Full days

So it's been, what, a week and a half since I wrote last? A month's worth of activities have happened in that time. That week I got accidentally drunk on a morning bloody mary at Handlebar, biked 32 miles with Ben and Mike Cart.r, had lunch with Meredith, Ben and I met up with an old high school friend to talk about the film industry, I went out for Tuesday drinks at the Store, took Finn to and from school, Ben got an internship with a documentary about Chicago architecture, I sat in on one song at 1am with a gypsy swing band at a creepy Serbian bar, was very tired, shopped till I dropped, got dinner at Bite with Ben and took photobooth pictures at Rainbo.

Then the weekend:

Birthday party gig on the beach in Rogers Park
Kids stage at Ribfest, followed by a brisket sandwich
New tires on the Corrolla
Drive to Wisconsin
Ben's cousin Jake's graduation party (at the park which was the century loop rest stop on the bike tour last year), complete with brats, Sprecher and croquet
Drive to Appleton
Cookout at Jesse's neighbors house, complete with brats, Coronas and a singalong
College partying, complete with hookah on the floor of a half-moved-out dorm room
Crashing at Jesse's new house
Sue's Bagels
The Family Church, where Jesse leads the music
Gradjamation (By the time we finished the whole crossword they were only on the Ps)
All 5 grandparents!
Lunch at a brewpub; "Look in the tunk" to find your present, a cookbook and grill!
Chillin' on Jesse's porch
Drive back to Chicago, complete with popsicles
Speeding ticket!
Straight to gig at Duke's, which was made awesome instead of awful by my tired loopiness
"Sisters" duet with Caroline= hot stuff!

It was a long weekend. I napped much of Monday. Then went to yoga. After the weekend's many brats and beers, I was feeling the need to shape up. Yoga and biking are good and I want to do more of them, but I decided to see how I might like running. I got some nice cool shorts and sporty things so I will not fear sweat and be more motivated. While I'm still feeling the effects of the run I took on Tuesday (going down stairs? ack!), it was pretty fun and was not as hard as I feared. Runner's high? True.

Yesterday I recorded some of my songs at Andrea's house, so I have at least some scrappy recordings of tunes I've written. Very exciting. Then Ben and I had a fun night. We picked up some picnic stuff (wine, rolls, pistachios, havarti, salami, olives, peaches, little piece of chocolate) and biked to the lake for a picnic. We were near Navy Pier because we were going to see Ocean's 13 after the picnic, and as soon as the sun set I was enticed by the lights of the Wave Swinger. So we went on a ride!! It was sooo fun and I laughed the entire time. I love rides. Fast rides. Aaaahahahahah! The movie was okay, but I'll take four minutes of centrifugal force any day!

Fun times ahead: tomorrow Baba Mnouche is playing a beach party family-friendly gig, and then we're going to have a photo shoot afterwards! And tonight I'm going to see the Doobie Brothers at Ravinia with a group of students and staff that have become friends from guitar class and going out on Tuesday nights. Needless to say, Ben will not be attending the concert.