To make the lemon cake, first combine the dry ingred..... dammit.
I grabbed the wrong printout from the counter.
should have turned a light on.
hold a mo'.
Ok.
Being the un-hip, out of touch guy that I am, I had no idea what was going on downtown last friday evening, that resulted in so many extra folks iding the El train, carrying blankets, back packs, etc.
Yes, they were carrying etc.
I was listening to my mp3 player on the unusually crowded El train, when five young women got on together.
(young women = 16-20 years old. Not like I asked for ID....)
It was if the Spice Girls had reformed.
We had trampy spice; Sorority Spice; Sporty-in-a-vaguely-mannish Spice;and two girls in carefully beat up jeans and tight, long sleeve flannel shirts, who I can only label as "Retro K-mart imitgation Grunge Spice(s)". Or, maybe "Alternative Lifestyle Spice(s)" though they were thoroughly feminine otherwise.
Each one was so distinguishable from the others that it was cartoonish, and I cannot for a moment think that it was all just a coincidence of fashion choices.
At the same time, I wish the had REALLY committed, and decided to go full-on Village People, cuz that would have been cool.
Trampy Spice was sporting a tight, leopard skin mini-dress over tights, lots of cleavage, lots of loud jewelry and ridiculous heels; and she'd almost fall over every time the train would come into, and again when it would, a station. After three or four station stops, she decided that maybe she should hold on.
Somehow, she screwed that up, too, and a couple of stops latger decided that maybe if she sat down, it would be better...
As I sat there listening to Social Distortion, I watched them make fun of a little punkette who had already been on the train when they boarded. She was worthy of their scorn, apparently, because she had a couple of piercings in her lip, and had shaved off her eyebrows and drew on longer ones.
Really long ones.
Yep, the spice girls were quietly mocking someone ELSE'S sense of fashion, without irony. They had tgheir backs to her, and she wans't paying attention, so I hope she didn't realize what they were doing.
"I don't care what they think, I'm punk."
If you really didn't care, you wouldn't try so hard...
Been there, done that, fooled noone.
As much fun as all of this was, it was time to disembark the train for my 15 minute walk through downtown to my commuter train station. the platform, hallways, and escalators wree packed with humanity. One such example of this humanity was a large, older woman, dressed shabbily and pulling a very full grocery cart behind her. She made a slow, shuffling bee-line through the teeming masses, toward an elevator.
The rest of us were stopping, shifting, etc to try to get around her. the cart was full of plastic bags and boxes, and random scraps of detrius, so that the whole visual effect was that she was unbalanced and homeless.
As we all ducked and dodged to get around her, I accidently stepped on a flip flop, worn by the guy in front of me, another El train amateur. I was still listening to music, but saw him stumble slightly, and then turn around to glare at me.
"Don't glare at me! I'm not the dumb ass who thought flip flops were a good idea for the El train" I thought, but did not voice, as I slid his shoe toward him with my foot, apologizing as I kept walking toward the exit.
I heard the homeless woman address the guy, as I walked away.
"That's why I always carry a few extra pair with me."
I guess that explains the grocery cart....
I busted out laughing upon hearing her say this, as That's Entertainmnet by The Jam began playing in my ears.
As I turned the corner, further distancing myself from the crowd, I realized that for her to have said that, the guy mustg have discovered that his flip flop had broke.
The thought that I was responsible for this guy having to go barefoot through downtown Chicago for his big advenure in the big city made me feel kinda bad, for a moment.
Until I came out onto the street, and was reminded that I was a block or so from Macy's, a three story Old Navy, and various other places where poorly-thought-out footwear options were readily available. He was gonna be just fine....
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