Hitting the Grounds on Indianola: Yeah, Me Too

Baba's, where coffee is brewed with Thunderkiss Coffee beans and pairs
up well with their excellent breakfast sandwiches

For all the traffic that travels the Indianola Avenue/Summit Street corridor to and from the Downtown Columbus core, places to grab a cup of coffee are somewhat scarce.  Yeah, a couple of United Dairy Farmers (I personally have not had their coffee) and other random convenience stores lie along the route to do a quick grab-and-go, if you're so inclined.

A number of food establishments, from the diner level (Wildflower and George's Beechwold Cafe) to more formal dine-in type places (Baba's, with their coffee brewed with the excellent Thunderkiss Roasters, and The Crest Gastropub, although there coffee isn't highlighted much) also exist. However, for the person simply traveling through, merely grabbing a cup of coffee at these places isn't really an option.

That leaves some interesting three-pack of contenders for that potential cup of joe. Number one is pretty straightforward: Portia's, one of the first area restaurants to concentrate exclusively on Vegan dishes, now offers up a breakfast option with their Next Door Cafe, opened up, well, next door to their original restaurant on Indianola. Here, one can grab a cup of coffee brewed with Crimson Cup beans and, if one chooses, a bevy of breakfast food items.

Number two is might actually be the most interesting of the three, but really isn't a practical option unless cats are forefront on your mind. The main draw for Eat Purr Love Cat Cafe is not the java but the felines themselves: appointment fees to visit the store's cats and cafe sales go toward the nonprofit Columbus Humane, a nonprofit geared toward aiding animals in need.

A Bridge Too Far?

The headline in the October 18, 1989 edition of the San Francisco
Chronicle went right to the point about the previous day's events

Anniversaries are funny things.  I don't think about this one much nowadays, but postings on social media and news outlets reminded me that we had reached the 30th anniversary of the Loma Prieta Earthquake.  Centered in the Santa Cruz Mountains in the south portion of the Bay Area, this 6.9 magnitude quake ended up killing 63 people, damaging or destroying more than 27,000 structures, and tallied $10 billion in recovery and rebuilding costs.

Of course, the earthquake's effect proved more durable than normal on a larger scale due to the circumstances of that day. Game 3 of Major League Baseball's World Series between the cross-bay rivals San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's was approximately 30 minutes from starting when the quake struck. Once the broadcast signal was restored, a national audience watched stunned as live shots of collapsed freeways, damaged buildings, and fires contrasted with the worried faces of both players and fans alike.

I have my own tale from that day, one that I have only shared with close friends and family until now.

Where The Weather is Wacky and the Forecasts Don't Matter

Yes, Comedian/Host Drew Carey knows what's up with Ohio weather

I've been in the Midwest long enough to get the joke about Ohio (and other surrounding states) having eleven or twelve seasons rather than the traditional four.

This year proved to be no different, starting off with a (way) early Spring in early January, which was quickly displaced by brief spell of Polar Vortex, and then followed by an elongated period of the "Big Snow coming - psych!" season, where seeming promising big snow days were turned into groan-inducing "mixed precipitation" slushfests.

Winter hung around like a drunken sailor late March well into May, never allowing Spring to gain a solid foothold and keeping the soils exceedingly soggy - I recall I didn't get a chance to mow the well overgrown back yard until just before Memorial Day.

Visions of Noah and his ark came to many in June, when deluge-type rains threatened to drastically cut into the state's prized corn crop and overwhelmed quite a few basements.  Then, a not overly hot but often humid summer season took over, drying things to the point where some parts of the state reside in mild drought status. Despite a few head fakes from the Autumn season, this has remained the status quo into October, so much so that some folks are wishing Summer completely away. If all the forecasts are correct, those cooler vibes will have arrived to this region the same day this blog post was published.