“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 761 (Saturday) – books and friends

The day began with an oil change and tire rotation at the Jeep dealership, where the hospitality included a coffee machine that also had mochaccino, cocoa, and other fancy coffee options, bagged salty snacks and a dish with bagged M&Ms and bite-sized Snickers and Milky Way bars. Swanky! I had a book with me and read during the wait for the car. A car wash was included in the service, and of course it began to rain immediately afterward. Had I check the weather forecast, I would have declined the car wash.

Yum, John Henry milk stout

Back at the house, Gilmore Girls played on the TV and Scrabble GO was being played on the new phone, when it rang with an incoming call. Friends were out and about and soon they were headed my way. We made a quick plan for the afternoon. Scrabble GO is great and all, but seeing friends in real life is definitely much better. 

It began to rain steadily as we headed downtown to see the famous 120 foot On the Road scroll typed by Jack Kerouac. It is single-spaced with narrow margins and no punctuation or paragraph breaks on 120 continuous feet of paper. Oy. The gallery walls were covered with an exhibit of photos of Jack and sites related to his life and books and prints of drawings by Jack. It is a great exhibit.

While at the Kerouac exhibit, we chatted with a man in a National Park Service ball cap who told us about Jack’s typing ability of 120 words a minute, which, to someone who can barely type at all is hugely impressive. I remember admins at old jobs talking about typing tests and targeting 60 to 70 words per minute.

He told us about the changes of names and omission of some events required for the book's publication in 1957. He also told us about the more recent publication of On the Road The Original Scroll, “the legendary first draft – rougher, wilder, and racier than the 1957 edition,” which became our quest item at a planned visit to the book store.

After the scroll and photo exhibit we lunched at TreMonte. Adult beverages with margherita pizza and perfectly crispy fries with cheese and a side of gravy were the perfect gray day lunch. My beverage selection was John Henry milk stout which is one of the beers that come in the fancy little glass. Mini cannoli and tiramisu followed for dessert.

The beer menu required access via QR code which resulted in my reinstallation of the Untapped App on the new phone. In case the actual beer drinking out in a restaurant wasn’t exciting enough, that one beer also earned four beer badges. The last recorded beer on my account was an American porter from March 13, 2020, right before the world fell apart. Once it was realized that being "remoted" was going to last more than a couple weeks, I deleted the app due to the lack of quality beer drinking and tight space on the old phone. 

Today's book haul.

At LaLa Books we browsed, flipped through pages, and bought books. From the new books section, two of us got the recently learned about, suddenly coveted quest book, and I also got Kerouac’s Desolation Angels on the recommendation of my friend. In the used book corner I found Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, which I may already have, but couldn’t remember for sure. For $2, it was a low-risk purchase. I may need to schedule a week’s staycation dedicated to reading.

For a day where the highlight was expected to be an oil change (before I even knew about the coffee and snacks), it sure took a spectacular turn.