Ahhhh, the magic of the Internets.

 I shall officially be going to Chicago for a brief jaunt, come September. I'll being seeing Little Boots  at The Empty Bottle (thanks for introducing her music, Southern Brit), and I could just SQUEE.

 Except that now I really want to to watch old-new Dr. Who. Much opportunity for squee-ing in a month or so.

 Swish!


 Cheers & All

 To be brief: I had a wonderful time in Chicago! The exhibit for the tapestries was worth every single penny spent, as well as the subsequent backache I have from driving long hours & sleeping in a horrible bed. Oooh, what a horrible bed. Such beautiful, beautiful tapestries.

 The people of Chicago are, as always, charmingly insane-- I love you all! I miss you very much. If Illinois was warmer, and the city a bit cheaper, I'd move there.
  And "Ivan," wherever you are, there's a photo waiting for you (he was a real goof who was hoping very much that "some random tourist would take a picture of [me] lounging negligently against the lions" -- as I was laughing outright at his "lounging negligently" bit, I took a photo of him).

 More to report later, as I need to crash out. My old bones are a pain in my ass.

Cheers & All

 

 

 OK, I'm not ready to leave yet. But thatt's OK, my car always knows when its ready.

 I have no other plans for today except my drive to Schaumburg, and to rest up for tomorrow. I am still very much under the weather, and this is becoming a rather epic struggle between Raineth and the Plague of All Evil. Well, maybe not, but it was fun to type.

 I think I will leave around 9. I have everything together except my makeup bag (which i could easily leave behind), and I need to become one of the Cleansed. I even bought spiffy new body wash for the trip, whoo!

 OK... time to quit slacking. I'm off like a race horse...

 Cheers & All

 Oooh, I'm excited. OK, I could go on and on about my upcoming trip to Chicago, but I'll try not to. Just a little bit??

 I don't think I've been to Chicago since I went skadoodling down for the King Tut exhibit in late 2006. I kept on thinking that the date couldn't possibly be right, but it is. There's no mention anywhere in my blogs about Chicago in 2007, or this year. Lawd! What's happening to me? Missing a yearly visit to Chicago is awful! On the upside, my good memories of that silly hotel in Schaumburg (Extended Stay America) that I drove around forever trying to find are pretty clear. It was perfect for me, as my room had a stovetop (I had pasta, some very powerful garlic bread and a good table wine that I purchased from a store about 7 minutes away).  By sort-of chance, I'm staying there again, courtesy of Hotwire. It was very cheap last time and it was very cheap this time ($78 including tax for two nights), and I took a wild guess that it was the same hotel. 
 What year was it that I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, lurched to the right and felled a sign for Russian restaurant's lunch menu? I took it as a different kind of err, sign, and I went in to have the most wonderful borscht and a flight of house vodka. Mmmm, the memory of that delicious coriander vodka has kept me warm for a couple of years, I think. I was on my way to an exhibit... it might very well have been the Field Museum, but I want to say it was once again for the Art Institute. 

 And now that I've cudgeled my memory some, I believe I was going to go to Chicago earlier this year for plain-old shits & giggles, but my ex-MiL died a couple of days before my departure date, and I decided to attend her funeral instead. OK, I don't feel quite so guilty about neglecting my beloved Chicago.

 Oooh, I have to dig out my maps. Drat, I should get on the ball and figure out if anything has changed (besides the fare) for the train, bus & a couple of restaurants. Ooooh! I should see if Restaurant.com has an offer for any of my favorite greasy spoons in Chicago. I don't want to be standing around like a dim bulb & wasting time when I could be on a grand jaunt, or getting properly lost & finding new things. Triple ooooh... I didn't even think to see if anything was going on at their theatre (Oh how I loved that Kabuki MacBeth!)... Dur. OK, I'm going to zip around on the internets & see what's what...

 Cheers & All