Cincinnati hates immigrants.

it’s appalling. yesterday morning, Mairead asked me “why is Cincinnati soooo anti-immigration?” because ever since we’ve been here things like this have been happening. though this is the worst. it turned out that last night at ESOL the advanced english class discussed the raid, so I learned about why Cincinnati is crazy.

apparently, it’s mostly the fault of one guy. Butler County Sheriff Rick Jones. he’s been persecuting undocumented workers and companies that hire them, asking for people to report on their neighbors if they suspect them of being here without papers, boycotting of suspected companies, focusing on “keeping illegals off the streets.” I was told that in a recent survey, 87% of Cincinnati-area residents were scared of immigration.
there’re so many things wrong with this I don’t even know where to start.

pop!

btw, it takes 1.20 to microwave a bag of popcorn in our microwave. any longer than that and it lights on fire. just thought you’d like to know.

burning questions

so in fact, the question I get most often about Cincinnati is “what’s the food like?”  not surprising, knowing me, my friends, and my family.

sadly, I am below poverty level with regards to income so my opportunities for eating out have been few.  however, I will share my experiences with you.

Skyline Chili.  I had the “3-way” which is spaghetti, chili, and cheese (4-way is with onions, 5-way with beans).  a lot of cheese.  and the chili is cinnamon-flavored.   so while it is an experience to eat Cincinnatt-style chili, I prefer my chili spicy and without pasta.

La Rosa’s Pizza.  another Cincinnati staple, La Rosa’s was founded by a Greek man, who apparently has become filthy rich off of his pizza chain.  the pizza’s not bad, but nothing special (it’s no papa del’s).  no surprises here.

The Comet.  has burritos and the like.  which were actually pretty good.  plus they have a local beer, Mt Carmel’s, on tap which I have come to like (even though I’ve only had it twice).  Mairead and I have thoughts of making this our local even though it’s across town.  and we can’t afford to go out often enough to have a local anywhere.  details, details.

Arthur’s.  in Hyde Park, one of the many ritzy areas of town, but reasonably priced.  famous for burgers, apparently.  I had the spicy black bean burger which was quite good with a reasonably sized portion of fries.

oh yes, and graeter’s.  good ice cream.  lives up to its reputation, no contest.  the black raspberry chip is a local favorite though I haven’t tried it yet.  apparently graeter’s ice cream has a crazy high fat content as well as the awesome chocolate chip thing they’ve got going, so all in all, very tasty.  although also out of our price range.

so, there’s a list of all the places we’ve been taken out to eat in Cincinnati.  so come visit, take us out to dinner, and I’ll expand the list.

god bless good samaritans

ok so last night.  we were going to the movies.

I was driving because I have a stellar sense of directions and I like to drive.  we were headed down into kentucky because there’s a movie theatre there with $3.00 movies, totally within our price range.  I got us onto Columbia Parkway, a major street in Cincy.  It’s got 6 lanes of traffic, merges with the expressway, it’s big.  so we got onto Columbia Parkway, and I noticed that the hood of the car was moving.  I said “oh, crap” and started to slow a bit, Mairead said “whaAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH” as the hood of the car flew up and smashed into the windshield.  fortunately there were no cars behind us as I pulled over to the side of the road.  unfortunately on Columbia Parkway there is no side of the road, only the outside lane of traffic and a 12ft high concrete wall.  so we parked in the outside lane, put on our flashers, got out and pulled our hood down.  it was of course all dented so we couldn’t actually latch it again, the car was given to us completely empty so of course there are no ropes or bungees or anything we could possibly use to tie down the hood.  so we’re standing there, staring at our car trying to brainstorm, when a guy in a van going the other direction yelled at us asking if we need help, we said yes, he pulled a u-turn and parked behind us, also in the outside lane of traffic.  he tried a variety of things as well before he finally just said “screw this, I’ll just do it the right way” and pulled out of his van some hook/strap contraption that I should know the name of but don’t which was exactly what I was wishing we had.  he strapped down the hood of our car and left before we could get his information to give his strap back.   the windshield cracked.  it’s all dented.  we called nuns until they gave us a different car to drive.

why do I even try

this evening, we were going to see Knocked Up at a localish cheapo theatre but we had a bit of trouble with the car so instead we got ice cream from UDF and watched Out of Africa, which had been left in our apartment.

I was very disappointed.  with Out of Africa, not the evening.

I think it would have been better had I not read the book, because I went into the movie expecting something, which is not what I got.  I quite liked the book.  It filled me with a whole sort of expectant feeling and made me long for Africa.  The movie annoyed me.  perhaps it was the mood I was in going into the film (not good), because it won its fair share of awards, but seriously.  It made me want to go to Africa the way that Blood Diamond made me want to go to Africa.