Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Three Beautiful Things 11/18/19: Off to Spokane, Dinner at Ferguson's, Bon Bon Trivia

1. I got myself organized, cleaned up the house a bit, dropped Charly off at Carol and Paul's house, fired my luggage into the back of the Sube, leapt in, and zoomed off to Spokane. I had no problem finding the room/apartment in a restored farmhouse I rented for a couple of nights at the end of West 13th, overlooking Polly Judd Park. I got myself situated and I departed.

2. Mary lives about ten minutes or so from where I am staying and I drove to her house to meet up with her and Kathy. We visited for a while and piled into Mary's Sube and headed north to Garland Avenue. We ate dinner at Ferguson's, a diner I used to enjoy going to back in the 80s for breakfast. Ferguson's has enjoyed renovation since the days I used to go there -- it's also recovered from a fire -- and the new look both freshened up the place and was faithful to Ferguson's history. I ordered a meatloaf dinner with french fries instead of mashed potatoes and a small salad. As is the case, from time to time, when I dine out, the meatloaf that family members prepare tastes better than this one did, but I was happy I gave it a try and I was very happy to be back in Ferguson's again.

3. Kathy, Mary, and I strolled west a little ways on Garland Avenue and secured a table at Bon Bon a cozy and lively neighborhood bar in the Garland Theater building and played trivia. Our host, Jasmine, had none of the technological support that other trivia game hosts have: no microphone, no video screen showing the questions, no IPad-like devices to enter answers into, nothing! She stood at one end of the room and with her mighty voice called out questions over the chatter and laughter at the bar and the other tables in Bon Bon. She was heroic. We wrote our answers on little legal pads. Our team name was Squid Pro Quo and we finished in third place. On one of the teams, seated at the bar, was a woman celebrating her birthday. In advance, she had put a request into Jasmine for a round of questions about figure skating. Ha! Kathy, Mary, and I were a bit out of league in this category, but we gave the questions our best effort and came up a little short.

Back at Mary's, I helped roll her green waste container out to the curb and returned to my room/apartment on West 13th to rest up for the long day ahead on Tuesday.

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