when I die, I want to go to verin_the_brown's gym
Saturday bright and early we flew out to Chicago to visit friends. verin_the_brown and her husband (who I'll call Orcus for the remainder of this piece, because it amuses me) and baby Malaprop.
We went to this amazing breakfast joint called "The Bongo Room" where I had carrot-cheesecake pancakes with vanilla bean sauce, and verin had The Chocolate Tower, a fearsome confection of chocolate french toast with bannanas drizzed in bittersweet chocolate. A dessert pretending to be breakfast. Most decadent breakfast ever.
Then we sprawled out at their condo in the converted hull of a giant Nabisco building. Very trendy and urban chic - except for, you know, the whole roofing issue. Nav and I were in love with the light, and the windows. Orcus offered us a fine Bordeaux. Many pictures were taken, including way way too many of baby Malaprop. He has an unerring nose for when someone is pointing a camera at him, for when the little range-finger lights up, it's like he's being hypnotized and his expression goes slack.
Eventually we met up with my friend Brad (totally not his name) and went out to see an improv show. Some of it was very very funny, some of it far less so - they definitely did better on short bits than when they tried to do a musical off of the phrase "Jew Camp Reunion." You can imagine. We stayed at Brad's condo, and I'll confess that I was envious how affordable housing was in his neck of the woods.
Sunday morning, Verin took me to her gym so we could work out. Calling this place a gym is like calling a penthouse suite "a quaint little cottage." It was a city block long and at least that deep. It had a concierge desk to store valuables, juice bar, store, daycare -- oh, and many many machines, benches and whatnot. It was almost like old times, spotting each other on the bench, except for the insane opulence and lack of crushing depression. Verin was newly back to doing weights, and I hadn't run in a good long while, so I was embarrassingly red-faced after the good twenty-minute jog, but it felt good.
We didn't really do anything touristy; we just were there to see friends, eat out and talk about everything and nothing. We even got to meet up with piperjoy who looked radiant in her goofy snow hat.
Monday was a late leisurely breakfast with Brad, before he went off to work, and then a long walk through an Arboretum with verin and Malaprop. It was a low-key and relaxing end to a busy weekend in the city.
Chicago is big and broad and sprawling, with vast desolate industrial tracts, and gorgeous rows of townhouses and condos and glittering skyscrapers. Everything is stone and brick and steel; trees are scarce and the sky is huge. It's strange to come back to a city that brought me so much grief and realize just how much my isolation in the barren wasteland of the South Side colored my view of the entire city; it'd be like being marooned in the bad parts of Roxbury or Dorchester for two years and then seeing Davis Square for the first time. Of course not still being a starving miserable student, able to eat at actual restaurants and grab cabs without a second thought, made a huge difference as well. I can still remember walking down the Miracle Mile (a long stretch of swanky high-priced restaurants, boutiques and stores) and realizing that I could afford absolutely nothing. In some ways, it reminded me again of how fortunate we've been, of how far I am from where I was. Sometimes it seems like another lifetime. Good riddance.
We went to this amazing breakfast joint called "The Bongo Room" where I had carrot-cheesecake pancakes with vanilla bean sauce, and verin had The Chocolate Tower, a fearsome confection of chocolate french toast with bannanas drizzed in bittersweet chocolate. A dessert pretending to be breakfast. Most decadent breakfast ever.
Then we sprawled out at their condo in the converted hull of a giant Nabisco building. Very trendy and urban chic - except for, you know, the whole roofing issue. Nav and I were in love with the light, and the windows. Orcus offered us a fine Bordeaux. Many pictures were taken, including way way too many of baby Malaprop. He has an unerring nose for when someone is pointing a camera at him, for when the little range-finger lights up, it's like he's being hypnotized and his expression goes slack.
Eventually we met up with my friend Brad (totally not his name) and went out to see an improv show. Some of it was very very funny, some of it far less so - they definitely did better on short bits than when they tried to do a musical off of the phrase "Jew Camp Reunion." You can imagine. We stayed at Brad's condo, and I'll confess that I was envious how affordable housing was in his neck of the woods.
Sunday morning, Verin took me to her gym so we could work out. Calling this place a gym is like calling a penthouse suite "a quaint little cottage." It was a city block long and at least that deep. It had a concierge desk to store valuables, juice bar, store, daycare -- oh, and many many machines, benches and whatnot. It was almost like old times, spotting each other on the bench, except for the insane opulence and lack of crushing depression. Verin was newly back to doing weights, and I hadn't run in a good long while, so I was embarrassingly red-faced after the good twenty-minute jog, but it felt good.
We didn't really do anything touristy; we just were there to see friends, eat out and talk about everything and nothing. We even got to meet up with piperjoy who looked radiant in her goofy snow hat.
Monday was a late leisurely breakfast with Brad, before he went off to work, and then a long walk through an Arboretum with verin and Malaprop. It was a low-key and relaxing end to a busy weekend in the city.
Chicago is big and broad and sprawling, with vast desolate industrial tracts, and gorgeous rows of townhouses and condos and glittering skyscrapers. Everything is stone and brick and steel; trees are scarce and the sky is huge. It's strange to come back to a city that brought me so much grief and realize just how much my isolation in the barren wasteland of the South Side colored my view of the entire city; it'd be like being marooned in the bad parts of Roxbury or Dorchester for two years and then seeing Davis Square for the first time. Of course not still being a starving miserable student, able to eat at actual restaurants and grab cabs without a second thought, made a huge difference as well. I can still remember walking down the Miracle Mile (a long stretch of swanky high-priced restaurants, boutiques and stores) and realizing that I could afford absolutely nothing. In some ways, it reminded me again of how fortunate we've been, of how far I am from where I was. Sometimes it seems like another lifetime. Good riddance.