The Tale of the Least Offensive

This past weekend I hit the road on the Greyhound bus. It was interesting. The first leg of the trip brought me to La Crosse, WI. It was an okay ride, hardly any people on the bus so we could all spread out and not have to look at each other once. We stopped off in Winona for our little break and I got myself an excellent Bloedow's doughnut at the Sinclair station. Winona has the most Sinclair stations that I have ever seen in a smaller city!

Anyhow, I met Matt in La Crosse and we drove around the city for a little bit to see if it would be a place where we would like to live and then set off for Madison. Madison was great! It was really nice to visit our former home. I got a great deal off of Priceline for a hotel room and the first official stop on the Madison tour was indeed the most important, Casa de Lara.

Casa de Lara...oh so good! It was delicious as usual and did not disappoint. I had my usual, the especial burrito, washed down with an Horchata and Matt delighted in his Nopalito con Queso. Everything tasted sooo good - god we missed that food. We were able to find an acceptable Mexican substitute while we were in China, but nothing even remotely comparable to Casa de Lara in Madison. I have a feeling that we will always go back to Madison for a little treat from the house of Lara.

On Thursday we made the rounds. We visited my Beloit pals Ben and Josh at their awesome store, Civitas (Ki-vee-tas) and went down for a little peek at State Street and also stopped in at Matt's former office. Later I went to visit The Guild. I loved working there and they were great to see again! There have been many changes to the office since I left, but it is good to see that the company has grown and nice to see the people who helped make my time there so wonderful! Unfortunately I was not able to visit my couple of Sand County pals, but I will just have to come back to see them (and get a little Mexican food magic).

After the Madison fun we headed out to Kenosha. Kenosha. Ummm... Let's just say it wasn't for me. Or for Matt. It seemed quite run down and there was at least 1 or 2 houses for sale on just about every block. The cheap hotel that we stayed at was a smelly dive. We were in a "cottage" aka "cement cell". The check in woman made me feel uncomfortable with her painted on smile and vacant eyes. I don't know if any of you have seen the horror flick, "Vacancy", but it kinda gave off that kind of vibe to me. Like at any second, someone would pop out of the bathroom and kill us. The room smelled, the a/c was right above my head on the bed and the drain in the sink burped up a spider. Groovy.

We drove around the town quite a bit to find that with every block we explored, the city did not really get any better to us. The downtown was really run down and on the fringe of the city were the basic grocery and national chain sort of stores. But nothing really charming or interesting about the city - except for one thing, Frank's Diner, which was featured on the Food Network and I will talk about a little later.

So after knocking myself out for the night with anti-histamine (if I was going to be killed by the creepy check-in woman at least I wouldn't really know...), we went into town for Matt's interview. I hit the streets for about an hour. I quickly ran out of things to look at. There is a nice looking city museum and a new Upper Midwest Civil War museum (will open in 2008), but nothing really fun downtown. A lot of closed store fronts and particle board windows. I wound up just sipping a latte at a cafe right across the street from Matt's interview.

After the interview Matt and I went to one of the treasures of this city, Frank's Diner. It was excellent! My burger was gi-normous and tasty! I got a most excellent 1/2 pound, blue cheese and bacon in the middle, grill perfect burger. Mmmm-mmm-mmm! If I had my camera I would have taken a picture of it (I mean, why only take pictures of foreign food?). I couldn't finish all of it, but I knew I could count on Matt to step up to the plate and over eat for me.

After a filling lunch (Frank's is known for something called "the garbage plate") we decided to drive around the surrounding areas to see if there was a more appealing place for the two of us. We really liked Racine. It's no Madison, but it was a nice looking place and had some charm to the city, it's livable and close to Milwaukee.

After we wasted as much time as we possibly could driving around the Racine area, we headed up to Germantown to visit another Beloit friend. After we exhausted the entertainment possibilities there, we just decided to wait for her in the parking lot of her condo. It was so great to catch up with her again! We hadn't seen each other for about 4 years because she was still abroad when we were leaving for China. Anyhow, she took us out to dinner since Matt and I are poor and we had a good time catching up.

Anyhow, the next day we all got up bright and early and set out for Starbucks, where she moonlights as a barista and she gave me the hook up with a little taste sneak peek of the pumpkin spice latte (my favorite). Then Matt and I headed back to Madison to go to the Farmers Market. We had fun walking around the square again and got almost all of our favorite treats - spicy cheese empanadas, whoohoo!

Then it was time for me to catch my bus back to the cities. The bus was coming up from Chicago, so a lot of the bus was fairly full. I was lucky though, I was the last person to get a solo seat, meaning I had no seat partner. Now I hadn't really ridden the bus for a long time since my Beloit days, so I had long forgotten the rule of not mixing races when choosing to partner up in a seat and, of course the rule of the least offensive.

You can see the rules go into action the moment that solo seat riding has been ruled out as an option, then everyone in a seat avoids eye contact (lest it be mistaken as a friendly invite to seat share) and the one seeking a seat starts to walk down the long row at a steady pace (as to not seem desperate) and sizes up his or her options. "Who can I tolerate sitting next to for the next X hours?" Tolerate. As the seat less wanderer makes his or her way down the aisle they have the power - the power to take away a cushy ride on the bus from someone. So people will put a bag up on the seat, pretend to be asleep, make themselves seem really large, burp/fart, etc. Anything they can do to avoid the question.

"Is anybody sitting here?"

Once that question is asked there is no right of refusal, all one can do is wince out a smile and say, "Oh, no" as you try to shove yourself as close to the window (or aisle) as humanly possible so not to risk *gasp* touching each other (shrieks in horror).

Quite an amazing process!

I had forgotten about the rules completely. I was too busy rejoicing in my luck on being the last single seated person and was just in the process of looking up at the last of the seat less wanderers when I made eye contact (dammit). As soon as that happened he coasted on over and asked the question. I had no other choice but to coax out a smile and respond, "Oh, no" and

I was the least offensive and

I got a seat partner.

Troubled Bridge Over Water

Yes, I mean it like that.

I am apologizing to all of you who have written to me expressing concern about the recent bridge collapse in the past weeks because...I never wrote back to you.

Um. Sorry 'bout that. I didn't mean to worry you all.

I am fine and wasn't anywhere near the site when it happened. My family is also fine.

Thank you all for your concern and I promise that I will be more expeditious with my email replies when I am in the vicinity of another disaster.

More blog stuff on the way - I promise and apologize for my uber-slacking!