Busy little bee
Wow, it has been a pretty full week. At least, my evenings have been full. The short tour:
Sunday
One of the gamers didn't make it to an in-store demo on Sunday, so I took his seat at the last minute. Yep, I actually got to game again! First time in more years than I care to count. The verdict? Unhallowed Metropolis is pretty fucking cool. Too bad things are so busy right now...
Monday
Dropped everything in the middle of the afternoon to get Cov to a doctor's appointment. Fortunately, it was nothing major, and I was generally declared a saint for being willing to give him a ride there and back. We make an agreement to go out later in the week to thank me for the favor.
Tuesday
The last of the movies in the Chicago summer movie festival (read: free movies in Grant Park!) was "The Sound of Music", so when my labmate invited me, I had to go! I had forgotten how much fun that movie is, and how good all the performances (at least by the adults) are. The Baroness and Max totally stole the show, although I really enjoyed the Captain, too.
Wednesday
Went to a public seminar by Ramon Lopez on Storytelling as Cultural Memory. This was hosted by The Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council, which generally plans cool events all over the city. This one was right in my neighborhood, and was a topic I am interested in, so I hauled in. I'm pretty sure I was the only...well, not the only white person in the room, but the only one who was not black, or latino/caribbean. (Anyone who knows the politically correct terminology there, please speak up! A largely Puerto Rican audience, with a couple of other flavors thrown in) But hey, I sure learned a lot. Fascinating talk on the process of creating new stories as teaching tools, which really was exactly what I wanted. And I learned a bit about music and racial politics in Puerto Rico while I was at it. (Lopez wears a lot of hats--he describes himself as an anthropologist, storyteller, musician, shaman and teacher. It was an interesting set of perspectives, to hear, and he spent a lot of time rejecting simple answers during the talk and discussion.)
But wait, we're not done with Wed yet! Picked up Lex, spritelord and Cov after they got out of the store, and headed out on the promised expedition. Cov introduced us all to The Violet Hour, a "high-end classic cocktail bar". This is every bit as fabulous as it sounds--just enough background noise for comfortable conversation, huge alice-in-wonderland chairs, a handful of tasty things to keep you from being hungry and really fantastic cocktails that are worth the price. Oh, and no smoking and no cell phones (not a plus for everyone, but works just fine for me). I might believe the reviews that call it America's most exciting new bar. I had something called an "Iron Cross" that is the epitome of the potential in a pisco sour, and tasted a variety of other drinks.
Yeah, Wednesday was a good day.
Thursday
Thursday was also a red-letter day, and not just for the evening. You see on Thursday, I accepted an offer for a new job! (Yes, some of you have already heard my squealing about this) It is an education job at a local museum, and I'll be starting a week from Monday. I'll be part-time while I'm finishing my dissertation--how cool is that?
In the evening, I manged to drag clawdia down to the south-side to go to a shape-note singing with me. Fun for me to be able to share this with a friend! We had a couple more folks than usual, and it was a pretty good singing (although we had to really hack our way through a couple of less familiar songs). Good times. Headed back up with her afterwards to hang out with the store refugees for a while, and I had to explain to the group just what I'd subjected her to--which caused spritelord to declare shape-note singing "the metal of folk music". Awesome.
Friday/Saturday
After all that, Friday was pretty quiet. About time, huh? Last night was sitting and watching Sex and the City DVDs after a day of writing (read: fighting with LaTeX and R), tonight will be cleaning after writing. And that sounds about right to me.
How was your week?
Sunday
One of the gamers didn't make it to an in-store demo on Sunday, so I took his seat at the last minute. Yep, I actually got to game again! First time in more years than I care to count. The verdict? Unhallowed Metropolis is pretty fucking cool. Too bad things are so busy right now...
Monday
Dropped everything in the middle of the afternoon to get Cov to a doctor's appointment. Fortunately, it was nothing major, and I was generally declared a saint for being willing to give him a ride there and back. We make an agreement to go out later in the week to thank me for the favor.
Tuesday
The last of the movies in the Chicago summer movie festival (read: free movies in Grant Park!) was "The Sound of Music", so when my labmate invited me, I had to go! I had forgotten how much fun that movie is, and how good all the performances (at least by the adults) are. The Baroness and Max totally stole the show, although I really enjoyed the Captain, too.
Wednesday
Went to a public seminar by Ramon Lopez on Storytelling as Cultural Memory. This was hosted by The Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council, which generally plans cool events all over the city. This one was right in my neighborhood, and was a topic I am interested in, so I hauled in. I'm pretty sure I was the only...well, not the only white person in the room, but the only one who was not black, or latino/caribbean. (Anyone who knows the politically correct terminology there, please speak up! A largely Puerto Rican audience, with a couple of other flavors thrown in) But hey, I sure learned a lot. Fascinating talk on the process of creating new stories as teaching tools, which really was exactly what I wanted. And I learned a bit about music and racial politics in Puerto Rico while I was at it. (Lopez wears a lot of hats--he describes himself as an anthropologist, storyteller, musician, shaman and teacher. It was an interesting set of perspectives, to hear, and he spent a lot of time rejecting simple answers during the talk and discussion.)
But wait, we're not done with Wed yet! Picked up Lex, spritelord and Cov after they got out of the store, and headed out on the promised expedition. Cov introduced us all to The Violet Hour, a "high-end classic cocktail bar". This is every bit as fabulous as it sounds--just enough background noise for comfortable conversation, huge alice-in-wonderland chairs, a handful of tasty things to keep you from being hungry and really fantastic cocktails that are worth the price. Oh, and no smoking and no cell phones (not a plus for everyone, but works just fine for me). I might believe the reviews that call it America's most exciting new bar. I had something called an "Iron Cross" that is the epitome of the potential in a pisco sour, and tasted a variety of other drinks.
Yeah, Wednesday was a good day.
Thursday
Thursday was also a red-letter day, and not just for the evening. You see on Thursday, I accepted an offer for a new job! (Yes, some of you have already heard my squealing about this) It is an education job at a local museum, and I'll be starting a week from Monday. I'll be part-time while I'm finishing my dissertation--how cool is that?
In the evening, I manged to drag clawdia down to the south-side to go to a shape-note singing with me. Fun for me to be able to share this with a friend! We had a couple more folks than usual, and it was a pretty good singing (although we had to really hack our way through a couple of less familiar songs). Good times. Headed back up with her afterwards to hang out with the store refugees for a while, and I had to explain to the group just what I'd subjected her to--which caused spritelord to declare shape-note singing "the metal of folk music". Awesome.
Friday/Saturday
After all that, Friday was pretty quiet. About time, huh? Last night was sitting and watching Sex and the City DVDs after a day of writing (read: fighting with LaTeX and R), tonight will be cleaning after writing. And that sounds about right to me.
How was your week?