huck

Using the Salinger spelling of that wonderfully evocative word.

Boston was all too brief, now a distant blur of excessive wine consumption at a tasting festival thrown by our friends at The Second Glass, chased with the innards of a giant champagne bottle the following morning during brunch at The Eastern Standard, “candle pin” bowling at Louie’s in Somerville, my good friend Ryan’s sad-eyed dog, and of course: some very, very delicious oysters.

Forget all the negativity you’ve heard about “The Mistake On the Lake” or the defamatory mythos including a certain river on fire because of the amount of industrial waste polluting it.  It’s all B.S., folks.  Things are great in Cleveland.

My friends Cory and Kathryn pulled out all the stops for me during my stay, Cleveland-style.  We ate satanically decadent grilled cheese sandwiches at Melt, took a tour of the Cleveland Museum of Art (where Cory works as a curator), ate awesome gyros at the West End Market, and raw fish at Sushi Rock (see :22 in the following video: all spurious lies, by the way).

I topped it off with a look at Bruce Springsteen bric-a-brac in a special exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (where Kathryn works).  Looking good, Cleveland.

The leaves are changing in Michigan, as my friends Eryn and Ashley demonstrate in the photo below.  Bonus: check out the bengal cat that is currently dedicated to trashing my CS hosts’ house.  Strange animal.

For its size, The University of Michigan does a wonderful job of keeping a relatively cozy feel.  I was shown around campus by my CSer friend Xing, stepping on the university crest in the ground in the center of the quad to accidentally ensure I “failed my next blue book”.  She bought me dinner at her dorm cafeteria before she left me to go study, taking away her leftovers in a tupperware container she had brought along.

For some reason, I arranged to have breakfast with a local Greenpeace faction who were drinking at the same bar we were on my last night in town.  I think they got stoned and forgot to text me.

I had never been to Chicago before last weekend.  Upon arriving, Katherine–my host–made sure that I was immediately inundated with the iconic city, taking me on a twilight tour that included a strange and uplifting fountain in Millennium Park, the gothic majesty of the Chicago Tribune building, and hilarious boat names we spied/invented whilst hitting a flask on the marina (favorites: “That’s What She Said” and “Wet Dreams”).

I enjoyed what might have been the best soup (shrimp dumpling) of my life at Chi City in Chinatown after having spent the weekend eating vegan fare at Katherine’s favorite establishments.  Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy those thoroughly as well; a vegan Buffalo “Chicken” Wrap was especially delightful.

In case anyone was wondering: I found the creepiest puppet in America, sitting in the window of a strange Wicker Park boutique.  Stare deeply into his dead eyes.

Spent a few wonderful days with one of the greatest women in America, nay, the world: my grandma. With my Grandpa Joe passing away in 1986, she’s made sure to stay active and awesome, retiring from her job at the local bank only a few years ago after three decades, funding projects for people with special needs, visiting nursing homes to show love and attention to those with no one else, presiding over various comissions to help the disadvantaged, and bowling in a league with her girlfriends. There’s more, but I couldn’t keep track of it all. Needless to say, I’m so proud of the woman I could explode.

I arrived just in time to get an early morning tour Ste. Genevieve Industries, a non-profit where my Aunt Annette works along with approximately 70 other adults with special needs. Employees–with varying degrees of disability–are assigned fundamental tasks to perform such as operating machines that bag ice, constructing wooden shipping pallets, or assembling electronic components, receiving a paycheck for their labor just like a regular workplace. It was a life-affirming experience, seeing the fulfilled faces of Annette and her coworkers, their obvious pride in knowing that they are asset to their community, instead of a liability.

Otherwise, we spent the days eating chicken noodle soup and ham sandwiches, gabbing about this and that, catching up and chillaxing, Missouri-style. The weather was clear and breezy, a welcome change from the previous week. The morning that I left, we grabbed breakfast at the Kozy Kitchen, a small café in the little town my grandma calls home, and I asked the waitress to snap a few pictures.