Life and such: Day Two - Chicago (land)

A day of rest and exploration in Chicago. Much needed after the ten hour drive the day before. Mary has been living here for 6 years and before that went to school here, years ago. She likes it. Her apartment is great - in Hyde Park - two blocks from Lake Michigan! Great location, great space. She seems very happy here. Yay!

We got up and sort of made a plan for the day. Which we sort of followed. First up, a walk to the lake shore. It took us quite a while to actually make it to the lake - stopping and sitting at a shady bench on the way. Mom just doesn't like to walk more than twenty paces. And when she does, she complains constantly. It isn't pleasant. Mary, though, is amazing with her. I wish I had her demeanor. Sigh. We did, eventually make it part of the way that Mary wanted to achieve. (Weird sentence) She had an ulterior motive - sand bagging. She wanted to actually bag some sand to help her sprout some rosebush cuttings. And since she lives near a beach, why buy it? Mom would never have made it all the way to the beach and back in a timely fashion (under 3 hours). So we sat on another bench while Mary walked to the beach, nabbed her sand (from the overflow on the concrete near the beach) and hurried back to us. All told, maybe 10 minutes. Mary kept waiting for the police to pounce!

The walk back was fairly smooth. Going back always seems a little less onerous for mom. We stopped at the same bench we used the first time, but had to ask the woman sitting there if we could share. She graciously allowed us to sit. We chatted about this and that - I showed her Flippety, since she had an iPhone. And she talked with us about Christian Science. My mom has had a lot of experience with Christan Science. Maybe Ernst and Betty can tell me about our relation to Christian Science and who the woman was whose portrait we have in the dining room is.

Next stop, lunch! We went to Snail - a Thai restaurant, run by a person that Mary knows. The food was good, the service was fast and the ambiance was pleasant. Yay! Mary tried something new to her, and I had beef and broccoli which wasn't as Thai-like or gingery as I would have liked. Still tasty, though! And a Thai iced tea. Yum! Mom had a spicy shrimp curry - I think the best dish of the three.

Nap time! We went back to Mary's apartment and sacked out. For a long time. I got some work done - mostly on Flippety - added a button to erase the high scores, added a clean-up method. I think I want to add a call to bring up an alert window so that there will be no glitch when one is actually called later in the game. And I meditated for a bit when I heard snoring from the other rooms.

We had sort of planned to take a drive around Chicago for a tour. Mary, though, understandably, seemed reluctant to give up her parking place. Apparently parking in Hyde Park is dog-eat-dog like. The tour didn't happen. We did go and look at the lovely garden in the back of the building. Mary had planned for us to walk to the dinner restaurant, but mom started to fuss before we had taken ten steps and I just wasn't going to walk three blocks with her going on and on. So I drove. Yes, I gave up my parking space! We got there way earlier than anticipated so the owner set up a table for us. The place was really, really full! Apparently there is a graduation going on around here just now.

Dinner was good. I like eating at Italian restaurants because nothing is bad. But I don't know what I like, so I just order whatever strikes my fancy. Mary had clams, mom had salmon and I had tortellini with peas and bacon in a cream sauce. All tasty. I ate all of mine. I am eating way too much...

After dinner, I dropped mom and Mary at the apartment building and went in search of parking. Luckily, someone pulled out right around the corner from Mary's place! Yay! That will make leaving today a little easier. I then walked (about a mile) to Woodlawn Tap (aka Jimmy's) for a beer. They had some local beer on tap, so I tried it. The Leinenkugel Red again had a little dirt taste. Can anyone tell me what that is and why it is there? The Argus IPA was good - not great. Hoppy but not overwhelming. I chatted with the owner a bit and a couple of other people before heading back for a good night's sleep!