Cute as a Butter Burger

When we drive up to Michigan, we always stop at a Culver’s at the halfway point.  I had never been to one of these, but we stumbled upon one that happened to have an enormous green lawn, with huge oak trees and picnic tables. Who would have thought?  Major advantage over the other fast food joints.  It appears people will line up around the block for these “butter burgers” – whatever that even means.  Anyway, it’s perfect for us to let Lucy run around and get her spazz out, eat a couple of “pomme frites” and be on our way.  Culver’s went from stranger to tradition in three visits.  The food is still garbage, but like I said about the green lawn… priceless.  Lucy explores the front seat after being too excited to eat…I asked Pete if he special-ordered our table number.  He said, um, no.The first two visits, I lamented out loud, “I wish they had those disposable plastic bibs.  Remember, like when we were kids?  At Burger King or Red Lobster?”  Duh.  There they were, all along.Later, at Plumb’s Grocery…the coveted helium balloons.  The Golden Ark of 1-year-olds’ birthday presents.  Bonus:  Big Bird.Pete was a little nervous with this face staring into his rearview mirror.I had said I wanted to videotape Lucy receiving the balloons, to see the look on her face.  So we hid them in a back room, but then Pete brought them out to her.  “WAIT! WAIT! NO!”  I missed it.  He had to put them back, tears ensued, and we had a do-over later and I caught that on video.  We also had a candle lighting and singing do-over, also due to no video capture.  Luckily it was all bonus to Lucy: more singing and staring at her.  We might have an actress on our hands, or a public speaker, or…