Cliff Dwellers Part Two

One thing that's been bothering me all day is that Paczki isn't actually pronounced:Punch-Key. But I can't come up with an appropriate rhyme for it. It's more like poo+n-ch-key. I don't like to give out inaccurate information if I can help it.

Hmmm, where was I? Oh yeah, seeing John. Riiight.

Now I shall transport you on the Eisenhower flying east toward Chicago tra la la la lah and all of a sudden what had been rrrrrrrrrrrrr has now turned into RRRRRRRRRRRRR. Muffler issues. I'm not sure if it fell off or disconnected or, I dunno, what do mufflers like to do after they've been banged about all winter long? Retire to Florida?

Old me? Absolutely freaking out. New me? Laughed. (Altho I didn't LOL because I find that embarrassing. Mine was way more like a: Ha!)

Believe you me, I have driven every flavor of pieces of crap-mobiles and this is not the first time this muffler business has happened to me, so I didn't even flinch. I did feel just a bit, hmm, what would you say? Strange about stopping on Michigan Avenue in front of a fully loaded bus so I could hop out and grab instructions to a parking spot. I kinda felt bad for the bus driver and then I kinda felt severely cool and self-important just for a second too. They call that 'conflicted' but whatever.

I swooped into the rest of my amazing evening with the appropriate abandon befitting someone of what passes for my current social position and that included accidentally kicking my escort's ginger ale as I was sneaking off to the restroom spilling a dazzling array of ice cubes onto the polished wood floor, mistaking a different guy for the featured speaker and trying to engage him in conversation which was okay, come on, pretty hilarious in an oaf-like sorta way. Ooh and the one social gaffe I can never overcome, and that is this:

When you're an artist? There's this crazy notion that what you do has no monetary value. Their hours are billable, yours are cotton candy. Seriously. Everyone thinks it's cute and nice to have stuff on their walls, but nobody gives a fiddlers that there has been exactly no crossage of silver across one's palm for your contribution to humanity and I swear to God, I tried not to assert my fury. I seriously did. (I got to go for no other reason than because my sister has a kind and generous (and thirsty because I kicked his ginger ale) friend and I am just bold/rude enough to invite myself.)

(Nutshell version of the current episode in which a local man invites artists to submit unframed paintings of Abraham Lincoln FOR FREE with no arrangements for said artists to even be invited to the presentation. Ask me just how irked I am about that. It would be as if I said: hey Gomer Pyle, bring your car over by Monday-you don't have to wash it or anything and when Goober and I are done driving it to Mount Pilate? You can come on over and pick it up. That's crap and it's not acceptable especially when the event is for an arts organization. Oak Park is The. Worst. in terms of getting any respect.) Grrr. Don't get me started. I might blow a gasket on top of my muffler issues.

Uh-oh. Too late.

Well, that little fury business leaked out just a tiny bit here and there, but luckily I smothered it with the most gorgeous pie I've ever seen. Pie of the Gods I tell you. I had a chunk of apple and a spoonful of blueberry of which I shall never forget.

And then? I gathered my local fair housing activist Bobbie Raymond who lives up the street from me, said thank you to my sister's friend Graham, and me and Bobbie and my muffler RRRRRRRRRRRRR'ed all the way home.