Multiply 365 Day 148 - Not quite a 3 hour tour

The problem with running my mouth about things is that then I have to go do them.  So when I said something about pictures and a blog yesterday, then I guess I have to do that too.  Luckily I just fetched me another of those awesome Cuban sandwiches from around the corner to help fuel me through another blog post.  If that can't get me through an entry here, well then nothing can.

Not that I made a big journey today, just a little walk around the neighborhood, enough to break a sweat without being all sweaty.  But if I hadn't made a venture outside on a day like today, where I am off work and it is almost 90 degrees outside I know I would have been kicking myself for the next week at the missed opportunity. Of course in order for this to happen, some preplanning was called for, recharging the batteries on my camera which had been sitting on my desk since the last time I took pictures, and I also had to recharge the MP3 player, since I made the wise decision to leave it on after I got home from work on Friday.  When I got headed out the door for breakfast and work yesterday, I grabbed it and went to click it on for the bike ride and nothing.  I don't mind riding my bike, but it is more enjoyable when I have music to listen to when I do it.  I wasn't going to make the same mistake today, even though I would be sans bike, if I am traipsing around than music would definitely be called for. 

So out the door I went to grab a couple of pictures of the area around me, and the first place I get to is right at the end of my street, Groceria Merante.  This is the little Italian store I brag so much about, they have a small but kick ass deli counter in the back, lots of Boar's Head meat products (I highly reccommend the Buffalo Chicken and the Cracked Black Pepper Turkey, and don't forget the deli mustard), and I also purchase my premade meatballs there.  Some of the stuff is a little pricier than if you go to your local grocery store, like the sauces and pastas, but they aren't buying the cheapie generic or store brand box of pasta either, it is some really good stuff, and for a pasta eater like me that is always a plus.  As it turns out I had left my apartment around 12:30pm today and they usually close at noon on Sunday, but today they had a vendor in doing a sidewalk display/tasting so they were still open.  I would have stopped to try some things, but I had a tastier treat in mind later on.

Next stop was nearby, this little old semi ratty looking buiding.  What is the significance of this you might ask?  Well this is where I had my first ever solo apartment, in fact at one point I had the second floor window in the front.  The building was small, two apartments on each side on the first floor and 3 each on the second and third floors, a total of 16 units in all, plus a laundry facility in the basement.  The apartments were just little one room efficiencies and each floor had one bathroom that had to be shared, but it was me, out from under the clutches of roommates or parental supervision, so it served as a good enough home for me.  This would also be the place I met Hope, someone I have blogged about in the past and possibly the most special person of the female persuasion I had ever had the chance to encounter.  I lived on the second floor on the left side of the building, she lived on the second floor of the right hand side.  I can't even recall what caused us to bump into each other in the building in the first place (though I am leaning towards a lack of space), but whatever it was, while we weren't inseparable, we didn't actually date or anything or even have a relationship, there was something about being in her presence that made that place more like home than it had any right to be. 

Okay, enough with the sappy sentimentality stuff, people will think I am getting soft in my old age.  Rather, because I can't do anything healthy without ruining it somehow (as evidenced by my biking to save cigarette money), one can't go walking without figuring ice cream into the equation.  I know I have taken a picture of Dave and Andy's before, but usually that was to see the line outside the shop when it was really warm and sunny.  Being 12:30 or so, it is still too early for most college kids to even be out of bed, so there was no line outside the shop.  That means the homemade ice cream and waffle cones could be mine, all mine (insert evil laugh, or a hearty 'I am Mojo Jojo) to get some homemade deliciousness.

I opted for this, a rather bad mixture of ice creams, but I was pressed at the counter and couldn't make up my mind a second time.  I was going to get the cinnamon french toast ice cream, but they didn't have enough to call it a full scoop (this cone was a small btw), so they asked if I would like something else on top of it.  I quickly scanned the bins and for some unknown reason I said "birthday cake", which would be the whiter ice cream on the top with all of the sprinkles in it.  They were both good ice creams separately, but just not something that should ever have been put in the same cone.  My bad.

Next stop, well okay not a stop but a quick pause to take a picture would be the IGA Supermarket on Forbes Avenue.  I took a picture only because I used to work there when it wasn't a grocery store, but rather a bar/restaurant called The Attic.  Some of you people from way, way back will remember the old "Big P butters the roll" story, well it originated with co workers in that very building.  Now it is a bunch of apartments, a tanning salon and a grocery store, though I have never shopped there, even if it is just a couple of blocks from my apartment.  I can't shop in a grocery store where I have to climb steps to get in, I think it violates one of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition or something.  I will take a city bus 20 minutes to a grocery store, but I will not climb a flight of steps for the same goods. 

Here would be the Oakland version of Pamela's, where I sometimes have breakfast if it isn't at Deluca's in the Strip District.  They do make some killer choclate chip and banana pancakes, and it was the first place where I had chorizo, which is now one of my favorite breakfast meats.  Deluca's makes better chorizo, but I have to give credit to Pamela's for first introducing me to that very good spicy sausage.   

Dumpster divers unite!!!!  I didn't find this here, but I set it there so I could get a good picture of it.  It is hard to take pictures of things you find when one hand is holding and ice cream cone and the other the camera.  For those unaware, that is the wrapper off of a 24 pack of Coke cans, and on the back of those are codes, usually inside a black square on the bottom.  This is the gold standard of free Coke points, the highest value they issue on any product, 20 points.  The going rates are; caps (12 oz, 20 oz, 2 liter) are 3, 12 packs of cans are 10 and 24 packs of cans are 20.  There is a limit of how many points you may redeem in a given week (120), and while I haven't hit that limit in a while, I just found 1/6 of it right here.

Next up would be my first ever home away from home, Litchfield Towers on the University of Pittsburgh campus.    This dorms would have made my efficiency apartment look palatial by comparison.  Little wedge type rooms that sleep two people and have room for maybe one. Entertainment was supposed to be provided by the lounges every third floor, where there was a TV in a room about the size of three of the wedges, but I got more entertainment looking out my window, as room 712 in Tower B looked directly across into Holland Hall, an all girls dorm.  I plan on going back some day to get my masters degree in pervishness.

Next up would be this nice little fountain right here, one of those special type places because Hope and I would come over here when it was nice and just sit outside and read.  Usually very little words would be spoken, but that didn't make the company any less enjoyable.  I believe this is where I first read Gibran's "The Prophet" as well as many issues of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. 

And lastly on this particular journey we come to Forbes Field, or what is left of it anyway.  As the marker states, this was the former home of the Pittsburgh Pirates and host to one of the most memorable games in World Series history (1960 World Series, Game 7 which was won in the ninth inning on a Bill Mazeroski homerun, giving the Pirates the World Series, 4 games to 3).  Now all that is left of the ballpark is this little segment of wall, which is still more than what is left of the next home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Three Rivers Stadium, which was imploded about a decade ago.  And really, what better way to close a blog than to blow some stuff up.