catch the spirit

 This got me thinking back to high school, when I worked at Little Caesars on Grand River and Warwick in Detroit. This was a restaurant, a 'parlour' - we served a full menu along with beer and wine, and of course the 'Pizza Pizza'. This song was popular in the summer of '81, when I graduated, and worked many long summer days making pizza trying save money for college. (I did not save much, but that story is told in another tale.) 

I worked with several friends from school, and we got along well with the crew from Redford and Cooley. We joked and laughed and threw doughballs at the appropriate times and seasoned each others break-time personal pizza with hot pepper flakes, but we were all good at getting a quality product to the dazzling urbanite consumers. 

We sang this song with the radio (we had no piped in satellite music back then - it was an actual plugged in device that picked up electronic signals via frequency modulation and converted it into Rush; and Styx, and The Police, and The Cars, and The Who, and Led Zeppelin, and Cheap Trick and Kiss :-)  what you say about this company is what you say about society.

 

We are experiencing the most wonderful evening conditions these last couple of days. Right now at about an hour before dusk, there is not much of a breeze and the air temp is about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. I have already after work paid some bills, made some donations, and purchased goods via Amazon. What a phenom that has become! So simple and convenient.

Our weekend excursion to Livonia was a complete bust, other than the triumphant ending at Taco Bell and Buddy's - what a combination! Our drive home was enjoyed in a carb-induced fog. But our stimulus is arrived and therefore we'll be putting our kitchen floor in and trimming out the rest of the kitchen/hallway. An exciting time here, to be sure.

Work sucks, I know.

Special teams go with Farmer Fran do some laps.

For Moni's birthday we celebrated with a carry out from Dragon Court. It had been a long while and we were more than ready. The phone call to order reminded me of some picture dialogue from a few years back:

 From St. Ignatius:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and Thy grace, for this is sufficient for me.

Happy Easter from Loyola Press

 —Excerpted from "Six Characteristics of Ignatian Courage" by Lisa Kelly

Courage is birthed in encounter with the other.

The things we do to put ourselves out there and get recognition for ourselves are at best gutsy; only our reputation and ego are on the line. But when we move beyond our comfort zone of individualism to encounter another, seeing the needs of others and realizing we have the potential to sustain them in some way, true courage is born.

Buddy's

 Best pizza in the universe.

Fast forward to 6MARCH2021, in the thick of the chinavirus scare... we were shopping at Ollies in Ypsi this morning and I noticed we were done by 10:30 on a Saturday. I saw we only needed a half hour to kill, so we made our way over to the Ann Arbor Buddy's and ordered one to go. Large Super is now called 8 square 6 Mile. Whatever you call it, oh my buds are spewing forth saliva at the thought! So many places serving pizza in 2021: traditional, 'NY style', round, square, 'deep dish', 'Detroit style', cheese crust, carmelised cheese, blah blah blah. There is no pie comparable to Buddy's. Period. (Or, we used to say 'word'.) 

Original - tastes like it did when friends and I used to hang out on Plymouth Road at the Livonia Buddy's in the early 90's, and not at all unlike the ones Dad used to bring home from Conant and 6 when we were little tykes in the early 70's. 

Ollies was fun with my bride, but thank you to Buddy's for making our trip to Washtenaw County a 10+ on this cool sunny spring day!