the hypothetical wren

Yes, it is.

(Sidewalk graffiti in my neighborhood.)

Laundromats seem inherently depressing. They’re in that category of places that are no-places, locations where you’re just biding your time, waiting to go somewhere else. Airports are also no-places, but there’s more to do there. In laundromats, you can watch socks and underwear (yours or someone else’s) take a ride in the dryer. You can try to get some reading done (never successful, don’t even try) in the time it takes for a load to wash. You can see what’s in the vending machine — perhaps there’s one of those large vacuum-packed pickles in there or a Slim Jim. But, eventually, your clothes will be done and you will be allowed to get on with your life.

The above photo was taken outside the laundromat at Harvard and Lead. I’ve only been there once, but it seemed like a more depressing laundromat than usual. It’s tiny, the front door doesn’t work, and the best seats are found on the weird turquoise bench outside (seen above, embellished with a K). Then again, you can bide your time in the strange businesses next door — the furniture store, the punk-rock clothing store that doesn’t open until 1. Unfortunately, the store that sold old shampoo and other slowly aged “discount” items has closed.

---

People who have left comments on this here thing have probably realized that I moderate comments. This is why there is sometimes (depending on when I check my mail) a lag between when you leave comments and when they appear on the site. There may be a larger lag to come — I’ve been getting a lot of comment spam this week. I have taken some preventive measures, but some is still getting through. So, in order to save myself some irritation, I’m going to try and moderate all the comments (both legitimate and unwanted) at once, one or two times a day, instead of one at a time. So don’t worry if it takes a while for what you posted to show up — it’s there, I just have to wade through a lot of chaff to get to your particular piece of wheat.

This weekend was pretty busy, although I didn’t manage to get a lot done for school.

Friday evening, H. and S. and I went to dinner at Kim’s Vietnamese Gourmet on Menaul. This is the first Vietnamese restaurant I’ve eaten at in ABQ that wasn’t, well, in that part of the city where the Vietnamese restaurants congregate. Some people refer to it as Little Saigon, but there’s also a lot of Mexican restaurants there. So, anyway, this was an interesting change from my usual Que Huong-May Cafe-Pho #1 orbit. [1] I’d read good reviews of it, etc., etc., and persuaded some of my friends that we should go there for dinner.

For some reason, I thought it was further east on Menaul than it actually was — I pictured it being out on Juan Tabo, which is more or less Here Be Monsters territory in my mind. But no, it’s closer to Coronado and the new Borders, located right next door to the Flying Star that seems out of place. Kim’s was pretty popular on Friday night — we had to be seated next to the pastry case, unfortunately, which meant that we eventually had to get dessert.

The menu, for those of you who haven’t been there, is quite unlike that at many of the other Vietnamese restaurants in town. They serve pho, of course, and rice-paper rolls, and noodle bowls and other favorites, but there are also many dishes that show a French influence — broiled chicken with couscous, fruit tarts, things like that. I had the braised coconut chicken — a leg quarter (yay, dark meat!) of chicken cooked slowly in coconut juice — that I’d read about in several reviews of the place. Coconut is one of my favorite flavors, and I find it tasty in all its guises — the anti-cantaloupe, if you will. H. had a big bowl of soup and S. had the spicy lemongrass chicken noodles. However, everything that came out of the kitchen looked really good. The table nearest us was having “Vietnamese fondue,” which involved a burner, a large pot of oil or some other cooking medium, and lots of small plates of ingredients. Someone else was having a plate of chicken-apple curry, which looked really tasty, and which might be what I get the next time I go. Other patrons had large plates of noodles and meats and the like, which I couldn’t quite identify.

It was a very good meal. The chicken wasn’t quite as coconutty as I would like, but it was still rich, and the coconut-chicken jus that came on the side was delicious. The salad rolls we ordered as an appetizer were also tasty, and included mint (something that seems missing in a lot of their counterparts at Vietnamese restaurants across the city, save at Pho #1). The owner (I think) waited on us, and she was great. She was really enthusiastic about what we were eating, and explained what each condiment she brought to us did, and what each of the desserts in the case were.

Speaking of dessert — I had a piece of baked Vietnamese flan cake, with cocoa, cinnamon, and toasted coconut. Yum. H. and S. each had a piece of the flan patisserie — vanilla custard cake.

Anyway, a visit there is highly recommended. I thought about going there for dinner last night, to try their beef satay noodle soup, but then I remembered that I didn’t have any money.

---

This weekend was utterly unproductive for schoolwork, but it was a good walking weekend. I went on two long walks, one on Saturday, one on Sunday, so, at the end of the weekend, I felt all virtuous and, also, exhausted.

On Saturday, I set out to walk from my apartment to Nob Hill via the long way, which involved walking past Fairview Cemetery, going to the Ernie Pyle library, taking a (sadly blurry) picture of the birdhouses at the Bandelier School, going up to Carlisle and Gibson, walking east, and then getting to my final destination via Central after seeing what was happening on a large stretch of Washington. That took a while, and there weren’t a whole lot of other pedestrians on many of the streets I walked on, especially when I was in more residential sections. I got a few strange looks, perhaps because I was on foot, or because I was wearing my bright red beret.

The above photo was taken at Washington and Mesa Grande — there’s a low-slung office building there, where each door is painted a different bright color. The one above looks pink, due to my camera and the lighting, but it was really bright, bright orange.

Sunday, I walked downtown to go see a movie (The Queen, which was excellent) after the usual time spent with a breakfast burrito and the paper. This is not new for me, of course, but what was new was that I walked back, all the way up the hill. Usually, I take the bus back from downtown, because I don’t have enough energy to walk back home. It wasn’t that bad, though — it took about 40 minutes — and the grade wasn’t quite as steep as it looks from the bottom.

---

[1] Cafe Trang? Blows. At least it did, once. Lots of garnish, not a lot of food.

I got a surprise belated-birthday present in the mail this week. This bag showed up in the mail, courtesy of J. This would make my fourth Timbuk2 bag, and the first I have in the extra-small size. The graphic on the front was originally from a billboard. The bag holds one or two books, my coffee cup, my camera, and other assorted necessities. I’m still not sure if it’s large enough to use as a school bag, but it is a good size for the weekend. Of course, that makes switching to a larger bag once Monday rolls around is a sure, if slightly depressing, sign that the week is about to begin.

The best part of the bag is something not visible here — the lining is bright, bright red. It’s hard not to be cheerful when I open the thing up, since other bags I have (even ones from the same company) tend to have stern, utilitarian grey linings. Secret color — in bags, clothes linings, shoe insoles, etc. — is one of the best parts of owning things.

At 7:30 yesterday morning, I was restless. Even though it was only 22 degrees outside, I wanted to go take a walk. Not one of those walks I take in order to rack up a certain amount of mileage or time exercising — those tend to be more like chores than explorations. I wanted to walk somewhere relatively new, but also somewhere where there was coffee, warm food, and something to read at the end of my journey. A few weeks ago, I thought about going to The Grove Cafe and Market during one of my walks, but I wasn’t particularly hungry when I walked by there, so I passed up the chance.

The Grove is located not terribly far from where I live, but it’s still enough of a walk that I had to really want to go there, especially on cold mornings. After all, walking there requires crossing University (not the safest street for pedestrians) and going underneath I-25, where the ambient sounds of cars going overhead are not enough to make up for the fact that it’s dark and gross on the sidewalk below. Besides, people in their cars look at you incredulously when you’re walking there, like you had to have been stricken with some unnameable tragic thing to be at that spot at that moment (car died, had to walk someone to one of the nearby hospitals, leprosy). The biggest obstacle yesterday, though, was the cold. By the time I got to my destination, I could no longer tell how my upper thighs were doing.

The inside of The Grove, pictured above, is quite nice. The walls are painted relaxing colors, which contrast with the heavy, dark tables. It’s not particularly busy Thursday mornings at 8, or at least it wasn’t yesterday. There was a handful of other patrons, who seemed to be leisurely wiling their way through breakfast, with no immediate need to finish. A good sign. I had thought about getting the pancakes, which I noticed on the menu when I briefly stopped in at The Grove a few weeks ago. However, I ended up getting the breakfast burrito, the thing on the menu that best corresponded to my need for hot food. Besides, the pancakes came with fresh fruit, which, in restaurants, always means cantaloupe, or other fruits mixed with cantaloupe.

I hate cantaloupe. It’s probably my least favorite food in the world. People who know me in person are well aware of this, as are those who have been reading the blog for some time. But let me reiterate: cantaloupe is disgusting. This would be okay if it kept its ill will to itself, but cantaloupe has this amazing ability to transfer all of its bad qualities (its taste, and especially its dirty-feet stank) to the foods that it touches. So, a nice mixed fruit salad automatically becomes cantaloupe salad, no matter what other ingredients are in there. Strawberries taste like it, as do grapes — the assimilative powers of cantaloupe are unmatched. The same goes for honeydew. Who needs them?

The burrito came with roasted jalapeño salsa, instead of cantaloupe, so it was automatically a better choice. It was a different type of breakfast burrito than I often it — it was not the large gutbomb served in so many places, smothered in chile and cheese. The breakfast burrito at The Grove was dainty in comparison. However, its taste was not commensurate with its size. My burrito contained eggs, sausage, goat cheese, and green chile. The sausage had a nice bite to it, the chiles were hot, and the goat cheese provided a tang that cheddar is incapable of matching. It was an excellent breakfast, and the coffee was good, too. It was about the same price as the not-very-good Flying Star breakfast burrito (what’s with the enormous chunks of potatoes), but more expensive than the standard model from Winnings. Still, it was worth my while to walk down there.

After breakfast, I walked around and explored the surrounding neighborhood, which, by virtue of its many Victorian houses, feels less like ABQ than any other part of the city I’ve been in. It reminds me of Capitol Hill in Denver, just with less traffic and cheaper real-estate values. I nearly lived in this part of the city when I moved here, since the apartments I was most interested in were in the Huning Highland (not EDo — that’s just tacky) area, until I found the one I live in now. I wouldn’t mind living there, but, then again, I’m glad I don’t have to walk down there, in the dark, after my late classes each week. I’m perfectly happy to walk a long way and in a wide variety of settings during the day, but once it gets dark, I just want to stay home.