Indianapolis Monthly

It was late on a Thursday evening in Austin, Texas, and, anticipating a pre-dawn flight home the next morning, I was eager to settle into my hotel room, watch Grey’s Anatomy, and call it a night. The desk clerk at the airport Embassy Suites handed over my key, and I made my way to my assigned room at the end of the hallway. Trouble was, the room was not a suite—at the Embassy Suites! Instead, it occupied an awkward corner, with no separate sitting area, and featured an old-fashioned tube TV situated at an odd angle to the bed. If you can’t even score a suite at an all-suite hotel, you’ve encountered some pretty bad luck, as travel accommodations go.

A Day To Cherish adcstudios.com Albert Griffith & Sons, Inc. griffithfloors.com The Alexander

Ken Nelson Kittle’s Furniture kittles.com L’Evento Event Resource Boutique leventoboutique.com

Fifth Third Bank 53.com Fogo de Chao fogodechao.com G. Thrapp Jewelers

Party Reel party-reel.com Pink Poppy Ink pinkpoppyink.com Plat 99

United Way cwci.org University High School universityhighschool.org Vincennes University

Once upon a time there was a young girl who grew up with a bounty of good food on the dinner table every night. A mere wisp of a thing, the girl didn’t eat much, but what she did consume was delicious: batter-fried chicken that was lifted from the hot grease and drained on a grocery bag, green peppers stuffed full of tender beef and rice, thick bean-and-barley soup simmered from scratch and ladled generously into what her mother called “soup plates.” The girl’s father, spoiled by the excess and quality, professed little desire to venture far beyond the kitchen, whose stovetop was always occupied by pots with jiggling lids and whose ovens were filled with fragrant cakes and pies.

Things are different now than they were when I was a road deputy. You used to be able to call people and say, “I have this warrant on you. Where do you want me to pick you up?”

Lecture Series

IndyTalks, a new series of discussions designed to spark civic dialogue and share big ideas, offers a cool alternative to sleepy auditoriums. At one of this year’s events, presenters talked simultaneously about arts and globalization while their microphones were turned up or down based on audience votes. indytalks.wordpress.com

Bubble Tea

The sweet, milky elixir receives its most whimsical treatment at Greenleaf Sandwich and Bubble Tea. Choose from more than a dozen flavors and then jazz it up with the gummy add-in of your choice: traditional tapioca boba, gummy pearls, or jelly rectangles in melon, berry, or lychee flavor. 10240 W. U.S. 36, Avon, 271-2288

Portraits

Polina Osherov first snapped our attention for her fashion photography, but her portraits of everyday people, which recall the high contrast of film noir, are no less dramatic. Sure, she’ll do the standard headshot—but as long as you’re paying upwards of $500 a session, why not let her frame something a little more narrative? 1045 N. Senate Ave., 752-1476

Lingerie Boutique

The front room of Barbara’s New Beginnings is packed with barely-there undies, lacy chemises, and come-hither bustiers. But the good stuff is in the back—a huge room packed to the rafters with bras of all shapes and sizes. Backless, strapless, sweetheart corset? It’s there, along with hard-to-find sizes and crazy-cute running bras. 20 W. Pine St., Zionsville, 733-4100

Dear Joseph Addai, Dallas Clark, Austin Collie, Mike Hart, and Kelvin Hayden:

David Letterman did not show up at our high-school reunion. Again. Had he appeared, now or at any prior gathering, paparazzi (if there are paparazzi in Indianapolis) would no doubt have stalked the premises, and the Late Show superstar would have sucked the energy from the room. Dave’s a private guy who, oddly, doesn’t particularly glow in the limelight, so we, his classmates of the Broad Ripple High School class of 1965, understand.

On my way home from work every day, I am struck dumb by an illuminated billboard at the corner of 16th and Illinois streets. In red LED numbers, the huge sign flashes the current Powerball jackpot and, I believe, the amount to be won in the Hoosier Lotto, although I rarely look at that. When $123 million is staring you in the face, it’s hard to think about anything else.