Possumblog

Now THAT was a lunch!

Absolutely gorgeous day for a walk today--light breeze, low humidity, pleasant temperature, lots of happy smiley sunshine. Just perfect.

I had to make a trip down 20th Street today to take some articles to the Goodyear Shoe Hospital--one, a shoe of Reba's which had an ankle strap coming loose (due to Oldest's habit of not undoing shoes to take them off or put them on), and two, a Boy Scout cap with a torn-asunder adjustment strap. Seems Boy was messing with it last night as his meeting and "it just came apart in my hand!" Riiiiiight. Both sides of the plastic band neatly ripped from their moorings? I have feeling horseplay was involved, and probably no small amount of monkeyshines. Most certainly shenanigans.

Anyway, I wasn't sure the shoe place could fix it, what with it being a non-shoe item and all, but as soon as the lady was off the phone, she'd already grabbed two claim tickets, and I didn't even have to explain what I wanted. "They'll be ready after 3:00 tomorrow."

THAT is service. And the place is interesting, too, with all sorts of odd smells and machinery, and an occasional shop cat walking across the counter.

On back down the street to eat, because I had noticed that El Mexicano was now open. This is what used to be Sabor Latino, and/or Sabor Mazatlan, and/or Tower Cafe back when it was in the Frank Nelson Building. They've been shuttered for a while at that location, and the promised move to the north has been going on for what seems like years. They're now in the location where McDonald's used to be, next door to where the flower shop used to be, which is itself next door to where the post office branch used to be. From what I can tell, though, the move from 1st Avenue was a good one. Walked in and was impressed at the packitude of the customers--just about every table was taken, and taken by big groups of people.

There were a few familiar faces--that of the friendly scowling owner, that of the former chip passer-outer guy (who now seems to have advanced quite a bit further up the ladder), and one waitress I recognized. It appears they've added about three more waitresses, and all of them seemed to be in a distracted tizzy of activity. The young lady who had my table was pretty and pleasant enough, but I think it must be hard to get too involved in mindless chit-chat when all that bustle is going on. But she was nonetheless sweet and was incredibly polite, so she got a good tip.

Food?

Oh, yeah, I did order some of that--the combo platter with a taco, flauta, and burrito. As with the old location, it was hot and familiar and freshly made. The taco was a bit disappointing--just cheese and meat, but the flauta was perfect and the burrito was the size of a baby's arm. I think it was $5.75 plus drink and tax. Upon approaching the cash register after I was done, I was disappointed that the cashier girl of J-Lovian proportions who'd worked at the old location didn't seem to be around, but her substitute more than made up for her absence.

Wow.

And I am unanimous in this.

Anyway, good to see they're back in operation again and that they're pumping out the food.

On back to work, where I was treated to one of those Magic City wonders I so enjoy--an angry disturbed man who was beating a payphone to death because it wasn't working. Probably from having been hit too many times by angry disturbed people. Anyway, after clobbering the thing several times with the handset and screaming at it, he threw down the talky part and began stalking up the sidewalk screaming and cussing some more.

So glad he was on the other side of the street!

All in all, a great day for a walk.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at March 13, 2007 01:55 PM