Last night we got take-out from Raja Rani, and Lucy ordered the Chicken Makhni. It was terrific. Definitely something I want to try to remember if I'm eating there again.
neat. I hope you come again sometime soon. This is my home town, though I think I had more fun showing people around about ten years ago. It's changed considerably since then.
So far most of my Michigan time in the last decade has been in Grand Rapids, which has the lovely advantages of seagrit and co. and mattgritter and their and markgritter's grands, particularly Grandpa Lyzenga, who was meant to be my grandpa one way or another. Unfortunately, it's still GR, so there you have that.
The city has gotten considerably yuppified, and a little less neat and pretty, in my opinion. Details in support: there are no longer any drugstores downtown. There used to be two. One of the big used book stores downtown closed and another had to move off the Liberty Street thoroughfare and onto a more side street. The discount music store that used to own the corner of Liberty and State closed, not to be replaced. The number of really really expensive restaurants increased and the number of nifty little shops and used bookstores went down.
You are much less likely to see skateboarders, jugglers, people in punk or grunge or goth clothing (this may just be the current fashion, but I think it's a trend toward the more generic). The Army secondhand store first stopped selling much that was secondhand and switched to new stuff, then closed altogether.
The 1920s Candy and sandwich store with the striped awning that was right across from the main campus closed when the owner had a heart attack and the kids didn't want to keep it up. It had a mars room upstairs and those old-fashioned peppermint sticks. Some of the pieces are on display at a chocolate shop on main street. Not the same.
An architectural firm whose work I can't stand has made significant headway in the city, to my mind turning the skyline from something very pretty to something blocky and gross.
They've started charging for parking in the library parking lot (though if you run in and out in less than 15 minutes, it's free). The old Hertler Brother's feed store was purchased by someone else and turned into a gardening store. These things add up.
The 24-hour Fleetwood diner is still there, but is dominated by castaway smokers instead of having a ballanced afterhours crowd. The Washtenaw Dairy is still there. There is still a Borders, but now our beloved independent bookstore where each section had an expert to guide you and order books has since been purchased by KMart and turned into a duplicate clone of the now-monstrous chain (which now has a music section and is probably responsible for killing the afore-mentioned discount music store). On the other hand, there is no fast food downtown. The pretty little former bank building with the stained glass window that used to be a McDonald's was torn down and replaced by a generic 4-story office building that was a beauty school until that moved to where the army surplus used to be.
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So far most of my Michigan time in the last decade has been in Grand Rapids, which has the lovely advantages of
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You are much less likely to see skateboarders, jugglers, people in punk or grunge or goth clothing (this may just be the current fashion, but I think it's a trend toward the more generic). The Army secondhand store first stopped selling much that was secondhand and switched to new stuff, then closed altogether.
The 1920s Candy and sandwich store with the striped awning that was right across from the main campus closed when the owner had a heart attack and the kids didn't want to keep it up. It had a mars room upstairs and those old-fashioned peppermint sticks. Some of the pieces are on display at a chocolate shop on main street. Not the same.
An architectural firm whose work I can't stand has made significant headway in the city, to my mind turning the skyline from something very pretty to something blocky and gross.
They've started charging for parking in the library parking lot (though if you run in and out in less than 15 minutes, it's free). The old Hertler Brother's feed store was purchased by someone else and turned into a gardening store. These things add up.
The 24-hour Fleetwood diner is still there, but is dominated by castaway smokers instead of having a ballanced afterhours crowd. The Washtenaw Dairy is still there. There is still a Borders, but now our beloved independent bookstore where each section had an expert to guide you and order books has since been purchased by KMart and turned into a duplicate clone of the now-monstrous chain (which now has a music section and is probably responsible for killing the afore-mentioned discount music store). On the other hand, there is no fast food downtown. The pretty little former bank building with the stained glass window that used to be a McDonald's was torn down and replaced by a generic 4-story office building that was a beauty school until that moved to where the army surplus used to be.
I could go on, but do you get the picture?
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