April 26, 2007
Reaching Mecca
Almost a year ago, Garrance made the 1000th comment on my blog. That was June 12, 2006, so it has taken him ten months to claim his prize. Which, in Man Time, is near lightning speed.
Technically, he only claimed one-third of his prize because I don't think I ever did a spread of all our Christmas trees, and he never asked a grossly personal question that I was obligated to answer.
The time for Christmas trees is well past -- even in my house -- but Garrance, please feel free to pose a question that you know will make me squirm and reveal horrible truths about myself. Anytime in the next ten months. No rush.
In the meantime, I will tell you a horrible truth about Garrance -- he only pretends to be mute and deaf.
Garrance is a very quiet man. The kind of man you find it easy to believe once killed another man. He's that quiet. There's a famous story of him that goes thusly:
Garrance's son, A, had a friend over whom he had known all through school. This friend, despite spending much time in A's house over the years, had never, ever heard Garrance utter even one syllable. Not so much as a yawn or a grunt. He just kind of silently haunts the world.
A and his friend were going up the stairs to A's room, and since it's an old (and gorgeous!) house, the stairs are very steep. A's friend tripped, and Garrance uttered his only words to her ever -- "Careful, Grace."
Careful Grace is still a joke among all of A's friends, over a decade later. And no, his friend's name is not Grace.
[Wouldn't Careful Grace be a great band name?!]
Anyhoo, when I first knew of Garrance... probably 30 years ago, I was terrified of him. He's tall, he's big, he's veeeerrrrryyyyy hairy, and he's quiet as death. It wasn't until our performing group went on "tour" without his wife that I finally heard him speak. And not only is he not scary, but he's even funny!
The truth is, Garrance is so quiet because his wife and sons never let him get a word in edgewise. And when on the rare occassion they do, he is invariably wrong, wrong, wrong. Perhaps that is why he likes the comfort of my blog so much? Here, he can comment quietly, uninterrupted and somewhat anonymously.
For tipping me into the triple-digits of comments, I treated Garrance to lunch at Mecca Supper Club last week, at his request.
Now how awesome is it that they call it a "supper club!" It's a little piece of Wisconsin here at home! Also a dead giveaway that we were in a Wisconsin embassy -- all the animal corpses adorning the walls. Très chic!
I'd only been to Mecca once before, in high school, when my boyfriend's Dad took us and ordered escargot. Barf! And I remembered it being much seedier. Now it's much more upscale, what with the karaoke night and musky fishermen's club meetings.
Our waitress and all the men at the bar were WWII vets, I'm pretty sure. So we were in good company. And feeling very youthful by comparison.
The menu is very meat-and-a-starch oriented, which is just fine with me. Why muck up a good meal with veggies?
Garrance had the Friday special -- meatloaf in mushroom gravy with mashed potatoes. And I must say, it looked fabulous. But he ruined it with ketchup, being the mullet-wearing white trash that he is.
I had the Italian beef, and it was really, really lean. If it weren't for the fact that the non-smoking section smells exactly like the smoking section, I'd be going back quite often.
Oh, and Garrance and I found plenty to gossip about!
Comments
I'm speechless! Again! Garrance
Posted by: garrance at April 26, 2007 07:13 PM