A Chi-town Classic

Last week I was fortunate enough to spend a few days with some of the most amazing people I know. Wednesday night turned out to be a Cubs game treat with 13 people total! And these things happened (photos courtesy of Suzer):

C.J. complete with Cubs Claw















always being the Documentress















Three women at the Gingermann. I love all of their hand gestures.
















Ooooo la la La Grange triomphe! Quite a favorite of mine.


















I think the best part of the week was when 17 friends gathered around a long German table to drink some beers out of HUGE mugs. And the common thread amongst the friends was that I knew them all. It was my mini-wedding, and here is a picture that sums it aaall up:

Um, PERFECT.

We were also encouraged to be as loud as possible. And I think we did a fairly good job at that. Polka music kept the drinking tempo and shenanigans ensued!





Time for a side-story! I like public transportation and found out last year how much I liked taking the train into the city by myself, and just walking around the town people-watching. I orchestrated this visit so that I had one such lone train ride to the city and got to walk the streets of the Loop on my way to meet with the friends imaged above. I had music in my ears and a snappy, youthful summer outfit as I bopped down the blocks past suits and skirts. And best of all, it was niiice and hot out, the warmest day for me to date this year.

I saw a man trying to direct a truck around a tight turn down a side-street without its scraping a streetlight, and failing. It happened inches away from me, and I couldn't help taking part in the staring. I put my feet in a fountain with a bunch of screaming and laughing children swarming all around me. I saw a woman with her tiny baby at her breast in the shade of a tree. I passed underneath the Bean surrounded by amazed tourists as they counted how many times over they were reflected in its sloping walls, and I stood in the center, looked up, and smiled. Then of course I walked around the side of it to see the perfect skyline of a beautiful city reflected and magnified across its convex surface, complete with blue sky and sun, and half cursed myself because I did not have a camera. The image can only remain in my mind.

Then I almost caused an accident by trying to cross the street seconds before a firetruck came zooming around the corner, and got a stern talking to by the traffic cop who'd yelled for me and a gaggle of other pedestrians to move back; and even that was slightly perfect, as I had been talking to Sarah on the phone AND had headphones on at the same time.

Other fun things: eating dinner with your entire family...TWICE; celebrating Meg's birthday by being drunk in front of Naz until the police roll by; calling Jon Martin at like 3 AM EST and completely forgetting you did so until he approaches you in LR-B and says "hey I got your message!"; crazy Target portrait studio "Ya-Ya" family pictures (those will be on here soon); the primary mode of Friday-night cross-town transportation being 10 people shoved into just one PT cruiser; and finalmente, night-swimming in a swanky condo in your friends' loaned undergarments, and you have a the most special cap to a break ever.






Suz calls this one "Dr. Beer."









Oh thank goodness for my people.