Mondays With Uncle Steven

Take a good look at that. Gaze upon it. Lust for it. We'll get back to it in a moment.

So I'm in New York this week squeezing a half-year of uncling into a few fun-filled days. I'm also busy reconnecting with the sights, sounds and flavors of my youth. There really isn't much better an excuse to do so than via the kids.

My sister, Lynn, has three of them. Garrett, the 14-year-old iPod-esconced brooder; 12-year-old Nick the hip-n-happening athlete with the cutie-pie girlfriend who you might recall from a YouTube vid I posted earlier this year; and Allyson, the 9-year-old bolt of sunshine.

Well, Ally had school yesterday. Except that Ally came down with a horrible case of Uncle Stevenitis. She "wasn't feeling so good" at school. So after two passes at the nurse -- the requisite number for going home, an anonymous source confirmed -- it was determined she needed to get home for the antidote. The only known cure for Uncle Stevenitis is, of course, Uncle Steven. Thank goodness I was on hand to provide the injection!

By the time I came in from my day working at the cafe, Ally was miraculously feeling well enough to follow through with our plans to bowl and go for Friendly's for dinner and ice cream. Is it not simply amazing how resilient children can be? So inspirational.

We went bowling. Turns out, you can have the rails up or down but not both. So I had to use the rails. Which makes these scores even more pathetic, although not Obama-level horrid:



Ally wanted to take my picture. Here's what she did:


I explained to her that I didn't want a photo with the ceiling, as lovely a ceiling as it may be. So she actually -- get this!!! -- stood UP to take a second one...


Better, huh? I took one of Ally but it came out blurry, so who am I to be critical? But here's one of her whipping it down the lane...


And here is Ally gazing like Carrie Bradshaw at a Manolo rack into the glass of that nemesis of guilt-ridden absentee uncles everywhere, the CLAW-FOR-CRAP machine.


$3 later, still no stuffed penguin to show for it. Sad. I did, however, get 67,000 points on Ms. Pacman -- and a wrist-ache...


But let's get back to this:


Let me tell you a story of little Stevie Friess. He was a bit of a loser, which is what makes his success on Facebook with the very same people who so tormented him so satisfying. But, anyhow, little Stevie Friess got $5 for allowance every week, not bad for the early 1980s. With that, he would ride his blue Mongoose into town, stopping at the 7-11 for an Archie or Richie Rich comic and then on to Friendly's to read it over a Reese's Pieces Sundae.

Yes, this was excitement once upon a time. Still is, sort of. The Friendly's I went to is now a Chinese restaurant, I think, which is somewhat fitting considering where my life and career would take me. But there's still another one in the town of Syosset, N.Y., where I was raised. So Ally and I went there for dinner after bowling. See?


What, you ask is this concoction? Five scoops of butter crunch ice cream, marshmallow sauce, peanut butter sauce, hot fudge, Reese's Pieces, whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles and the cherry. I eat about two a year. Sometimes Miles tries to simulate it with something he gets for me at Cold Stone, but it's really a losing battle. There's only one real Reese's Pieces Sundae.

Ally was contented to have something less offensive and observe the gluttony...


Halfway through, here is my condition...


Ally didn't want to be left out, so she struck a pose, too...


Can we finish it? All of it? Well, it was dicey, but...
\

YES WE CAN.

I didn't need a comic book this time. I had Ally.