a postprandial walk

I spent most of the day working from my computer at home and I wanted an opportunity to get out of the house and do something, whatever, just somewhere else. My boyfriend had a tough day at work and even after dinner at home, he was still feeling frazzled. We have been wanting to see a movie in a movie theater for days—no, make that a week at least—but the current movie selection ranges from the heavy-handed drama to the unfunny comedy remake. We did not want to shop for anything. We were at a loss for what to do.

The Beau mentioned that he'd like some dessert, that he had a craving for something baked (meaning: not the sherbet in our freezer). I thought that sounded just dandy. We thought about where to go: La Madeleine, Quack's, somewhere that didn't serve dinner and wouldn't be crowded.

Finally, Beau came up with an unusual (for us) and excellent idea: "Let's take a walk. We can go to Dairy Queen, even though there's no baked stuff there, or we can go to Schlotzsky's and get a cookie or brownie."

We are not great walkers. I love that we live in a neighborhood where we can walk to things, but we don't do the actual walking very often. It's too hot, too cold, too windy, too dark, or we're too tired. We know we should be more active, but we have so many other things to do, often involving computers.

We decided to try Schlotzsky's, even though it was a much further walk than the Dairy Queen. In fact, we hadn't ever walked that far in the neighborhood, but we figured we could handle it. I changed into workout pants and grabbed a jacket and we headed in the direction of Northcross Mall. On the way there, we walked down Anderson, noticing changes: the noodle place by Souper Salad seemed to be open at last, a big truck in the Northcross parking lot was being set up to sell roses for Valentine's Day, the abandoned post office looked sadder than ever.

The Schlotzsky's was pretty empty ... I suspect their rush time is at lunch, and it was getting a bit late for dinner. The baked goods were picked over but we found a triple-chocolate cookie to split, which was much yummier than I had hoped it would be. It's hard to go wrong with food that has the term "triple chocolate" in the description (unless white chocolate is involved ... that doesn't count). I thought about trying the cocoa to see if the Schlotzsky's would be a good afternoon cocoa-and-wireless spot, but I decided to wait for another time. I didn't want to completely undo the effects of the walk.

After the cookie-and-water break, we decided to walk over to Northcross Mall to see what it was like inside these days. Northcross Mall is a strange place: it's only sort of a mall. Years ago, someone in charge decided it shouldn't be a mall anymore, and decided to convert everything to offices ... but it didn't take. There are mall-like stores and a skating rink, but also offices and other non-retail establishments. At election time, there's usually an early voting setup there.

We also wanted to check out the new restaurant, Veranda, which is located in a spot that housed a Hooter's for many years. I had heard that Veranda was a tapas bar (yeah, yeah, from nearly topless to tapas, you don't have to make the joke) and I was sorry it sounded like a place that would be too very trendy for our pedestrian dining tastes. Well, not pedestrian exactly ... but we like quiet places to eat and food that isn't too crazy-trendy. We asked to see a menu and were pleasantly surprised: the entrees sounded like food we would enjoy. The lunch menu looked particularly nice, and we thought we might try the place out sometime for lunch. It looked like it wasn't designed to be intentionally noisy like many restaurants are.

Inside the mall, we watched some hockey teams practicing on the skating rink and walked around to look at the stores. The Lammes Candies was closed, which was probably fortunate for us. Actually, nearly all the shops were closed for the day, and it was a little after 8 pm. A chain women's clothing store was open, that was about it. We peered in the windows of an office-furniture store that stocked desks and shelves that might work in a revamp of Beau's home office space. We also looked at a pipe store, a children's store featuring a pink-fur-lined papasan chair, and a religious organization of some kind.

On the way home, Beau discussed technology incubators, which provide small tech-related start-up companies with resources to build their business. He wondered if Northcross Mall wouldn't work well as a kind of retail incubator, to foster small, local retail stores. We talked about the possibility, then talked about political candidates who send spam email messages, and finally reached the house again.

We were gone for nearly two hours, the bulk of the evening. But what else would we have done? We got some exercise, felt less frazzled (him) and housebound (me) and generally better. Also, chocolate was involved. It wasn't a waste of time at all. We really ought to do this more often ... we just have to find the motivation. (Sometimes, it takes more than chocolate to get me out of the house.)

As a bonus, I was able to use the word "postprandial" in writing, which is a rare opportunity.

Posted at February 13, 2006 11:36 PM