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 :)