Category Archives: Adventures at Home

Last night, we ordered pizza from Glass Nickel. Eileen called it in; when they asked for a name, she said, “It will be Tim,” cuz I’m always the one who goes to pick it up.

So I went there and said, “I’m here to pick up some pizzas for Tim.”

The cashier touched the computer screen a few times and looked confused. “Who’s it for?”

“Tim?” I said, hoping that my inquisitive tone would also connote what I was thinking: Is there a problem?

“Um. . . I’ve got a Teresa, a Bob, and a Bible?”

“Bible?!”

She laughed. I laughed. She went over to another guy and brought him back to the cashier. He had long, straight, black hair, and he was wearing a tennis-player-style head band pulled over his hair like Richie Tenenbaum. He looked stoned.

“Did you take this order?” she said.

I only heard him say, “uh.”

She turned the screen toward me. “Are you sure you’re not Bob?” she asked.

I laughed.

“What did you order?”

“Um, a deluxe and a fetalicious.”

She touched the screen a few times. “Was it a deluxe with no cheese?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well then, this has got to be you.”

“Yeah. Not a common combination to have a cheeseless pizza and a fetalicious in the same order, eh?”

She smiled. “Looks like you were Teresa.”

“Really?” I said. “I was hoping I’d be Bible.”

On Sunday, I went on a 100+ mile bike ride with some guys. When we got into Lodi — about 80 miles into the trip — we stopped at a Piggly Wiggly, and one of the guys got a ham sandwich with mustard and mayo. It sounded disgusting.

But it looked kinda good. He asked if I wanted a bite and I said sure and holy cow! It was excellent.

I held off on purchasing one right there. Based on all my previous athletic experience, it just didn’t make sense that a ham sandwich could be consumed at that stage of a workout. But when I got home, I went to the store and got some ham!

Earlier in the summer, when I was visiting my sister and her new restaurant in Milwaukee, I had a Chicago-style hot dog (hold the relish) — not a food I normally go for much. It was my brother’s idea. It They (I had two) were wonderful. In fact, I had another one for the road later that day.

And then the next time I was in Milwaukee, I had a hot dog.

The summer progressed, we went up to Door County, and wouldn’t you know it: there was a bakery/deli that served Chicago-style dogs. Of course, since every third person up there is a FIB, I should have been able to guess that they would have Chicago-stlye hot dogs.

A few days later, after we had gotten back to Madison, I got the craving again. There used to be a hot dog place on Regent called Dog Eat Dog. And there was another hot dog place somewhere up on the capitol square. But I knew Dog Eat Dog went out of business, and I suspected the other place had also. I vaguely remembered seeing a hot dog place just a couple months ago, and I had read about a guy with a cart who sold hot dogs on Williamson Street, so I decided to go out for a mid-day drive and track down a dog.

I took my own dog with me; together we drove out to Willy Street, then back up to the capitol — all to no avail. So I gave up.

But then today, after that whole ham sandwich incident, I got inspired to search again. I actually found a forum which discussed hot dog places in Madison! And then I found a site called hotdogchicagostyle.com. I’m not kidding. It rates all the places in Madison that serve Chicago-style hot dogs.

Apparently, one of the best in town is in Home Depot. Yuck!

Needless to say, I’ll be trying it.

This past Thursday, I went out for a run. On the way home, I passed a lemonade stand. There was a huge team out there — at least five kids, maybe more. They had a sign that said “Lemonade $4.”

I told you these kids were relentless. Four dollars!? That’s insane.

As I was approaching, I heard them shouting to anyone who would listen, “Lemonade and Rice Krispie treats!” As I went running by, they targeted me with their pitch. All five of them.

“Lemonade!”

“Lemonade and Rice Krispie treats!”

“Lemonade!”

“Money goes to the tsunami victims!”

I turned my head at this last one. I thought, Wait, what? Are you serious?

I shouted, “I don’t have money. I’ll come back.”

They responded, “Okay!”

When I got home, I told Eileen about it. We leashed up the dog, grabbed 8 dollars (!) and walked down Kendall Ave. to the stand, which was about 7 blocks from our house. When we got to the corner of Kendall and Allen, about 3 blocks from our house, we were met by 4 kids who really wanted to pet Tember. We smiled as they gushed over her and then they said, “we have a lemonade stand over there.” Relentless, I tell you.

We let Tember off the leash and she walked/jogged with the kids until we called her back. We would then allow her to run up to the kids, who were a good 30 yards ahead of us. When we finally arrived at the stand, one of the boys was bragging about how cheap the lemonade powder mix was. I asked how much the lemonade was.

“Twenty five cents.”

And the rice krispie treats?

“Fifty cents.”

I checked the sign. It still said $4. I said, “Okay, we’ll take two lemonades and two rice krispie treats.” They poured our drinks while a little girl asked if Tember would bite. Eileen said, “no, but sometimes she licks people.”

The little girl giggled and said, “yeah, she just licked me.”

I gave the “cashier” two dollars. She said thanks. I waited. By my calculations, I had 50 cents coming.

A little boy whispered, “Did they pay us?”

The cashier showed no signs of knowing that she owed us 50 cents. On the one hand, you want to teach a lesson in good business — i.e. don’t cheat people out of their money. On the other hand, you’re a jackass to demand 50 cents from some kids who are donating the money to the tsunami victims.

We left. They all said bye to Tember.

You can see my bald spot even from 200 yards away.

Last week, my friend Gina came to town with her husband Frank. It was great to see them both. Frank is a champion storyteller. He teaches high school outside of Portland, and he runs an extracurricular social studies team that competes at things like geography bees. They made it to nationals a couple years ago and placed sixth.

One of the kids on the team actually failed Frank’s class. I guess he’s not all that interested in school, but he’s great in competitions because he knows any flag you show him. The superintendant of the district came in to talk with the successful team and asked this kid what he thought of the Israel/Palestine conflict. He said, “huh?” Some other kid interrupted and said, “he just does flags.”

Later, Frank was telling us about how he goes to the grocery store every day. I have that tendency too. But Frank is a pretty outgoing guy, and he talks to everyone. Apparently, one of the clerks gave him the employee discount and actually thought he worked there. He’d go through the line and she’d say things like, “are you working tomorrow?”

In the second half of last week, Eileen and I went up to Door County to camp with her parents in Peninsula State Park. Eileen’s mom has cousins in Green Bay who came up a few times to sit around the campfire. The Blaney’s. They’re Irish. They can tell stories.

In Irish families, you tell a good one and it will probably get recycled later; tell a bad one and you might get ridiculed. At some sort of family gathering, the Blaney’s were sitting around telling stories and someone told one that kinda fizzled out. Someone else, we’ll call him John, said, “That’s not how you end a story!” He proceeded to recount an experience with a patient of his who had come in for a blood transfusion or a plasma donation or something. The guy was blind, but on the medical history, it didn’t mention anything about his being blind. John asked the man about it, and the guy explained that in a psychotic episode, he had gouged out both his eyes! “Now that’s how you end a story!”