The Weekend Roundup loves it when a plan comes together
Fifteen years I’ve been after this woman. “Just try it once,” I’d say. “It’s not so bad. Lots of people love it. Swear by it, even.”
Shannon: “No go. It just seems weird and gross and wrong.”
But I begged. I pleaded. I wheedled and cajoled and used other synonyms for “ask annoyingly.” But she wouldn’t budge. “That’s for other people, not me,” she’d insist, and so we’d go with something more, shall we say, traditional.
But then, after I spent most of Friday night helping a friend move in the midst of sleet and freezing rain, she decided to give in. “We’ll try it,” she offered, tentatively, “just this once. If I don’t like it, you can’t ask again.”
And so it was that I, filled with joy and anticipation, took my wife to the Waffle House.
That’s right: before Saturday morning, Shannon had never been to the Waffle House. Ever. She’s 37 years old, had grown up around the Midwest where they’re basically ubiquitous, and she’d never even set foot in the place. Call it fear of the unknown, call it classist bias, call it whatever you like, but she’d never been there, despite my constant protestations of “No, it’s really good. Seriously! I know the facade and the color scheme are straight out of the early 70s, but you have to try it!”
In the end, it wasn’t my reasoned arguments or my insistent whinging that got her to turn the corner. No, it was the fact that Maya went there with a friend and wouldn’t shut up about how much she loved it.
“Well,” says the woman who apparently has not heard a word I’ve said for the better part of two decades, “If Maya loves it so much, maybe we should give it a whirl.”
I’ve got a history with Waffle House. It was a favored hangout in high school, and then, during my college years, their all-you-can-eat waffles and hamburgers and omelet menu was a cheap way to fill my poor belly and add inches to my waistline. But because Shannon had no desire to pass within 500 feet of a Waffle House, I hadn’t eaten at one since early in our marriage (I only got to go then because she was out of town at the time).
And so, when we walked into the Waffle House in Liberty and were assailed with the sounds of shouting waitresses and short-order cooks banging spatulas on a hot grill–not to mention the smells of eggs and bacon and sausage and yes, waffles–it was like coming home. Maya was beside herself with excitement. Shannon was just amazed that it was clean. She had just naturally assumed from the outdated and nondescript exterior that it would be a filthy greasy spoon full of chain-smoking truck drivers with their butt cracks showing over the top of their Wranglers. Nope. It was full of families and couples and regular joes enjoying their breakfasts. There may have been a butt crack or two showing, but I did not notice.
Long story short, Shannon loved it. She raved all day about how perfect the waffle was, how it was prepared just like she likes it, and she went on and on about how the coffee was better than that served just about anywhere. She couldn’t believe I hadn’t brought here there before.
Grrr.
And so, my wife is now a convert to the cult of Waffle House. I know, it’s just a diner, just one of a chain of diners, to boot. There’s one at just about every exit ramp from Atlanta to Des Moines. It’s a joint that serves decent, cheap diner food. So what’s the big deal? Why am I so excited about it?
Because–at least when it comes to Waffle House–Shannon was wrong, and I was right, and now everybody knows it.
How sweet it is.
(For the record, other stuff happened over the weekend, but none of it was all that interesting. To wit:
- It snowed.
- It melted.
- I got some new shirts. )
Don’t mess with the weekenD rounDup
This here Weekend Roundup’s all about our weekend in Texas… Dallas, Texas, that is. That’s the reason for the “Big D” in the title, see? It’s a pun, I guess? Except there’s three of them, and there’s only one Dallas. And actually, we spent very little time in Dallas proper, so I guess it’s better to say we were in the Greater Dallas Metroplex, but that’s too awkward to say. But most of what I write on here is pretty awkward, is it not? So maybe I should say as little as possible, and let the pictures do the talking about a little road trip we took just for the heck of it. Here we go!
The Hilton at Southlake Town Square, run by Shannon’s uncle and our home away from home on this trip.
Maya found plenty of ways to amuse herself in the hotel room.
Lunch out with Shannon’s aunt Lisa.
Lisa seems momentarily taken aback by… something.
Maya and Shannon’s cousin Casey watch the bunny Izzie.
Swimming in the heated-but-still frigid outdoor pool. It was still March, after all.
Dinner at Copeland’s, a New Orleans-type restaurant at the hotel. Steven enjoyed the chow!
As did Maya and I.
(Especially Maya.)
And as did Shannon and her cousin Katie.
Spending the day at the Fort Worth Stockyards, looking at… you know. Cows. With long horns.
Maya and her cousin Andrew (Price’s sister’s boy) break a bronco or two.
Everyone takes a turn riding Pecos Bill. First, Maya.
…then Andrew…
…then Steven (note how Steven and the bull have the exact same facial expression)…
…then {sigh} my Mom…
At the stockyards, we took a brief trip around Fort Worth on the Grapevine Vintage Railroad.
Just look at that fabulous view from the train!
Okay, this one was a little better.
Hangin’ by the pool with my mom and my sister Jennifer…
Her husband, Adrian…
And my Dad.
Dinner that night at Campania’s Pizza with my old friend Travis, who I’ve known since third grade.
My dad eats gelato with Trav, his little boy Soren, and Trav’s wife, Michelle, who is also a member of the clergy. Who knew Trav and I would both end up with women of the cloth?
Hanging out at the Southlake Town Square the next morning, by the city hall building that looks for all the world like Hill Valley’s clock tower from Back to the Future.
Steven and my dad wait for Forrest Gump to arrive.
Meanwhile, Maya was up the street at a little joint called Sweet ‘n’ Sassy getting, of all things, a makeover.
Ain’t she fancy?
She was uber-pleased about the whole thing, grinning from ear to glitter-encrusted ear.
Then, lunch at a Tex-Mex joint called Papassito’s with my old high school chum Chris, shown here with his wife Diana and son Noah.
I don’t remember him being so much bigger than me in high school.
Later, after a giant pasta dinner at Buca di Beppo…
… we packed up and headed home, though Maya insisted on crawling into bed and refusing to leave.
Not that we’d blame her: she was feeling under the weather, and we were facing a nine-hour drive home. Still, we were able to coax her out of bed, and we trudged back home. A fine weekend, overall, marred only by the fact that I had to spend all this time posting photos when I’d much rather be sleeping. Well, nuts to you people, I’m done.
Go home!
We got a Weekend Roundup, yes we do, we got a Weekend Roundup, how ’bout you?!
Like, OMG, you guys! This weekend was so great! I should totally blog about it! Ready? Okay!
Well, enough of that cheerleader speak. Just that one line took it out of me. Could you imagine if I tried to write the entire Weekend Roundup in that voice? You would do your dead-level best to jump through the screen and throttle me with your own bare hands if you could. And there not a court in the land would convict you. Justifiable homicide, they’d call it! You’d be a folk hero to one and all, beloved by millions! Will Smith would play you in the movie, which would do poorly in theatres but which would eventually gain a cult following on video! So I guess while it would work out okay for you, I’d end up dead, so if it’s just the same to you, I’ll write a crappy Weekend Roundup in my own voice, thank you very much.
Ha! Look at that bald jerk with the facial hair, all wearing black like he’s something!
That scary dude on the right is, of course, me, but the scary guy on the left is my old friend Richard, who I met in 5th grade but haven’t seen for probably 20 years. We were a couple of weird little kids, being dorky little dorks and making nuisances of ourselves. Now look at us, all grown up, the very picture of well adjusted and respected normalcy! Me: a button-down banker, and Richard: a church pastor. Pillars of the community in every way.
Richard and his wife Casey drove all the way to Kansas City from our old Central Arkansas stomping grounds to see a band called Gaelic Storm play at the Beaumont Club. We wanted to treat them to a down-home, country style breakfast, and it’s our hard to go wrong with our old standby The Corner Cafe. And thus it was that we sat at a table for nearly two hours, irritating the waitstaff, catching up, and reminiscing over hash browns and grits and bacon and eggs and cinnamon rolls and all the traditional breakfast accoutrements.
Good times, good times.
Eventually, we went our separate ways: Richard and Casey to rest up on a weekend without children; Shannon to go to a baby shower, then work, then a charity auction for Maya’s school; and the kids and I to amuse ourselves as best we could in the absence of a motherly type.
We did okay, I guess. The weather was basically decent, though it was cloudy and constantly threatening to rain, so we ran around a park for a while. I could’ve taken pictures of the kids joyously sliding and climbing and such, but Shannon took the camera to the baby shower. Lame!
We also spent hours at Crown Center’s 70 Years of Oz exhibit (note the Oz artwork by our friend Lynda!), which featured a little museum of Oz memorabilia as well as slides and crawl-through Wicked Witch castles and the like (the camera would’ve been nice here, too). Steven gamely trudged through the exhibit once, but Maya followed the Yellow Brick Road from Dorothy’s house to the Emerald City dozens of times. Over and over and over. The staff actually made it a point to remark, in a not-unfriendly way, on how long we’d been there. The only way I could get Maya to leave was to bribe her with chocolate from the fudge store upstairs, and even then it was with the promise that we would return after we got all sugared up.
Which we did.
Until they finally had to kick us out because they were closing.
And Maya made me vow that I would bring her back before the exhibit closes. Sigh.
So the kiddies and I, still sans mere, grabbed a cheap pizza on the way home, where we spent the evening eating said pizza and watching The Simpsons. Just like a typical Saturday night from my old college days, except there was a pretty girl there.
After bedtime for the kiddies, I stayed up late watching John Carpenter’s The Thing. Believe it or not, I had never actually seen this movie all the way through. Don’t judge me, you! And I have to say, it has aged quite well. Still tense and taut and gruesome and Kurt Russell kicks ten kinds of tail. Good stuff, though it would have been better if at the end of the movie an entire hour hadn’t just up and disappeared from existence like evil magic. That’s what happens when you watch a movie on the blasted Crappy Daylight Savings Time Spring Ahead Day for Stupid Jerks. Have I ever mentioned that I am no fan of the Daylight Savings Time? I believe I have. And I still hate it with the white-hot rage of a thousand suns! Daylight Savings is the worst injustice in the history of mankind! You stole an hour of my sleep, Big Guvmint! REVOLUTION!
And so on.
Omigosh, you guys! I am like, so totally done typing now!
Findlay, Ohio: The Capital of the United States of Awesome
It’s Flag City, USA.
It’s home to the Super Bowl-winning Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.
Belinda Carlisle was right all along. Heaven is a place on earth, and it’s a small town on I-75 in northwest Ohio.
It’s Findlay, Ohio, and it may well be the greatest city ever known to man. Forget Rome, London, New York, Gotham City, Metropolis, Tokyo and all those other fictional towns. Pretenders to the throne! The slow urbanization of mankind that began thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia has reached its apex in Findlay, Ohio.
And I’ve never been there. For that matter, I’ve never even been to Ohio.
And yet… and yet. I talk about Findlay all the time. My alter-ego Brian hails from Findlay. (For a while, I actually wrote a blog as Brian, all about his adventures in Findlay. More on that later.) I’d wager I know more about Findlay than a good chunk of the people who actually live there. The question is:
“For God’s sake, man… why?!”
Well, it’s a long story. A long, stupid story.
The story begins over a decade ago, during the heady days of the late-to-mid-90s, when the Internet was first starting to become A Big Thing. Realizing that we could be a part of said Big Thing, my friend Tom and I decided to start a website. And we used the tool everybody used back then: Geocities!
Yes, we had a crappy, ghetto, free Geocities page, and it was titled Price and Tom’s Stuff-o-rama! It was, theoretically speaking, a “comedy” site. One of the main features of the site was “Price’s Advices and Tom’s Tips,” a satirical advice column that turned into kind of a cult hit before it was all said and done. The advice column was so popular, in fact, that we dropped everything else and focused exclusively on doling out comic advice to strangers on the Internet. We were even featured as a “Hot Link of the Day” on the USA Today web site. Fan-freaking-tastic!
As we were planning this website (”planning” being a very generous term for what was essentially just the two of us throwing together whatever came to mind) Tom and I decided that although we were using our real first names, we didn’t really want anyone to know who we really were or where we really lived. So we created an alternate Tom and Price, Tom2 being a lonely loser working at KFC, and Price2 being a bitter loser trapped in a loveless marriage. (I know! Who would believe such a thing?) And because we didn’t want anyone to know we were living in Springfield, Missouri (in the off chance that we’d offend someone so intensely that they’d want to track us down and murder us), we decided that the alternate Price and Tom would live elsewhere. We pulled out a map of the US and picked a new hometown at random. Hidden under the greasy finger we plopped down on the map was a town neither of us had ever even heard of, but it was, nonetheless, a Town of Destiny.
Findlay, Ohio.
We checked it out a little on the then-kind-of-new Internet, and it seemed like a good fit. It just felt right, down in our stupid guts, and thus it was settled: As we generated our “funny” advice for the Internet, we would (pretend to) be from Findlay, Ohio. We did a little half-hearted web research so that we could throw out references to the mall (the Findlay Village Mall!), or the newspaper (
But as with all things grand and noble and awe-inspiring that are also totally dependent on me, the whole thing ended with the lamest of whimpers, not even close to a bang. Traffic started tapering off. People stopped sending us questions. Our agent stopped returning our calls. It was harder and harder to find time to write our “comical” content, and, so, we eventually lost interest and quit. Our Internet dreams were dead. Dead and rotten and stinking and buried. In the ground. In a cemetery. In an empty, barren forest. Under the ocean.
But Findlay lived on! I never let anything go, and for whatever reason Findlay had established a beachhead in my psyche, and it proceeded to invade every other segment of my life. I started using”FindlayBoy” as an online alias. I snuck Findlay references into church skits. In my day job as a technical writer for a software company, I was responsible for creating a manual for a mapping application. Every map example in the entire 350-page manual? Findlay, Ohio.
When some colleagues and I first encountered famed Internet crackpot Gene Ray (he of the infamous
After we were done tormenting that poor mentally ill old man, the character of “Brian” stuck with me, and thus was born, years later, Brian’s Adventures in Findlay, Ohio. For about six months, as an exercise in writing in another voice, I blogged as Brian, and to do so believably, I completely immersed myself in the world of Findlay. I consulted maps to make sure that Brian could easily get from Point A to Point B (Google Maps Street View would’ve been really nice around that time). For a post in which Brian reviewed frozen pizzas, I actually called the Great Scot supermarket to find out which brands they carried. I read The Courier’s website every day so Brian could reference current Findlayite events.
Given my short attention span and astounding lack of discipline, it’s a miracle I lasted a whole six months as Brian. Yeah, I eventually got sick of it and just quit like the quitting quitter I am. But I miss Brian, way more than a person should miss a fictional character that he created, and that’s why he shows up here from time to time. Brian—pitiable, lovable idiot that he is—is just too fun to write for me to let him die.
And Findlay is just too unforgettable to forget. (I guess that’s pretty much the definition of unforgettable, isn’t it?) And so I haven’t forgotten it. I still read The Courier from time to time, and what have I learned? It floods there. A lot. Maybe someday I can be there to fill sandbags on the banks of the majestic Blanchard River as it overflows its banks and inundates the picturesque downtown in the heart of America, leaving rich, fetid, black mud three feet high in the city that will forever be my imaginary home.
But make no mistake: I will visit Findlay someday. Someday, all my dreams and aspirations will come to fruition, and I will walk the streets of Findlay in the flesh. Someday… some wondrous, magical day.
But until then, I hold Findlay dear to my heart, loving it from afar. Because after all these years, I still know this much is true: Man’s reach must forever exceed his grasp, or else what’s Findlay, Ohio for?
(Oh, and by the way, if you’d like to party like it’s 1999—assuming that the party involved browsing amateurish websites, which would make it the crappiest party ever—I have placed a copy of our old site right here on thekchorns.com. So take a look, won’t you? Enjoy the almost-funny wackiness of Price’s Advices and Tom’s Tips.)
Shannon’s Version of the Weekend Roundup
That’s right. I’m back to write this weekend’s roundup. Yeah, I know the Priceman is much more humorous and fun and witty but the man is busy setting up our new desktop computer. Thank you Uncle Sam. Wait, why am I thanking him? It’s my money, my overpaid taxes come back to me.
So here’s a lame but up-to-date weekend round up…
Friday:
Took Maya to her school’s auction preview, where she played with friends, jumped on the bounce house many many times, ate a giant purple pixie stick and sang with her class.
After the quick visit at Maya’s school, I picked up Steven and we headed to our friends, the Crows, who were going to watch the kids for the evening. The kids ate dinner at the Crows and were able to attend a birthday party too. While the kiddies played, I surprised Price for our date night. I had made reservations at Em Chamas Brazilian Grill. This is a locally owned brazilian grill that Price has wanted to try for over a year and a half. He was quite surprised (again thanks Uncle Sam for helping make this night so special) and I was glad to make up for his lame birthday in which I was very ill with the flu.
After getting the kids and putting them to bed, we watched Battlestar Galatica. Good show! Only a few hours left, booooo.
Saturday:
We woke up to a nice snow, only nice if you don’t have to go out in it. We had breakfast together and then started on our chores. I paid the bills and made a meal for a family in our church who suffered a loss this week. I then took the meal to the family and ran to the bank. In the meantime, Price shoveled the driveway while the kiddies played in the snow.
After the errands, I grabbed Price and the kids and we went to pick up new glasses for Steven and I. Wow, I forgot how much a new prescription hurts your eyes. Back at home it was resting time until I had to head to work. I drove off to work and Price and the kids went off to Party America to look for supplies for a project at Price’s work. We all met back home to eat dinner with Uncle Tom. After dinner, Tom and Price ran to WallyWorld to get our computer and then we all decided we were too tired to watch TV, so we went to bed. We are old and boring!
Sunday:
For me…besides church, I made the trip to Wal-Mart, Aldi’s, Sam’s and HyVee. So today was pretty much a housework and errand day, until this evening when we put a log in the fire and relaxed with homemade pizza and some episodes of Little People, Big World.
Well there ya have it. Lame Lame Lame Weekend Roundup. Don’t worry Price will be back next weekend to make our lives sound a LOT more interesting.