Rule #1: Order the beef, not the vegetarian plate. This does not preclude ordering a side of asparagus, though.

Rule #2: Don't lose your coat claim check.

I have an expense report to take care of today.

One of the drawbacks of being field personnel is how very far away from your home office you can find yourself sometimes.

For instance, when the annual Christmas party came to pass 7 evenings ago for the New Orleans office of Modjeski & Masters, at Angelina's in Metairie, Amanda & I found ourselves some 900 miles away, in Morris, Illinois. Not content to have us suffer by my staying at my post (the bridge site), M&M offered us to have our own Christmas party in Chicago. With a budget of $50 per person, many steakhouses in Chicago became open for discussion. We decided to return to the place in Streeterville where we celebrated our first anniversary earlier this year: Lawry's: The Prime Rib (not The Chicago Chophouse, ha ha).

Before researching restaurants earlier this year, Lawry's existed in my mind only as a brand of seasoned salt that my mom would pick up on occasion at Market Basket. I had no idea where the players in the Rose & Cotton Bowls ate on New Year's Eve. But wouldn't you know, it was restaurant that beget supermarket, and not the other way around.

This trip was slightly more eventful than in June, primarily that June does not have snow. (December usually doesn't have snow either... in Louisiana.) When we made reservations, our only options were at 9 PM on Friday, 9 PM on Saturday, or 4 PM on Sunday. Our only real choice was early Sunday evening.

When we made that decision, though, there wasn't a blizzard in the forecast.

Growing up in the Gulf South, the first (and, by and large, only) thought that crosses my mind when presented with the word "Blizzard" is "I'll have a small Heath Bar, or maybe the Chocolate Covered Cherry." (I also remember when Dennis the Menace was on those Blizzard cups; why did you go to a disembodied mouth again, Dairy Queen?) Snow really isn't part of the equation.

Well, it is now.

Amanda & I made the grueling trek up the Stevenson Expressway into downtown Chicago for dinner. I have to hand it to Illinois DOT: they are prepared for snow, and the roadway was in very good shape for snow blowing around. The worst part of the trip was where my windshield washer fluid tank froze, and I couldn't clean my windshield. When we got back to Morris, the dark blue metallic vehicle was 60% whitewashed by the roadway salt.

Dinner was amazing, though. It was still worth the trip, but I'm glad I won't have to do that again.

I think.

-KIE