After a long week – I told you about some of it already – like the shelves trying to come down on my head on Tuesday when I was trying to get towels down to sop up the flood – I’m in Chicago to move apartments. No internet because it’s already shut off at the old place and we’re not in the new one till Monday.
State St. apartment on move out weekend
So enforced no work although I met with one student online this AM before we left to help with an assignment and I’ve been emailing with two others about the same assignment all day. And I might go use the wifi at Chicago Public Library tomorrow if we get enough packing and cleaning done.
We took the train down and so far went to the UPS store to return the Comcast converter box and buy packing boxes, and to Whole Foods for a few things for breakfast and while-packing snacks tomorrow, and Target for a bucket. Next, Lou Malnati’s and Black Mass.
—–
From something like 5:45 until 6:45 PM Saturday: We’re at Lou Malnati’s trying to get pizza & a salad before the movie.
Art at Malnati’s that reminded me of Jen’s, and the bathroom tile floor
Didn’t work so well – they were having some kind of problem and it took so long to get the food – even though I pre-ordered the pizza – that at 6:37 I realized that even if we got the food we wouldn’t have time to eat it. Mark went to the bathroom and of course the salad arrived. While the waitress was dishing that up I asked to cancel the pizza and just get the bill. So of course the pizza arrived with the bill and we got it to go.
We jumped in a cab and made it to the theater in plenty of time to get decent seats and watch all the previews. I even went to the bar and bought a water and a beer. The bartenders talked me into getting the larger 20-oz. beer, “have to make it through the previews”, which I predicted at 6, and they said 25 minutes.
Black Mass was well done, not prettified at all, and I suspect Johnny Depp will get an Oscar nomination. Seemed like a lot of good actors with small parts in it, too.
We went back to the apartment and ate the pizza and went to bed. So all’s well that ends well, except I had kind of stress dreams in which one of our exchange students had head lice and I had to deal with that and washing bedding in time to pack and working at my computer with all kinds of metal shrapnel all around. Must’ve been the big beer and pizza consumed at 10:30 at night – too close to bed time for an old lady like me.
On Sunday we got up and packed, then went out for coffee (at the Roosevelt Rd. Starbucks, which must be the worst Starbucks in Chicago) and sat by the Legs, and set up with Al that we’d meet for dinner at a pasta place. Then back to the apartment for a little breakfast, and more packing and cleaning. We both showered and Mark scrubbed the bathroom. I went over to Chicago Public Library to use the free wifi to work for a few hours. While I was working at a table on the 8th floor (Art), I got a text from Al, ditching us. As usual. So instead of pasta at 7:00 at a place up on Halstead with Al, we went to a burger place at 5:30 and then went to see the Martian. Which was much more uplifting than Black Mass – it was good hard science fiction, American ingenuity, people that are too smart to fit into the rules and regulations. Lots of actors that I like, Sean Bean and Jeff Daniels, and that everyone likes, Matt Damon.
On Monday morning the move itself was ridiculously easy – I hung around after the movers left and vacuumed. I especially like that they took away all the shrink wrap and other packing materials they’d used on our furniture so we didn’t even have to throw it away.
