Low Reflected

 First to say, I tried to use my phone to comment on blogs but it didn't work. Is it Blogger or the phone?

I need to buy a laptop or iPad-- I'm just not agile on the phone--it doesn't allow (or I haven't learned how to do?) the kind of hopping and digging I like.

I feel like a long reflective catch-up chat-- awkward to do...

Here is Low again, reflected in rainwater sludge in Duluth.

On this visit, Sister and I went somewhere I'd wanted to go for years but was afraid to enter-- the Tappa Keg Inn. From the outside it looks like a dark, scary bar-- the kind in a horror movie.

But inside, it was just what I'd hoped for-- a small-town diner from another era, where the advertised "Authentic Italian Food" is spaghetti with canned mushrooms.

Sister had a Daily Special--a bowl of chili with a grilled cheese sandwich. Also, saltines. She ordered a side of sweet potato fries, which ruined the vintage vibe but added to the overall carb-bomb delight.

Typing on a phone is not aided by house-sitting cat George, who always wants up. (I'm here four more weeks.)

The book on the table, I've just started reading: "Version Control" (where's the italic formatting?), a time-travel novel by Dexter Palmer, from 2016. 

I picked it up at work and know nothing about it, but the first page was good, and the back blurb says it's "true to the science fictional world we live in". Don't we ever. Like, complaining about blogging on my smartphone--that would have been a science fictional sentence even only twenty years ago.

So it's comforting that Authentic Italian Food in a town up north is the same as it was in my childhood.

Tappa Keg even had bird art on the wall. (A loon, our state bird.) And a metal holder for salt and pepper shakers-- with the science fictional touch of a bottle of hand sanitizer for these pandemic days we live in. 

Penny Cooper approves.