So behind ….
Last time I wrote was Saturday, April 12. In between then and now, we went to Chicago for a short visit, I had most of a work week, including my annual review, and we had belated Passover on Good Friday.
The Chicago trip was fun even though the weather wasn’t the greatest and John wasn’t the happiest. We took the train down, arriving on Sunday afternoon. We checked into the hotel, and then wandered a bit on Michigan Avenue. Back to the room, a little email, and met Al for dinner at Cantina Laredo, a place I ate at last summer during the librarian’s conference. It was after Mark had gone home for kitty rescue – our friend Martin who works at the Smithsonian Libraries picked it. We decided it was too late for a movie, and went back to the room and watched Game of Thrones.
I signed up for the Omni’s rewards program to get free wifi, which meant that we could order morning coffee & beverages delivered to the room, as long as we put the little hangtag out by 2:00 AM. So I had two mornings of waiting for the knock, getting up and collecting my coffee – that came in a thermal pitcher, with real, though plastic, mugs – and getting back into bed with coffee and laptop, and doing email to start the day. How civilized. After coffee, we took the L down to the southern Bongo Room. I was a little disappointed with my breakfast choice – egg sangwich on a croissant – the egg was cooked perfectly to my over medium order, but it was really greasy – I think they buttered the croissant, and there was cheese in it too. The potatoes were good, though.
We walked off breakfast by heading north through the legs sculpture. We strolled through the Art Institute, mostly looking at the permanent collection, because we saw the two Christophers – Williams and Wool – at the beginning of March. We continued north on Michigan, and decided to do the Chicago Architecture Foundation boat trip. Which was fun, but we shoulda bought the tickets at Hot Tix for half price instead of spending the full $40 apiece.
We went to Starbucks at the Intercontinental to try to thaw out, and then John and I met at the hotel room, and took the L even further up north to his apartment and I took him shopping at Whole Foods. By then it was snowing – kind of sucked.
We met Linda at a place called Farmhouse on W. Chicago. When we got off the subway, John thought we were going back to the hotel, so insisted we needed to be going east, while I insisted that west was the right way. I ducked into a doorway to shield my iPhone while I looked up directions , and a passer-by thought we needed help – I said we just had to fight it out, and meanwhile John realized we had to go west. Farmhouse was pretty good – farm to table, so everything came from Wisconsin. I had a bowl of white bean & kale soup, that had nicely spicey chorizo in it, and a beet salad. John & Linda had burgers, Mark had trout, and Toni had fish fry. We shared an order of French fries, and they were good, but not as good as Pig in a Fur Coat – too small to easily dip in the house-made ketchup and mayo. Again too late for a movie – back to the Omni, and John and I went for a beer at the hotel bar.
Tuesday we woke up to icey sidewalks and went to Xoco for breakfast. I guess the bad weather was on our side – only time we’d ever been there that there was no line. It’s been open longer now, too. We stopped at Hot Tix to see if Mark & Toni could get tickets for a show on Wednesday – and they did – Million Dollar Quartet.
Then up in the Hancock Building, to view the snow on skyscraper roofs from the 94th floor. We took the L up to Fullerton, then walked back down by way of the Lincoln Park conservatory and zoo. Tuesday night was the National, so we went to Rosebud on Rush for pre-show apps. John met us. The show was good – my quickie summary as we were leaving: they opened with a lot of old songs that I knew. And they closed with Fake Empire. I really like the lead singers voice; he has a great range and he’s a crooner, not a screamer. I was charmed by their matching Rickenbacker bass and guitar. And the sound system at the Chicago Theatre was good enough that you could understand the words.
We stopped and bought 2 flavors of Ben & Jerry’s at a convenience store, then borrowed spoons from the hotel restaurant to eat it. I got all packed, since I was taking the L out to O’Hare in the morning, to bus back to Madison, and had to be out the door at 7:15 AM.
And that all went OK, too – made it out to O’hare with about 30 minutes to spare. I got Starbucks coffee and a banana and some kind of energy bar – dates and cranberry and orange, kind of an off-brand Lara bar – at the Hilton across the way from the bus center. Made it to my 1:30 meeting. It was a looong day though – woke up in Chicago, and didn’t get home until about 7:30 PM (has another meeting at 5:30 on the square, but I got the 19 bus all the way home). Then I had to wipe up the kitty paw prints from all surfaces before I could collapse in front of TV. The payoff was I watched the Mad Men season premiere, that Mark DVR’d, skipping commercials. And after going the whole trip thinking I’d forgotten my hair brush, I found it in the bottom of my pack.
