Bob Delaney At Large: 2/4/24

10 February 2024

Eating Out to Benefit the Needy and Soccer Supporters

Yesterday morning (9 February), I stopped on my way to work at the Hardee's restaurant in Twin Oaks for a bit of breakfast. St. Louis area Hardee's locations were doing the annual "Rise & Shine" fundraiser for Heat Up St. Louis, a charity which helps needy households pay utility bills. I bought a sausage biscuit for $1, with Hardee's contributing all the sales to the charity. This was augmented by volunteers in the lobby collecting money in cans.

In the late 1990s, I worked for the PR firm which had the Hardee's account in Metro St. Louis and helped out on the "Rise & Shine" campaign. Ever since, I have tried to support "Rise & Shine" with at least a sausage biscuit purchase.

I enjoyed the sausage biscuit during the drive to the Enterprise branch in Ballwin. It was a rather busy day for us, but we got through it just fine.

After work, I drove to Steve's Hot Dogs on South Grand in St. Louis for dinner. The restaurant was holding a dine in event yesterday with the St. Louligans to raise funds for the supporter group's tifo fund. (A tifo is a huge banner raised during a soccer match by a team's supporters.) The St. Louligans are gearing up for the 2024 St. Louis CITY SC season and are planning to do tifos for a few matches. This evening would help with raising funds to purchase tifo materials.

This was my first time at Steve's and I ordered one of their specialty hot dogs, the Geddy Lee (named for the Rush frontman). This was a smoked dog covered with buffalo fries, fried cheese curds, white gravy, and crumbled bacon. Essentially, it was poutine on a dog. I had a bag of sea salt and vinegar potato chips and a Sprite. This was most delicious.

My meal was interrupted by a college who wanted us St. Louligans outside the front door for a group picture. I joined in with the group and the picture was taken. I haven't seen it yet, but it should appear on the group's social media in due course.

I really enjoyed myself at Steve's and highly recommend this place to anyone. Steve's also has a booth at CITYPARK for the CITY SC matches.

After dinner, I walked up South Grand to Hot Box Cookies. There, I bought three cookies: one each of gooey butter, cookies 'n creme, and oatmeal raisin. They were all freshly baked and still warm in the bags they were put into. I walked to my car to drive home, eating the gooey butter one in the car and enjoying the other two after I got home that night.

It was a good feeling to help two different causes with my morning and evening meals. I was so glad to do my bit for both Heat Up St. Louis and the St. Louligans yesterday.

Later.

Websites of Entities Mentioned in This Post:

Hardee's: Hardee's (hardees.com)

Heat Up St. Louis: Heat Up St. Louis – Give the Gift of Warmth (heatupstlouis.org)

Enterprise Rent-a-Car: Car Rental with Great Rates & Service | Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Steve's Hot Dogs: Steve's Hot Dogs - Home of the Official Hot Dog of St. Louis - St. Louis (steveshotdogsstl.com)

St. Louligans: Saint Louligans – Supporting Soccer in the St. Louis Area – St. Louligans – Supporting St. Louis Soccer (stlouligans.com)

St. Louis CITY SC: St. Louis CITY SC (stlcitysc.com)

Hot Box Cookies: HotBoxCookies

South Grand Community Improvement District: South Grand Community Improvement District

04 February 2024

Weekend: Saturday Night with Julie; Sunday Mostly at Home

Yesterday morning (3 February), after a rather busy week at work, I was taking care of some personal matters. This included forwarding mail for Mom and Rick, as well as grocery shopping.

Home that afternoon was mostly chilling out before Julie came by late that afternoon to pick me up to take me to dinner. She wanted to get the start on my birthday celebration (my big day is this Wednesday). We started the night with dinner at Bartolino's South in Green Park. Julie and I enjoyed a nice dinner at the fine Italian restaurant--I had the manicotti--along with some wonderful conversation.

After dinner, Julie drove us to the Plaza Frontenac Cinema to see the new movie Origin. This drama was inspired by Isabel Wilkerson's book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor plays Wilkerson in the movie, which tells how Wilkerson tied the subjugation of African Americans, Jews in Nazi Germany, and Dalits in India to common hierarchy structures. This movie sure gives you plenty of think about Both Julie and I thought this movie was very well done.

After the movie, Julie took me back home and I thanked her for the wonderful evening. We will meet up again in a few days to celebrate Valentine's Day together.

I was mostly in the house today, but I did go out this afternoon to run a few errands. It was also a chance to drive Mom's car for awhile. It needed air in all four tires, which I took care of using a self-service air pump at a Mobil station. The car's battery needs charging, but otherwise it ran well. After adding air to the tires, I drove to Dollar Tree in Oakville to buy some plastic forks for my work lunches and a set of combs for myself. I then went to the nearby Schnucks to browse for a while.

After that bit of shopping, I treated myself to a drink at Honey Bee Tea, a boba tea place in Oakville. It was my first time in this place. I ordered a jasmine milk tea, which I drank in the place. It was a nice way to treat myself after all I was doing this weekend.

This weekend, I also did a bit more work on the 1:200 scale Saturn V model, which I hope to have done later this month for the IPMS Gateway Chapter meeting's first 2024 Modeler of the Year Contest. This contest is Out of the Box (no modifications or additions to the kit parts). I have had a bit of difficulties with this kit, but I should have it ready in time for the contest two weeks from this Tuesday night.