i brought a bag of "belly flops" in to work today and my coworkers are slowly snacking their way through the irregular jelly belly's, mostly cherry, pear and green apple. i'm hoping there aren't any irregular bertie bott jelly belly's in there...it wouldn't be very nice.

last night for dinner i had curly french fries (with mustard), a glass of cranberry juice and a beer. luckily, i had a late afternoon snack: an open-faced sandwich with farmer's cheese, red pepper and mushrooms and a small cup of vegetarian chili from gourmande, the cute cafe down the street from my office. gourmande is so strange...a quaint college cafe appealing, i guess, to columbia students, right in the middle of printer's row, a neighborhood that is simultaneously hoity toity and totally down and out. walk in and they're playing obscure indie-rock, showing student artwork and selling relatively cheap food ($2.50 for a cup of chili!). its so misplaced, but i like it...reminds me of the cafe in my college town. oh, and since there's a real brit working at gourmande, they sell real scones instead of those weird triangle-shaped things passing for scones throughout this terribly confused country.

i miss those kinds of places. its hard to find coffee shops in chicago that aren't either starbucks or desperate attempts to feel like starbucks. well, okay, that's not entirely true, but gone are the days of dimly lit coffee shops with comfie old couches and boardgames. now they're all brightly lit, clean and full of those little round tables. somewhere out there must be a very happy ceo of the little-round-table company. gourmande, it should be noted, has litte rectangular tables...see what i mean about being a dramatic departure from the current concept of "cafe." wow. blows your mind.

i was told yesterday by a patronizing 42 year old man that i'm "a very sarcastic young lady." uh, sorry. what gives? he can take his triangle scone and stuff it.