date night starts early

Mary switched this up this past week and put together a day full of activity. The plan was to head off in the morning but thanks to me taking longer than expected on the phone with my brother in India and some frustrating complications things got started a bit later. Thankfully it was a beautiful day and perfect for what was in store.

Mary had done her research and come up with a bike tour along the Military Ridge Trail that goes from Madison to Dodgeville. If you do the whole thing it is about an 80 mile round trip but neither of us likes pain that much so instead the plan was a laid back ride from Verona to Mount Horeb. We parked my car around 12:30. It was cool and sunny with a slight breeze, perfect. The biking around Madison is one of my favorite things about this town and the surrounding area and on a Monday afternoon the trail is pretty empty. So after filling up my backpack with snacks and drinks that Mary brought we hit the trail.

We took our time getting to Mount Horeb and learned that even a little wind makes the legs burn and the downtown was a welcome rest when we finally entered the land of the trolls. We took a quick stroll through the downtown area and after seeing that our lunch options were rather limited we ended up going to a café/diner whose name I can’t remember and who is not on the Mount Horeb website. We made it in just before it closed at 3 and sat down for an okay lunch from a great waitress.

After lunch it was back on the trail for a much easier return trip. Amazing what a little wind to the back does. Once back in Madison we took easy for rest of the night since I was trying to get over a cold and enjoyed some chicken noodle soup and tv premiers.

The challenge of coming up with something each week continues to be fun but now as I am writing I realize I need to start thinking about this next week. Any ideas?

date #5 or take me out to the ballgame ...

if you were sitting in your office cubicle yesterday, i am sorry for you ... because it was ridiculously beautiful outside. such a change from the mondays of the past few weeks. of course, by the time jon picked me up last night, the clouds had just started rolling in and covering up the brilliant sun. jon's plan for the evening, however, allowed us to chase the sun and win some extra hours of blue sky.

at 4:30, jon and i got in the car bundled in layers with a cooler and bag of snacks in the back, fully prepared to tailgate before the brewers game at miller park that night (!).

because it was so chilly and because we were short on time, we didn't do the whole grilling thing, so jon had stopped at the store for sandwiches and oreos and fruit and beer. Really good beer (Jon's pretty experimental when it comes to finding beers he likes, and that means I get to try a lot of stuff I'd otherwise know nothing about).

i hadn't been to the brewers' ballpark since it was remodeled a few years back, so it was pretty incredible to see how much it had changed. it's really pretty impressive. it didn't hurt either that we had the best seats i've ever had at a baseball game.

now, the brewers aren't known for their winning records, but they were taking on the st. louis cardinals who, as i understand it, have a good shot at making the series. it was an eventful game with frequent runs and one homer (from the cardinals who got three in from just that one). and everytime the brewers score, they shoot fireworks off inside the park. i LOVE fireworks.

anyway, the score was 3-3 until the bottom of the ninth. jon and i had decided we'd take off after the ninth whether it was finished or not (i'd had enough beer to make me feel a little sleepy). the row of nuns directly in front of us would not leave after the ninth, we knew. they appeared to be fairly die-hard brewers fans. probably even bigger fans than the row of seven twenty-something guys right next to them. too bad they aren't allowed to wear brewers jerseys over their habits.

so we're at the bottom of the ninth, two outs, two strikes, and a guy on third. and what do the unimpressive brewers do? send it to the left, just between second and third, sending mr. third baseman home to win it for the home team.

that was awesome. it's great to see a winning game.

what's great about a brewers game is that there are usually always tickets available (it's not like they've got the blind frenzied following of the cubs) and i was excited that jon had managed to swing such great seats. and not only did he have dinner for us, but he also packed treats in a bookbag so we could munch our way through his 3 lb bag of peanuts that probably cost half of what a 1/2 lb bag of peanuts would cost you at miller park. he's so smart :)

because it only takes a little over an hour to get to milwaukee, a brewers game is a great fall date. it really doesn't matter what the game is, i think. just seeing something like that live, and getting to sit back, lick the salt off of peanuts, drink a beer, and have some relaxed conversation is a sweet way to spend time together. i kind of wish the season wasn't coming to an end so quickly. and i want to go back in the summer when the top's open, too.

so to sum it up:
eating dinner in the car, bundled up = love it.
miller park = very clean, very spacious, lots of good seats, want to go back to see what it looks like when the ceiling is pulled back.
brewers surprisingly good show against cardinals = A+
city of milwaukee = rocks.
date night = rocks even harder.

Date #4 or Are all Mondays this cold and wet?

It has been a crazy week for me at work with everything starting up again, so I am a little behind on getting the latest date night blog up. Sorry for being late.

This past Monday was another not-so-pleasant day of cold rain in what is becoming a weekly pattern. However Mary put together a great night of good food, wine, and live music. We were both coming off a long weekend of being around people all the time so I was excited to have some time for just the two of us to catch up and relax.

We started off at Natt Spil on King Street. I had never been there before and was excited to check it out after seeing it a number of times on people’s top 10 lists of places to eat in Madison. It can be a bit hard to find your first time since it has no sign out front and is in a building that does not appear to house a restaurant. But since we had the address and we can both read, we found it without a problem and stepped out of the cold, wet night into the atmosphere that is Natt Spil. It's a great little place with dim overhead lighting and small, lit candles all around the room. On a Monday night it had the feeling of regulars only, yet our server was friendly and helpful. The menu is small which both Mary and I appreciate because it cuts down on the time spent being indecisive. Also like most Madison bars/restaurants, the beer list is good and, even better, they had Bell’s Oberon which is a personal favorite (sadly, our server informed us they were out of it that night).

Mary ordered one of the personal pizzas which are just fancy enough to feel unique but not over-the-top so people like me feel like the place is trying too hard. I had the pork sandwich. Both were excellent. After our meal and laid back conversation we headed out to Café Montmartre which is only a short walk away. Monday nights are half-price wine nights there so we took our time and enjoyed an amazing chocolate dessert along with a great bottle of wine while listening to the live band that comes in every other week. Café Montmartre has an easy going feel and seems to attract a wide variety of people. I used to think of this place as for trendy artist types only but this is not the case - at least not on Monday nights.

Overall it was a great evening with much better food and drink then my past Monday, but you can’t win every week, right? Plus half the fun is trying new things, good or bad and experiencing them together.

Date #3 or why restaurant websites lie.

Yesterday morning, as I anticipated last night's date night, I googled the weather for Madison next week, so I could start preparing for my next Monday night. Rain, it said. Wet, rainy and temps in the low 60s.

How is it possible that every week but our first would be so blue?

Confident, of course, that Jon would pull something lovely together, I began panicking a bit about my second date. Searching the internet for romantic rainy date ideas is an absolutely absurd waste of time. If, however, you're jobless like me and have time to "waste," you should visit www.lovingyou.com for "ideas." For example, "D" advises, "On a boring, rainy afternoon when you and your love are sitting in front of the TV, turn it off, stand up, grab their hand and go outside. Give your love a big hug, lean back and look into their eyes deeply and tell them you love him/her, then kiss your love passionately...." What I really appreciated about this suggestion was all the very useful details. I'm not sure if I'd understand what to do unless "D" pointed out to me that I'd eventually need to "stand up" and that if I'd then want to be in the rain, I'd need to "go outside." Very useful.

Of course, other suggestions involved so little detail to make me think that perhaps the couple was quite literally comotose: "Spend the whole time cuddling on the couch; kissing and hugging." Does anyone realize that this is probably what Charlie Bucket's grandparents' relationships initially looked like? Look what happened to them! 24 hours spent cuddling and their muscles start to cramp and they're fated to spend the rest of their lives in beds opposite each other, unable to get up for even the smallest activity. Sad. That is a dangerous suggestion, Charli'sAngel.

I digress. The point is rainy day ideas for romantic dates are few and far between (please read this as "I need ideas for next week STAT!"). And after my battle with finding something cool last week, and knowing Jon was facing the same thing yesterday, I began feeling a little defeated for my upcoming time.

The morning came and went, and when Jon called me to let me know he was planning on running around a bit to check things out for the night, I not so subtlely let it be known that I wouldn't mind the surprise being fully taken out of the night if it meant I could hang out with him that afternoon.

Now, to be fair, I already knew much of what was coming. Sunday night, Jon consulted his friend Matt for rainy day ideas, and even for as much as we'd tried setting ourselves up to avoid the dinner-and-movie fallback, all signs pointed to just such an evening. Matt mentioned borrowing a projector and ordering take-out and curling up to watch movies with the rain pouring outside. Great idea.

What I didn't know was that Jon got more input from his running group, one of whom suggested he bring the projector to a park and set up a movie watching picnic there inside a shelter, so we could be outside, but out of the rain.

To be brief, we scoped out a few park shelters, took into account the fact that it was Labor Day weekend, and considered the chilly temps, and decided to bring it inside instead. Like I've said before, Jon rolls with the punches well and sticks to the overall vision even better ("it really doesn't matter what we do," he says, "it's just that we're doing it together"). So we picked up a few movies at Blockbuster - Friends with Money and Tsotsi - and headed back to watch the movies on the wall.

Unforunately, the downer of the evening might have to be the discovery that Madison Magazine's Best of Madison Reader's Poll is a complete sham. After being told by our Blockbuster register lady that Madison has no good take-out ("There's nothing," she said. "Especially not Chinese. I mean, I'm from Chicago and nothing here compares." You can imagine Jon's reaction), we purused some online directories for take-out and came upon the Reader's Poll which crowned Chang Jiang with the bronze medal in take-out.

We ordered $20 worth of Chinese take-out, asked for the two free egg rolls the website said we'd get when purchasing that much, and then obliged when the man asked for directions (his restaurant was about 5 minutes from us). When he arrived, I happily gave him his $25, adding that we were excited to try Chang Jiang after seeing it had been recommended in Madison Magazine. He looked at me, puzzled, and said, "No, that's not us." I figured I hadn't been clear, tried to express it again, but he shook his head, "No, thank you. But no, I don't know it."
"On Madisonmagazine.com, you're listed there!"
"Madisonmagazine.com? Oh, I don't know. Thank you." And with that, he took off.

Turns out there is no way in hell that Chang Jiang could win any prize. Unless there is a competition for beef that most closely resembles a small turd coated in thick brown paste and tastes like a dense ball of gelatin.

Gag.

The chicken fried rice is bland to say the least (indeed, it almost made me question if I was sick and unable to taste or smell). The beef sesame, well, see above. And the crab rangoon was okay in the middle, but nasty oily and crunch on the outside. Jon tried a bit of everything, and then in hopes of redeeming the pathetic meal catered by Chang Jiang, asked me to pass the egg rolls.

No egg rolls.

We ate what we could bear, and threw the rest away.

I checked Chang Jiang's website this afternoon, and it turns out the free egg rolls come with pick-up only. Of course, it also turns out that delivery should be free (ours added a $1.75 fee).

So there you have it. The long story short is Chang Jiang = bad, Friends with Money = B- for its lack of originality, Tsotsi = A- for its beautifully told story of redemption and accompanying soundtrack, and Time with Jon = A+ because I just really, really like him.

P.S. Please, please send me your ideas for next Monday. Help spark the creative juices and leave a comment. Thank you :)