Barry, the kids and I were headed back downtown on the train. The heat wave was still going strong, and we'd just spent most of the morning wandering around a non-air-conditioned baseball stadium in our sweaty t-shirts and ball caps. Naturally, this was the perfect time to eat lunch in a swanky upscale downtown restaurant.
It wasn't actually "swank."
We were on our way to meet Chicago native Kathy, known as KatMark here on the boards, at the
Grand Lux Cafe on Michigan Avenue. We'd never eaten at this place before, and Kathy had suggested it simply as a convenient spot to meet downtown that wouldn't be too far from the women at the American Girl store.
Mark, in case I didn't tell you, I had never eaten there either. 
Mark had eaten at the one in Vegas and said it was good.
We were a few minutes late, but we found Kathy hanging out at the front of the restaurant and exchanged greetings. She made a point of noticing Barry's' Cubs t-shirt and praising him for that. Then she made a point of noticing my obnoxious orange Flyers t-shirt and absolutely fell in love with it, wondering if I could find something similar for both her and her husband. Don't worry, Kathy: I'll see what I can do.
I think I remember it a tad differently. I ADMIRED Barry's shirt, and poked you in the chest and said in my best Blackhawk fan voice, "what the heck are you doing wearing that shirt?" 
Kathy was a ton of fun. Full of great stories and energy, and she was a sweetheart to boot--she had brought gifts for all of our kids. Toys and t-shirts! She had made a special trip to the
Disney Store ahead of time to load up on goodies. This included specialized Mickey/Minnie Chicago t-shirts that are only sold in the downtown location. You'll see them later in this TR.
Hey, I have no grandchildren, so I might as well spoil other people's kids. 
The restaurant was swanky as promised, but somehow we managed to get ourselves and the boys past the bouncers and seated in a booth. I kept expecting a manager to come over and point us out to say, "We don't serve their kind here," but we slipped through the meal under the radar. I forget what everyone had, but Scotty got a hot dog from the kids meal that was placed on two rolls such that it looked like train cars hooked together.
That hot dog was the neatest thing! I believe the rest of the kids had the maccaroni and cheese.
And I had a chicken meatball sandwich, which I'd never heard of before, but it proved to be very tasty. We had a great meal and great conversation. I think I can speak for Barry when I say: thanks for taking the time for meeting us, Kathy, you were a true pleasure!
Mark, it was MY pleasure meeting you and your adorable boys -- Dave and Scotty and Barry and his son Evan. I had a great time at lunch and hope we can have another DIS meet in the not too distant future.
(Raise your hand if you look at that picture and start humming, "Two of these guys do no belong here...")
After several missed phone calls and messages from the women, we wandered down to the Chicago Disney Store, since that was where the last message had come from. We didn't find the women there, but somehow managed to spend 10 minutes browsing. Er, looking for the girls, of course.
We finally met up with them on Michigan Avenue and then had a decision to make. Julie had wanted to wander Millenium Park, further south in the city towards the lakefront, so she could see some of the art and play with her fancy-pants camera. Or, we could just go back to the hotel and relax by swimming in the pool. We let the kids decide. Want to guess what they chose?
Yeah, that was kind of a no-brainer, huh? And I'm very sorry: I should have warned you about that blinding, pasty white skin.
With that heat wave we were having, you didn't get any sun prior to that picture?
Madison had a little waterproof camera and was having fun playing with that.
COOL!
As early evening approached, we got changed and ready for dinner. Dinner was going to be an historic event: a meeting with my Official DisDads Nemesis©, Brian (middlepat).
How does one obtain a nemesis in the Dis Dads Club, you ask? (Okay, you probably didn't ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway.) It's' very simple. You talk to the other guy and say, "Hey, some of the Dads have declared each other nemesis..ises. So do you want to be Mortal Enemies?"
That's pretty much it. Then we go on joking around and poking fun like normal.
I think there was a bit of history leading Brian and me down the path of Nemesis-dom: I beat him in fantasy football, his favorite sports teams beat mine (including the Hawks over the Flyers for the Stanley Cup), I poked fun at Canada, he poked fun at the DOT...that's about it. Now that we are sworn Mortal Enemies, our duties involve poking even more fun at each other, and taking each other out for dinner when we're in town. It's sort of like the relationship between Doofenshmirtz and Perry the Platypus.
And you talk about us women having our weird ways? PLEASE!
Brian and his family (wife Erika, daughters Mary, Shannon, and Megan) met us at the hotel (with another phone call from the lobby up to our room wondering what was taking us so long
). Greetings were exchanged all around (I left my joy-buzzer at home), and then we set out for dinner at
Lou Malnati's for some authentic Chicago deep-dish pizza. Brian swore it was the best pie in town. Sign me up!
Hidden Mickey!
We wandered down to the restaurant, all 14 of us, and put our names in for a table. It would be 45 minutes' wait, according to the hostess. No problem, we said--we have a large group, that's understandable. We decided to take a look at the menu and place our order ahead of time--deep-dish pizzas take some time to make and cook, so we figured this would save time in the end--with 8 young kids, this is crucial. Then we hung around outside the restaurant and waited.
And waited.
The kids sat in a circle and amused themselves by playing with Madison and Sarah's American Girls. I was amazed at how well they got along. All of these kids, basically strangers, were playing with each other as though they'd known each other forever. I attribute this to terrific parenting. Or cool kids. Or blind luck.
I think it just comes from having GREAT kids...if only the adults in general could be more like kids!
We waited some more.
We decided to head down to the river to check out the view.
We waited.
We took some pictures. Here are the Dis Dads: Barry, me, and Brian.
A family shot:
The kids might be getting a little tired of waiting.
Julie decided to get a little artsy-fartsy:
After 45 minutes had passed, we went back to the restaurant and asked the server if our table was ready. We started getting some shifty eyes as they answered...I'm sorry, what was your name again? It should just be a few more minutes.
We waited.
We asked again: this time, our table was being cleared off. It would be a few more minutes.
We waited. The first cries of "I'm hungry!" began to find a voice. Brian's oldest daughter, Mary, decided to start giving me chest-bumps as we stood on the sidewalk. I thought that was pretty cool.
We waited.
We asked again: I'm sorry, what was your group's name again?
Finally, we decided to call in the nuclear option: All 14 of us, including the 8 young kids getting whinier by the second, would wait inside the cramped restaurant. Then they couldn't possibly ignore us!
We waited. They ignored us.
We found a bench for the kids to sit on. We pestered various hostesses and managers, but to no avail. After being told earlier that our table was being cleared, we were now told that another large group was still in there and didn't seem like they were in a hurry to leave.
We waited.
The other large group still wouldn't budge. At this point, I believe Bambi was offering to go sit on their table until they left.
We waited.
Finally...a full 2 HOURS after we'd first put our names in, we were ushered to our seats. The restaurant was very broken-up about our ordeal, and offered us a free dessert. Woohoo. None of us got too excited.
We took the free dessert, of course. We just weren't excited.
I don't like to be the guy who complains in restaurants. Everybody has bad nights, and most of the staff is full of overworked, underpaid people. I'm not sure what the problem was here--whether somebody missed us in the queue or what--but that was the longest wait I've ever had in a restaurant. That kind of miscommunication to your guests shouldn't happen. If there was a positive, it was that the kids were really, really well-behaved for such a long wait without food.
The food? It was ok. Brian said later he thought the restaurant had an off-night, and that he and Erika didn't think it was up to par compared to their other meals there. I think after the wait, anything would have been disappointing.
I'm sorry...but if after an hour I still hadn't been shown my table, I would have walked out. And, I can't comment on Lou Malnati's downtown, but our son ordered from the one near our home. My husband and my opinion: We did NOT like it at all.
In any case, the upside was that we had a lot of time to hang out with Barry, Bambi, Erika and Brian. They were wonderful company. Lots of great stories and easy laughs. I'm a little confused, though. Brian and his family were warm, fun, caring people. They've been through a lot, especially with little Megan, and have pulled through admirably. So if I'm his nemesis, does that mean I'm the evil one? I need to wrap my brain around that one. Maybe we just stink at the whole nemesis thing.
After dinner, the restaurant was closing for last call at about 2:00 a.m. or so, and we walked back to the hotel and said our goodbyes. Barry's family was leaving that night as well, so we watched Barry execute a perfect 127-point turn to get his souped-up turbo-charged van out of the parking lot. The kids waved goodbye to Madison and Evan, and as they drove off, they immediately started asking if they could write letters to them and see them again. We thought that was a good idea. As they say: you can never have too many friends from Wisconsin.
Ok, nobody says that. But that doesn't mean it's not true.
A special thank-you section here: Brian & Erika, for coming into the city on your work-at-home day to spend (lots of) time with us, Kathy, for carving out a slightly-longer-than-normal lunch hour in order to meet us, and Barry & Bambi, for providing great, fun company for nearly 2 days in Chicago. You're all very special people, and we're honored to have met you.
Coming Up Next: Giant windmills, dinosaurs, race cars, and....Barbie?
)…
(Kathy get's a pass as she's the local)
oh and for the record.... badaba badaba badaba badaba.
Shannon! Glad you found me here.
