No Business Like Snow Business (An Ohio City Christmas-Slash-Birthday Extravaganza)

Here's a confession from my comfortable, white suburban middle-class upbringing: I have been a long-suffering birthday neighbor to Jesus my whole life. It really, really sucked to have 20 presents to open in less than a week, never knowing for sure which ones were for my birthday and which were for Christmas. In the long list of life's miseries, having a birthday five days before Christmas is right up there with losing your entire family to a natural disaster or discovering that they really have been laughing at you this whole time. Oh yeah, I wouldn't wish this Hell on my worst enemy.

We celebrated my birthday yesterday (because I've always been far too old and curmudgeony to do any sort of celebrating on a weeknight). When you turn 26, a daylong Saturday birthday celebration includes ignoring the laundry and only running the fun errands. Fortunately for me, we were out of bread and have grown accustomed to eating some really fancy bread that we get at the West Side Market. Have I mentioned I love that place? So we decided to venture to what the cool kids call the OC: Ohio City.

After a nice long morning in pajamas, I opened presents and suited up for our trip, with my new birthday coat and a pair of old boots I found at my parents house. The threat of snow made us both a little giddy (though I was the only one literally jumping up and down). It had already been an hour an half since breakfast, so we hit up the Touch Supper Club food truck for a mac & cheese taco. We sampled the hot Christmas Ale outside of GLBC - which gave me the brilliant idea for my own adaptation: I'm going to drop lit cigarettes into a bottle of Miller High Life until it's nothing but hot, ashy foam. Sorry, GLBC, you can claim it's a tradition all you want, but that was gross.

Listening to Santa sing while I sucked down  hot Christmas Ale.

Anyway, Santa Claus was singing Christmas carols to a crowd of bundled up kids. Behind him, they were selling Christmas trees, and behind that, the food-themed West Side Market lights twinkled in the graying sky.  And then, finally for real, it started dumping fat, fluffy snowflakes. I almost laid down and died right there from the joy of it all. But we had shopping to do.

We went to Penzey's Spices for the first time and smelled everything there was to smell - even things that didn't smell, like Cream of Tartar. It also gave me a sneak peak at our dinner plans at Crop Bistro, with its magnificent murals and columns and crazy ceiling. (My detailed description reveals I'm a patron of the arts.) If the banking industry hadn't (so I hear) crippled the world economy, I would agree with my husband that all banks should be built like that. Then closed, and reopened into a classy restaurant. Even the entitled dicks who cut me in line at the coat check and complained they had asked twice for their table in the past 45 seconds didn't ruin it for me.

As a side note, what's with every restaurant in Cleveland having Chicken and Waffles on their menu? I thought it was a southern thing but I don't remember seeing it in the South. It's strangely ubiquitous.

So, I'm 25 for a few more days. But I'm looking forward to 26. It's going to be a good year, Cleveland, I can feel it.