Pizza & Burgers

Cold enough for a fire, my boys slept another hour after I was awake. I could hear Crackers pad up the basement stairs in a shot, always desperate for food, more food. Her double-dinner leftovers weren’t going to make the cut. The purring creature knocked her head into me until she gave up and decided to try her master still dreaming in the other room. More success.

My work for the morning finally finished right before eleven. Things pile up. A stack for the library. A stack for the post office. A stack for the Silverspoon’s, including a sack of Georgia/Florida (wasn’t really sure which) pecans to share and an historical novel I picked up at Jupiter Head Lighthouse for Gloria.

Theodore and Izzy were on spring break. Theodore was building himself an office in the basement. Then Gloria came in with Papa Murphy’s pizzas for lunch. Izzy walked out the door for another photo shoot at three, and Puck prepared for just one more spend-the-night. I’d say we’re getting to the level of decadence sometime soon, although in some respects his name was chalked up for that as soon as he was born. Only grandkid within a general radius of 600 miles. What was I supposed to expect?

We were trying to do better, El Oso and myself, by taking another date (two in just over two months). Puck wasn’t so bothered when we left him with a backpack of jams and church clothes. Solving iPad puzzles was more interesting than waving us off to what he was pretty sure was our “anniversary” date. Close kid, close.

Anyway, most of our dates tend to end up as drives around the city, and talks about everything we didn’t have time to talk about since the last date. Switched on a little Bruno Mars to try that one on for size. Circled past the Arch once – a sight that never grows old – and back around to Clayton.

Walked through the park until my inner ears just about snapped from the cold, burning, looking for the Crêperie, which actually closed at three, and back to the car.

Instead, Five Guys Burgers: Ellisville. (Why do they have to put “ville” after anything, ever?) Definitely El Oso’s kind of meal. The bacon cheese was pretty good. A handful of unshelled peanuts on the side. And those new soda machines that mix-and-match for you with touchscreens. I felt a little Star Wars requesting raspberry Sprite.

Orange Leaf just next door. My appetite is … I haven’t really come up with a good way to describe that one yet. Somehow I always end up with fruit-flavored yogurt (including banana this time), mixed with cookie dough pieces.

And off into the sunset, which was by now an enormous rose-red disc sinking past bluffs and the river.