After our little coffee break at Casa Cacao, Henry found a place on High Street for dinner. It was just a made-to-order bowl place called Roots and I’m pretty sure it’s a chain, but it was fine. I didn’t want anything heavy or greasy and bowls are usually a safe bet for me. Love having a weak stomach.

The best part was that it was walkable – like 30 minutes or so, Henry said, but it felt longer than that. It was fine except that the first part of it, Henry was like LET’S GO THROUGH THIS RESIDENTIAL AREA INSTEAD except that it wasn’t just a “residential area”—it was freaking OSU student housing and, being Saturday, there were yard and porch parties happening all around us and I felt like such a old person strolling past it all.

It didn’t get any better once we turned onto High St. because that’s basically the main drag through campus and I guess there was some kind of sports game happening that day/evening because the kids were out in droves in their red shirts.

Dinner was very basic and uneventful, but it was fun to retell my Dracula’s Ball stories to Henry even though he has heard them so many times that he probably feels like he lived them in real time at this point. I was just really excited that I was going to be revisiting my goth roots later than evening!

After dinner, we started walking back to the neighborhood where Rumba Cafe is, and were trailed for a few blocks by the sound of chaotic slapping on the pavement behind us.

“What is behind us,” I whispered to Henry.

“Flip flops,” he muttered.

But turns out not only was it flip flops, but a drunk OSU boy in flip flops. He eventually passed us and we watched in awe as he narrowly escaped the jaws of death numerous times.

It felt like being back in Brookline, honestly, except the publicly intoxicated here have a few decades on co-eds and are all clad in black and gold.

We were full from our respective bowls but I was adamant upon stopping by Buckeye Doughnuts for a sweet treat on the way back. I always say i’M nOt A bIg DoNuT fAn but a classic glazed or sugar always sounds good to me.

Plus, this place wasn’t one of those hifalutin’ epicurean donut boutiques focused on exotic ingredients procured from roots of plants on the far ends of the earth. Just your basic old-fashioned, maple-glazed cruller and coffee joint that hasn’t been renovated (but hopefully cleaned) since the 70s.

We housed these down later – they were delightful.

We were still in the bustling section of High Street when the clouds turned a foreboding shade of gray up ahead. Henry suggested stopping to the CVS we were about to pass by for an umbrella “just in case” but I consulted my 50% accurate weather app which said NO RAIN. JUST CLOUDS.

“Ooooook,” Henry sighed in a “can’t wait to say I told you so” sing-song lilt.

And exactly one block later – rain. :)

Henry the Priss was way more concerned about it than me, even though he was wearing a hat. It was just a light mist and it went away pretty quickly. Nothing was going to ruin this day, you guys.

When we got back to the Rumba Cafe, it was still about 90 minutes before doors opened, so we decided to walk down the street to a cute little bar we had passed, figuring we could kill time there.

It was called the Ramble House and a quick Google search told Henry that it was a bluegrass bar. But it was only 5:30 so we figured there wouldn’t be any bands there yet.

Wrong! Apparently, there was an early show starting at 6PM and we had arrived at the same time as the two bands. The guy at the door — it was his first night, we know this because he told us approx. 4x — was super friendly so when he told us it was a $10 cover and Henry was like, “WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO” because he always puts this shit on me which is why I’m chronically decision fatigued, I was like, “I don’t care, pay the man.” There didn’t seem to be anywhere else nearby and the main reason why we were walking everywhere was because it’s hard to get a parking spot at the Rumba Cafe but since we had arrived so early in the day, we got a prime spot on the street right in front of it. We didn’t want to lose it! And whatever, bluegrass is fine. I would survive.

Aside from a table of two men, we appeared to possibly be the only other non-band affiliated audience members. The door guy came over to us after we took our beers to a table and said, “Hey, I just talked to the boss lady and she said if you guys don’t feel like staying, you can have your cover charge back. I’m sorry, I didn’t know, it’s my first night working the door!”

Bro, he was SO EFFING NICE. And I wasn’t about to take money away from these bands. We knew we were going to be leaving during the first band’s set and that was bad enough! I hate just “walking out” in the middle of things like this especially when the place was so small with not many people there so there was no way to be inconspicuous about it. Ugh.

We enjoyed listening to these women soundcheck and were bummed when it turned out they were the second band that would be playing. :( I did find them on Instagram though and commented about how I was sad we couldn’t stay for their set and explained that we had only ended up there on a whim before a concert down the street. Me and my guilty conscience!!

And then, from their IG, I found out that their set also doubled as a going away party for one of the band members – I think she’s going to France? I forgot already! Anyway, it just kind of cracked me up a little that we randonly found ourselves in the midst of all this that night.

Someone’s kid did all of the artwork for the bar and this piece in particular really resonated me, particularly the banana. It unlocked an old music memory that had me spiraling out, trying to remember the name of the band that had an album cover with a banana on it AND NO NOT THE VELVET UNDERGROUND.

“They were in the same family as Blond Redhead and Xiu Xiu,” I said to Henry, barely caring as I frantically searched my phone for clues. “Back in my Pitchfork days….”

And then finally, I screamed DEERHOOF!! and Henry was like, “????”

(Relatedly, this also called to mind a song from another band that I lumped in with these agents of aural chaos back then, a song that my friend Alisha FUCKING HATED and I would always play it in her presence. I could hear like, 1/25th of a second of the song in my head, but couldn’t think of the band. Then, two days later, we were at home and apropos of nothing, I called out FIERY FURNACES!!! Henry was like HOW DO YOU DO THAT. I don’t know, man, my mind does what it wants. The song is “Single Again,” in case anyone has a burning thirst to know.)

The first band to go on was this bluegrass trio. Apparently, the guy in the middle is the only actual band member and the other two had to fill in for the other band members who couldn’t make it. The last name of the guy on the left is Kristofferson, and that fact is lodged into my brain like the HERE’S JOHNNY ax in a wooden door because I thought to myself, “Yes. He looks like a Kristofferson.”

Having a swell time at the bluegrass show!

Anyway, we had to leave halfway through the first band’s set in order to secure a place in line before doors opened at Rumba Cafe. We tried to slip out as quietly as possible but man, I felt so terrible. The last thing I want is for this band to see that and be like, “Wow, they hate us.”

:(

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