I’m so hacky!!*

My terribly generous parents UPS’d me 4 boxes of linens, kitchen things and towels.

Puzzlingly, there was only 1 pillow in the box but 17 boxes of 3-year old diet food had been packed up from the garage and shipped to my Lincoln Park place. Daddy later explained that he was worried I would run out of money and he thought I could eat this diet food when I couldn’t afford groceries. No word on why a pamphlet about “Historic Women on Stamps”  or a print-out of an email from a wedding client in 2007 were included.

Remember those “before” pictures of my empty apartment? I can now reveal to you the stunning “after” shot. I hope you’re sitting down.

I now have a bed!! Still no table, chairs, sofa, TV or internet. Heck, I don’t even have mail (a problem that is becoming increasingly more annoying as the weeks wear on.) But a bed is a great improvement over a lone towel and the hard floor.

Just when I thought my week couldn’t get any better, my friend Kelly arrived Thursday morning from Athens for a weekend visit. And she brought presents (Georgia peach coasters and a copy of  Tina Fey’s Bossypants which I may or may not have already read 2 times through.) We ate some lunch, rode the bus downtown (I am obsessed with riding the bus! I will sometimes just get on to ride around like a homeless Vietnam Vet), walked around Macy’s, saw Millenium Park, walked in the Art Institute Museum, ate deep dish pizza at Giordano’s (thanks again, Kim!) and then walked most of the way home in the rain because I don’t know how one-way streets work.

 

Kelly, posing with some guy she met at a club.

 

On Friday, we woke up, ate some breakfast and set out to see some real Chicago landmarks: the homes of Larry & Balki and the Winslow Family.

 

Larry & Balki's Apartment

The Winslow Abode

We stumbled upon Oz Park, saw Wrigley Field, ate a cupcake at Molly’s and went to the World’s Most Pretentious Hipster Movie Theater** to see Win Win, a very likeable film. The evening ended with a pleasant meal at Oodles of Noodles where we each pulled a muscle rolling our eyes at the party girls seated next to  us.

Saturday, we took a stroll through Lincoln Park and walked along Lake Michigan. Despite the overbearing fog and lack of sun, I still managed to get sunburned. I think it’s my spiritual gift – to sunburn even in the absence of sun. Afterward, we headed to Old Town where I showed Kelly The Second City and the Training Center (that makes me feel like Jared from The Pretender or Jason Bourne in Bourne Ultimatum), we had some lunch and walked back uptown. We cleaned up and ate supper at The World’s Most Diverse Restaurant**. They had gyros, American-style Thanksgiving dinner (turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes and dressing), Japanese stir-fry, burritos and more. We then saw an improv show at The Playground Theater which was most enjoyable and hilarious. One half of a delightful couple from Ethos performed with her improv group and the other half sat with us during the show. We may or may not have made another trip to Molly’s.

Sunday, we worshiped at Ethos where there was fantastic music and a very solid message, further cementing my decision to choose that church. Brunch was consumed in record time, we grabbed Kelly’s bags, jumped on the bus and raced (at a public transportation rate) to Midway airport where Kelly boarded her flight in the nick of time.

It was a delightful weekend. It was even warm on Sunday! In Georgia, 81 degrees** on an April day is chilly but everybody in Chicago was parading around in shorts and flip flops like it was full-blown summer.

*If you haven’t watched every single episode of Ruby on Netflix Instant, please go do so. I’ll wait. Are you back? Do you find Ruby increasingly obnoxious but can’t stop yourself from clicking “Next Episode”? Me too.

**Somebody needs to teach me how to do that little TM thing or the copyright C in a circle. And the degrees symbol too.