Adventures in OZ
I wouldn’t have guessed that I would end up having so much to write about Kansas. Frank is shocked as well, but here we are, Act III scene 1.
Frank was finally able to see the house I grew up in. He got to see where I used to climb the walks to get into the attic, the attached apartment I lived in when I moved back from California, the bedroom I grew up in and all the random small places I choose to sleep in besides my bed. We toured all 3 floors of my youth, sadly the grease stains on the ceiling had been cleaned off. Between the ages of 5 and 10(ish), for my own personal entertainment and feeding I used to make cookie dough. Sometimes that cookie dough became cookies, less frequently it became ammo. The main floor of the house I grew up in has incredibly high ceilings, extra high if you are a kid. I took that height as a direct challenge to my ability to toss cookie dough as high up and hard as possible to see if it could stick to the ceiling and for how long it would stay up there. It was a skill I perfected.
The tour of the house along with inheriting my grandmother Mimi’s French rabbit full length fur coat, naturally worked up a thirst and what better way to quench it than by doing a brewery tour. We started with Norseman Brewing Co, it’s in North Topeka in a soon to be fully gentrified area. They have an amazing Macadamia Nut Pale Ale that made me constantly quote Harlan Pepper. Folks, if you haven’t seen Best in Show, go do that right now!! From there we traveled to Blind Tiger, a T-town staple. Their beers are always solid and don’t disappoint. We decided to try some beers at Henry T’s because they supposedly have a brewery now in Lawrence, but learn from my trial and error people, don’t do it. Go to Happy Bassett instead, they have superbly kick-ass brews.
From here we toured around Lake Shawnee and I drove Frank up and then down the largest, scariest hill in Topeka. As a child that hill terrified me. I was the youngest out of all the batches of kids so things that seemed thrilling to the older dudes of my generation, were sometimes frightening to me. My grandfather took a gaggle of us down this hill once at full speed. The car left the road my friends, we literally flew through the air y’all!! It may have only been for a split second but my terrified child brain was convinced we were never going to touch down. It is a memory I will always have. I can’t wait until I am old so I can repeatedly tell this story to my grand-children, or nursing home attendant.
Act III Scene 3. I felt we hadn’t seen enough, so off to Daddy-O’s work we went. A major plus about where he works is that he has coffee there and it is always in abundance. After a few cups and some great conversation, with our ear plugs in we got the grand tour of the boiler room for the factory. It’s loud, it’s incredibly hot in some areas, and there are a lot of buttons, pulleys, leavers, all of which are accompanied by screens with digital readouts of things I can’t understand. As a woman who is very hands on, it’s intimidating to see so many things I could mess with that have the potential to go epically wrong. To Frank’s immense delight I kept my arms crossed, he tends to get nervous when I have a curious glint in my eye, and I don’t blame him. To my extreme delight and much to my surprise I saw and chatted with my dad’s best friend Jim. He is one rad dude, and I am glad my dad has someone like him as a friend. Everyone should have a Jim.
It was time to peace out. As great as coffee is, I can only go so long without eating. It’s usually about 2 hours, unless I am at work, then I can go for about 30 mins before I get hungry. Frank really loves to point out that my life and to-do list is centered around eating. I had someone once tell me that watching me eat was eerily like seeing a shark feed. That my eyes glaze over almost like a second eyelid to protect them while I frantically shove food in my mouth. One of my co-workers would constantly point out that I have food physically in my mouth and hand, while asking if someone else is going to eat the food near them. You better believe I take that as a compliment.
If you haven’t caught on yet, I like to go off on tangents about random things. Reading this is likely very similar to having a conversation with me. It will have a lot of subject changes, random information you didn’t ask for, and jokes that I find funny, but probably make zero sense to you. Welcome to my headspace, I promise to always try to bring it back full circle. Wait....where were we?!?!? Oh, yeah Topeka!!
We had dinner at Longhorn, the very location that I used to work at and was my first real bartending job that I got paid for and everything. Once we made it back to Alyssa’s house, we decided to order a Lyft to go have a drink since walking in Top City is for punks! The Lyft there was awesome because homie had television screens in his car and was playing Trolls. Trolls is my new favorite movie. Hey look! Another opportunity for a side note: I don’t have a television, and for good reason, I am incapable of turning away from them. I stare at them wide eyed and with my mouth open. I am also rarely use the ability to stop myself from singing along with any song I know. So here we are chillin’ in a stranger’s ride, and I got this feeling... inside my bones, it goes electric wavey when I turn it on. Yep that happened. We ended up at Quinton’s with another obnoxious loud drunk dude.
Dude, was a soup sandwich! If you are unsure what that means, imagine making a sandwich but instead it being filled full of delicious meats and cheeses, it has soup in it. It is a hot, sloppy mess. I wonder if he was friends with the broad from the other night, because he had the same desperation to have anyone talk to him. He tried every tactic, even highly rude ones, until a cool chick at the bar checked him hard. This night happened to be her last shift, so she had some clout to tell him to knock it off if he can’t be nice to others. We bought her a shot. Dude weebled, dude wobbled, and eventually dude fell down. The bartender was a saint, he didn’t serve him, and even drove his slobbery ass home. Frank and I also thought home might be a good idea, so we called a Lyft for our rescue. Statistically our experience on this individual ride was feasible. Remember my mention of an area of North Topeka being slowly gentrified? Yeah, I say that because this part of town does not have the most savory of reputations and there is a good damn reason for that. Our Lyft driver was in this particularly bad part of town. He was there, unmoving, for 10 minutes before the chick we bought a shot for asked for my phone, called him, and told him as a manager of a bar, he needs to get there. Did I mention yet that she was super cool?
A few minutes later, driver is on his way and eventually arrives. This is only my third Lyft ride and I have minimal experiences to draw on, as I usually go with Uber. There is a girl in the front seat and a large bag in the back, that clearly has belongings to last someone several days away from home. My first instinct is to think she was on a trip somewhere and we are pooling our Lyft ride. We have done it with Uber, I assumed it was my mistake on ordering the Lyft and why the driver was taking so dang long to get going in our direction. Turns out I was wrong, very wrong. Upon further observation, and flat out asking if she was being dropped off on the way to our drop off, he driver stumbles over an explanation that she is going elsewhere. She was a lady of the night you guys!! Dude, was legit picking up a sex worker and taking Lyft requests at the same time. Talk about multi-tasking? I can only imagine what my face looked like as this fact set in. Frank was all, do not react, please for the love of all things sacred in the universe, do not react to this. Thanks technology for allowing us to text this conversation back and forth. We had home boy drop us off in front of a stranger’s house, because safety.
Overall, I think that Kansas was a smashing success! We had GatesBBQ, saw the KU campus and Allenfield House (sweet name drops #amiright). We got to kick with a few of the people I love the most. Alyssa, Annie, Ashley, Brandi, Kira, and of course my Aunt Diane and my Pops. It would have been great to see more people but that is how it goes sometimes. When you have limited time, you’ve got to work with what you got. I love you Topeka, Kansas but it’s time for more adventuring. Florida here we come!
