Da Bears!

Greetings from Chi-town!

This city is awesome. Scott is here for the annual Midwest Band and Orchestra conference (NERDS!!! hahaha) and I just tagged along for the sole intent to hang out with my old UOP friend, Dev. We actually got here on Tuesday evening after a 9+ hour car ride.

Our first two days here were ... interesting, seeing as how Scott and I were not best friends for the last little while. But now that that has been worked out we are well on our way to enjoying the next few days in Chicago with Dev & Christie (Best. Hostesses. EVER!), as well as their nerdly band director friends Vanessa and Ed. I actually first met Ed back in the day when I was a fresh and eager, wide-eyed young budding musician in the armpit of America (i.e. Stockton, CA). He is a percussion friend of Dev's and came to a couple parties of ours at UOP. ...He gave me my very first beer! Hahaha. What a distinction. And weirdly enough, Ed and Scott know each other from when they were both in the Blue Devils Drum Corps waaay back before Scott and I even met. Small world, eh? So I think Scott was very glad, not only to have another male figure in this apartment, but also to have somebody to have nerdish band discussions with. 'Cause it shore ain't gone be wit me! Ha!

Anyway, today was pretty much the first time I ventured out into the arctic tundra instead of hibernating inside D & C's warm toasty apartment all day. Well, except for last night when Scott and I joined the rest of the crew to go have drinks and merriment. But we only lasted a couple of hours, so I didn't count that. Scott and I went to the Shedd Aquarium in the museum campus (I think that's what it's called? It's also got the Field Museum and the Adler Planetarium.) The aquarium excursion was especially cool because:

a) Christie works as a teacher there and was able to get us free passes, and
b) she also stuck around to give us pretty much a personal tour of the place.

It was awesome! Yay Christie! On a side note, we also had lunch at the aquarium wherein I had my very first Chicago-style hotdog, which basically was a hotdog with every imaginable topping you could pile on top. Mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, pickles, relish, etc. etc. etc. It was glorious.

Then after the aquarium, Scott and I exited the place with the intention of finding a taxi cab to take back to the apartment. For some reason, though, a taxi cab never surfaced and we ended up walking and walking (and walking and walking...) until we realized we were not that far from the Hilton hotel (where the Nerd Conference is being held) so we just ended up walking the entire distance. Let's just say that by the end of it Scott's ears were just two flesh-colored blocks of ice and my face was so frozen it hurrrrt. Oh well. The Hilton was toasty warm and we walked around a bit and got some Star*ucks coffee (I can't escape it!!! Gaaaah!!!!) before finally catching a cab back to the apartment.

*** NOW WE GET TO THE PART WHERE MY PARENTS SHAKE THEIR HEADS IN DISAPPOINTMENT AND PONDER THE THOUGHT OF DISOWNING ME FOR MY FINANCIAL INEPTITUDE ***

So then, after a brief respite at the apartment, Scott and I went to meet a few of his band director friends from California for a nice dinner at Shula's (as in Don Shula -- some big football guy? Da Bears? I don't know... Whatevs.) in the Sheraton hotel. I was forewarned that it was going to be expensive. Despite the warning, however, I still chose to go because:

a) I wanted to actually meet some of these people that Scott has been talking about forever who I have never really had a chance to sit down with and get to know (plus it would give them a chance to sit down and get to know the wonderous beauty and splendor of .... me! Ha.)
b) I haven't really been spending that much money for food since we got here. Hurray for Dev and Christie's (and Vanessa's, actually!) cooking skillz! And
c) in my pathetic universe, anything over $30 is "expensive" so I figured I would be able to throw down, you know, $40 or so for a nice dinner.

...Let's just say that ten minutes into the dinner, one of the guys (who I happen to have known by name for years and years because he is the band director at the Santa Rosa Junior College in my hometown... What a small f*ing world!) ordered a $200 bottle of wine for the table, after which I proceeded to re-start my pulse and mentally plan the rest of my meals for the year around the McDonald's dollar menu. Soooo... at the end of the evening, I charged what is definitely the largest amount of money I have ever spent on a single meal on my poor, weeping bank card. After the shock (and PAIN!!) of it wore off, I realized that it was actually worth it, because it was a very nice meal -- expen$ive cae$ar $alad, expen$ive vegetable$, expen$ive ha$h brown$, expen$$$ive wine, expen$ive $teak -- and, more importantly, just very nice company. It was a good time.

Then to top the evening off, we came back to the apartment wherein Scott proceeded to pass out from his inability to do wine, and Dev, Ed and I had Folk Song Night!! Hahaha! This just involved us busting out the guitar, drums and keyboard and trying to cover every possible song we can imagine. We rocked. Extreme's "More than Words" and the Barenaked Ladies' "If I Had $1,000,000" were my personal favorites. Christie sat, playing Playstation 2 trying to block out the horrible horrible (and by "horrible," I mean "fantastically harmonious") sounds of our vocal and instrumental stylings. Good. Times.

Don't be jealous.