Yesterday handed me the difficult chore of going to court. Always a kick in the dick when you’ve taken the path of divorce.
Anyway, that’s not where I want to go with this….
….the plaintiff was a no show and continues a downward plunge towards rock bottom.
I took advantage of a day in Chicago and turned a negative into a positive. It’s been nearly two and a half years since I took a morning train into the Loop.
After I left the Daley Building, for all you non Chicagoans that the building with the Picasso that looks like an orangutan. You saw it in Blues Brothers.
Anyway, after I left the Daley… I was angry and bitter that I was dragged into the city using a sick day for nothing. Albeit the morning was brisk, the streets were empty. Even back before China Flu when it was cold in Chicago the streets bustled.
I’m walking down an empty LaSalle Street towards the Board of Trade. Ceres standing tall giving me that beacon of hope that she has provided since the Reagan administration.
I left my troubles at the corner of LaSalle and Madison and headed to a happy place. The cigar shop in the lobby of the Board of Trade. I use to smoke two or three cigars a week. Those days are long gone.
Forty minutes with a Churchill calmed my nerves.
Then I walked across the empty art deco lobby into Ceres Cafe. The place where the ex Chief of Police got zipped up at and lost his job. They make the strongest cocktail in the Loop.
I ordered their famous fish sandwich and a Bloody Mary. Thirty six bucks!
The first time I had that sandwich it was piled with six or seven pieces of deliciously breaded cod. Once you picked that son of a bitch up you held it in your hand until the last bite. This sandwich was as big as your sisters ass.
Yesterday it had three pieces of cod that looked like something out of a TV dinner box…. A twenty four dollar sandwich, it was $5.95 when I was a runner in the grain room that first summer down on the trading floor.
A cigar, a fish sandwich, a Ceres cocktail and a beautiful blue day in the city by the lake. It reminded me how much I have in life. Good memories, good friends and a long career.
I met the mother of my children on that trading floor. I was there when she had her first fish sandwich. She ended up letting go and bitching how messy it was….. red flag!
Still, a pain in the ass morning turned into a therapeutic afternoon.
Today is Groundhog Day. All day we will hear about the damn shadow. I’m sure we will catch a glimpse of the movie.
To me I don’t pay attention to a Groundhog and it’s shadow. My barometer for the length of the remaining winter is the beloved Walrus fart. If the walrus farts after breakfast winter will end soon.
Happy walrus fart day!
