Sunday, April 09, 2006

You probably think this song is about you

I finally took part in a major Winnipeg institution: today I ate at the Salisbury House. I've lived here for 7 years and I had never even been inside one. Oh, sure, I made the occasional joke (especially when the chain was purchased by a group of investors that included Winnipeg legend/joke, Burton Cummings). For those of you non-Winnipegger's Sal's is... well, like a combination of McDonalds-style fast food, 50s diner and a Perkins. They have burgers (which are called "Nips" for some reason no one seems able to explain) and all-day breakfasts. I had a crispy chicken wrap that was quite good and piece of pie. Yeah, so... Sal's... ate there.

It's spring, and spring in Manitoba means one thing: flooding. The banks of rivers are overflowing; people are sandbagging. I have to watch the news to see if the highway I use to drive to Otterburne will be underwater Wednesday. At the end of our neighbourhood there's a park and a creek that runs off one of the main rivers. I was by there today and the footbridge that crosses the creek is completely underwater. The only evidence a bridge exists is the life-saver bobbing up and down in the water.

Classes are over this week. And while this has been a good semester, I'm glad it's all coming to an end. Caught a student plagiarizing on a major paper the other day. That kind of sucks and means headaches for me (not least of which is being generally pissed off and angry). Blah! I still have a pile of papers still to mark, and now I have no desire to mark them. I just have this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach about this. Why would somebody do this? And do it so badly? I mean, I googled one questionable phrase and up popped the original article. And why do I take this all so personally?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

salisbury house's not bad, eh? you get what you pay for, but it's like having a quick homemade meal. we went there in september or october and i was impressed - it was like a warm cafeteria. until that day, i had thought salisbury house was a fancyshmo restaurant (simply because i had never been there or been taken there).
they have so many choices there. it's hard to pick out a meal - it's like picking courses.

Anonymous said...

I love Sal's. It's like my childhood in diner form.

The best time to go is early in the morning for the $2.49 breakfast. The place is full of old people shooting the bull as if they were in a small town restaurant, and tradesmen on their way to work. Usually I'm the youngest one there by 10 years or more.

Unfortunately, not all of the Sals' in the city are of equal quality. Some are downright revolting.