free associating

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I just saw a comment from Sherlock Church on Danny's blog and "Clouds on Church Street" wafted through my overheated brain. I used to drive down to Santa Cruz to take my grandmother out into the world from the retirement home where she lived. Our favorite hangout was Clouds, a really fabulous restaurant and bar, on Church Street. We always laughed about how fitting that was, that Clouds should be on Church Street, especially after a couple drinks. We were crazy for the food, and outright psychotic about the desserts. They sent us past the clouds and into the airless orbit overlooking the globe.

We once went to a local beauty spa for the full treatment so we could look devastatingly chic for an evening out. The full treatment was so exhausting we almost gave it all up for a quick burger and a long nap, but managed to find a bar where we could drink and smoke, recover ourselves before making our entrance at Clouds. Rock and roll blared so loudly I thought my eardrums would surely burst, but by the time I got back to our table with the drinks, Gramma was already heavily engaged in football speak with some crusty drunk geezer.

Finally, we got to Clouds, still gorgeous, and fairly tipsy. The waiter came to our table part way through dinner to say there was a man at the door insisting he knew us. The look around the edges of his facial expression told us all we needed to know. It was the drunk geezer, pining for my ninety-three-year-old Gramma. She lifted her nose a couple inches and told the waiter she wasn't interested and please send the fellow away.