memory maker

This evening, as Peanut was dining on her favorite dish of the week — ralioli — (that’s ravioli to you and me) I heard a sound I had never heard in six years living in this older Champaign neighborhood.

It was a sound that was magical. It was quite literally, the sound of summer I had read about in plenty of novels and seen on television. It was a sound that I want to remember hearing in my own childhood, but I can’t seem to decipher if that’s fact or fabrication.

I peaked out the front door window slats, suspicious yet optimistic. And sure enough, next door, there was an ice cream “truck” doling out some treats for the neighbors’ grandsons. It was an old beat-up van with stickers all over it and a very loud sound system that broadcast its presence to anyone who wanted it to be there.

Peanut had stripped down to her skivvies for dinner, and was in no shape to go outside. We quickly located her dirty clothes and ran out there, only to watch as the ice cream van drove away in search of new customers. There was no reason to scream, as the ice cream man wouldn’t have been able to hear me as he snaked around the corner. Peanut and I followed intently, not panicking as he drove further away from us. And suddenly, he backed up and stopped! There was hope!

We reached the van and me, giddier than my 3-year-old, surveyed the menu options. They ranged in price from $1.50 to $4.00. It was a wide range of goodies, and it was difficult to narrow it down. I decided on a cup of cookies’ n’ cream for us to share, and gleefully turned over the money.

As it turned out, I wasn’t seeing things — this really was this van’s first visit to Champaign. The college-aged guy driving the vehicle said he had come all the way from Springfield, and his company planned to visit C-U “a lot more” this summer.

Maybe Peanut will remember this day, or one like it, sometime in the future. And it certainly wasn’t a fabrication. No, this perfect summer evening really happened.

monday morning musings

• So I went to the Dippin’ Dots stand at the Taste of C-U and asked the guys behind the counter where I could actually get some Dippin’ Dots in Champaign-Urbana. And the guy says to me, with a sheepish look on his face: “I don’t know. We’re from Lafayette.” I wasn’t able to get more info than that, but here’s some feedback to CPD: how about limiting Taste to  vendors that actually operate local businesses?

• Speaking of cold treats, I finally made it to Cocomero, the new campus froyo joint. Good thing it’s not so easy to get there, or else I would be in major debt. As someone on a low-sugar diet, I particularly appreciated (and devoured) the no sugar added blueberry flavor. I added some fresh blueberries and it was super delish. Peanut had the french vanilla with sprinkles on top. Jellybean watched intently. More on Cocomero to come.

• Everyone’s favorite farmer’s market is in a popularity contest. At stake: $5,000. Please vote for Urbana’s Market at the Square in Care2.com’s “love your farmer’s market” contest.

taste of …

So I opened the map for this weekend’s annual Taste of Champaign-Urbana, and it hit me like a ton of bricks:

Is this the Taste of C-U, or the Taste of Campustown?

Looking at the restaurant lineup, a good chunk of the vendors hail from the Green Street district in Champaign (Howbowda Bagel, Smoothie King, Cold Stone Creamery, One World Pizza, Geovanti’s, Zorba’s) or the area around Nevada Street in Urbana (Blues BBQ, Manolo’s, Rosati’s).

Three cheers for the enterprising Campustown restaurants owners who realize this is a good opportunity to expose their wares to a wider, townie audience when the students aren’t around in full force. It seems to be a concerted effort on their parts.

As for us, we’ll be back after a year’s absence. Always a good time, even if we love to complain about it. On my to-taste list: a Dippin’ Dots sundae (where do you get DD in C-U? Memorial Stadium?) and a chicken gyro from Zorba’s (oldie but goodie).

summer to-do list, 2009

So I was going to write a post about things I would like to do this summer, when I went back into the archives and looked at my last summer to-do list entry from 2007. And I might as well reprint it here, since I they are all mostly still relevant today. Pathetic, huh?

• pick berries at Pontious Farm
• go hunting for treasures at the Third Sunday Market
• get treats at small town ice cream shops, like the Sidney Dairy Barn
• catch a flick at the Harvest Moon Drive-In in Gibson City
• go paddling down the Middle Fork River
• rent a paddle boat at Crystal Lake
• plan a Sunday brunch tour of Escobar’s, Cafe Luna and wherever else we can find it
• attend a Danville Dans game and root, root, root for the home team
• take in a show at the Little Theater on the Square
  
• Watch the donkey races at the Fisher Fair  ***(I don’t think they do this anymore.)

Hopefully I’ll check some off my list this time.

speak your piece finally

More than four years have passed since the first lbotp edition of Speak Your Piece (unfortunately you can’t see the comments because they disappeared when I migrated from blogger to wordpress). This was something I borrowed from one of my favorite talk shows which recently went off the air. The premise: to give listeners/readers an opportunity to vent. Sometimes it was sad, sometimes it was “yes! I agree!” and sometimes it was just darn funny what people said.

So in Kathy and Judy’s honor, our final installment of Speak Your Piece. My turn: Why is it that it rains on days when we want to be outside, and it is sunny on days we have to be inside?

What is honking you off today?

you say goodbye, i say hello

Farewell, Kathy and Judy show. I’ve long been a big fan of these two comic ladies who graced the morning airwaves at WGN radio in Chicago for more than two decades before the station yanked their show a few weeks ago. In their honor, we will have a speak their piece later this week.

Hello, Champaign Bark District! The long-awaited Champaign dog park will open this weekend. It might be awhile before our family gets there, however, due to the policy that no children under the age of six will be allowed. I understand that from a liability and safety standpoint, but it will make it difficult for us to take the Killer Cockapoo there as much as we’d like.

Farewell, “privacy.” Although it’s always been public record what our favorite profs make at local Big State U, rarely did people actually invoke that right and track down that information when it involved actual research. Now, all you have to do is search a database at the Chicago Sun-Times web site. The data is from the 2007-8 school year. And everyone — I mean everyone — is in there.

Hello, new campus froyo joint. Remember my rants and raves about the lack of froyo in this town? Well, a new place opens and I still have yet to check it out. So that’s top on my summer to-do list (a post for later this week). Anyone want to join me?

adventures in babysitting, part three

When Peanut was a year old, I knew that for Mr. lbotp and I to retain our sanity, we had to find a nighttime babysitter. With no family in the area, we couldn’t depend on only going out when they did show up in town. The search was painstaking, but we ended up finding — via craigslist of all places — a wonderful woman whom we have employed ever since.

I know a lot of parents who haven’t taken this leap and seem to paralyzed by it. Well, there’s a trend gaining tread that may save them the trouble: the organizational babysitter, where a children’s-focused entity sponsors a certain night where parents can drop off kids in the evening (usually on the weekend) for a set fee.

This weekend, there are two such “organizational babysitter” evenings. The Little Gym in Savoy offers its Parent’s Survival Night this Friday night from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., which I believe is a monthly event.

And starting this Saturday evening, the Orpheum Science Museum will be offering its “Super Saturday” event every week this summer. Parents drop off their children (age 4 to 12) “for an adventure of hands on activities and exploration fun” for up to three hours, allowing the parents a night off. And it is dirt cheap (members $12, $10 siblings. Non-members $14, $12 siblings; does that include dinner???) Someone in the Downtown Champaign Association should thank the Orpheum for stimulating the downtown economy.

This concept pops up around the holidays (I think the YMCA does it then) and I’ve also seen people try to do it as a fundraiser. Depending on the sponsor, these events are generally unavailable to children who aren’t bathroom independent (or under 3), but could be a fun and cheap alternative if you have older kids who don’t have an early bedtime. Then again — how do you get them to bed after all that stimulation?

oh what a beautiful morning

What is black and white and was read all over this morning?

The first non-weekend, non-holiday, home-delivered morning edition of our community’s favorite punching bag: The News-Gazette.

The change, predictably, has ignited a mix bag of reaction. Since the official announcement, several letters to the editor have railed at the N-G, blaming most of the world’s future calamities on morning newspapers.

In this town, a morning newspapers forces changes in habits. But for many of us who didn’t grow up here (like me), the concept of an afternoon paper was just as foreign, and probably has cost the paper almost as many potential subscribers as it attracts. I know of a few people who will now be subscribing to the paper because of this new schedule, all of them transplants.

Frankly speaking, afternoon newspapers in this country are a relic, in the same quaint category as rotary phones. You can find them in operation, but they are hardly the norm. I admit I felt a pang of nostalgia on Friday, as I opened the final afternoon paper we would ever receive. (Of course, the newspaper business has been in rapid decline of late, and cynics will say I might not want to get too attached to my morning edition, either.)

Regardless of the naysayers, I’m thrilled. RIP, afternoon paper. Morning paper, I look forward to your friendly morning greeting on my doorstep every day.