Dinner with Five Guys

I was up at 545am after somewhere close to 7 hours of sleep. It wasn’t perfect, but easily the best sleep I’d had since sometime the week before. I headed downstairs to exercise and enjoy coffee. I still planned to apologize to Mindy when I delivered her coffee, which I only speculated she wasn’t expecting.

Read a few headlines and checked the weather forecast. Expecting a high only in the mid 40’s, which was certainly a far cry from the weekend’s lovely conditions. At 615am I headed upstairs with Mindy’s coffee, not entirely sure how she would respond. Didn’t really matter, though. I was ready to take the high road, regardless. I could tell that she was surprised that I was there with coffee. In fact, she probably expected me to toss it on her.  Without much fanfare I apologized and told her that I loved her.


At some point during our conversation Mindy informed me that she was taking the day off school to go have lunch with her friend Teri. We talked until 650am when I had to break it off in order to join a work related conference call at 7am. I planned to work from home for the first couple of hours since the call would delay my run.

The call lasted almost an hour, which was a bit longer than I presumed. At its conclusion I slowly prepared for a run. By then, Mindy had already taken care of seeing Bella onto the school bus. I headed out for a run around 830am. I ran just three miles. It was chilly enough that it warranted a return to the long john’s, hand and ear covers. Again, early March, that’s what I expect, a weather roller coaster.

Back around 9am, I checked in again with work then made myself two eggs all the while I assumed Mindy upstairs taking a shower. I had another call I needed to join at 1030am. I decided not to rush to shower, pack my lunch and head into the office. Instead, I would join that call from home too. Before it started, I headed up for a shower of my own. Much to my surprise, Mindy was back in bed.

As planned, I joined the call at 1030am. This one didn’t last nearly as long as the first. By then, Mindy was up and showered and preparing to depart for her date with Teri. It appeared we would be heading out about the same time. I left for the office around 1105am arriving 15 minutes later. No sooner had I got my laptop hooked up my desk phone rang. It was a peer asking me to join yet another critical call. It took me a few minutes to get organized, but I joined. The call went well. It lasted about 30 minutes.

No matter what, I simply had to knock out a monthly report by day’s end. To that end, I made that my day’s priority, casting everything but the occasional urgent/emergency issues aside. I stopped in to chat with my boss around pm. Told him I was leaving for a short while to run to Sears.

First time in Tuttle Sears in a year or more. I typically stop in about once per year. I was looking for their trickle chargers and jumpers. Sad place. More employees than customers. The gentleman working the register in the tools department shared that I would need to pay a visit to the auto center for those items. Thanked him (rolled my eyes) then headed out to my car and just up the way to the auto center.

Perused their battery chargers settling on the $42 model. Looked at a jumper too, but didn’t buy. With plenty of work still to do on that monthly report, I headed right back to the office. Spent most of the afternoon finishing up that report. Near 430-5pm I was dragged into an escalation, the end of the work day kind that I truly dread. Before I knew it, it was 530pm. Rather than take the issue home, I figured I would stick with it from the office, hoping to get it resolved before heading home.

Near 6pm I phoned Mindy to let her know my predicament. She asked if we could do Barley’s for dinner. Said Jacob wanted to know. I wasn’t sure, but left the possibility open. Ended up at the office until 630pm. By then that issue was all but finalized. 

Arrived home around 650pm. Learned that Bella was skipping gymnastics because she injured her wrist after a fall off of her scooter. Mindy inquired again about dinner out. I offered that we try something new – different. I suggested Five Guys Burgers. One thing was for sure, I definitely didn’t want to drink any beer. Too worn out, and the time change is messing with me. Jacob jumped at the idea of Five Guys, and Mindy like the idea too. Bella wasn’t so happy with it. She apparently had eaten two hot dogs earlier thinking she was going to gymnastics.

We left for Five Guys around 710pm. There are two locations relatively close, one on 5th avenue in Grandview and then one even closer in Hilliard by Wal-Mart & Meijer. I was happy that Mindy and Jacob picked the Grandview venue. Bella was overtly emotional during our drive there. Not sure what set her off, though Jacob was picking on her a little.

Arrived at Five Guys perhaps 10 minutes later. Only a couple other customers inside. Given this our initial visit, we needed to peruse the overhead menu first. An eager employee recognized this as our first visit and explained how it all works. Bella wanted only a drink. The rest of us ordered burgers, Mindy a single patty, Jacob and I double patty burgers. We opted to share a large order of hand cut fries. Our tab was a whopping $34 but still far less than we can ever get out of Barley’s for.

Everybody enjoyed their burgers, which were definitely a cut above your typical fast food burger, whether McDs, Wendy’s, or Burger King. But I’ve got to say, I went in expecting something even better given all the hype.

I’m guessing that we arrived home around 830pm. The evening went deceptively fast mostly due to my late night at the office. I quickly changed into my PJs then headed to my PC to fool around with my SketchUp basement design program. A short while later Mindy asked for my undivided attention which meant moving away from my PC and into one of the two queen Anne chairs for a relationship chat.
We headed to bed before 10pm agreeing to be better communicators