What the hell is this shit about no Sunday liquor in Tremont?

The problem with Sunday brunch has always been that wandering hungover and dead into a crowded place where you're sardined shoulder to shoulder with people who look like they actually showered and then waiting 40 minutes to get your food and twice as long for a refill on your coffee is possibly the least fun experience in the world. Even more so now that you can't smoke in bars.

So your choice becomes 1)wake up early and go to breakfast before the churchies get there, or 2) stay home, watch bowling, and forgo breakfast altogether.

Mostly, I have opted for the latter.

Yesterday though, we went to the Tremont Tap House for brunch. This place trips me out cause I used to spend so much time in Trinka's, and it's weird to go in there expecting a pool table and Joe, only to find a "casual gastropub". However the back door still has that evil little stone step, so the danger of cracking my tipsy head against the pavement is still imminent. Even though we went around 12:30, there were plenty of tables. We sat at the bar, and the bartender was super prompt. We both got the Steel Cut Oatmeal, which came with cute little sides of raisins, cream, and brown sugar. I love oatmeal. Mom used to make it all the time before school, not the crappy instant kind, but actual oats cooked and creamed and buttered. She probably remembers me hating it. But god do I love it now. Also, I remember peanut butter toast and hot chocolate before school too. I need to start eating like that again in the mornings. Anyway, the oatmeal was great, and it paired well with the Pyramid Apricot I was drinking, and I've been wanting more ever since.

Then we made a hurried trip to see Let The Right One In at Cedar Lee. I loved this movie. It was SO cute and SO sweet, and So beautiful. It's a wonderfully chilly Swedish-colored film about a little boy and the little vampire girl he falls in love with. What is it about Artic Circle vampires that's so much more sympathetic and so much scarier than the regular American vampire? Maybe I'm just predisposed to Nordic monsters because Grendel was one of my first loves. Anyway, I really enjoyed this, it goes on my list of favorite "monsters are your friend" movies.



Next we headed back to Tremont for A Cookie and A Cupcake, which we had spotted on our way to the highway. I didn't even know we had finally gotten a cupcake bakery in Cleveland, but then again, the cupcake thing has been trendy for at least five years, so I guess the appropriate lag time for Cleveland fashion was there. Snarky trends aside, cupcakes are good and cute local shops that box it up in pink paper are always good. I would have taken pictures, but we ate them immediately with little regard for aesthetics or digestion. Lemon raspberry, peanut butter buttercream, and strawberry with a whole strawberry inside. Moist, not crumbly. Not overwhelming sweet. The blondie was a little much for me, but I pronounce the cakes to be definitely the trip. And the 2.50.

We ended up at the Old Angle drinking and meeting the bartender from that morning again.

So basically, if I could just repeat this Sunday over and over again for the next few months, I think I'd be very happy.

Now today is Put the Christmas Lights Up Day. Even atheists like lights, and some of us more than others. Plus this year I'm not living with someone who insists on taking them down after New Years. College Dorm Room chic, here I come. Having chronicled yesterday in an attempt to justify not cleaning, now I'm going to go suck it up and get this shit done. As I told him this morning, "it's like trying to drag a donkey somewhere against it's will, only I'm the donkey and the one pulling"