Curious creatures

  

     The other day we had dinner at Kie Gol Lanee — the one in Logan Square, not the one in Uptown.  The name struck me as vaguely Korean, though it's a Mexican restaurant. "Kie Gol Lanee" is the phonetic spelling of Quiegoloani, a small mountain village in the southern highlands of Oaxaca. It means "old stone" in Zapotec.

     Dinner was pretty good. I enjoyed the spicy grasshoppers — how often do you get the chance? My wife didn't, though more for the heat than the insect aspect. The pork chop with tamarind sauce over grilled onions had a nice flavor as well. I can't say I'd hurry back, but wasn't sorry we went.
     Though what really caught my attention was the yard near where we parked, a block north of Diversey. Someone had put a lot of effort into crafting a variety of robots and beasts. The result somewhere between art and craft. Folk art, I suppose. The robots were angry, the dragon, in full cry. I wondered if I would want to be greeted by this distressed menagerie every time I came home. Probably not. Though I'm not sure I'd ever get around to removing them either. It would take a lot of physical effort to haul the pieces away. Plus the psychic toll of effacing somebody's art. I'm not sure I could do it.