part I - chicago? may i have some more?

anthony graded me on my steely resolve against the bitter chicago cold: D-

a D fucking minus?! that's failing! i never fail! ... the chicago cold has broken me and i weep.

despite the failing grade and bitter cold, our trip was really awesome and really not long enough.

pre-trip. we go to bed around 2 or 3 on wednesday night, cleaning and packing.

thursday morning we have no water with which to brush our teeth or shower. !!
run errands with dead-rat-breath mouths.
end up showing at bekah and eric's doorstep, stinky, carrying towels and bath products, wearing mis-matched pajamas and begging for mercy.

oh. thank. god.

pack frantically, forgetting a warm pajama top, but remembering to bring 2 pajama bottoms.

on the plane, i manage to spill ginger ale directly into my crotch-al area. not on the side, not sorta-near, but directly on my crotch. luckily, my pants dry quickly and i am spared the embarrassment of meeting new people with an uncommonly wet hoo-ha.

so we get in on thursday and are picked up by andy, guitarist and avant garde audio consultant (truly). he took us to los nopales where we dined on insanely good mexican food. did i mention that it was insanely good? i'm back to work today and am dreaming longingly of delicious lime tilapia and nopales salad. eff. i am so hungry. no breakfast. :(

i also saw my first rat this evening.

kim: "was that a possom?! you have possums in the city??! abnormally large squirrels?!"
andy: "uh, that was a rat. yea, they get big here. cat-size."

awesome! city rats!

total kim + anthony chicago rat count: 4
total cities in which i've seen large rats: 2 (chicago and firenze, italia)

then out to a bar for a few alcoholic beverages. (this became a relaxing theme of the vacation.)

friday and saturday the boys pretty much stayed indoors all day mixing their CD under the tutelage of andy.

i.e. they were warm whilst kim braved the cold to venture into the city (not sure what's up w/ my use of third person today).

friday, i was able to see the art institute and it was almost emotional how incredible it was. i love museums and cities that love their museums. it was rather inspring. plus, some klee paintings! (i don't think anything will quite top the paul klee center in switzerland for klee paintings, though.) rachel actually used to live in chicago and i got to see the ando gallery (in the art institute), where she spent many a contemplative hour. so beautiful and peaceful.

saturday i met up with sleep goblin and ds in downtown chicago. we talked about their recent wedding and meeting boys online and had wild adventures in reaching the brookfield zoo. the crappy part was that we only had an hour at zoo, but we were able to see some swampy animals watch some river otters frolic. throw in a polar bear, some lions and tigers and some real animals (kids dressed up for halloween) and it was pretty cool.

ant and i are planning another trip to chicago in the spring, maybe i can see more of the zoo then.

and it was so beautiful! almost like a park with geese on the lawn.

bonus: i got to see ds mount a stone lion. unfortunately, my pics came out blurry - hopefully sg will be able to post some.

on the way back, we walked from the brookfield zoo to the metra station. it started to get dark. i almost called a cab on my cell phone, with ds' blessing.

good deed for the day: knocked on a stranger's door to inform them that a car light was left on. was invited in for a yuppie argyle party. declined, though later regretted not grabbing (what looked to be) a delicious party beverage. they got out a train schedule and were able to direct us to a metra station. hurrah! bliss! bi-pedal relaxation, 2 story trains and mood-color-change tickets.

i'm thinking it was the ashfield station, i'm not positive, but if it was, we walked 10 miles. (in addition to the 1.3 miles one-way i'd walk from the studio to the rail station each day.) i'll formulate a chart of how many miles i covered. i was literally limping the next night (sunday).

in florida, we make liberal use of our cars.

oh! and breakfasts! andy made the three of us breakfasts each morning. barefoot boys in the kitchen, ftw. i am very jealous of people who are able to frequent trader joe's.


... to be continued, i suppose i need to get some work done sometime....