Part Two: Back in Town

The summer weeks are passing fast. Last weekend Dulcinea and I did Zona Rosa on Thursday night. We went for Mexican food at Abuelo’s Mexican Food Embassy. There isn’t a lot that can be done with Tex-Mex unless you hit the mom and pop places. It is essentially the battle of the chains. Abuelo’s is good Mexican chain food.

Late Friday night I was craving Kansas City bar-b-que, some good blues and cold beer. So we headed out to one of the best roadhouses in Kansas City, BB’s Lawnside BBQ. Yes, there is better bar-b-que, bb’s always seems a little overcooked and the sauce could be improved. But you can’t find a better place that blends the essence of Kansas City. Try the Abita Amber, a New Orleans beer that lets you feel the soul of the south. Gary “Alaska” Sloan (from Arkansas) did a great job of bringing down the house with his harmonica, singing and theatrical joy.

Saturday I had to work on finishing an article. But I took off early for dinner at Milano in Crown Center. It had changed since my last visit, with a much smaller menu which seems for the best. I recommend Ravioli Alla Creama Di Trartufo. I’m not one for white sauces, but this sweet, salty dish with a touch of truffles was excellent. The wine list is also limited but if you like reds I recommend the Banfi Col Di Sasso Sangiovese, Toscana. It is a great taste for a small price. Sangiovese is the same grape that is used in Chianti but it doesn’t have that alum taste.

We finished off the night at The American Heartland Theater with Bunk-Bed Brothers. It was closing night.

Sunday was sleep in time.

The Lady is Back in Town

Dulcinea arrived back in Kansas City after her summer sojourn to Minnesota. I picked her up at the airport on Thursday evening and we turned the weekend into a mucho dinero burning goodtime.

On the way from the airport we checked out the Zona Rosa. The first time for me. Yeah, it's okay, but a bit too sterile and pre-fab, sort of like Johnson County. I prefer the diversity and spontaneity that I find in the City.

It reminded me of a visit to the Homer Dome in Minneapolis years ago, before the advent of the Homer hanky and excitement in Minnesota Twins baseball. It felt as if I was at a tea party; polite applause was the emotion of the afternoon. The stadium was clean, air conditioned, most of the fans looked of Swedish or Norwegian ancestry. The concession stand employees were the same type of geriatrics you see at Wal-Mart as greeters and bussing tables at McDonalds.

Later that summer I went to a Cardinals day game in St. Louis. It was hot and humid. People were black and white. Rabid fans were hysterically cheering for favorite players and applauding even mediocre plays. And there was that sometimes embarrassing silence or even booing of the opposition. There were big, sweaty Budweiser concessionaire’s working the stands humping along huge drums of iced-down beer yelling out in their almost musical way, “Get your Bud here, ice cold Bud here!” Sometimes you can still hear them in the background of a radio game. Now that was a ballgame.

Who is Ugly Betty?

Who is Ugly Betty? What is Ugly Betty? Where can I get more? I know I’m showing my age but I feel like a caveman that just woke up in a new world. Only yesterday the chic answer to, “do you watch TV?” was, “I wouldn’t be caught dead”.

Now the webpockets are aglow with reviews of what happened when, where, on what channel, at what time. Real or guerilla advertising. Who is to know? Whom? Is Britney wearing underwear? Near riots over the cancellation of Veronica Mars?

Should I realign myself with my Grandpa that sat glued to the TV every Sunday night as not to miss “The Ed Sullivan Show”?

The worse are the “reality” shows. Okay, I did watch the first season of Survivor, but it was my first season in Kansas City. I knew no one. I was a shy kid from the neither lands. I got a life, why can’t they?

However, if I could make a living out of watching TV (or internet video) and writing about it would I love Ugly Betty too? Major newspapers and blogs devote themselves to celebrative culture. (See Slate, Salon, Comcast). To think what great hope we had for the internet. Now corporate America, and us, is turning it into a cesspool of voyeurism of want-to-be people.

Please let me know the results of Paris Hilton’s tantrums. I am waiting breathlessly.

34th Annual Hospital Hill Run

As usual I’m a week late in taking this blog to press.

Last Saturday morning, June 2nd, I ran…err...okay…mostly walked in my first ever Hospital Run. I did the 5k. I had first thought about doing it when I received an email at school asking if I wanted to get on their training schedule. I said yes and then talked Dapple and a friend from Columbia into competing with me.

Of course I never got around to training, I just read the emails. So my goal was to finish within the time that you had to do to get a participation medal. Yes, I wanted that medal.

The week before the race Dapple pulled up lame while training on a six mile run. So she decided just to do the walk/run with me. I am happy to report that her training mate finished in the top twenty and Dapple and I both finished in time to get those medals. In fact, I had so much reserve that once I topped the last uphill stretch and it was all downhill I could have went faster. But we were enjoying the event so much that we had already decided to make it an annual thing. Our goal would be to beat our previous year’s time. So I decided to keep on pace as to not to get next years goal to high. How is that for a slackers reasoning.

If you have never ran the Hospital Run I highly recommend it. It was a very festive atmosphere. They even fed us pancakes after the race. As with most endeavors it has its own atmosphere, its own type of crowd, which was great fun to watch. It was definitely a healthier crowd than with I normally hang-out. More energy bars and bottled water and less bar-b-que sandwiches and bottles of beer

The highlight of the morning was seeing an Iraqi vet, Sergeant Bruce Dunlap, finish the race. He had ran the race five previous times, and was wounded this winter in Iraq. After being released from Walter Reed on Friday he came to Kansas City to compete in a wheelchair on Saturday. His courage and bravery was overwhelming and had nothing to do with politics other than to magnify the false bravado of our President’s ridiculous decision to invade Iraq.