Broiling day. No - a broasting day. No one ever says Broasting much anymore, and even when they did, it was in the context of chicken. In any case, hot and soggy, which is fine by me.

Massive storm overnight, and I slept through all of it. Woke thinking: Wednesday, always the come-down after Tuesday’s parade of small delights and indulgences. We should find a way to make Wednesday better. How? Pancakes? Gin at noon?

But Wednesday is an Aldi’s day! you say. Doesn't that mean it's already special? Correct. Not for any reason except that it is, now, as part of The Structure. Apres le gym, l’Aldis, for one specific item: the non-Bustelo coffee at popular prices. Perhaps some cheese to add to my growing collection. Well, after the gym, I went to Aldis, and discovered they were out of the coffee. The one damned thing I go out of my way to get, and there was none to be had. That’s when I had a revelation:

Part of the problem with tiny grains of coffee all over the counter is the fine quality of the espresso grind. What if . . . I went to a coarser ground? And here the experts sigh: backsliding like this can only end in a Krups or Cuisinart drip machine.

I already admitted that yesterday. I have taken the croupier's wand and moved it over to the Possible House side of the table.

I wasn’t going to buy any Aldi ground, because they only had flavors, and everyone of good character should turn away from flavored coffee. Irish it up a little if you like; that’s fine. Otherwise, accept that coffee is itself a flavor, and should not be smothered under a chemical simulacrum of hazelnut. Says me. Well, let’s see what they have at Target!

Oh

		Oh no Dreamsicle coffee

They did, however, have the beans from distant lands on sale - $9.99 then, $6.99 now, if you buy two. Otherwise, no savings for you! I took two different varieties and realized I needed dog food. Horrors: they were out of Birch’s brand. Pretty sure he’ll cope .I tossed a bag in the cart and checked out.

Of course, the coffee rang up at $9.99. I waved over a Guest Assistant, and explained: the sale price had not been entered, even though I was buying two.

Tall, well-spoken chap. He said “maybe it’s only a Target Circle deal? Do you have Target Circle?”

“No, I have Target Trapezoid, it’s a much higher level. You get it after you’ve been coming here for forty years. Ha!”

“We can enter your phone number to see if you have Target Circle,” he said, with the unspoken “old man” hanging in the air. I picked up my phone, swiped, tapped, face-log-in, hit WALLET, hit SHOW BARCODE, and beeped it. The mood changes: this fellow is up to date! He’s down with the new ways!

I explained that the buy-two signage encompassed the entirety of the store-brand premium ground coffees, and no distinction had been made to indicate that only one or two of the roasts was eligible. We could take a walk back and look.

“No, that’s all right,” he said. “I trust you.”

“Really, I can run back and take a picture. Maybe I’m wrong.”

Are you detecting a pattern in my life, my friends

“We’re good,” he said, and manually adjusted the price. Thus was six dollars saved. I should note that my Social Security check hit today, and I felt so flush I bought brown eggs. Pasture raised, free-range, chickens given personal thanks for every egg deposited, movies shown every night in the coop, etc. But not Chicken Run. That would give them ideas. Or maybe they’d love it.

Later I got an email from Target asking me to fill out a survey. I did, noting my satisfaction with the demeanor and calm professional attitude of the lanky guest assuager. They will match my special identifier from the email and the time of my visit and note that I was actually wrong about the price, and he will be fired.

And now . . .

Previously known as "Here to There." Remember that? It was put on hiatus after the Great Schism was announced. Turns out I have a few in storage, because I'm a hoarder, you know. Same basic idea. I found something and it led to other things.

I saw a note about highway construction on 10, and since I was planning a trip, I checked. Thus our prompt:

It was the 10-23 intersection, just south of where I always make my first stop: the McDonald’s. Once I stopped for a burger, but now it’s just coffee, since the food no longer seems to qualify as such. I'd be twenty miles down the road and feel as if I'd just eaten a wad of wet pulp soaked in boullion.

There’s another building near the McD, one that hails from an earlier era of highway travel.

Of all things, it’s a Subway now. Couldn’t look less like a Subway if it tried - but then you think wait, what does a Subway restaurant look like anyway?

And why is this sandwich chain associated with an underground transportation concept?

Let’s ask the company itself. From the website:

The Subway® story began in 1965 when 17-year-old Fred DeLuca asked his family friend, Dr. Peter Buck, a nuclear physicist, for advice on how to pay his college tuition.

Okay, I'm intrigued.

With an idea to open a submarine sandwich shop and an initial $1,000 investment from Dr. Buck, the two formed a business partnership that would ultimately change the landscape of the quick service restaurant industry.

Something's missing here. "I'm having trouble paying for college!" "Well, have you considered opening a restaurant?"

The partners opened their first restaurant in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in August of 1965, where they served freshly-made, customizable and affordable sandwiches to local guests.

DeLuca appears to have been quite a piece of work. As for the Doc:

Buck seemed happy to sit back and reap the profits from his share of Subway, which Forbes estimates to be $1.7 billion. Buck focused his attention on philanthropy, including his namesake Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation. In 2004, Buck endowed the Smithsonian the funds to buy a rare 23.1-carat ruby. The gem is now known as the Carmen Lucia ruby to honor Buck's late wife.

Well, what about that? The Smithsonian says “The stone was mined from the fabled Mogok region of Burma in the 1930s.”

Well, what about that?

Mogok is believed to have been founded in 1217 by three lost Shan hunters who discovered rubies at the base of a collapsed mountain.

So it’s been ruby-centric all along.

Following the 1885 Third Anglo-Burmese War in which the British conquered and annexed the hitherto independent Upper Burma, in 1886 the British launched a military expedition to "open up" the ruby mines at Mogok and make them available to British merchants. George Skelton Streeter, a gem expert and son of Edmund Streeter of the Streeters & Co Ltd jewellery company in London, accompanied the expedition and stayed there to work as a government valuer in the British-run mines.

The third war. My gosh those nasty colonialists. Here’s something that was the greatest story of the day, and has receeded into the mists of history now:

The Anglo-Burmese Wars were a clash between two expanding empires, the British Empire and the Konbaung Dynasty, that became British India‘s most expensive and longest war, costing 5–13 million pounds sterling (£400 million – £1.1 billion as of 2019) and spanning over 60 years.

And who was the Konbaung Dynasty?

An expansionist dynasty, the Konbaung kings waged campaigns against Manipur, Arakan, Assam, the Mon kingdom of Pegu, Siam (Ayutthaya, Thonburi, Rattanakosin), and the Qing dynasty of China – thus establishing the Third Burmese Empire. Subject to later wars and treaties with the British, the modern state of Myanmar can trace its current borders to these events.

You mean to say there was another imperialist expansionist power in the region? No! I was certain this sort of thing was limited exclusively to Europeans.

Read up on those guys if you wish; it’s a thick history, red in tooth and claw. Myanmar has been in the news now and then in the last ten years, mostly due to the ominously named SLORC and the tangled tale of the famous dissident - turned - leader, Aung San Suu Suu Kyi. If you’re wondering whether the capital city has one - you know, a Subway, which started all this - the answer seems to be no:

The government has shelved plans for a subway system in Nay Pyi Taw because it believes the line is neither necessary nor cost effective, the Minister for Railways said last week.

They don't have a Subway sandwich store, either.