\n<\/span><\/strong>My cousin\u2019s getting married in Chicago.\u00a0 Game on.<\/em>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/div>\n
In what I can only hope, for your sake,\u00a0is the very remote chance that you ever stop for lunch in Sturgis, Michigan, be sure to stop at Dan\u2019s Family Restaurant.\u00a0 If you\u2019re over 80, I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard of it already.\u00a0 Word gets around on The Facebooks, you know \u2013 Dan\u2019s Family Restaurant has a discount for seniors that can\u2019t be beat!\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Dan's](\"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Dans-174x300.jpg\" "\\"Dan's")
Dan's Family Restaurant, Sturgis, Michigan<\/p><\/div>\n
Obviously the waitress, on the other hand, can be beat.\u00a0 I say this not because the service was slow, or bad \u2013 it was fine.\u00a0 I think our waitress had been beaten far too often, though \u2013 every other sentence was \u201cI\u2019m sorry!\u201d\u00a0 She apologized for everything, regardless of whether or not it was something she could control, up to and including the weather.\u00a0 I think it was a defense mechanism built in from getting beaten too often by cane-wielding Q-tips wondering about the discount.\u00a0 She held her own behind the counter, though:\u00a0 \u201cMike, this says Chicken Tenders, not Chicken Wings \u2013 do I need to buy you a pair of glasses?\u00a0 I\u2019ll go buy you a pair of glasses if you need them!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to get to Dan\u2019s Family Restaurant, though.\u00a0 All you need is a Betty.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also easy to tell when your kids have been hanging out with their Grandfather \u2013 anything with an automated voice system, like a GPS, gets named Bitchin\u2019 Betty.\u00a0 This stems from the early automated aviation advisory voices in Viet Nam-era aircraft (and continuing today) that would tell a pilot \u201cLow on Fuel\u201d or \u201cWatch out for that Mountain.\u201d\u00a0 These days the iPhone will do the same thing, so in our car we had Dad\u2019s GPS, in SOBUMD\u2019s van we had her iPhone set for MapQuest, calling out the same set of<\/p>\n
\u201cRecalculating Route\u201d
\n\u201cTurn left, 2 miles\u201d\u00a0
\n\u201cMake a safe and legal U-Turn\u201d\u00a0
\n\u201cRecalculating\u201d<\/p>\n
All of which cause the kids to want to tell Bitchin\u2019 Betty to shut up.\u00a0\u00a0 They figure poor Betty gets pretty tired of \u201cRecalculating\u201d every time we turn around.\u00a0 We all got out of the cars at Dan\u2019s Family Restaurant and the HTR piped up with, \u201cDaddy, Bitchin\u2019 Betty sounds pretty depressed.\u00a0 I think she should try Cymbalta.\u201d\u00a0 Number One Son doesn\u2019t miss a beat:\u00a0 \u201cDepression hurts, Daddy.\u00a0 Cymbalta can help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dear god, I *really* need to monitor what the hell they\u2019re watching on television.\u00a0 Also, I need my ears checked again; at first I thought they said she needed to take Cialis.\u00a0 Which would probably also take Betty\u2019s mind off recalculating the route for the 478th time, but I\u2019d rather not explain that to the kids.<\/p>\n
The best part of Bitchin\u2019 Betty is the pinpoint accuracy of the iPhone\/MapQuest application.\u00a0 SOBUMD excused herself to the bathroom (\u201cExcuse me, where\u2019s the bathroom?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m sorry, it\u2019s just down that hallway.\u201d) and took her purse \u2013 I never know why, and I don\u2019t want to.\u00a0 In this case, though, she reports that as she was walking out of the stall, Betty piped up from her purse unexpectedly:\u00a0 \u201cRecalculating!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now that\u2019s an accurate system.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
We said our sad goodbyes to Sturgis and our lovely and apologetic waitress and climbed back in the saddles, driving through the settling lunch and setting sun until we reached our destination \u2013 Uncle Dan (no relation to the\u00a0Restaurant)\u00a0and Aunt Mary Ann\u2019s house, which has Ivy.\u00a0 Not ivy, Ivy.\u00a0 Ivy is a Wheaten Terrier, which makes complete sense since they live a in suburb called Wheaton \u2013 I assume she came with the house.\u00a0 Ivy and Number One Son, to the surprise of pretty much everyone including themselves, became close pals.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/ConnorIvy.jpg\" "\\"Ivy")
Ivy Meets Number One Son: A Dog and Her Boy<\/p><\/div>\n
We had a wonderful time eating pizza and visiting with family that we never get to see often enough.\u00a0 Number One Son met a dog who wasn\u2019t too scary, jumpy, or annoying, and a great time was had by all.\u00a0 I looked all around the house, but was unable to find the \u201cDorian Gray\u201d painting of my Aunt, who looks like I\u2019ve always remembered her \u2013 I don\u2019t know how she does it, but she has not aged a day in at least 20 years.\u00a0 Maybe the dogs do her aging for her.\u00a0 Uncle Dan just looks more like himself; I\u2019ve seen pictures of him when he was younger, and he looks like he\u2019s waiting to grow into how he looks now.\u00a0 My cousins look good and married well too \u2013 maybe there\u2019s something in the genes; it\u2019s just a good looking family all around.\u00a0 Of course, they\u2019re all related to me, so certainly that explains part of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The next morning dawned with coffee and breakfast yummies, including pancakes that even the Reigning Queen of Pink couldn\u2019t be allergic to, which was very sweet.\u00a0 Mind you, she still didn\u2019t eat them, but she *could* have, and that\u2019s the point, really.\u00a0 We eventually got dressed, loaded the car, and headed to the Death Star.<\/p>\n
Next up:\u00a0 Saturday:\u00a0 Operation Wedding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s also easy to tell when your kids have been hanging out with their Grandfather \u2013 anything with an automated voice system, like a GPS, gets named Bitchin\u2019 Betty. This stems from the early automated aviation advisory voices in Viet Nam-era aircraft (and continuing today) that would tell a pilot \u201cLow on Fuel\u201d or \u201cWatch out for that Mountain.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45,40],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=613"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":685,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613\/revisions\/685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}