So Much Time, So Little to Do
Wait. Scratch that, reverse it and there you go.
This weekend I made up for the last few, which have been relatively lackluster and relaxed. In true form, I managed to keep myself busy from the minute I got off work on Friday to basically now, Sunday afternoon (and I’m not done yet!). After getting home Friday, I hopped in the shower and did a quick presto-chango act so I could turn around and head back downtown with Scott for a friend’s surprise 30th birthday party. It was held at Villian’s Bar and Grill, which is a place surprisingly close to my office that served a wide variety of reasonably priced beer along with their food. We arrived with plenty of time until the birthday girl’s appearance so we went ahead and ordered dinner while we waited. We both got the portobello sandwich although I opted to get mine in a wrap so it was at least slightly different. Unfortunately, the sandwich was where it was at as my wrap was falling apart and messy as hell (and I’m already sort of messy so this wasn’t a good combination, especially since we were all hanging around on a giant stage that had minimal tables and only a weird, fancy couch to sit on). Anyway, Scott’s was better but my friend’s husband brought a giant cookie cake so my appetite was satisfied. The bar has a cool, rock/goth/music vibe but the servers were all pretty rude – I’m not sure if it was part of the schtick but they could have at least pretended that they were working for tips. By the time the woman of the hour showed up, though, nothing mattered but making sure she was surprised and surprised she was (at least, that’s what she said). It was a successful party and I got to see some folks I hadn’t seen since probably this time last year and meet a few new people who were interesting and entertaining. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay all night because a) I had stuff at the Field to do on Saturday and b) we were lame and kind of tired.
True.
So Saturday I got myself ready and walked out to go to the museum. For those of you blissfully unaware of the goings-on related to Chicago weather, it’s been mild so far and most of the snow we’d had was melted by this weekend. However, it was colder yesterday morning than it had been and despite the sunny skies, dangerous slabs of ice lurked around certain corners. I found one of these sneaky patches as soon as I got outside and I was on my ass before I had any idea what was happening. I sort of twisted my wrist as I fell and I definitely landed on my rear end, plus my pride was a little bruised since both Scott and some random girl from my building witnessed what happened. I didn’t break anything but I’m still pretty sore, so that’s awesome. Nevertheless, I managed to go into the museum and successfully lead my very first tour on Maori carved artifacts – even if my group did just consist of one polite young woman from South Korea. She seemed interested and asked a few good questions and by the time we were finished a few friends from work had arrived so I ended up giving them the entire tour in reverse. It actually all worked out because if my first group had been really big I probably would have been really nervous and pissing one’s pants while speaking in public is inconvenient, to say the least.
After hanging out at the museum, I swung by the grocery and picked up some food to take to my next event, a potluck Pow-Wow at the American Indian Center of Chicago. A group of Maori and other New Zealanders are currently in town deinstalling the latest traveling exhibit from the Field, the exhibit on Whales. It originally came from a museum in Wellington and is going to Ottowa, next so they’re in the process of transporting it there. Scott and I were invited to the Potluck by my volunteer coordinator and we were really glad we went because the dinner was good and the entertainment was better. We watched Indian men and women sing and dance and we joined in some of the circle dances as well. Another tribe from Hawaii taught us some hula dances and then the gang from NZ busted out their instruments made from bone, shell and wood and played a little of their music. It was really cool and extra convenient because it was close to home. After that and a quick trip to one of my favorite places, Trader Joe’s, the night was complete.
Then this morning we headed out to Mystic Celt for the annual Common Pantry volunteer brunch. Such. Good. Food. We also got t-shirts and who doesn’t love some free clothing? We all gorged ourselves silly. But now I can’t move, hence this long and winding blog post. I’m stuck. I’m also supposed to be going to the gym in a little bit. I think now is a good time to take a nap and after the hectic weekend I’ve had, I need it. Besides, I have a birthday next week – I’m not getting any younger and apparently staying busy and falling on icy sidewalks now takes a lot more out of me!
