Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat

And we almost made it. Almost home and dry, rX napping, T knitting, Li'l reading, and me installing smoke detectors and stuff. But as we turned onto Bryn Mawr somebody noticed that we were walking right past the Egdewater. Yeah, THE Edgewater. One of those unassuming neighborhood bars that Chicago is lousy with. Some intersections on Clark or Broadway or Halsted have one on each corner. So somebody says maybe we should go in for a quick pint to warm our bones for the long three block walk home. Somebody else seconded, and the motion carried.
It was maybe 2 pm.
Cask-conditioned ale, some pretty lively IPA's; we were colder and thirstier than we thought. The place was close to empty, the cook had this wild shuffle in the CD player: Bowie's Ziggy Stardust, Gillian Welch, some country hat act, and was there some Motown? Any way. We had a couple pints, the bartender said her shift was over so we settled with her. But two of us had empty glasses while two had nearly full ones. So the empties got re-filled, but then the nearly full ones were empty and on and on. Some comestibles were suggested, and was it nachos without the chips or vegetarian fish and chips or something came and we ate it. Li'l tried on her new sweater and vest, so I had to prove to rX that the new dark grey merino wool v-neck would fit her better'n me and I put it on and the ladies all said no way could it possibly look any better on RX. Which obviously can't be true but I still have it anyway.
We discussed the upcoming game, the upcoming election, the upcoming concert. We laughed, we cried, we ordered the hummus platter without garbonzo beans. And finally, in the steely skyed twilight, we headed home one final time, with merely three blocks to go this time, and we could all get cleaned up and still make it to see Joe Henry in plenty of time. But time, as you know, is a lion.