Here in Tampa it’s a lovely, lovely morning. February, so it’s cold. In the 50s, maybe. On the left is a place I sometimes buy daddy-beverages in quantities of six, and on the right is where Ivo got his first real haircut. In the distance is the city skyline. Just our neighborhood.<\/p>\n This morning we visited the Country Pumpkin Cafe at 2620 E Hillsborough Ave in Tampa<\/a>. Marek appears to be prying himself out of the car. It’s a family car, and I’ll stand by that statement until a medical professional advises me that the car is stunting my children’s growth.<\/p>\n Says I to Marek, let’s take a picture together and pretend that we are normal and sane and like each other and all that. He concurred in a most dutiful fashion.<\/p>\n And then we got newspapers. Because 1. they’re free and 2. There might be coupons for mom. <\/p>\n I’m teaching Marek to read the paper over breakfast, old-style. He’ll look back fondly on these moments and think, wow, dad was a real dinosaur in 2013, with his newspapers made out of paper and all that.<\/p>\n The Country Pumpkin has an interesting menu. You can get stuff you expect, and stuff you don’t so much expect.<\/p>\n What you may not expect is a “breakfast burger.” Now I can tell you, we’ve been doing this Breakfast Thing for a while. And we’ve never encountered a “breakfast burger” before. Worthy of note.<\/p>\n Hot chocolate for Marek. We had a serious discussion about the relative merits of marshmallows in hot chocolate afterwards. Also note the nice display of coffee creamers. Like a little blossom of creamers. I decided early on, 25 years ago, that I would drink coffee black so that I’d always like what I had and not be too worried about things like “we’re out of creamer.”<\/p>\n Enormous cutlery on the wall, in case an enormous person walks in and orders the whole thing.<\/p>\n “Ma’am, I’ll take a breakfast over here, please.”<\/p>\n And politeness works. Bacon first, as is Marek’s method for approaching bacon and eggs. Afterwards he said, “good bacon.” I didn’t get any. Somehow, the Scarfing of the Marek (much like “the running of the bulls”) prevented me from sampling.<\/p>\n Here are pancakes that made me stop and ponder. Consider. Mutter, “whoah, interesting.”<\/p>\n Not huge, but moderately sized. My hands aren’t exceptionally large, but those fingers can type about a million words a minute. Stand back.<\/p>\n It’s the cook-in banana appearance that has me. This is so neat-looking, and tasty too. I really liked these pancakes.<\/p>\n Five year old with a knife. What? His mom’s not here. So the boy can have a knife. <\/p>\n Syrup on eggs. What, you think I’M going to stop him? We already established that boy has a knife.<\/p>\n More newspaper reading. Something about a “Monster Truck Jam” in Tampa tonight. We discussed the cultural, literary, and metaphysical aspects of a “Monster Truck Jam.”<\/p>\n Around ten clams for a robust breakfast. Note our new business cards for 2013. This is our third set of business cards since we started. That’s kind of weird.<\/p>\n Marek paid the bill. After all, who else would? Ivo? Not here. Didn’t want to come. Pajamas and time with mom, that’s all Ivo wanted this morning.<\/p>\n Note the clean and somewhat spartan interior. And sparse of customers, though it did start filling in as we were leaving. I wasn’t a fan of the televisions, which seemed a bit loud and distracting in the empty dining room.<\/p>\n On our way home, we went by the stadium. Sure enough, there’s Grave Digger, the “most feared monster truck on earth.”<\/p>\n![\"pumpkin-00\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tampabaybreakfasts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/pumpkin-00.jpg?ssl=1\")
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