Cherry Heering!

Three and a half days in Chicago.  What a blast!  [Reader beware: This is a long, boring dear-diary post]

Little J and I made the 4 hour drive through torrential downpours, hail, lightning, uphill both ways, etc on Thursday night.  Our hosts K and B had a delicious (and quite romantic) steak, pasta, and asparagus dinner waiting for us with a beautiful view of the city, and then we had a quiet night in (if you can call hot pepper vodka, milagro tequila, delirium, la chouffe, and a vicious wrestling match quiet).

Friday, we took a hungover trip to the Museum of Science and Industry to see Body Worlds.  Great exhibit, though the baby development exhibit with the fetuses was a little upsetting.  Highlight of Body Worlds?  When I rested my elbow on a display case and the penis almost fell over.  What can I say?... not even dead, plasticked penises (penii?) can stay up for me!  We spent the rest of the afternoon sampling 40 year old booze from J's granddad's liquor cabinet. Most of them were okay, the best being a vanilla liquor that the boys thought would be great on pancakes.  But the most noteworthy of the bunch?  Cherry Heering, "a popular, dark-red cherry flavored liqueur made in Denmark"  Apparently when Cherry Heering is about 30 years old, it looks like iodine, stains your teeth yellow, and at best, tastes like bad cherry flouride at the dentist's office.  Cherry Heering definitely made the night -- in the midst of a pretty lame game of speed quarters, it became the punishment for losing a rebuttal.  Talk about incentive to make the shot!  After everyone was pretty well liqueur-ed up and the crab legs were gone/all over W's pants, we all headed to John Barleycorn and shut down the bar dancing. 

Saturday was a day of sight-seeing.  Little J, having stayed home the night before got us out the door pretty early for a 3-mile hike to Millennium Park, with a detour on Michigan Ave to Saks.  After taking a tour of the University Club and oohing and ahhing at the view from the upper deck, we headed over to a friend's to watch the Barcelona vs. Manchester game.  Our cabbie was the worst driver ever, but made up for it by offering to chase down the car in front of us, and he didn't seem to mind I was about to projectile vomit from a combination of laughing too hard, car sickness, and a hangover.  After Man U's horrrribly depressing loss, we headed to a house party about a half-block from the Belmont-Sheffield Music Festival, and ran between those all night.  My night ended passed out on Winky's couch while the boys serenaded me with an improv song called "Only Girl in the Room."

Sunday and Monday were spent relaxing in Libertyville.  Epic thunderstorms prevented us from playing outside on Sunday until the evening, when we somehow tricked a fire into starting despite the dampness.  I had my first exposure to Mississippi Mud, a disgusting Black & Tan packaged in brown jugs with an alligator on the front.  Not surprisingly... tastes like mud!  I stuck to the Bitch Bubbly, and before you knew it... we wound up in the pool until about 1am.  Spent Memorial Day either laying on rafts in the pool, or involved in an epic water fight involving super soakers, water pistols, and about 150 water balloons.  The drive back was lovely... belted out some Bieber tunes, ran away from skeevy guys who chased us down the highway trying to blow kisses/flash us the shocker, and made it home and in bed by 10.

"Asians just can't help it.  You see a camera, and the

peace sign goes up-- it's genetic!"

Two 4-hour car rides and a long long weekend have sparked some interesting post ideas.... so stay tuned!  Tomorrow's post:  "top or bottom?"

L