A Woman Walks Into a Bar

This evening I was in Kendall Square, where I worked for 12 years, my old stomping grounds as it were. Of course everything changes. The firehouse is now a boutique hotel. There are fancy bus stop shelters, and a new Au Bon Pain. But other things look like they always did, at after the subway stop and the hotel were completed and the holes in the ground were gone.

Legal Seafood is still there, but the fish counter is long departed, and even the restaurant has been totally remodeled. I didn't see the take-out window, but maybe it's there. Legal Seafood was the first place ever where I felt comfortable sitting at the bar as a woman alone. I worked upstairs in an office and it was the kind of job where you put in a lot of hours after working hours, so I would bop down to Legal, have a glass of wine and an appetizer at the bar, and go back to work.

In the old days, I had a small mussels au gratin. The cheese and the garlic and the buttered crumbs offset the wine to a wonderful degree. At one point they changed the recipe--and the butter and the cheese were greatly reduced and it never tasted right after that.

I switched to stuffed clams which were ultra-delicious and arrived on a bed of salt and then they disappeared from the menu, too. Like I was the appetizer kiss of death. Who knew?

The last item I settled on was the shrimp wontons, fried of course. Always delicous. They too disappeared for a short time but are back again with a small seaweed salad. Yum! Just right for a small repast with a glass of crisp white wine and one of the delicious hard rolls with melty butter. It can't get much better than that.

The couple next to me had some kind of fish cake concoction, seaweed salad and brown rice. It looked like health food, and they weren't drinking, either. Rather pasty looking pair. Well, what can you expect? Naturally they hadn't touched their butter.

If you think I make snap value judgements, you're right. I do.

The couple on the other side, yowza! She had bluefish with mashed potatoes and onion rings, the best of both worlds. He had lobster bisque and a humongous salad with frisee, pears, walnuts, blue cheese, pancetta, maybe. It looked so good. They were obviously not health food freaks, and they looked like more fun, too.

The event I went down for offered a small meal, it turned out. Wraps and water. I hate wraps! All that doughy tasteless mess. Yuck! Wraps and cheap greasy pizza should be barred from--well, from anyplace I have to eat.

The event was boring and I sneaked out early. Just in time to write my blog.

So the man will burn again on Saturday. The moon is so full and it would be wonderful to be on the playa tonight, listening to the techno beat and drinking and talking and making the scene. I've been reading a little Kerouac in prep. for the big anniversary on Wednesday. You are celebrating aren't you?

We're trekking to Lowell, MA to see the infamous scroll and to hear part of the reading of On the Road. Remember. The road is life.

When I lived in Houston and drove to Galveston on the Gulf-Tex Freeway, I felt one with the car, and the car was one with the road which was one with the earth which was one with the universe and there was this great interconnectedness, and then I would get to sleazy old Galveston and drive on the beach and eat flounder stuffed with shrimp and cruise by the bishop's palace and gape at the oleanders and the funky parts of town and before you left you always had to put a quarter in the little carwashes to get the salt off the car and sometimes the gulf was warm enough for swimming in March.

Grapeshot