One of the drivers recommended Grease Bar and Grill, which
he said he was wanting to try because of the good notices
but hadn't got to yet. Turns out that it's one of the hip
places on Clematis St., a supposed gem of the urban
renewal here. Which means it doesn't smell quite as much
like pee as the other streets. To be honest, we went at
midday, when only mad dogs and Englishmen are out. Aside
from a few hipsters, all the people seemed a little down
and out.

So we sidled up to the bar, and a buxom and good-natured
bartender of the stereotypical sort served us in her
fashion in her own good time.

I had a bowl of chili in anticipation of getting half of
Lilli's burger, the usual course of events. The chili was
too tomatoey and with some beans; also not spicy enough;
but it was decent and pretty filling.

Lilli's burger was ordered medium-rare and came medium-rare on
a sturdy but good-tasting bun with the usual lettuce, tomato,
onion, and so on. As Nixon might have said had he tasted it,
this is truly a great burger. Well over half a pound of I
thought chuck and round they say chuck, sirloin, and filet.
They say ground fresh daily, my impression was ground to order.

Beverages: Hollywood Bushka Stout was a not-so inspired try
at a Russian Imperial stout; it had the alcohol but not the oomph.
I switched to Iron Smoke Bourbon, which was the most obviously
grainy liquor I've had in a long time; you could taste the corn,
which was actually kind of charming, It was warming but
reasonably smooth, and I was pleased. Lilli had her usual red
plonk, which was plonky but potable.

There is a free shuttle around town sponsored by the local
merchants' association to try to drum up business. It seems
that it's not working; not only are many of the places it
goes past dead or moribund, also many of the riders seem
a little down and out themselves. We decided to take both
loops (there's a third line that goes to the mall a ways
away, but there was no reason we would want to go to there).
So we were riding along, and there was this unkempt guy about
our age with a little box that he kept clutched by his side.
An odd denizen, we thought, but as everyone was perfectly
friendly, we were chatting with him and the bus driver (also
these were very helpful), and he told us how to get to our
destination, and he was getting off at our stop, and he
recommended the Publiz as a place to get a good deal on
beer and wine, so we accompanied him there, expecting him to
ask us to chip in for a beer, but he didn't do that and just
was going to provision his boat or something. We got a bottle
of red juice and found him on the way out ready to take the
free shuttle again, brick of beer under his arm, so we talked
a bit again, and it was a jolly old time. It turns out (others
corroborated this) that he is a semi-retired health care
consultant who parks his yacht on the waterway and is just
eccentric, a state I aspire to for when I grow up.

Eventually we got to the pickup place for our hotel shuttle
and called for it only to find that it was spoken for for
almost another hour, so we Ubered it back.
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