Mancation

CVG, originally uploaded by Another Pint Please....

Equation: Wife - Trip abroad to visit family= Mancation

Zoe left today for England for a much needed visit with her folks, brother, sister-in-law and twin nieces. As much as I would have loved to go, it was too much for me to take leave from work. This afternoon, I zipped her down to Cincinnati for her flight to Gatwick. It is always bittersweet to see her go.

To make the most of my trip to Cincy, I decided to route myself home via Jungle Jims. This time, I planned ahead with a cooler...just in case I decided to buy any perishables...which I did! Jungle Jims is a six acre grocery store and winner of the prostigeous "Best Restroom in America" prize. They have just about anything, including a huge array of international cusinse and a wonderfully huge beer collection. For the record, I picked up a bag of sticky rice and a great selection of beer, including the Sam Adams Longshot winners, Bar Harbor Real Ale and a bottle of Young's Winter Warmer.

While perusing the meat counter, I literally stumbled on some of the odder things...like a fresh hog's head. Zoe, if you are reading...stop! The head was packaged like it was a pound of ground chuck at Meijer. Laid pristinely on styrofoam and shrink wrapped, its beady large eyes staring up at me. Weird. As I recalled to Eric later, I would have felt guilty taking one because the Vietnamese grocer, who probably really needed one, would have been pissed at the dumb American taking the last hogs head for fun, whereas he needed it for some kind of stew. You name it, they have it...hogs head, lambs head, chicken feat, hogs heart...everything.

So after my wonderful journey through the store, I headed home. Typically, I go to our "local" for dinner. Unfortunately, at 8 PM on a Friday, they were packed. Instead, I settled for BW3's...and by settled, I mean settled. I took a seat at the bar between a 40 year old guy (three times divorced, I am pretty sure) singing along with Matchbox 20 songs from the jukebox and a fairly rotund woman who ordered two Sex on the Beach cocktails and some chicken wings to go. Yes, I was living it up. I buried myself in my Sam Adams White Ale and my TREO, hoping that the formaldehyde perfume Jenny Craig was wearing next to me, would soon dissipate.

I swung by Boston's on the way home, since I couldn't get out of BW3's fast enough, and ran into Mike's brother in law and Jen's brother. I was kindly referred to by his friend as "The Wedding Crasher". How timely and appropriate is that!

So, in a round about rambling way, ManTime is off and running. Stay tuned!