Square living

I know I keep saying this: I love living downtown.  Love love love love it.  After work last night - what should we do for dinner?  Order pizza?  Oh, we also need soap.  Let's go up to the market, maybe Soapbox is still open.  We can eat there too, at the brewery maybe?

And so we go.  Catch the bus across the street (any of them will do, and it's still Free Ride time).  As we lurch up 1st Ave, a ginormous parade of bicyclists come straight at us!  Is it the Dead Babies????  Is our favorite bicycling guy Tion among them???  R. thinks he spots him, right up front, but isn't certain.  The bicyclists keep coming, the entire block is filled with people on bikes.  They are stopped at a light - oh, not Dead Babies then?  No, they are far too many, a veritable swarm.  Several in costume - a handful of bunny ears are spotted, a zombie, others.  It was delightful, from our bus-borne perspective.

The Soapbox is closed when we get there just after 6.  We walk down to the brewery, past shops closed and closing.  Dinner is served by a bald giant with a booming voice and a theatrical bent, and the place is just loud loud loud.  The food is fine: braised brat with garlic mashed and apple sauerkraut for me, spicy chicken sandwich for R.  No beers for us though, just a diet soda and a rum and cola.  When we leave at 7:30, free bus rides are over for the night, so we walk the slightly downhill mile to home.  Life's pretty good here.