I like the delicate nature of dictionary paper. Call me crazy. It also comes in handy to check words during Bananagrams.

The books, currently, are all mine. I love to read. Love historical fiction. Love a story well told. I usually have two books going at a time.

The giant Atlas is there because we look up geographic stuff all the time. Mostly while we're watching the news. It's interesting to see where cities are, and where borders are, and how far places are from one another. We usually look something up to try to answer some question we have in reference to a story we have seen, but then end up having a long conversation about why the story was on in the first place--what made it happen, what will happen next, who will it affect... The atlas is a great conversation starter. And both Steven and I love maps. Of everything. Countries. Cities. College campuses. The metro. BART. Maps are fun. The atlas is Steven's--a Christmas present from me and Dave a few years ago.

That's our coffee table.  It reflects, in my opinion, our family and what we hold dear, what we want close at hand. It reflects people who like to think, like to talk about what they think, and like to laugh with one another (or sometimes at one another).
The top is usually slightly cluttered and could use some cleaning. The piles underneath are almost never neatly stacked. But it creates an atmosphere that, to me, is very much like our family: warm and comfortable.

Twas the Year of the Donald...

Twas two months before Iowa and all through the states
The focus of attention was the many "Donald-gates"

The candidates were stumping the best that they could
In hopes that the Donald would soon come unglued.

The pundits were stymied by their prior predictions
That Trump would not last, that his surge was mere fiction

And CNN in its frenzy and FOX in its haste
Did a mockery sure make of the GOP debates

When the candidates did clamor to say what was the matter
Trump continued to best them with his ridiculous clatter

Too many to count, they all tried to be heard
They tried and they tried but could not get in a word

The reporters on the beat of the long campaign trail
Gave interview after interview to Trump without fail

When what to my horrified eyes did appear
Yet another heinous quote inciting hatred and fear

From this man who's "amazing" (at least that's what he says)
And "the greatest", the "richest" and of course he's "the best"

More rabid than Old Yeller his supporters they flock
As he continues his tirades of bluster and shock

Deny change in climate and encourage more guns
Ignore the Constitution and ban all Muslims
Keep the Mexicans out with the biggest of walls
Close "that internet" down to cause ISIS to fall

With no mind for the law and no thought to the past
He taps into a base with ideas half-assed

To another debate the candidates did scurry
The soundbites were flying in a tizzy and flurry

And then in a rare moment of courage and candor
Jeb! finally decided to no longer pander

As I turned up the volume and was focusing in
Jeb! changed his tactics, determined to win

He was ready to pounce and had nothing to lose
He stood up to the Donald (unlike Ted Cruz)

He called him a candidate of chaos, unhinged
With disgust and sincerity Jeb's words they were tinged

Trump responded like usual, put his insults to work
He huffed and he puffed and he acted the jerk

Spewing his nonsense, no policies he has
How can he be more than a mere passing fad?

The race has been altered forever, it's so
The level of discourse now shockingly low

He rises in polls with his reckless abandon
He's come so much farther than I had imagined

I dream that one day he will lose his big lead
And then with his triumph no more guaranteed

He'll quickly back out and will fade out of sight
While those with integrity will fight the good fight

I can hear him exclaim as he goes absentee
"I'll never support anyone other than me!"

Rationalization V. Discipline

If it were a Supreme Court case (R v. D), which side would win? Which side should win?

If it were a prize fight, which would go down for the count and which would remain standing?

I ask because this is the never-ending battle that I fight in my own head on a daily basis.  There is never one consistently clear winner.  Probably because I have the discipline to rationalize just about anything, so it's hard to tell which one truly gets the victory.

A few weeks ago, for example, I was doing a six mile run.  Slowly (see earlier blogs).  I haven't been training for anything of late, so my running isn't what I'd call at its peak.  But really, six miles.  Doable. Slowly.

As I start to get a bit tired around mile three, discipline whispers "keep going--you know you are capable of this--don't let yourself down".  

Rationalization screams (why is rationalization always screaming?) "you love to run for the fun of it--if you're tired just take a little walk break and start again--that way you'll keep enjoying it".  

Both excellent points. Which is the better point? (as a side note, I kept running on this one)

As another example, the act of getting dinner on the table: actual meal or scavenge night?

Discipline dictates that a meal consisting of a main dish, a vegetable and perhaps a second side dish like a salad find its way to the table on a somewhat regular basis in a household with growing children and a hard-working husband (although at this point we are down to just me and a retired but still hard-working husband, unless the kids happen to be home).

Rationalization, however, gently but very persuasively (and far too often) suggests that there's lots of food in that kitchen, and don't family members deserve to take it all under consideration, decide for themselves what they want and when they want it, and make their own meal so it's just what they like?  Plus (Rationalization continues, without taking a breath) that allows for the food already in the fridge and pantry to get used up instead of languishing there, perhaps to be thrown away if it sits uneaten too long...(Rationalization is much, much better at guilt trips than Discipline, but you know this already don't you?).

Not that you need a third example of the push-and-pull that goes on inside my head constantly (and you're thinking to yourself, well that explains a lot about Kim...), but soda. Specifically diet soda. I eat generally very healthily (is that a word?). I have better than average discipline when it comes to my eating habits. I do not, however, have that discipline when it comes to drinking diet soda. I can rationalize that since it's my one bad (daily) habit, it's allowed. If allowing myself a soda a day allows me to wake up happy and ready to take on the day, then it's excusable. Soda is my coffee, I rationalize. You try waking up without your coffee! It enables my discipline. And yet I still feel like perhaps I should have the discipline to give up the rationalization. So here's my compromise on the soda issue: I have the discipline to drink just one (rationalized) soda a day.

So I throw it out there-- is there a hard and fast rule about which contender should prevail?

Discipline seems to connote something positive, as if you're working towards a goal;  Rationalization seems to conjure up the idea of getting out of working towards a goal.

And yet...

Isn't Rationalization how we give ourselves a break when we need one?  I mean, if I'm just going to be plain old lazy, I'm not even going to bother to rationalize it--too much work.  But if I'm over-worked (damn you Discipline!), then I might just need some sort of reasonable framework to convince myself that taking a break won't be the end of the world and might just be good for me.

Perhaps over a cup of coffee (or a nice Pepsi Max), you can ponder which side you come down on...

Where's My Passport?

I'm not quite sure what to make of the current GOP field of presidential candidates.

First of all, not to be Captain Obvious, but this is a ridiculous number of people running. And one of them has already dropped out (although I did like the new glasses, Rick Perry).

We watched the second debate last week, and here's how confounding this current class of Republican office-seekers are: I found myself thinking, and I'm not kidding here, all of the following at one point or another:

"Wow, that was a great point that Rand Paul made!"
"Lindsey Graham is coming across as more than reasonable."
"Well done, Chris Christie. Well done."
"Fiorina has a very commanding presence."
"Nicely done, Jeb!"
"I think I agree with Pataki on that one."

I was more than a little worried about myself.

In my own defense, I also thought these as well:

"Does Ted Cruz seem kinda creepy?"
"Shut up, Jindal. Just shut up."
"Shut up, Trump. Seriously just shut up."
"I mean it, does Cruz seem creepy to you guys?"
"You're a complete idiot, Huckabee."
"And you're done, Walker."
"Seriously, why is Ted Cruz so creepy?"

It's early. I understand that. While I will NEVER, EVER, IN A MILLION BAJILLION YEARS understand how Donald Trump (a) got to the top of the polls and (b) remained there for more than a nano-second, I don't think he will stay there. So I guess he's not scaring me so much as he is frustrating me. And to be perfectly honest, most of these guys (and the one gal) frustrate me at some level, so nothing new there.

Several of them, however, scare the living crap out of me for a variety of reasons. For your amusement, here is a list of the candidates who terrify me along with the accompanying reason(s) they do so:

1. Ted Cruz looks like Joe McCarthy to me, just for starters. So much so that I googled the two names together to see if I could put two pictures side-by-side for a comparison, and I didn't even have to do the work. Apparently I am not the only one who thinks they bear more than a passing resemblance. Google it. Also, his voice. I know that has no impact on his policy, but it wigs me out. Lastly (okay, probably not actually lastly, but for now lastly) every, single, solitary position he holds. The man is willing to shut down the government, go to war, retract citizenships, etc... I want him nowhere near the Oval Office. I could not disagree with someone more than I disagree with Ted Cruz. Except for maybe...

2. Mike Huckabee. Everything. Just everything.

3. Carly Fiorina, though obviously extremely intelligent and very well-spoken, is willing to say anything for her political gain. Her rant against the "videos" of Planned Parenthood was such a blatant lie, and so very easily refuted, and yet she was willing to say it to a national audience with the hopes that they would simply believe it. At the risk of women's healthcare.

4. I changed my mind. Donald Trump does, in fact, scare me. Donald Trump said he'd proudly put Sarah Palin in a cabinet position. That right there terrifies me beyond belief. He is also a man who professes that he will apologize when he is wrong, but so far according to him he has never been wrong. EVER! The whole "Obama is a Muslim born outside of the US" birther ridiculousness he propagates comes to mind, but when asked about that he maintains that he "has his own ideas" about the birth certificate. Guess what? You can have lots of ideas about lots of things, but when confronted with facts that disprove your ideas, your ideas get relegated to fallacies, and you need to move on with the facts in place. Another case in point would be Trump's denial of climate change. Take note climate change deniers: when you say "Let's leave the science to the scientists", you should realize that the scientists have actually all weighed in on this, and they have concluded, using actual scientific methods and actual, real data, that our climate is changing. Not in a good way. Get on board. Make a move and start to solve the problem. You look like idiots.

5. Bobby Jindal... I cannot for the life of me figure out how he has gotten this far. Nothing he says makes any sense to me--not his views, not his rationale for his views, nothing. If I were a citizen of Louisiana I would be very afraid. He's up there with Huckabee.

I feel like I could add fun little details to this list for days on end and still not be done, but I will wrap it up for now and finish by saying that never in my years as a proud voter has a group of people made me feel the need to update my passport and look seriously into Canadian citizenship. Hopefully there's no wall preventing my escape.

Day 4: the Odyssey Comes to an End

Hot.  It's hot here.  Really really hot.

We biked around for a bit this morning, but ultimately you have to go indoors because the sun just beats down on you relentlessly.

That kind of sums up our day.  Which takes us to our last Giants/Diamondbacks game this evening.

We lost.  But once again everyone in the (not very full) stadium was quite friendly, and the baseball was good.  For the second day in a row, this happened:

batting practice souvenir from DeAza

The guy knows where to stand to catch home run balls during batting practice.  Last night he caught Belt's, tonight he caught DeAza's.  Pretty exciting!

And also, this happened:

we shared one, in case you were wondering

This is Chase Field's famous "Churro Dog".  It's a chocolate-iced donut (the long, bar kind) with a churro in it, topped with ice-cream, covered in whipped cream, finished off with caramel and chocolate syrup.  It's a spectacle.  It's famous.  We had to do it.  As it turns out, the idea is better than the execution.  By the time you're in the fifth inning of a night game, neither the churro nor the donut is what you'd call fresh.  But kudos to the people at the stadium for coming up with this very innovative take on the hot dog.  It's far more appealing to me than the other dish they are famous for, which is an eighteen-inch long corn dog stuffed with cheddar cheese and bacon, sitting on a pound of french fries.  It comes in at over 3000 calories.  I cannot, in good conscience, congratulate anyone for coming up with that idea.

this is what 3000 calories looks like; you should probably add a lipitor for good measure

So our first "adventure in retirement" is now coming to an end.  We have had a memorable time--most of it fun.  And even the stuff I wouldn't call plain-old outright fun I would say is going to provide many smiles and laughs when we think back on it.

I sent Olivia and Steven the picture of Dave and the Churro Dog this evening, and Olivia texted right back saying, "Empty-nesting looks really hard..... I don't think they even miss us Steven."

(for the record, yes we really do miss them!)

Day 3: A Change in Surroundings

The adventure continues!

Regarding our no hot water shower issue: our hosts (who have been truly wonderful) texted us last night and offered up two possible solutions. We could either stay at their alternate BnB property, a  two-bedroom home half a mile away, or if we wanted to continue in the art gallery room we could use the alternate property just to get a hot shower in the morning.  You wouldn't think that would be any kind of decision, but we decided before we committed to the new place we kind of wanted to check it out.  Because there are airplane wings and fuselages in the backyard of the alternate property when you look at it on Google Maps.  Just wanted to know what we might be getting ourselves into, based on what we had already gotten ourselves into.  So here's how the day started:

Got up before seven am because some sort of construction began on the vacant lot behind our room at 6:30am.  And when I say the construction began behind our room, I mean RIGHT behind our room.  Like thirty feet behind our wall. Right next to the port-a-potty that people lined up to use throughout the day.  Not kidding.

Dave went and got coffee from the non-douchebag barristas down the street, and then we popped on our charming bikes and rode about half a mile to the new property.

Decision made.  New digs!

old digs--mind you we only had the first door room

new digs!

Beautiful little house on a quiet street with doors that lock properly.  A coffee machine!  Hot water!  A refrigerator!  An actual couch on which to sit! Five actual airplanes AND a real school bus in the backyard! (The only thing preventing us from actually exploring said planes and bus is our knowledge that the Arizona Diamondbacks are named that for a reason... we don't want to learn everything the hard way.)

our backyard: football turf, airplanes and a bus for good measure

We walked back to the old place, packed up, and Ubered to our new paradise.

I cannot overstate how magnificent my husband has been through all of this.  First of all, he packed some Starbucks Via instant coffee packs before we left home because he knew we weren't going to have a stove to heat water, so he was willing to make coffee using hot water out of the tap in the bathroom.  While that clearly did not work out as intended (since we ended up with no hot water at all), the fact that he was willing to do that, to me, speaks volumes about his confidence in my planning abilities  being game to try new things.

Additionally, he has not complained at all about our charming, extremely crappy bikes upon which we are completely dependent for transportation.  He has been willing to ride in the 100 degree heat on a bike that looks like it was built for Frodo.  He's just not a complainer.  If there's a problem, he'll try to solve it (on one of our rides he pulled into a tire shop and asked for a crescent wrench and adjusted his seat so that now the bike looks like it was built at least for a slightly taller Frodo). He has kept on smiling through it all.

It was about 105 degrees yesterday so we decided to hit a movie in the afternoon.  Went to see "Straight Outta Compton".  Amazing movie.  Riveting form beginning to end.  Lots to talk about.  More to think about.  Cannot recommend it highly enough to everyone.

Game time! Back on the bikes and down to Chase Field for batting practice.  I am not making this up: we arrived at the stadium literally as they were opening the gates. We walk in.  We start to watch batting practice.  Brandon Belt (referred to by me as "my Brandon") comes to the plate, swings, and hits a ball DIRECTLY into Dave's bare hands--and we were standing in the bleachers!  I kid you not! It was incredible.  Quite the exciting start to the evening.

Dave gave me the ball from my Brandon

Our seats for this one were in the second deck--they came with wait service! Mind you, these were still very cheap tickets (because we're watching the Diamondbacks--total attendance at the game was 15,000), but it was fun having someone come around every half hour or so and ask if you'd like anything.

The Giants played great, they got a ton of hits AND runs, and they won the game.  Funny story that started the game: Joe Panik was second in the lineup, and it's the first inning, so he's only the second batter in the entire game. Nobody's worked very hard yet.  Nobody's tired or confused.  Strike one.  Ball one.  Ball two.  Strike two.  Ball three.  Missing pitch--and by that I mean the pitcher throws the ball, it should have been called ball four and Panik would walk to first, but the umpire just neglects to call the pitch.  So Panik sets up for the next pitch.  Dave and I are looking at each other like "what the?"  How do four umpires all miss the pitch?  Finally, after about fifteen or twenty seconds, Bochy walks out.  It has to go to New York for replay! We were laughing so hard-- just had never seen this happen.  So New York of course calls it ball four and the game continues, but for the next couple of pitches, as soon as the pitch was thrown you'd hear people call the pitches loud enough for the umpires to hear.

As a side note, the family in front of us, consisting of a dad, a mom, and two daughters, was a study in how not to attend a baseball game.  The adults brought an iPad with them and watched the US Open tennis match for the entire game, and all four family members were on their phones for better than half the game.  Hey--if you want to take a picture here or there to document your fun, I'm all for it.  You need to send a quick text? Have at it.  But if you're going to go to a sporting event (or any event for that matter), why not at least make an attempt to enjoy where you are and take in the experience? I feel like we might be turning into a society that is not able to be content with where we are, but rather always trying to find out what's going on where we aren't.  Put the electronics down, people.  Look up.  Take it in!

So that was day three.  It was a fun day! I think what I am enjoying most about this little adventure is the people.  We have now stayed in two different neighborhoods (although they are somewhat close together, they are in vastly different areas), biked throughout the city during all times of the day and evening, and talked to a nice variety of Phoenicians.  Every single person has been friendly (even when we're in our Giants gear).  When we're biking down the street, no matter the neighborhood, if you smile at people and say hello they smile and say hello back.  Nobody looks menacing or even slightly scary when they're smiling at you and nodding their head to return a greeting.

One more day... one day more (that was for you, Olivia-- sing it with me!).

Greetings from Phoenix--wish you were here :)

Tales Continued: Day 2

Day 2: got up at 6am to go in search of a cup of coffee for Dave. Spent a half-hour just waking up at a leisurely pace. Dave grabbed the first shower. Now, Dave typically doesn't take long showers at home anyway (DROUGHT!), but I noticed that this one was particularly short. He emerged from the bathroom. I asked how the water pressure was. His reply: "I'm going to let you experience the shower for yourself. There's good news and bad news. But I'm letting you find out for yourself." 

As it turns out, the water pressure is fine (the good news). The water temperature is not fine (the bad news). It wasn't icy, but it was not what I would call warm. I also took a particularly short shower. 

How, I ask you, does a room not have hot water? No refrigerator? Ok, I get it. And you told us that up front. The no chairs thing was a little unexpected. But easily fixable by bringing chairs in from outside. But no hot water? NO HOT WATER? Come on, man. That's not right. This is 2015.  Hot water should not be an issue.

wifi on plastic adirondack-y chairs:yes.   hot water:no.

Breakfast, I'm happy to say, was a bright spot. There is a little local coffee shop less than a block from us that gets rave reviews. Our host recommended it, although she qualified her recommendation with, "but just to warn you, the baristas there are douchebags. I mean, they are serious assholes." Okay then. 

We did not actually find that to be the case. We had great coffee and food, the young woman behind the counter chatted with us the entire time, taught us how to make cold-brew coffee, and recommended dinner restaurants for us. She was utterly charming. I don't know what the opposite of douchebag would be, but she was it. It was a lovely way to start the day. 

Spent a bit of time cycling around Phoenix after breakfast. It's a bit of a ghost-town right now as it's Labor Day weekend and, so the story goes, if you live in Phoenix and you get the chance to get out of 105 degree Phoenix for a long weekend then ya do! So kinda empty--very easy to bike around. Although we don't really know where we are going, and we did find some very let's call them interesting neighborhoods. 

Made our way (again, on our charming bikes) to Chase Field just before noon and stood in line with all the other Giants fans waiting to get in.  I think there were some D-Backs fans as well. 

What a fantastic park! It's a very surreal thing to watch a baseball game in an enclosed stadium.  It's quite subdued. Perhaps everyone is just using their inside voices--I don't really know what it was--but the entire game had a somewhat hushed feel to it.  I'm not complaining. It was just very different from any baseball game I have ever been to before. 

The Diamondbacks are not doing well this season, so consequently we got seats on the first base line in the first row for the price you'd pay for the worst possible seats against the worst possible team at AT&T Park. We were sitting directly behind the ball guy (I learned in a couple of mid-inning conversations with him that you have to try out for that job--they actually make you field balls!) and could see into the Giants' bullpen. Very cool. 

The people around us were extremely friendly and pretty darn amusing. There was this great young couple sitting next to us.  When Buster Posey came up to bat the first time and his picture came up on the Jumbotron, she whipped out her phone to take a picture of the picture and announced, "That's my future husband," to which her boyfriend replied quite quickly and confidently, "Yeah, that works for me. I'm just gonna keep on dating you until you marry him, and that way I get to be friends with him and probably friends with you, too." 

And then there was the group of people to our right who, when the concession guy selling popcorn came around and yelled, "Popcorn--butter corn and kettle corn," started having a (very loud) conversation about what "ghetto corn" was. Yep. Super loud. Apparently she had misheard the guy and thought he said ghetto corn instead of kettle corn. It was not a conversation you wanted to continue. I was uncomfortable sitting in the next section. Not that anyone actually said anything offensive. But you just knew someone was going to at some point if the conversation went on. Luckily, they got distracted by the baseball game going on a couple rows away. 

We lost the game, sadly. Not unexpectedly, mind you. We have been losing quite a lot lately.We did get to see the return of Joe Panik, which was fantastic. He hit a double and got the Giants on the board with their only run of the game. Unfortunately that was about all the Giants action there was in nine innings. 

After a little downtime back at our humble home-away-from-home, we headed out to find some dinner (on our charming bikes, with mine still clanging away--that fender is stubbornly clinging to life). We had asked several locals we had met for recommendations, and though we headed out intending to check them out, we ended up stumbling upon a place not on our list. And then we had the best meal ever. Kid you not. My BEST. MEAL. EVER. 

Here's how you get the best meal ever: you ask your waitress what she likes best and then you order it. All of it. 

It's going to be hard for me to convince you that a cheeseburger and sautéed veggies made me swoon. I don't care if you don't believe me. They made me swoon. The burger had homemade onion marmalade and jalapeño cheddar sauce and this fresh-baked brioche bun. And more stuff, but all the right stuff in all the right proportions perfectly cooked. The bun held up, the burger stayed together, and all was right with the world. The vegetables were beans and baby squash and some other bean-looking thing sautéed up in a house-made ginger soy concoction that I would bathe in if allowed. It was that good. 

And then even though I would have sworn the meal couldn't get any better, our wonderful server Zoe started talking dessert. Decadent choices. We stuck with the plan and ordered what Zoe told us to order, which was sticky toffee pudding. Words will not do it justice. It was a date cake swimming in caramel syrup with vanilla gelato on top. See-- I told you. You're sitting there thinking to yourself, "That doesn't actually sound amazing or anything. I mean, date cake? That doesn't sound good at all quite frankly." And you're likely imagining the caramel gook you get on Baskin Robbins sundaes. And perhaps mediocre vanilla ice-cream.  No matter what you think, our dessert was 1000% better than you imagine it. Maybe a million percent better. As previously mentioned, words aren't going to cut it so I'm going to stop trying. If you're ever in Phoenix, go to the Phoenix Public Market. Ask for Zoe. We left with a list of Zoe's (and the cook/wait staff's--she asked around for us) top ten favorite Phoenix local joints. AND she packed up a piece of their famous chocolate cake for us--her treat!--because she wanted to be sure we got to try it before we left town.  BEST. MEAL. EVER. for so many reasons :)

Made it back. Ready for Day 3. Could use a hot shower. Crossing our fingers on that one... 

random picture of random airplane wing in front of our bed
we are using it to hang stuff on
that is probably not what it is intended for