Appleby's and Amsterdam

Toni and I spent the morning at the Sand Creek (same name as the famous Indian massacre in Colorado) condo and met the Value City delivery men followed by a guy who repaired the defective love seat and touched up the chipped table, both to our satisfaction. Then John Shearer came over to finish the last bit of painting. Randy Marshall, another old friend, did an excellent job of laying the rug in the enclosed porch while I was in French Lick. Jason promises he’ll have the two skylights in by next week at the latest. We had lunch at a nearby Appleby’s – I had a hamburger and Coleslaw and Toni ordered soup and pork tacos. There was enough left over for dinner. Years ago we took our two oldest granddaughters to Appleby’s and Alissa ordered a Shirley Temple (nonalcoholic) daiquiri. She took a taste and found it delicious. A few moments later a waitress appeared with another daiquiri and without a word substituted it for the first one (no doubt containing rum). Imagine the collective sigh of relief when we made nothing of it. In fact, it’s a great story. Seeing all the stuff on the walls about sports and film celebrities reminded me that Miranda had initially balked at going to Appleby’s, preferring MacDonald’s, but Toni concocted a game where you spot something on the walls and the others see who can spot it first. Ever since, Miranda has loved Appleby’s. During our trip to Palm Springs last year with Jim and Kate Migoski we had a couple meals at an Appleby’s right next to our motel, and Jim and I watched an NCAA playoff basketball game during Happy Hour – love those 22-ounce Bass Ales.

Alissa has embarked on her European trip with housemate Vee and called from airports in Grand Rapids and Philadelphia. Her thank-you card for our graduation present mentioning how important we have been in her life was deeply touching. She flew overnight to Amsterdam, a city I explored 25 years ago after a teaching stint in Saudi Arabia. At lunch in a history museum I listened to a folk singer who’d been singing for tips on a street corner earlier in the day. That night, drinking Amstel at a bar featuring a live band, I struck up a conversation with the guy next to me, who invited me to join him and his wife at an Indonesian restaurant the following evening. The food was fabulous. Near my hotel was a casino, and one evening I joined a blackjack table, betting the equivalent of about fifty cents each hand. After an hour the place got crowded, and a man behind me started betting on my hand, only he was risking about 20 times as much as I was. Every time he offered advice on whether to split my cards or take a hit, I took it. I ended up five dollars ahead, my one last bet of double or nothing and lost.

Suzanne mentioned that cats are a “sweet part” of her life, that her grandfather was a department chair at Beaver College, and that she likes to ponder abstracts such as whether truth is an absolute whereas I seem to be a very social person with a knack for discerning detail and inter-relationships of contemporary events. Very flattering, and I replied that I enjoyed her musings and comparisons of our personalities. Concerning cats and beavers, I wrote: “Our one neighbor down the road feeds three outdoor cats that often wander up to our place. While Marvin was alive, I’d try to chase any cats I saw because he was very territorial and would fight any feline intruders – often feral cats that would infect him. With Marvin gone, I’ve gradually come to enjoy them. Our first Indiana cat was Poki, named after a street Toni and I lived on in Honolulu when I was in grad school. Poki had a set of kittens that our young sons were fascinated by (and would have kept, had I let them) before we had her neutered. When we got married, my mother told Toni that she’d be hosting faculty tea parties. At IU Northwest almost all of us were young so the milieu was beer and Rock ‘n’ Roll rather than tea and classical music. I recall Beaver College being located near where I grew up and, looking it up on Wikipedia, discovered that it started admitting men in 1972 and in 2001 changed its name to Acadia University, in part, according to president Bette Landman, because the name “too often elicits ridicule in the form of derogatory remarks pertaining to the rodent, the TV show Leave It to Beaver and the vulgar reference to the female anatomy."

The reality shows “Dancing with the Stars” and “American Idol” came to a close. “Dancing” winner Nicole Scherzinger from the pop group Pussycat Dolls and runner-up Evan Lysacek, an Olympic skating champ, had an unfair advantage in experience over underdog Erin Andrews, the ESPN reporter who became an unwanted celebrity because of being stalked by a man who took photos of her naked through a peephole and posted them on the Internet. So I was rooting for her but didn’t think she had a chance. I hadn’t watched “Idol” all year and didn’t care who won but knew that the ultimate winner, Lee DeWyze, was a painter from the Chicago area. The judges seemed to favor Crystal Bowersox, but my theory is that far more females vote and that they tend to go for male idols. Paula Abdul came back Simon Fuller’s final show. The crowd went wild for her. I mainly tuned in to see guest performers Alice Cooper, Janet Jackson, Carrie Underwood, Chicago, Michael McDonald, and Joe Cocker (who sang “With a Little help from my Friends” with Lee and Crystal). Quite a lineup. Alanis Morrissette did a duet with Crystal, who sanitized “You Oughta Know, substituting “with” for “on” in the line, “Would she go down on you in a theater?”