Downtown Tucson

Went to dinner at a traditional, old-style Italian restaurant, that's been here since the 1930s, called Caruso's. (Some would term it a good "red sauce" joint.)

Not sure it's been in the same spot or building all that time, but it's been there a long time. Hanging above the street in front of the entrance is a beautiful, partially lit neon sign, featuring a cartoon of a stereotypical fat, Italian chef and (among other things) proudly announcing the menu includes "PIZZA-PIE". (Not just the word "pie", but hyphenated!. Beautiful.)

No tall buildings that I could notice in downtown Tucson (or anywhere else for that matter), although the dorm my cousin was in was an astonishing several stories tall. (It was surrounded, however, by much shorter dormitories.) I guess the hot weather here in the desert is responsible for the architectural clinging to the ground that seems to define this place. Driving by on the highway, structures seem like eruptions from the dirt; kinda like sophisticated mud huts. The chain store-laden strip malls that so much define America are much in evidence here, but they've been implemented with a southwestern motif that, for the time being -- for me -- gives them additional aesthetic points.

Downtown features more standard streets and has a trolley running through it that somehow seemed to pass only when I was looking the other way. The streets were still partially done up for Christmas, which made me feel I'd gotten to experience Christmas in yet another city. (I saw one house -- not downtown -- with lights that read "Noel", under which there were various incandescent seasonal icons plus a illuminatable cactus -- a "Western" Christmas tree?).

After dinner, we went to Dairy Queen (which still often only has vanilla ice cream -- my family, as chocolate-loving New Yorkers, were always appalled by the preposterous limitation), where I got to be upset as I watched my father down an artery-clogging "Chocolate Xtreme" Blizzard. Maybe I should have set an example for him by not getting anything myself, although I don't see why I should have to do that (except of course, for the fact that I want him to live).

In Dairy Queen, I asked my cousin if she had been the conduit through which my aunt had discovered my blog. (I recently got a panicked call from her after she encountered my life as described herein.) Turns out she actually helped me by saying the blog read like my act (implying -- hee-hee -- that this was just a show.)

No neat endings today. Gotta go to the gym.

Next time,
Andrew

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13 January, 2007 @ 17:25 GMT
http://blogs.chortle.co.uk/andrewjlederer