So, there’s this tavern in town. Decent ambience, friendly service, pretty good food. It was actually the first local eatery we ever checked out, dropping in for a bite to eat and a cocktail our very first night in Fort.
We still stop by occasionally, though we’re more likely to hit up the local Irish pub nowadays. Honestly, we’d probably go more frequently if they had better ranch dressing.
Tara, you see, takes her ranch very seriously. Whenever we try a new place, she’ll dip a finger into the ranch for a quick taste and report back. If it’s “the good ranch” (her words, aka, resembling the Hidden Valley you make at home with a seasoning packet/milk/mayo, never ever the bottled version), I breathe a sigh of relief. This tavern’s ranch doesn’t pass the “good” test, though their cheese curds are tasty. You see our dilemma.
(Or maybe you don’t. This is possibly a Wisconsin-only dilemma.)
Anyway. The tavern is very proud of their patio dining, frequently advertising it on social media to lure in customers. I find that amusing, because this is their “patio.”
Look, I enjoy dining al fresco as much as the next fella, but a patio needs a certain ambience, ya heard? First off, it should be an actual patio, not a cordoned-off section of the parking lot barely large enough to accommodate a Buick, let along a handful of wrought iron tables. Semantics aside, why would I want to sit outside, right next to a busy street, breathing in exhaust fumes, with nothing but a flimsy umbrella to shade me against the sun beating down on the blacktop? Pot of flowers aside, there is nothing even remotely appealing about that. Just because you can offer patio dining doesn’t mean you should offer patio dining.
Great Dane Pub & Brewing in Madison, on the other hand, got it right. This is how you do patio dining.
We’ve eaten outside there a couple of times now. After dark, with string lights twinkling overhead and flickering tabletop candles, it just oozes ambience.
Plus, Great Dane has the good ranch. Win/win, baby!
I Could Never Be a Submariner
Wednesday ended up being one of the strangest work days ever.
The “fun” (a term I use very loosely) began shortly after 1:00, when a Tornado Warning was issued for Dane County. I’d been watching the clouds gathering out west, and it was certainly looking ominous.
Cool! I thought to myself, my newfound lackadaisical attitude toward tornadoes on full display. I have a front row seat to all this excitement!
Until some CheeseGov dude strode over and put an end to the watch party before it even got started. “You have to get into the stairwell now!” he barked at me. “This is not an option!”
(Apparently it was though, because I learned later not everyone complied.)
So, I was shepherded into a hot and crowded stairwell elbow-to-elbow with a whole bunch of people I had never seen before. Adding insult to injury, the Wi-Fi was pretty crappy in there, so I couldn’t even pull up my radar app. Thunder was booming loudly, echoing through the stairwell, but I had no idea where or how bad the storm was. I kinda felt like a sitting duck, to be honest. I’d rather be able to see a tornado approaching and take precautions as needed rather than end up blindsided.
Finally, after an interminable 40 minutes (there’s a certain stench that permeates the air when people are packed together like sardines for an extended period of time, which is why I never pursued a career as a submariner or coal miner), we were released. I have never been so happy to see blue skies in my life!
My relief was short-lived, though. The sky turned dark again, and 30 minutes later, a new Tornado Warning was issued. Back into the stairwell everyone went.
Well, everyone but me. Oddly enough, I “didn’t hear” this warning. Or the third (!) one 45 minutes after that. Each time an alert sounded over the intercom, I ducked lower in my corner cubicle on the nearly deserted 4th floor, hoping to dodge the “This is not an option!” guy. Thankfully, it worked.
Look, I really don’t mean to sound cavalier, but I was paying close attention to my weather app, and each of those warnings were for areas nowhere near CheeseGov. Because they were for parts of Dane County, everyone in Dane County was advised to seek shelter. If I truly thought the danger was imminent, I would’ve hustled my ass right back over to the stairwell and happily subjected myself to that unpleasantness.
After posting my experience to Facebook, a friend asked, “Were there any actual tornadoes?”
There sure were.
(These are not my images. I was stuck in a stairwell, remember? Please don’t sue me. They were shared on our local weather pages.)
Just a crazy weather day in Wisconsin. At least five tornadoes touched down, maybe more. Thankfully there were no injuries, and I don’t believe there was serious property damage.
If it seems like we’ve had a lot of strong thunderstorms lately, I guess we have. Our peak severe weather season runs from May through August, so we have a little longer to go.
Hopefully, the next time this happens, I’ll be working from home.
Do you enjoy patio dining? How about ranch dressing? Have you ever been forced to seek shelter from a tornado or hurricane?
Mark My Words 
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