Tag Archives: birthday

The Ex-Capital Birthday Weekend, Part 6 of 10: Cozy Corydon Cuisine

January 10, 2023 By in Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Open-faced meatloaf sandwich on a wooden table in noonday sunlight. See caption.

An open-faced meat loaf sandwich made from ground beef and duck, wrapped in bacon, served on sourdough, doused in bourbon brown gravy, and topped with white American cheese, greens, and fried leeks a la Skyrim.

Of course there’s a chapter for the good foods we found. The gallery is a quickie that could’ve been squeezed into one of the other chapters, but then that chapter would’ve been too long, you wouldn’t have clicked on it, and you’d have missed more cute pics of my wife who’s perfectly happy being 52 now.

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The Ex-Capital Birthday Weekend, Part 5 of 10: Hooked on Butt Drugs

December 27, 2022 By in Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Butt Drugs' storefront. Yes, their actual name.

Corydon’s own Butt Drugs is easy to get to, if you do as we did and park in the rear.

Every Indiana town above a certain size has large corporations trying to muscle in on their homegrown businesses and industries. Corydon has CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart servicing anyone’s prescription needs, same as we do here in the big city. Their residents have one convenient pill-vending option we don’t: anytime they want, they can go hit Butt Drugs.

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The Ex-Capital Birthday Weekend, Part 4 of 10: A Capital Pack of Markers

November 19, 2022 By in Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
The Old State Capitol Building in Corydon, Indiana, surrounded by trees in autumn.

The Old State Capitol in the old state capital on good ol’ Capitol Avenue. Capital!

Back in 2016 Anne and I visited the Indiana State House on the occasion of our state bicentennial and enjoyed the up-close look at where our local government met and worked in easier times before work-from-home became a survival option and later became simply the latest fashion. Before our centrally situated hometown of Indianapolis became the official workplace of the governor and all the rest, Hoosiers reported to the State House’s prequel structure near our southern border.

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The Ex-Capital Birthday Weekend, Part 3 of 10: Halloween and the Hallowed Tree

October 29, 2022 By in Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Beetlejuice Halloween decorations in a fan's front yard.

Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beeeeee best if I just stop there.

Autumn motifs are inevitable in Anne’s October birthday trips. Ironically, Anne isn’t even a huge Halloween fan (she saves her holiday love for December), but on our walk to go check out one of Corydon’s proudest monuments, we noticed the number of residents who’d decorated for the occasion well outnumbered the few pitiful celebrants on our own street back home. I admittedly took my sweet time setting up our own display this year, but at least we have one. It was nice to find the spirit of the occasion hasn’t been exorcised from all neighborhoods.

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The Ex-Capital Birthday Weekend, Part 2 of 10: Welcome to Corydon

October 28, 2022 By in Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
glass pumpkin in sunshine!

A glass pumpkin for the autumn occasion at Zimmerman Art Glass in Corydon.

Okay, prologue aside, now we get to October 14th’s primary objective.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

In addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our respective birthdays together traveling to some new place or attraction as a short-term road trip — partly as an excuse to spend time together on those most wondrous days, partly to explore areas we’ve never experienced before. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

In October 2022 Anne turned 52. Indiana offers no shortage of tourist attractions for history aficionados like her. We’ve visited quite a few of those over the years, but this year we felt it was time to check off one of the Hoosier State’s biggest trivia answers: Corydon, our original state capital before Indianapolis…

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The Ex-Capital Birthday Weekend, Part 1 of 10: Unrelated Pastry Prologue

October 24, 2022 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Anne smiling and holding a pecan twirl pastry.

The woman I love with a pecan swirl she adored.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: in addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our respective birthdays together traveling to some new place or attraction as a short-term road trip — partly as an excuse to spend time together on those most wondrous days, partly to explore areas we’ve never experienced before. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

In 2022 Anne turned 52, a number that begs me to insert a gratuitous DC Comics reference here, but it was her birthday, not mine. Indiana offers no shortage of tourist attractions for history aficionados like her. We’ve visited quite a few of those over the years, but this year we felt it was time to check off one of the Hoosier State’s biggest trivia answers: Corydon, our original state capital before Indianapolis.

History tidbits will be forthcoming. But first, our opening act: sugar.

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Happy Birthday, Captain Janeway: A Fantabulous 50s Coda

June 23, 2022 By in Indiana, Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Anne and Captain Janeway!

Anne wasn’t born in May, but she gets to be the lead photo because she’s cuter.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

In addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our respective birthdays together traveling to some new place or attraction as a short-term road trip — partly as an excuse to spend time together on those most wondrous days, partly to explore areas we’ve never experienced before. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

I’ve just now lived to see 50, and after weeks of research and indecision, we planned an overnight journey to the next state over, to the capital city of Columbus, Ohio, which had cool stuff that this now-fiftysomething geek wanted to see. Columbus, then, would be the setting for our first outing together as quintagenarians…

…and then we returned home and all lived happily ever after. But the birthday celebration didn’t quite stop there as it should’ve. The following weekend, we took my mom down to southern Indiana to visit family, a semiannual jaunt for us because long drives are no longer her thing. Due to scheduling issues, Mom and I hadn’t made time to hang out for my birthday as we normally do. So we made that time — we did the visiting, we treated her to dinner, and we crossed a high-priority geek sightseeing item off our to-do list, which gave her a rare chance to tag along for one of these weird little jaunts she sees us posting about sometimes on Facebook.

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The Fantabulous 50s Weekend, Part 10: Sir, This is a Wendy’s

June 22, 2022 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Wendy's Way!

Every icon has to start somewhere.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

In addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our respective birthdays together traveling to some new place or attraction as a short-term road trip — partly as an excuse to spend time together on those most wondrous days, partly to explore areas we’ve never experienced before. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

I’ve just now lived to see 50, and after weeks of research and indecision, we planned an overnight journey to the next state over, to the capital city of Columbus, Ohio, which had cool stuff that this now-fiftysomething geek wanted to see. Columbus, then, would be the setting for our first outing together as quintagenarians…

We saw comics and art in museums, and we had food in a museum, so why not make our logical final stop in Columbus a food museum? Well, technically, in a way, kindasorta? There’s only one small exhibit room, but the subject is rather large.

After the record store we returned to Dublin, home of the Wendy’s flagship store, which was opened in 2013 and built with an extra side room to house numerous artifacts and souvenirs from the company’s 52-year history. So they’re only a few months older than we are.

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The Fantabulous 50s Weekend, Part 9: Arts in Columbus

June 20, 2022 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
ART downtown Columbus!

The Columbus College of Art & Design’s Art Sign will celebrate its 21st birthday this coming Thursday.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

In addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our respective birthdays together traveling to some new place or attraction as a short-term road trip — partly as an excuse to spend time together on those most wondrous days, partly to explore areas we’ve never experienced before. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

I’ve just now lived to see 50, and after weeks of research and indecision, we planned an overnight journey to the next state over, to the capital city of Columbus, Ohio, which had cool stuff that this now-fiftysomething geek wanted to see. Columbus, then, would be the setting for our first outing together as quintagenarians…

The miniseries’ end is near! But first, the stuff we skipped and some stuff we didn’t get to yet. Mostly it’s about the birthday guy doing some self-indulgent geek sopping, chancing into a few flourishes of local art along the way, and a few loose ends that fit nowhere into the miniseries except here, the catchall chapter.

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The Fantabulous 50s Weekend, Part 8: The Columbus Cuisine Collection

June 19, 2022 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Paella Barcelona!

Paella Barcelona: a party for the palate containing chicken, shrimp, chorizo, calamari, clams, mussels, and more, more, more.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

In addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our respective birthdays together traveling to some new place or attraction as a short-term road trip — partly as an excuse to spend time together on those most wondrous days, partly to explore areas we’ve never experienced before. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

I’ve just now lived to see 50, and after weeks of research and indecision, we planned an overnight journey to the next state over, to the capital city of Columbus, Ohio, which had cool stuff that this now-fiftysomething geek wanted to see. Columbus, then, would be the setting for our first outing together as quintagenarians…

As with all our road trips, mention must inevitably be made of the culinary experiences. We don’t use the “foodie” label explicitly, whose baggage includes an implication of a lifestyle chic enough to afford and live on 21 fancy dishes a week. We tend to suppress our desires to try Something Different — fueled in part by our longtime Chopped viewership — until special occasions come up, such as this very two-day birthday outing. Columbus had no shortage of options waiting for us.

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