Feast Day

The pretty burg of Davenport is a pleasant place to stuff oneself full of food on a sunny Sunday in May. We awoke in Jo's lovely hillside apartment


which is verrry close to the Palmer campus. That's it at the top of the hill, as seen from Jo's balcony:

(Those are the basil plants which we lovingly transported outside, after a trip to the world's most bizarre harware store, Menard's. Need a mop? Here they are, next to the light fixtures. Need a memorial grave marker? Look near the BBQ sauce!)

Sunday morning was church, at the coolest church ever. (Sorry, Lutherites). Coffee during service? With cinnamon flavoured creamer? Hook me up! Jo sang beautifully, and H and I enjoyed our back-row table. I particularly enjoyed the loft-style setting in the historic (or historic-looking) downtown building.

After service we headed to a greazy spoon called Johnny's which served such classics as biscuits and gravy, patty melts, and your typical eggs-toast-meat breakfast. The waitress called us "hon" and poured some solid diner coffee. (Note to hapless Canadians like me: in the States, the distinction between breads is "white" or "wheat." Apparently, to them, all bread is brown.)

Replete with Midwest goodness, we headed to the enormous supermarket to nab the ingredients for the monster cookie dessert we'd be bringing to the Palmer student council barbeque. Back at Jo's place, H crammed choco-skor-chunk dough into a pizza pan and made a dessert-themed CD for the ride over (including Louis Armstrong's enduring rendition of "Cheesecake," which features the following lyrics:

Cheesecake
Gobble, gobble
Cheesecake
Gobble, gobble
Cheesecake
Gobble, gobble
Cheesecake
(cheesecake)

Cheesecake
Munchin' on the
Cheesecake
Munchin' on the
Cheesecake
Munchin' on the
Cheesecake
(cheesecake)

I iced the word Dessert on the cookie with Palmer purple icing, and away we went. Barbeque is a sacred thing in the Midwest; even more so than in beef-lovin' Alberta. In the faculty advisor's spacious backyard, we sipped our "soda" (Pibb for me, thank you) and watched as "Doc" tended not one but two grills with scientific meticulousness. We filled up on delicious salads, including the best barley dish you'll ever taste. (If you're really nice, I'll give you the recipe.) We enjoyed some chats with the friendly Palmer folk and heard a child use the word "y'all," which is highly adorable.

From there, we had to cut out early to meet the worship team from CrossPoint for dinner at Applebee's. Cool folks once again, interesting coversation, but all I could think of was how totally massively full I was. From there, we tumbled home.

The evening quickly devolved into an oven mitt fight. This is the sign of a good time being had.