Ughhhhh

Expressway Diner
5109 Memphis Ave
Brooklyn, Ohio 44144

I was introduced to the Expressway Diner by an Internet friend on the first night we hung out in real life. Carla and I, discovering a mutual vegetarianism and disenchantment with humanity, decided to meet up at the local bar Manja, then visit a few bars downtown. After a few drinks, Carla said she was having a hankering for home cookin’, so we went to the Expressway Diner. She had the jojos, which seemed quite delicious, and I had a ultra-tasty vegetable quesedilla complete with salsa and sour cream, which was large enough to provide for ample leftovers.

I was impressed enough to visit again with my roommate Jeff at the next available opportunity. We both had the omelet, homefries, and toast breakfast, and were stunned by the large, fluffy, delicious omelets. I argue that the homefries at Expressway are the best that I have ever had and represent the platonic ideal of homefries — salty and flavorful, not greasy, or soggy, or burnt — but Jeff seems to prefer the homefries at the Clifton Diner. I was also impressed by a menu item with a name something along the lines of “Belgian Waffle Deluxe” — Expressway has a giant menu of breakfast, lunch, and dinner entrees — which was a waffle covered with strawberries, whipped cream, and the piece de resistance — a big scoop of vanilla ice cream in the middle! On my next visit, I had the non-ice-cream topped version of this waffle, which was nicely crispy and light, with not-too-sweet strawberries and just enough whipped cream to give you a taste but not so much that you can feel your arteries clog.

Another benefit of the Expressway Diner is that they maintained a smoking section long after the Ohio smoking ban had gone into effect. Maybe that will disgust some people, but as a smoker, I appreciated it. I’m fairly sure now that there’s actually a penalty for violating the smoking ban, they’ve gone no-smoking.

The last time I ate at the Expressway was the Saturday on which the old Fulton Road bridge by the Cleveland Zoo was supposed to blow up. After my boyfriend, Jeff and I sat in the rain for around an hour to see a charge go off but not actually destroy anything, we decided that we were too wet and miserable to wait around for anything else to happen or not happen, which considering the bridge wasn’t fully razed until the next Tuesday was a good decision. Since the Expressway Diner is near the corner of Memphis and Fulton, we headed over there for a late breakfast. Jeff had another omelette, I’m fairly sure my boyfriend had regular French toast, and I decided to try the almond French Toast, which was essentially French toast with slivered almonds on it. Again, it was delicious, just like everything else I’ve had at the Expressway Diner.

Other benefits of this place are the chrome trim on the building, the fact that it’s open 24 hours, and has extremely reasonable prices (I think my French toast, without meat, was under $4.) The staff is also reliable and friendly, and they seem amenable to special orders along the lines of “no meat.” I hope to someday go back and try some of their lunch/dinner fare. I’d say that I’d post an updated review at that point, but it’ll probably be just as good as everything else I’ve had there, so why bother?

This year! Boo yah!

had a crazy, awesome, and ridiculously involved dream last night. Here is is, as best as I can remember:

I had ridden the bus from a mysterious location in Parma to a K-Mart for some reason. The K-Mart I went to wasn’t any actual K-Mart, though it did kind of remind me of a really grungy old K-Mart in Lakewood, WA that I probably went to twice. For some reason all they had at this K-Mart was clothes, so I wandered around trying to find something to buy. I picked out these two really ugly crocheted vests that were pastel pink, and took them to the register. They were ringing up my items, and the total came to something ridiculous. The amount $117 sticks out in my mind. Anyway, I objected, and said I didn’t want whichever the most expensive pink vest was anymore, because it was way too expensive. For some reason they got mad at me, and this manager lady came out and made me describe the kind of tag on the vest, like I was trying to steal it somehow or something. But once I successfully described the tag, they decided to let me go. At this point, due to overhearing the employees talk about the bus, I realized that I had no idea how to get home. They helpfully told me they’d show me how to get home, so we all ended up riding the bus together. At this point I saw the #27 bus out of the window of the bus I was on, which is the South 12th Street bus in Tacoma, and realized that I was actually lost enough to have ended up in Tacoma (this is a recurring theme of my dreams — Cleveland becoming Tacoma and vice versa). I decided that I’d probably just go to my parents’ house then figure out what to do.

Then, for some reason, I was in a really big shopping center area, the type that just has big “anchor” stores. There was a Target and some other familar store, then a giant department-grocery store with dark blue signs, though I can’t remember what it was called. There was kind of a cut scene to a brief narration about how this mini-mall was revolutionary because it was based around a Biblical concept involving seven seals. I was shown one of the seals in the cut scene, which was like one of those fancy living flower arrangements you see sometimes that say “Welcome to Fort Wayne” or “Go Team” or whatever, except it resembed a circular Japanese crest representing a purple three-petaled flower. The narration also pointed out the London skyline over a hill (the whole mini-mall was kind of down in a valley).

So, anyway, I went into the giant department store and aimlessly wandered around either before or after this narrative bit, then went outside and remembered about that whole wanting to go home thing. Since the whole place was down in a valley, I had to climb up this terraced cliff to get out. At the top of the cliff was some kind of insane abandoned lumber mill. All this ancient-looking rotted logs were all over the ground in piles and were basically impassable, so I decided to climb up on this rusty stopped log conveyor belt to get over them. I sketched a quick picture of the conveyor, both from the side view and my actual view while climbing up the conveyor:

Suddenly I was in a group of random people who were also trying to escape the abandoned lumber mill. Two people decided they were going to escape by using this still-moving treadmill that ended in a bunch of gnashing metal teeth, but, of course, one of them got turned into a splattery mess by the teeth. Out of nowhere, some hard-hat wearing guy in some really weird sort of one-wheeled steamroller ATV or something showed up and said he’d send someone to rescue us.

Then me and all the rescued people were in this giant house with this Lestat-ish kind of vampire guy. I remember it being twilight, which I thought was weird, because, you know, the whole “vampires hate sunlight” thing. Then, all of a sudden I was the vampire guy, and I was looking at the coupons and advertisements section of a newspaper. I saw an ad for forks, then realized I only had one fork, and now that I had guests, I should probably go buy more forks. I was contemplating whether or not it was ethical to lock my guests in the house while I went to go buy forks when I woke up.

“The Tempest Prognosticator, also known as the Leech Barometer, is an invention by George Merryweather in which leeches are used in a barometer. The twelve leeches are kept in small bottles inside the device; when they become agitated by an approaching storm they attempt to climb out of the bottles and trigger a small hammer which strikes a bell. The likelihood of a storm is indicated by the number of times the bell is struck.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_Prognosticator

IM conversation quotes from me and Don Piano, pleasantly devoid of context.

don piano: and on the fifteenth day, god made jam and shoes.

kat: i’ve run out of phrases involving sauce to google.

don piano: ha, wilson phillips just came on my winamp. this is so awesome.

kat: man my anal needs a doily.

don piano: i usually sing songs to myself about giving aids to stoves.

kat: don’t you have a ravioli cannon? i can give you bearings.

don piano: “i saw a homeless guy blowing a horse. yum!!”

kat: oh, hey, that guy isn’t a neonazi.

don piano: the best way to cure it is by eating an entire box of lucky charms blindfolded.

kat: hell, i’d rather eat out a squirrel.

don piano: fucking a mutant could be fun.

kat: my roommate just came in here and i really did not want to explain why i’m looking at pictures of meatballs

don piano: if god wanted us to drive cars, he would’ve given us hover boots.

kat: i still didn’t actually take my vitamins. i’m never getting ass raped.

don piano: you’d better make sure he doesn’t know of our alaskan plan, then.

kat: yeah, usually it doesn’t come up in tire iron rape discussion.

don piano: “make me eat cat food once, shame on you. make me eat cat food twice, shame on me.”

kat: yes, i am full of metaphorical semen.

don piano: that’s because god has two hundred rows of teeth.

kat: for some reason, people don’t like dead dogs.

don piano: oh, i thought you just had a really small penis that went inside your body. but that’s hot that you’re a girl.
don piano: or a really big penis that went inside your body.

kat: ugh, there’s a juice claw in my butt!

don piano: well, i’m your soul rapist.

kat: YOU MAKE A WHOLE POOL

don piano: i’m just using you for emotional stability and life-long commitments.

kat: if i worked at a massage parlor, i would sing “workin in the cum mine” all the time.

don piano: i’ve put random parts of me in your butt.

kat: i want to be penetrated by microwaves.

don piano: how’d you know that’s what i call my tongue?

kat: that’s why they call you “the gentleman rapist”

don piano: bob dylan?
kat : that guy doesnt do enough songs about hot pockets.

kat: tobacco road is a good song to eat a giant piece of cheese to.

don piano: rubbing my dick on your taint would make you forget how to read?

My visit to
Cindy’s Diner
830 S Harrison St
Fort Wayne, IN, 46802

While looking up the address of this diner, I came across the following article about Fort Wayne being American’s Dumbest City. It’s tangental at best, but worth reading.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/2005-01-19-dumb-cities_x.htm

So anyway, I was paying my gentleman friend Don Piano a visit in Fort Wayne for a while, and on my last day, May 10th, we decided to head over to Cindy’s Diner for breakfast. I’d come across the out-of-place little prefab diner while he and I, bored out of our gourds, decided to wander around downtown Fort Wayne on a Sunday afternoon. There’s not much of note downtown — the diner and an amazing perpetually-growing mechanical loaf of bread on a billboard were the highlights for me, though there’s also a new library in a building resembling an airplane hangar, a Rally’s, and a Taco Bell.

Cindy’s is somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 seats, all at the counter. We were asked what we wanted to drink almost as soon as we sat down. I got diet Coke and Mr. Piano got regular Coke, as we both enjoy a good soda with our morning meal, especially if our morning meal is around 11AM. I ordered a two eggs, potato, toast, and meat item combo, gladly giving my companion my sausage patties, while Mr. Piano chose to sample the hotcakes and meat platter. In classic diner style, the food was cooked not more than a few feet away from us, and I was pleased to watch my two eggs being cracked and scrambled and Mr. Piano’s hotcakes being poured onto the grill. Also, the potato item, which I’m fairly sure the menu called “American fries,” were Midwest-style sliced homefries, which also pleased me. I have a devotion to determining the exact boundaries of the homefries region — it doesn’t seem to extend to New York City or Philadelphia, and I’ve only ventured as far as Fort Wayne and Milwaukee in the other direction.

In any case, our food was quickly served and consumed. The homefries qualify as definitive — not overcooked or overly greasy, slightly salty, and pleasantly flavorful. I would rank only the homefries offered by Cleveland’s Expressway Diner over these. The eggs were also surprisingly good — I usually need to eliminate any egg flavor with ketchup to make it tolerable outside of a cheese omelette, but these were light, fluffy, and very edible. The toast was also enjoyable, as toast should be. I have every indication that Don Piano also enjoyed his meal, but my recollection of his experience is blurred by the events which followed.

Not remembering that Cindy’s has a strict no-credit-card policy, Mr. Piano had to visit an ATM after his meal to acquire some cash, wisely leaving me in the restaurant as collateral. I sat quietly and absent-mindedly stared at the TV for what seemed like an awfully long time for a grown man to travel a city block and return, noticing a few cop cars rushing down the street outside in the meanwhile. A customer came in and asked if anyone knew what was going on down the street — apparently a large number of Fort Wayne’s finest and their automobiles had congregated outside the downtown branch of the Wells Fargo. Moments later, I noticed my gentleman friend returning to the diner, and the waitress said, “Well, we’ll ask this guy, he just got back from the bank!”

From what Mr. Piano could piece together, someone had attempted to rob the bank. He had driven to the ATM, and was pulled over by the police on the way, who also attempted to pull over a car in front of him. In a sequence of events I could at best misremember, Mr. Piano heard an officer behind him pump a shotgun and later saw the police putting a man in handcuffs in a police car. All of this was quite strange for Mr. Piano, but he managed to get his required funds and make it back to the diner in one piece. He was the star of the diner for a brief period, but we quickly paid and departed.

All in all, it was probably the most interesting event in downtown Fort Wayne this year, and I ate breakfast the day after my birthday a block away with the man who saw it.

Oh yeah, and Cindy’s has an old-fashioned donut machine, the product of which I hope to sample at a later date.

Do they make Claritin as a suppository?

It was some guy pretending to be me.