an easy stroll down memory lane

my apologies for the tardiness of this blog. so let's just get to it.

february has been crazy for us. we figured out that between the two of us, we had a total of 3 unplanned evenings in a total of 28 days. the middle of the month found us in the twin cities at my best friend's wedding. from friday to sunday, we enjoyed a near-hourly booking of our time. so you can imagine how we felt sunday night when we arrived home to another packed evening of events yet again.

i had to work on monday, which i did with little enthusiasm (traveling to stand up in a wedding should never count as vacation-time. there's very little that screams "relaxation" in that). so monday night, when jon invited me over for stir-fry, i couldn't have been happier.

we don't do meals at home very regularly because 1) we both have roommates who are often at home, leaving us with little privacy and 2) we feel an obligation to get out and try something new for the sake of exploring date night options in our fine city. but tonight, it was exactly what we needed.

afterwards, jon drove us out to campus. first stop? memorial union. and this is how jon knows me so well. i went to russia last year and was able to bring back a few pieces of old russian propaganda. they hang on my bedroom wall, reminding me of my love for that country, their fascinating history, and my desire to go back again.

so what else did my wonderful fiance find than memorial union's exhibition of soviet propaganda posters? incredible. the website notes, "This exhibition presents a glimpse of propaganda art created in the Soviet Union to express and disseminate Communist ideology. The images, which date from 1917-1977, include work by leading artists, such as Dmitrii Moor, Irakhlii Toizde, and Viktor Ivanov, who used visually stimulating techniques in order to convey the goals of the Soviet regime to the masses." the gallery exhibition ends march 6th, so i highly recommend you get down there.

after walking through nearly every nook and crany of memorial union, our night continued as a stroll down memory lane. i know this can't be for everyone, but for uw grads like us, spending an evening walking by our old dorms and apartments, sharing stories of being chased down the sidewalk outside the physics building by a friend's car small enough to maneuver that pedestrian path, illustrating moments of roommates who got nauseus and puked on lakeshore path on their way up to van hise for spanish class, and marveling that boys are actually LIVING in liz waters, made for a great evening. the weather was warm enough to stroll from memorial union down observatory, back behind ag hall and down university.

and any college student knows that if there's one constant along all of those drives it's going to be the pizza delivery guy ... and if seeing that guy everywhere doesn't fuel your hunger for papa john's breadsticks with garlic and cheese sauce, i don't know what will ...

and i still can't believe we finished off ALL those breadsticks between the two of us.

YUM.

date night: sick leave

This last Monday, Mary was not feeling well so after wrapping up the first round of wedding registry, I was surprised that she wanted to reward us (or if we are honest, mostly me) with a steak dinner.

I suspect the idea came from the store manager we were working with when he mentioned that I seemed to have a better than average attitude than most in my position and that my bride-to-be could thank me in man fashion with a dinner of red meat. Shortly after he made his comment Mary announced that she knew what we were doing that night.

So thanks to a free Bucky book, we headed to George's Chop House. George’s is attached to a hotel on the west side of Madison. It was surprisingly busy on a Monday night - we've grown fairly accustomed to relatively empty restaurants. We even had to wait to be seated. Despite hearing mixed reviews of George's, we thought this was a good sign.

Within minutes we were seated and told one of the specials of the day was their burger and two Miller Lites. This special did not match the image of "classy steak house" which their atmosphere and prices appeared to strive for. Our time there was a mixed experience. We both ordered the New York Strip; the meal was excellent. And the service? Okay but not great. After dinner we agreed that if it were not for Bucky Book's $20-off-meal it would not have been worth it despite the good food. It was the little things that left us wanting.

And with that Mary headed home to get to bed early and try to recover while I reclaimed a favorite bachelorhood activity (hey don’t jump to any bad conclusions) and went to watch a movie on my own. I finally saw The Departed. It was good although the art house geek in me preferred the original, Infernal Affairs.

why gift cards make for good date nights.

i know, i know. i'm late to post. we had tried making a new year's resolution that date night couldn't happen unless the person responsible for the past week's post had actually posted. but last night, we still went out. i played the "i've been sick" card, and so - perhaps because it was my night to pay? - we did date night anyway.

but here's the follow up from february 5th:

as much as gift cards can seem like the ultimate cop-out present, they provided an imaginative date night for us a couple of weeks ago. with an envelope packed full of thin plastic cards to all sorts of places (though, to be honest, coffeeshops dominated the bunch), jon and i drove towards the east side. on our way, jon laid out the two rules to the evening:

1) we have to spend all the money on the gift card.
2) we can only spend 10% over what's on the gift card.

our first stop was at family christian bookstores to which jon had received a $5 gift card. among the plethora of gadgets and gizmos imprinted with fish and jesus logos (this is a whole other subject for another day and another post; i will certainly make an abnormally long and passionate tangent if i don't stop writing now), we found a box of chocolates quite quickly, and exited. fast.

so we took our box of chocolates (which cost $0.23 over our $5 - woohoo!!) and hurried through the cold to the cool beans cafe just next door.

i love the vibe of cool beans. i love the orange lights (pictures to come) and the alterra coffee served and the tables and the chairs. and i love the fireplace. and i love the people-watching. if i didn't live on the near west side, i'd be there way more frequently.

with $10 to spend at cool beans, we did quite well staying within the total. sort of. i'm not counting the pound of coffee jon bought himself since buying things for ourselves is hardly date night protocol. but we enjoyed our medium chais and lattes and chocolates and played a couple games of cribbage (or which i lost all the but the last game - and then only by one point).

dinner was at paisan's, a restaurant i haven't been to since it was located at university square during my college years. its new location, on lake monona over by the monona terrace, is quite large, which meant is quite empty for our monday night excursion. we were seated in a booth overlooking the veranda which overlooks the lake. a fire at the end of the 6 booth aisle warmed us up on the cold night while we looked through paisan's extensive menu.

jon's gift certificate to paisan's was plentiful at $40, so we debated a bit with our beers at our side (three cheers for capital brewery's maibock!) and finally decided on the medium deluxe combo pizza, hopeful that paisan's claim to have famous thin crust pizzas would prove that famous = delicious.

so first the bread came (always yum - i will never be a no-carbs girl), and then my iceberg lettuce salad, and then our pizza.

it was good. i mean i don't know if i'd go around telling people about our pizza, so i'd not advocate for using the word "famous" in relation to paisan's, but it was good, and i enjoyed it. but mostly i appreciated that they were open till 11 pm on a monday night, and that the service was friendly and not intrusive.

and the best part? keeping close to our rules of not going far over 10% over the gift card. man, it feels good not to drop a lot of cash ...

so i take back my initial claim of gift cards being a cop-out gift. i would gladly accept them. it makes for a great date night.

and if you want to send me one, i'll gladly email you with my address :)

reclining and teenage angst

This past Monday night it was Mary’s turn to be in charge of the planning and for a change had a plethora of options to pick from. Last week was restaurant week sponsored by Sysco, Madison Originals and Madison Magazine. From what their website says they stole this idea from a number of bigger cities. Other than franchises, overcrowding and impossible parking I say we should steal more often. There were over 20 restaurants that were offering a $25 per person three course meal. However the downside as we found out was that many of the places are closed on Mondays. So after crossing off our first two choices Mary went with The Casbah. It was Mary’s first time there and neither of us had eaten in one of the booths downstairs. When we got there at 6:30 we had the place to ourselves which was nice since we both took a few minutes to figure out how to get comfortable with the traditional Mediterranean seating.

We quickly discovered that the $25 per person deal was not going to save us any money so instead we went with Ultimate Grill which sounds very un-Mediterranean but was a delicious and filling mix of grilled chicken, lamb, rice, hummus, etc. After stuffing ourselves we capped off the meal with some coffee and baklava or as it is spelled on the menu, baklawa. (Are both correct?)

The Casbah is a great place for a date since it provides the option of either private or public dinning and could give the impression one is cultured if early in the dating process. Unfortunately Mary already knows this is not true of me.

Then we were off to one of my favorite bars in Madison, Genna’s Lounge. The place is much better than their website. After having met with Jesse Russell who runs dane101.com a couple of months ago we were both intrigued by his excitement for Madison’s own version of What’s Your Damage. Coming into it I understood it to be a night where mostly 20-somethings come and read old high school poetry and journal entries to publicly exorcise past demons. It was sort of that but a lot funnier than expected and I found myself becoming increasingly of the cathartic process as each person took that stage to read another funny, poignant or embarrassing story from a time in life that was hard for all of us. This event happens on the last Monday of every month and I would highly recommend it.

So to sum up, another good date had and another chance to experience a little more of what this city has to offer.