I drove past this house many times over the years, every year noticing more and more inflatable things slowly taking over the place. Today I stopped by to take some pictures of the “Paulie’s Penguin Playground” located in Olathe. The front, roof, driveway, yard and everything else around the house is covered with every inflatable toy imaginable. There is a passageway through the yard leading to the porch where you can leave a donation to the Leukemia Society or buy the owner’s truck.
Short video look-around:
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLKdNtAMQUo
(Pick any two): Merry Happy Holidays Christmas Hanukkah Kwanzaa!
Other examples of local Christmas Art from Midtown Miscreant and Plog.
A recent trip to Charritos Taqueria on Independence Ave. was a success. Aside from a homeless guy trying to start a conversation with me of which I only understood the word “Oklahoma” , the food was cheap and delicious. Tacos are $1.85 and I purchased one with pork (puerco) and another one with steak slow cooked in pineapple sauce. Delicious. They have more expensive items in $4-12 range. Service is a little slow but it’s worth the wait. I also tried horchata which I always wanted to try, it’s somehow made with rice and tastes like cinnamon. It wasn’t bad, but I like cinnamon in moderation. I will move on to another agua fresca next time.
This area is not the safest part of town and gets mentioned on the news almost daily. Thankfully, concerned citizens are making contributions, albeit involuntary, to improve the safety and security of Independence Ave.
And the guy who tried to talk to me? He understood the international sign of “I don’t understand what the hell you just said” and went back to pose for the picture.
Well, I am actually not so sure about it being Russian, but it’s definitely a gourmet recipe shared by my Mom. What prompted me to make it was a visit to a local soup place where I paid four dollars for a ladle of mushroom soup. For some reason that price really bothered me; I’ve always thought that the soup was a poor man’s meal, often seen dispensed to the hungry people waiting in line in the Depression movies. Unless the soup is made of some exotic ingredient, I don’t see why it should be pricey, and mushroom soup is no exception. So the same night I called my Mom and wrote down the recipe.
Christmas is a very nostalgic holiday, probably more so than any other. It’s the time when people realize that another year is left behind, kids have grown older and now want an iPhone instead of a barbie, and everyone else is sporting more and more gray hairs. People remember their own childhoods, old presents, relatives who are now gone, and the time when Christmas dinner meant killing your own goose.
