Where Shall We Go Today Ladies?

That was the question of the day Tuesday morning thus past the moment my girls arrived at 9 am.  

I think it's time for a change of scenery for a few days.  I'm getting tired of looking off the balcony.  Chicago?

Gabby did her happy dance with hands in the air, like she's Pentecostal or something, then ran into her room to grab the suitcase.  
 
Olivia ran and pulled all of their Gap outfits out and they had their stuff ready before I could finish booking the trip.  Found some cheap flight tickets, and reserved a room at the W- North Lakeshore where we stayed last time.

Booked our flight and room by 11 am, packed all of our stuff then had to call their mom to break the news.  I talked with momma and she said it was cool to take them but as long as she could have them all next week.  Done deal, so thank you K-dawg!


Called my sister to give us a lift to the airport at 4pm but got off a little early to drop us off at DTW.  Ang picked us up and the girls were jacked up on adrenaline.  Angie was there last weekend and my friend Renee was there for work and her kids were there also; they are like family to us.


I love Chicago and now the girls do too.  Gabby aspires to live there but when she told the cabbie that he told her "you better go to college first pretty lady."  


I'd been to Chicago about three times while I was a Boilermaker; let's just say when I take a female companion or my ladies, I definitely stay out of trouble.  It's a nice change of pace really ya know, parenthood and responsibility.  


Three common phrases the girls and I have heard in our travels to Chicago:

You are the two prettiest girls!
Just you and daddy in Chicago? Lucky girls, brave dad!
Look at that pretty girl dad! ! ! (Olivia at the top of her lungs, usually at crosswalks)

So while there we did lots of shopping for dad at the Gap, of course the girls too.  Then over to the American Girl money pit so they could get outfits that match their dolls.  Gabby got the sweats and tank, Olivia got the bathing suit of course.  I also bought my friend Amanda the American Girl doll she wanted; Fedex'd that doll Thursday and she got it Friday.  She's going to put it on her mantle above the fireplace!  I better get a professional print of that one lady!


Wednesday they had fireworks right near Navy Pier so we swam in the pool then watched the fireworks on the balcony adjacent to the pool.  We had went to Millennium Park earlier and they played in the waterfall while I did some bird watching.  There's lots of pigeons in Chicago.  Needless to say, there was no arguing with dad about getting ready for bed and as soon as their head hit the pillows they were out.  Oh and we went to the Field Museum to take pictures of make-believe dinosaurs.


Thursday we went out and did some more shopping.  Dad wanted a Guess watch but Guess what?  I wasn't paying $450 for a Guess watch.  So back to the Gap because the girls were wearing their last pairs of socks so of course I had to buy some more clothes.


Got back to the room and tried my clothes on and Olivia told me "you look handsome daddy."  We had made dinner plans that evening with our friend Renee, her friend Lori and the whole gang of banshees at the Cheesecake Factory.  Since I was with the cheesecake queen I opted not to try their garbage for dessert.


After dinner we all went back to our hotel so the kids could swim, let the kids blow off some steam before bed.  That did the trick that night.


Friday was check-out and I ended up sleeping in until 10:30am because my phone died overnight and I missed the alarm, so I we had to scramble and shove 100lbs of shit into two 40lb bags and a backpack.  It worked!  We checked out and headed over to Renee's hotel to drop off our luggage before lunch and the Aquarium with her and the whole crew. 


It was a little cooler Friday (101) than it was Thursday (110).  We had a quick bite to eat, jumped a cab and hit the aquarium where we watched 4D Happy Feet and a dolphin show.  We spent a good couple hours there browsing all the fishies. We say this king crab that would've been mighty tasty in my kitchen!  If I could've only stole that and the ginormous lobster without getting caught I would've.  


After the aquarium Renee's friend had to leave to visit family right outside Chicago so we took the kids to eat at a little English Pub called Elephant's (something but I forgot!).  The food was pretty good, had great conversation with Renee about the restaurant business.  We both detect large quantaties of win between her husband's and my barbecue and cooking skill in general.


See ladies, when us men have to play the stay at home dad role we learn a thing or two about cooking; unless of course you got a man with no passions or ambitions.


The girls wanted me to sign up for Master Chef but I said give me until next season so I can at least take a crash course in culinary arts.  

Side Note:


Speaking of cook-offs, the TDRR/LoveTheBeaver team didn't place with our food we were still voted "Event's Favorite Sponsor."  My team: Kristine, Zoe, Jim, Angie all kicked ass that day.  We went into the competition green as hell not knowing what to expect but we made do with what we had and we got some real positive feedback on the food: Yankee seafood gumbo, seafood cornbread and sweet potato crunch.


We got invited to a chili cook-off later this month by a councilwoman who loved my food the best!  She said we missed the barbecue cook-off they host in Wyandotte but she said there's always next year.  Met the mayor of Taylor, both he and his wife loved the food because it was different.  I told him my plans to open a restaurant and he told me to call him if I decide to look at real estate in Taylor.


So now the word is out that I have a team that can cook!  Kudos to us! 


Back to the story:


After dinner I had to stop and get me some official White Sox jersey and hat.  I wanted to make it out of Chicago alive because the Sox were losing to the Tigers when I made the purchase.  I got the only jersey without a name or number so that means I'm going to have my own name and number embroidered on the jersey.


We parted ways with Renee and the family and took a cab to O'hare.  Fucking cabbie took the longest route possible.  We got to the airport, checked in and the TSA line was a mile and a half long.  And to top that off the flight was delayed 45 minutes.  Luckily the lady checking tickets sent me to the special line because I had kids with me.  WIN!


Our plane arrived right on their scheduled lateness.  Fuck Spirit Airlines.  We got on the plane and I sat by the window and Olivia sat in the middle.  Before the plane took off I was already snoozing.  Olivia woke me up and told me that she made friends with the pretty lady sitting in front of us, conveniently. The lady complimented how cute she was telling her all my secrets.  


That girl is just like her mom at times!  Too bad the lady was married and I smelled like a zoo animal from sweating and the wore off deodorant.  We went to baggage claim where we waited forever then bounced upstairs to catch a Metro Car home.  The girls fell asleep in my lap as soon as we hit the a/c in the car.

I had the driver drop my ladies off at their mom's and then I went back to the crib to dump off all of our luggage.  I had a bunch of friends waiting to see me at Le Cigar, made it just before last call.  My buddy Naj, Bazzi, his wife and brother, my friend Lisa whose boyfriend hates me to death when I'm around.  Sorry if your girl professes how much she likes me in front of you.  Trust me, it's an awkward situation shaking the hand of a man that hates you.  Got to see my friend Cilla  who I helped get a job there.  The aforementioned people are really genuine people.  We get silly as hell when we all get together, always guaranteed laughs!


The whole point of the trip was to talk to my girls about life: my goals, what they'd like to be when they grow up, the restaurant business, and the topic of dad having a girlfriend.  I guess you could say we bonded while having a REAL TALK session.  I had their full attention while we talked.


The girls are ambitious about getting our own house and the restaurant business, but the subject of me having a serious girlfriend didn't fly so well with Gabby: her eyes started to well up.  I reassured her that I'm ready to settle down and share our lives with someone we all love.  I told her I only want to get married once and that I am happy with my life, with them and all the time we share together.  And I told them that I don't need a constant girlfriend to make me feel good about myself, but told both girls I am content with the way things are now.  Gabrielle didn't cry but instead gave me a big hug, kiss and an "I love you daddy!" 


If there's one thing money can't buy: it is time.  I'm not going to be that dad who regrets not spending as much time with them as I can.  They are my motivation to be a better father and a better person.


I've been blessed with the means to show them different changes of scenery but my love comes from the heart and not my checkbook.  They are a tad spoiled but they are grateful and that gives me the best feeling ever.


 

Ybor City, Florida

We had arrived in Tampa a day after a hurricane had just blown through.  It was mid-September and a friend of mine, who we will call John, set up the trip to Clearwater for a long weekend.  He booked the flight, room, rental car, and even had a daily itinerary of things for us to do; all I had to do was give him the cash.

After fetching our luggage and walking out of the terminal the outside temp was equal to getting slapped in the face with a steaming hot towel; I immediately start to sweat my balls off.

We picked up the rental car, a convertible Mustang, popped the top and turned the AC on full blast to keep from frying like bacon on the seats.

Shortly after arriving at the hotel we change into our bathing suits when I realized that I needed a pair of sunglasses.  Across from the hotel was one of those beach stores where towels are 3 for $9.99.  As usual, the cheapest pair of sunglasses are ten bucks and a pair that were remotely stylish broke me of $20.

Back across the street to the beach we find ourselves in solitude except for that one guy who wades in three feet of water with his metal detector.  By this time I look as if I had already jumped in the water because I have been sweating balls since we stepped foot in Tampa.  

I peel my shirt off and make a mad dash for the ocean with John right behind me.  Into the water I dove forgetting that I still had the sunglasses on that I had bought about ten minutes ago.  I quickly surface with glasses M.I.A.  I dive back underwater hoping to retrieve the new shades but alas, they were gone for good.  After wading around for a few I hit the sandy beach to work on my tan.

While catching some rays I am busy watching this old fart with the metal detector who has now weaseled his way over to where I had been swimming.  

Watching, waiting, watching, sweating, BINGO.....the metal detector starts beeping.  The old codger kept waving the detector over the object as if he couldn’t hear the loud annoying beep.  I sit up as the old man bends over to feel around in the water and to my surprise he pulls up a pair of sunglasses.  This is my cue to run over and ask for them back.

I walk over to the old man and tell him I had just lost my glasses and if they were mine, could I have them back.  He looks up and smiles and says, "are these the glasses?”

"Yes they are, thanks!"  I sigh in relief.

"Finders keepers" he says.

"You COCKSUCKER!!!!" I shout at him as he walks away.  

I was really hell bent on not getting my glasses.  I really would’ve liked to pull some Jackie Chan shit on him, but I figured if he couldn’t give me the glasses back the poor bastard needs them more than I do.  They weren’t even the big clunky wrap around like half the population in Florida wears so I have no idea what his intentions were with my glasses....they were gone.

After a day at the beach we decide we'll ride down to Ybor City, which I was told would be like the Flats in Cleveland.  We arrived there and it was a ghost town.

We pick out this little restaurant because I thought it would be nice to have a couple drinks and some fresh seafood, John agreed.  Now I have shrimp on the brain but there is one craving that has to be handled first.....beers!  After a few cocktails I order what I thought was shrimp cocktail. 

The waitress lays the shrimp appetizer on the table.  By now I am feeling like I can finally get over the incident on the beach and I was feeling great.  The conversation was great as we talked about important things like getting laid, off the hook bars, and work.

As I am flapping my jaw I grabbed a piece of the jumbo shrimp and dipped it into the cocktail sauce.  I stop chatting for a quick second to bite into the shrimp and it was crunchy.  I quickly grab the napkin to spit the shrimp in and I begin inspecting the other shrimps to see why they are crunchy.

While inspecting the shrimp the waitress comes to the table to ask if we need anything else while we await our dinner and she asks me if there's something wrong.

"Yeah the shrimp is crunchy!"

"That’s because it’s peel and eat shrimp cocktail!" she laughs.

"Well you might as well just bring me another beer while I work on this shrimp" I utter in an unassumingly embarrassed tone.

After eating I came to the conclusion that even though we are surrounded by ocean, it doesn’t always mean great, fresh seafood in every restaurant.  I would’ve been content eating at Red Lobster.  

Aww fuck it. I'm on vacation and there's always tomorrow and plenty of seafood to be had is what I thought to myself.

The next day I decided that I had to try that parasailing gig they offered up the street from the hotel.  John didn’t seem interested in doing much more than taking a nap so I hoofed it up the block to the dock.

I paid my thirty bucks for approximately fifteen minutes of 'air time'.  While up in the air I concluded that it wasn’t worth what I had paid and figured it would be more fun to unstrap myself and freefall about fifty feet into the water, but I didn’t and I was reeled in.

There was a middle aged couple that was next and the wife was gung-ho about doing something so risky.  For Christ sakes it’s only parasailing, its not skydiving or even bungee jumping;  I had walked iron 300+ feet at work, unharnessed, so there was really no thrill in it for me.

The woman is all giddy as she is being strapped in and when it’s the husbands turn, he backed out because he was afraid of heights.  Seeing that this woman weighed about 100 pounds soaking wet, I was asked to ride with her.  There has to be a minimum amount of weight on the tow line for them to reel you back in, so I got two rides for the price of one.  The husband looked like a nervous wreck as we took on air.  The second free ride had made up for the thrilless thirty bucks I had spent on one.

On Saturday night, John suggests we should go to this high class bar called 'Liquid Blue'; it came highly recommended by his cousin who lives in the area and he claimed there were plenty of scallywags for the taking.  With pimp suits on we rode.

We arrived at the club and walk in; swanky was my first thought.  Black lights, strobes, neon, leather couches everywhere, and the perfect hunting ground for a date.

First things first we hit the bar for some drinks.  Now John tends to be slow and cautious with his drinking, but not me; I had a tendency to drink like I lived....fast and hard.  Had to build up those beer muscles to compete with guys who were on steroids at this club.

The people there were plastic people, dolled up with snazzy outfits and hair.  I almost felt like a homeless bum mingling with celebrities.  The alcohol quickly erased those barriers in my mind.  Now I was in pimp mode as I made my way over to these two blondes sitting on one of the leather sofas.

John and I walk over and I make some small talk with them to see if I can spark some conversation, but these two ladies were about as sharp as bowling balls.  The conversation is not going as planned and I can see I am going to strike out before I am even up to bat, so I throw out a quick "can I buy you a drink?".

Neither of them was willing to let me buy them a drink, so I immediately cut through the crap and ask the one chick about her fake boobs which she wasn’t going to admit were fake.  In all my years of pimpin, that is thee only time that a woman has ever sad no to me buying them a drink.  Let's face it, when you use that line, most women will feel a slight obligation to converse with you if they accept and that is undoubtedly the best time to change their mind about you.

Now I am just a wee bit offended that they shot down the drink offer so out with some more polite insults; I mean as sharp as they were, they took each and every insult as a compliment until John decided it was time to roll before the Barbies found some Kens they knew to ruffle our feathers.  We stayed at the bar for a while longer, just enough time for me to get totally blitzed before we headed back to the room.  I was feeling like Popeye as I talked out the side of my mouth the whole ride back, not quite getting over the fact of being shot down.  

The following morning around seven o'clock I awoke to the door of the hotel room opening.  It was John with a bag of McDonald's.

"Damn that was mighty white of you to get up so early to grab us some breakfast."  

"Get up?  I am just getting home from the hospital!"  John replies as I choke on my hash brown.

"The hospital?  What? When did this happen?"

"Don’t you remember last night when I woke up and told you I couldn’t breathe?"

"Uhhh, NO" I state in a sort of disbelief.

John goes on to tell me that after getting back to the room after the bar, that he had been asleep for a short while before he had woke up.  He was having trouble breathing and he said it felt like his throat was closing up.  Scared, he called the front desk to see if there was a doctor at the hotel.  There was no doctor so the front desk called an ambulance for him.  He tells me that he laid back down and minutes later the ambulance arrived and the paramedics pounded on the door.  He also says that I hopped outta bed and opened the door to let them in and said " hey come on in, you guys want a beer?" right before I did a swan dive back into the bed and instantly fell back asleep.

"Wow, I don’t remember that at all.  We had more beer last night?"  I asked.

The paramedics took him to the local hospital where a doctor examined him.  The doctor said there was a bite mark on the roof of his mouth near his throat.  He had obviously been sleeping with his mouth open and must've been bit by a spider and had an allergic reaction which caused his throat to swell.  They gave him a shot of Benedryl and sent him on his way.

I guess there is truth to the story that you eat about eight spiders a year while you sleep.

While eating McDonald's, John and I find it amusing that I don’t recall a single second of the incident.  

"Remember I told you I woke you up telling you I couldn’t breathe?"

"Yes"

"You know what you told me?" John asks.

" 'If you cant breathe, try harder!'  and that’s when I got scared".