Better than nyquil

Phew. That was sad stuff yesterday talking about my buddy’s dad, my friend, Jack. I guess I’m still melancholy today, I dunno why. I was just thinking about stuff, like going to taste of Lincoln ave this weekend. My buddy Worm is gonna go. So that is cool. I haven’t hung out with him in a while. Thinking about Worm got me thinking about college and the band we used to play in, and all the fun shit we used to do. Not just the fun shit, but my attitude back then was different. I had more enthusiasm back then for sure. I had a lot more confidence, or just youthful exuberance. Now I find myself brooding about stuff a lot. Sometimes I feel that same exuberance and I’m just on top of the world, and other times, I just don’t. I don’t know. I guess you get older, you get more introspective, you def get out of touch with young people. I was eating lunch yesterday with young people and they were all chatting about stuff, going out, getting hammered. I didn’t have anything to add. Oh well. This weekend should be a good time, and it will be nice to hang with Worm and anyone else who comes out to taste of Lincoln Ave.

I had a roller coaster weekend, and it all started on Thursday. I had the day off on Friday, so I could let loose on Thurs. A woman contacted me on OKC and wanted to meet. I’m always good with that. I could tell by her profile, that we might not be the best match. I didn’t find her very attractive. Some people don’t photograph well, so I thought that she might be one of those, so what the heck. She wanted to meet at a coffee shop. I don’t drink coffee. I don’t like coffee shops. It was Thursday, which was like Friday to me, so I suggested the Gage, an upscale bar off of Millennium Park. I got held up, and she was there when I got there. It was good. It might have been one of the best dates I’ve ever had. It just worked. It was a little stilted at first, but some good conversation started flowing after the beer kicked in. She is really an interesting person, she acts, she’s into music, and she’s a new Catholic. I was floored by this one. She recently became a Catholic. I’m a Catholic, and I like it, it’s tough, and there’s a guilt thing. I haven’t met too many people that became Catholic later in life, it was fascinating to me. She went into how Catholicism made her feel freer, I forget her reasoning, but it was working for her. Listening to her enthusiasm for the faith sort of inspired me to look at my faith a bit differently. Good talk Russ. So after we got a bit jingled, we decided to take a walk. We went up to Mill Park and we both hit the rest rooms. Then we cruised up to Pritzker Pavilion. There was a really groovy latin ensemble playing and the place was pretty crowded. We found a spot on the lawn and just sat there listening to the music. I have to say, it sounded really good coming out of those speakers suspended above the field, the music definitely surrounds you at that place. I had some foodstuffs from work, and I hadn’t eaten, so I offered her a granola bar which she graciously accepted. I busted into a banana. I only had one water, so we shared it (vicarious spit swapping.) It was a nice moment, and it shows how nice a date can be. The problem was, for how interesting she was and everything; I just wasn’t feeling the sparks. I had to run to catch the train, and she was ready to roll. We walked a ways. She had to catch the el. We hugged and that was it. I’m not the type to just blow somebody off, especially someone that I met in person. I just wasn’t feeling it though. So I manned up and sent her a message saying I had a great time and she is a special person, but I’m not feeling any sparks. She said thanks for the message and good luck.

I think I mentioned before that I planned to take my kids to Wisconsin Dells. The more I thought about it, the more I didn’t want to go. If I had the money, it would’ve been different. I just figured, why go to Wisconsin to do a bunch of stuff I can do right here. So I decided to have an adventure weekend with the kids, just get out and do a lot of stuff, just like if we were in Wisconsin Dells. WD has a lot of water parks, so on Friday, we hit the biggest water park in Illinois. It’s about an hour from my house, not too bad. The place was big. It was crowded, but I’m sure it’s worse on Sat and Sun. The rides were pretty fun. My personal faves were the giant slide that just goes straight down, although the water wedgie is an unfavorable byproduct of that ride. Next I have to go with the boomerang, which was basically a giant funnel. It would rock to actually go down a funnel, but that would probably be too dangerous. The way this thing worked is that you get 4 people on a raft and you basically go down around a corner and then you just drop straight down. The drop is pretty awesome, much better facing forward than backward though. The speed from the drop sends you shooting up the far side of the funnel, then you come down and go back and forth til you come out of the funnel and into the pool. It doesn’t sound that sweet, but the first drop is a doozy. I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m a huge, huge fan of lazy rivers. That is def my favorite ride. Sometimes when I feel crappy and just need to chill, I’ll close my eyes and just picture myself floating down a river lying on my back. The lazy river is a realization of this dream! The only difference is when random kids biff you in the head as they go by and fight with their friends, or the kids jump on me when my eyes are closed, that’s not part of the dream. Anyway, I did some sweet floating down the Lazy River. The place was huge, they also had a wave pool and like 5 other waterslides that were just tubes. We stayed there til it closed, 7pm. When we got home, we were all pretty beat. The kids wanted to watch a movie, so I went looking through the free flicks on On Demand. We ended up watching The Sure Thing. I guess that movie is only PG-13. It’s borderline for sure. I’m not sure if it was kid appropriate, but they liked it. They had a lot of questions about shotgunning beers. I told them to ask again when they are 21.

On Saturday, we caught the train to Chicago. I’m never a fan of taking the train on the weekend. I’d rather just drive. The train is a real pain in the ass, but the kids wanted to do it, so we went to the train station. We got there about 10 minutes early, and the train was 21 minutes late. Bad start. Finally we got downtown, and our first stop was my work. We were planning on going to Dues for Pizza later, so I didn’t want to feed them too much, although we were all starving. So we made the mile trek to my office before we ate. When we got there, we made a mad dash for the kitchen. The kids pigged out on cookies and Dr. Pepper, I grabbed some cereal. That was a good stop, we got our grub on and cruised. The kids really liked the office, it was nice, it’s nice for them to see where I work and get an idea of what I do. Next the kids wanted to hit the Lego Store. I was letting them choose the itinerary. I wanted to hit Millennium Park, they had no interest in that. Off to the lego store we went. I knew that they were filming Transformers 3 on Michigan Avenue, so I knew this would be a pain, and it was. I couldn’t get over how many people were standing around looking at basically a bunch of trucks and cars with covers on them. There was nothing to see there, no cameras, no stars, no decepticons, nothing. But people were lining the block trying to catch a glimpse of something. It was fairly annoying. We made it to the lego store, and after about an hour of deliberation, everyone decided on a purchase, and with minimal pain, we got this part of the trip handled. Well sort of. We had to go back and exchange something, because one of my children had buyer’s remorse on the escalator. I’m used to it.

By this point it was around 430, and we were all pretty famished. The kids were really not in the mood for Pizza, so I let them choose. They all wanted burgers, and they wanted to get them at Boston Blackies. Well BB had closed down, but the BB by Michigan Avenue had reopened under new ownership. The burgers were the same, very tasty. You just can’t beat the kid’s meal there. For 4.99, you get a burger, fries, and a drink. The burger is an adult size, like a half pound. They don’t let adults get the kids meal, unfortunately. Next time, I’m just going to graze off of my kids. My burger was 8.99, no fries, just burger. They probably have a rule that you can’t order a kids meal without ordering an adult meal. If they don’t, they should. So after BB, we were trying to figure out what to do. The kids wanted to go to the top of the Sears (aka Willis) tower. I was good with that. I figured it would be an easy do cuz the loop is usually a ghost town on the weekend. Wrong. Hour and a half wait. Eff that. It was like 540, and I wanted to catch the 640 train. I didn’t want the kids to have to sit around for an hour, so we went over to the water taxi stand. I figured I would take them on a quick round trip boat ride. I didn’t think it would take more than a half hour. Wrong. The boat ride was to Navy Pier and it was about 630 when we got there, no way we could get back for the train. Not much choice but to check out Navy Pier and catch the 840 train. We grabbed some Ice Cream, played some miniature golf, made friends with some people on the mini golf course. At mini golf, we had to skip around, so we jumped in front of a group of 10 people golfing together (who were basically the reason that the whole course was backed up). The other reason the course was backed up, everybody, pretty much, was playing one player at a time. Do these people have no inkling of the etiquette of mini golf? I guess not. You play as a foursome, just like golf, you each putt, then the farthest out putts until everyone holes out. It’s not science. If each person plays the hole solo, it makes for a much longer round. Anyway, we had to high tail it out of there cuz I didn’t want our new friends to follow us. So we bolted for the boat. We got on around 8 and I was a little nervous about catching the train. I have no idea why, but the train was off the wall crowded. WE lucked out and got seats. A lot of people had to stand, and the train ride took longer than usual. We made it home though. We were all pretty beat, so we just crashed.

On Sunday, I tried to keep the rock rolling. The kids did not find church to be that rocking, especially the hour and 15 minute mass. That’s ok though, cuz it rocked after that. I took the kids go karting. Go karting is fun, I think it’s funner when you are a kid. When you get to be oh…about…16, go karts lose some of their luster. I think the kids liked it though and everyone got to ride. My daughter had to ride as a passenger, but the boys got to drive their own cars, which they loved. WE also played some mini golf, and since we got the family package, we got to hit the batting cages. The kids didn’t want to bat, so I decided to use up the tokens. I went into the 70 mph cage and I wasn’t sure if I could even make contact with 70. Well I was using some miniature bat, and I was fouling most of them off. Some dipshit in a goofy fedora starts talking to his buddy, “he’s just fighting em off.” It’s like, “You get in here and try this, dumbass, I’m using a little league bat.” I saw some other dude get into the 70 cage, he brought his own bat. I dunno if he was testing switch hitting, but he was whiffing left and right. So it wasn’t easy. I never saw Fedora boy in the cage, I guess he’s just a critic.

We pretty much just lased around the rest of the day on Sunday. Awesome weekend though. Party packed action. Hopefully this weekend will be packed with some adult action. Taste of Lincoln.