We are spending a lot of time with our cousins Donna and Ed Karfeld, and our host with the most, Judy Pass. We had an excellent whitefish dinner with good friends Michael Bobroff and Wendy Olk, and last night spent time with friends Pat and Brigid McCauley, Betsy and Stuart Zimbalist, and Jerry Lander. Tonight adding cousins Bob, Simone, Rich and Jacqui Schnidman to the mix. What more could you want?

We return to DC tomorrow, so it looks like we may miss some of our usual stops, like the Art Museum, but that’s life. People are as upset about the presidential election here as much as they are in Washington, it appears, but I have been avoiding unnecessary mourning.

We did go to a new, for us, spot – the Union Station train shed, home to a large Ferris Wheel, carousel, and all the usual accompaniments. It also houses the St. Louis Aquarium. We did not go in – as you know, aquariums (should it be aquaria?) are quite pricey. I think it’s about $30 per person for seniors.

But we did gape at the extensive rope course. The instructions are daunting.

And the reality more so.

And, oh, yes, the gold teeth. In case you forgot:

Grillz (or, to the more conservative,  grills) are removable or permanent gold (or silver, or diamond studded) dental covers or replacements, which Wikipedia says started in the hip hop world and are now “mainstream”. Really?

When we saw this shop, in the 5800 block of Delmar, it hadn’t opened for the day yet, but the owner of the vape/hookah supply store next door told me that the owner was a master craftsman, whose customers included nationally known celebrities, including people as famous as Chris Brown (who he?). I looked up Chris Brown, saw many photos, none with grillz. He also told me that the owner worked with a dentist, who did the actual implant work. Looking at the store’s website, I see you can get a full diamond coated mouth at $900 per tooth. Looks like a steal, to me.

I also had a cup of Blueprint Coffee, which I highly recommend; it’s a very serious place. We had lunch at the sprawling McGurk Irish pub in the Soulard neighborhood, and dinner at Oishi, a Japanese restaurant in Creve Coeur.

At Oishi, I asked our native Japanese waitress about this sign:

What is this? Thinking, I assume, in Japanese, she must have assumed I knew what a hamachi is, so she started, in mime, to show me what part of the body a jaw is.

That is it from flyover country.