Morning in Glenview, IL

I am in Chicagoland for my Dad's 60th birthday (we're celebrating tonight - dinner at Topolabampo, YUM!).

Yesterday I tried to get a gift for my dad in Evanston, and failed. But while I was there, I decided to walk around the concrete lagoon which we've called Lake Oregano for 15 years or so:



I actually walked around it about 5 times, while chatting with my childhood friend Jason, who I am going to lunch with today, so I can meet his first kid (who is 6 months old or so). That should be interesting.

While we're at it, I will share a photo of a real lake:



Afterwards, I went and hung out with my wonderful Grandma for a couple of hours. I took a couple of pictures of her and me, because there are a bunch of them with my brother and sister-in-law and her from the past year or two. And none of me. Well, I fixed that:



Afterwards, I hung out at home a bit, before going in to the City proper to hang out with my childhood friend Mike and his wife Randy, and their dog Toby. I had dinner at their place, and chatted and what not. The important thing to discuss now, however, is Toby:



He has the most adorable hair, and looks like a living stuffed animal. I got to hear some great stories, which I had heard in part, relating to Toby's early life. You see, Mike and Randy met around a month after she got Toby.

That, in and of itself is not too surprising, but the next detail is pretty interesting. The key factor is that the poor puppy had a broken leg, because his doggie gate fell on him :(.
Evidently Mike was coming home after watching a Cub's game and saw Randy on his street (she lived basically across the street at the time) and, having had a few beers, asked her what she did to her poor puppy. She told him that she did nothing, and he accepted that, and went home.

A few days later, he was coming home, again a bit tipsy, and ran in to Randy and Toby a second time. He had this brilliant idea that since she had a new puppy at home she probably didn't have much time to do anything other than puppy maintenance, so he would offer to cook for her. In his hot sober state this offer extended from just cooking to cooking and vacuuming. For some reason the vacuuming idea impressed her (although scared her too) and she asked him to 1) take off his hat and 2) his age, before giving him her phone number. I asked if 1) above was to see if he was bald, but she said "mostly to make sure he was as old as he said he was, I thought he was in college!". Anyway, despite this awkward beginning they got married last November. All because of Toby - well and the Cubs and beer.