1. Knowing the restaurant scene
It may be small, but it is mighty. Mighty flavor, mighty deals, to the point that when Billy called yesterday afternoon with a “shall we go out?,” I happily ran through the best pocketbook-saving, tastebud-delighting options: half-priced martinis at Formosa? (No, that’s Tuesday and Thursday.) How about three-for-two sushi rolls? (No, that comes on Sunday night.) Half-priced bottle at Devotay? (Nope, Tuesday.) How ’bout at Hearth? (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.) Oh, right, Wednesday means spaghetti monster night at Devotay. Hurray!
2. Cabbies: they’re just like us!
I will never get tired of calling Marco’s Taxi Company five minutes before we have to be somewhere, their pulling up to our curb two minutes later, and us arriving on time. And when I leave, I will miss, terribly, being able to say “We’re going to [insert bar or restaurant name here]” and that’s it. Because not only do the cabbies know where it is, they’ve been there. Best of all was when a driver asked if we’d have the bacon-wrapped figs at Devotay. A recommendation? Swoon.
3. Big fish in a fashion pond
Friends, in a cheerful mood I do consider myself stylish — sometimes even quite stylish. I like multi-strand, chunky necklaces and matchstick jeans, and I slub a mean summer scarf, but first-wave, off-the-runway fashionista, I am not. So imagine how tickled I was when, during the quarterly evaluation at the retail store I work at, my boss gushed that my sense of style was “classic, but also really trendy,” AND INDEED “PERFECT.” Big fish, my friends.
4. A real spring
The east coast is vacillating between hurricane rain storms and August-worthy heat strikes. My parents’ house near the District has lived through a super-saturated lawn and ninety-degree afternoons in the past week. I heard that New York had a “fire weather warning” yesterday. WHAT? That is inhuman. We are having the most beautiful, slow unfurling of real spring. So thank you, Iowa.
iowasthinking 