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We had our latest Book Club outing after work yesterday, back at Queen Anne Beerhall, which is just a short few blocks away from the office. I rode my bike over there, getting me there first. Steve walked over by himself, saying he had gone to the front desk to find it empty; he had also looked at both mine and Kara's desks and found them empty too. I suppose we could have coordinated better regarding whether anyone would walk over together. Mel and Kara arrived just a few minutes after Steve and I found a table to sit at.
That made it the four core Book Club members: Mel, Kara, Steve and me. Not long after that, though, after two others informed the Teams group they would not be making it, a new person arrived: Kiwi. I actually met her and chatted a bit during a JEDI training once last year, and we say hi sem-regularly on days she actually works in the office. She's originally from Nigeria and has a very interesting and unique story and background. It was fun having her part of the Book Club group this time around.
She also had the exact same response to the book we were to have read—and of which I have only only read 80 pages—called
The Great Influenza, about the last pandemic from 1918. Which is to say, it regularly put her to sleep, as it does me. That's not even to say it's not interesting. But, it's significantly frontloaded with U.S. medical advancement history for decades leading up to that pandemic, so even 80 minutes in we still haven't even gotten to 1918. I'm getting impatient.
A novel idea was proposed for our next Book Club meeting: instead of choosing a book for us all to read, we all choose our own book to read, and then report on it when we meet again. I like this idea.
I had forgotten that Steve, who is 63, grew up in Saint Paul, Minnesota—where I'll be going fro the Co+nvergence conference in August. So, we had a lot to chat about when that came up. I talked a lot about the pre-research I've already done on the Twin Cities, including how fascinated I am with their respective skyway systems, a network of second-story skyways between buildings connecting 80 blocks in downtown Minneapolis and spanning a cumulative 9.5 miles; Saint Paul has its own network spanning 5 miles and covering 47 blocks. I fully intend to do extensive exploring in both skyway systems, probably yielding dedicated photo albums in both cases.
Steven even said he has a book on Twin Cities architecture he can load me. Awesome!
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I had thought about ordering my dinner at Queen Anne Beerhall, but after snacking a little too much at the office until then, I decided against it. Still, I had two Moscow Mules, which were both tasy and, I think, a tad unusually strong.
I rode my bike home after a couple of hours hanging out there, and Shobhit was gone, presumably out campaigning. (When I told the group at Book Club that he's running for City Council, they all got almost shockingly excited, like they thought it was the coolest thing they'd ever heard. Which was fun.) I probably should have texted him to check up on what we'd do for dinner, but since he still had leftovers of a dish he'd made Thursday night that I didn't particularly feel like eating, I assumed he'd be having that when he got home.
Ideally, I would have skipped dinner. Too much snacking. I might have successfully resisted if not for the drinks, and I felt like I really needed something more substantive than the cocktails in my belly. I decided to skip having any more bread though and so I had a sort of poor-man's version of Veggi Chicken Cordon Bleu—except, even though I had veggie ham, I skipped that. I just fried up a couple of veggie chicken patties, topped them with a bit of tomato sauce from a an open can in the refrigerator (pasta sauce would have been far better, and god knows we have more than we need, but I didn't feel like I needed enough of it to open a jar), and topped that with blue cheese. It was . . . decent.
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But then, Shobhit texted me that he was down at
Poco Bar & Lounge, which I actually knew was having an evening event with deals for Braeburn Condos residents, but had forgotten. Shobhit's text said he had ordered macaroni & cheese and telling me to come join him.
I had
just made myself some tea. Dammit!
But, I went ahead and went down. There was a few people out on the patio tables they have, and just Shobhit inside, sitting at the bar, talking to the young Black man bartending, who eventually told us the place was now under new ownership, its fifth since the place first opened, upon the building itself opening in 2006—seventeen years ago! I can't remember if Regents Bakery was also an original business tenant, it may be; if so, then those are the only two that have been the same business in the same unit since the building opened, a year before Shobhit and I moved in.
They had long had macaroni & cheese on their menu. The bartender, whose name I never got but probably should have, said he had slightly tweaked the recipe. It was fucking delicious. Shobhit thought it could use more spice, but he'll always think that. In any case, I could not stop taking bites when I should not have been eating more.
I told the guy I would have ordered a drink but I'd already had two and that was enough. He offered to make me a tasty drink that was not alcoholic and I was like, okay sure! I told him I like fruity and sweet drinks, but he still used something with bitters in it. I took a drink and didn't really react, so he said, "Do you absolutely hate it?" I laughed and said, "I don't hate it." Which was true. I just didn't love it. I felt kind of bad.
Shobhit noted that "this counts as a date"—really just meaning he'll get a point on the Social Review. Indeed, he will. We also talked a bit about my August trip to the Twin Cities, and as of right now at least, he seems on board with the idea that perhaps he'll fly out to meet me that Saturday, the day after the conference ends but when I want to shift over from Saint Paul to Minneapolis for the next three days. It will be really fun to explore Minneapolis with Shobhit there, because he lived there briefly once.
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Besides all that, I also just finished a slightly truncated FaceTime lunch with Karen. I had to end it earlier than usual, at 12:30, in response to which Karen was able to split the difference with starting earlier than usual and we got on the call at 11:45.
I don't have time to tell you a whole lot about it, though, because I'm doing a store visit Downtown with Gabby and she's picking me up in just a few minutes. That's why the lunch with Karen had to end early.
We did talk a bit more about my trip to the Twin Cities, which she had already given me a lot of good pointers about last time we spoke, as she takes pretty constant business trips. I had more details about it that I've learned recently which I was also able to share.
Speakin of which, this morning I went to the National Cooperative Grocers (NCG) website to spot check their
online list of member co-ops and get a sense of comparison to PCC, which is by a huge margin the largest member co-op, with our
sixteen stores. I scoured through to see which co-ops had the next-largest number of stores, and besides us, the largest number of stores is
four! This means we are literally quadruple the size of the next-largest chain of co-ops, at least in store numbers. (Total sales, or total members, may be slightly more varied.) There are three states with four-store cooperatives: in New Mexico (La Montañita Co-op); in North Carolina (Weaver Street Market); and in Wisconsin (Outpost Natural Foods Co-op). That said, it would appear that Minnesota has the total number of stores overall out of any state, combining all co-ops. They had something like 26, and Steve mentioned last night that it was very common for people in the Twin Cities to be members of multiple co-ops.
I live only one block from Central Co-op and I never bothered to become a member there. Defaulting to membership via employment at PCC is good enough for me.
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[posted 12:30 pm]
