Downtown- Chicago Part II

Chicago- Part II

Poor Janae! She has a broken internal GPS- which basically means she gets lost every single time she gets in the car. BUT, put that girl in the passenger's seat and give her a map and all of a sudden she's like.... Lewis... and that would make me Clark. Lewis and Clark, haha! And, despite the fact that we missed some major expressway, Lewis and Clark carried on. And, I will have you know... we made it to Gina's house without having to make one phone call for clarifications.

I got the formality out of the way and hugged Gina. Then I went straight for the baby. Sometimes... I'm afraid I am going to squeeze a baby until it's head pops off. Why do I want to do that? Janae had brought a gift for Anthony, who's 2 1/2, and so she was instantly a hero. It was so great to see where Gina lives. You know what bothers me? (A lot of things, I know, but...) when I talk on the phone with people and I can't picture where they are live. It was great to see Gina and her little family. I love those little ones of Gina's, Anthony and Lucy. Isn't it funny how much you can love your friends' babies... just because of how much you love your friend?

We ate a little lunch and pretty quickly decided that we were ditching Nick (Gina's husband) and the kids for the night. We were going to go paint downtown red. Well, about as much as some uncultured Ohio girl can. What we originally thought about doing was just riding public transportation the whole time because there's some kind of rumor going around that when I am part of an equation... something is bound to happen. I have no idea where people have come up with that. But, I think Gina and Janae decided pretty quickly that me, public transportation and it's passengers... don't mix.

We weren't even on the first train yet, also known as the L, and Gina called me "Ohio"... like it's

so obvious that I am from Ohio. Well, I can't help it when "interesting" people walk by and I look a little too long or raise my eyebrows as they pass. Why do people have to look so"interesting"? If they don't want me to look, they should try to blend in a tad bit more. Really!

We managed to take all the right L's and end up downtown somewhere.

Janae on the L reading the map.

So, here's what we were working with.... me (aka Ohio), Gina who hasn't lived in Chicago long and the time she has lived there she's been pregnant. So.... she can call me Ohio... but it's not like she gets out much. And, then we've got Miss Broken GPS. Scary! Who let us downtown?

Janae did live in Chicago for a year. She was on a dance scholarship. (I told you she could move those hips.) So, once again I found myself at her mercy. And, I am very proud to say... she got us... places.

Places like Anthropologie. All of a sudden I heard Janae and Gina exclaim, "Anthropologie!!" like it was their long lost friend. And I was all, "huh?" I thought we were going to some museum or something. Isn't anthropology like some scientific study of something? But, no... they lead me into some clothing/stuff store. I just know is took me two seconds to figure out that I couldn't even afford to look at the price tags. I mean... I guess the clothing is hip and all. Hip if you're Janae and you're tall and thin and have really cool spiky hair. But, not so hip for her friend who is definitely not tall, definitely not thin, and definitely not adventurous with her hair styles. (I've never even colored my hair.) I just wanted to know where the Ralph Lauren store was located. Not that I can afford Polo, but I'd certainly feel right at home there. I mean I saw one thing in that store that I might have purchased. It was a letter on a stick. I might have thought about buying the letter I for my fireplace... but, oh no, they had every letter BUT I. Big surprise.

See the letters on the shelf in the background? One shelf ends on H, the next one picks up at J.

We finally left that swanky store and I was looking for anything that would make me look cool. You know, Tommy Hilfiger... Gap.... Target. Instead, I hear them get all excited about a shoe store called Aldo. Why have I never heard of these places? Janae was even walking around in some really cool boots from Aldo while I was walking around in my black flats. They were all looking at the shoes and drooling. And, then one of them had the nerve to hold up a pair of shoes that looked like the ones below and say, "Don't these look just like April?" While the other one says, "Yeah! They'd go perfect with her Polo." Well, haha! I mean those two just met and they were totally ganging up on me.

We left there (none too soon) all so we could look across the street and they could get all excited about Urban Outfitters. Do I live under a rock? Apparently! Because a) I had maybe, maybe heard of the place?? b) I had certainly NEVER been in the place and c) after being in that store for a good hour, I concluded that the only thing I might have bought was this t-shirt that had a zebra jumping through the air with it's legs apart and it said WHITE TRASH (and I am totally apologizing right now if that means something really bad... because it could. I'm not really sure but I thought it was so funny) or I might have bought this book that made a whole bunch of different fart noises... I mean, only because the kids would have thought I was really cool. And at that point, I would have taken anyone thinking I was cool.

For some reason Gina tried on hats in every store... of course, we thought it was so funny!

Up to this point, we had laughed so hard that I had to declare a no laughing rule until we got some water and something to eat. I don't know what was so funny except that everything was so funny. I also know all that laughing was giving me a horrible headache.

So, Somehow we decided to eat at a topless bar. Ok, not really. We ate at a tapas bar, but every time I say tapas people think I say topless. So, I thought for at least one second you too should think I ate at a topless bar. Do they even have food at topless bars? DON'T ANSWER THAT!

We tried to put our names in to be seated and the hostess told us it would be 30 minutes. She said we could wait inside and while we were following her up the stairs, she turned around and said, "I can seat you now." We thought that was so funny. "We can seat you anywhere from 0 to 30 minutes" we said. It's been a week and the three of us are still writing it and laughing about it.

Trying to decide what to order at this place was really stressful. I don't know why. The dumbest things stress me out. We made some decisions and, when it was all said and done, Janae and I loved our food. Gina, poor thing, basically got two plates of feta cheese. Which was also really funny.

This was the picture behind us... topless? tapas? No wonder people get confused.

We laughed our way out of that place and decided we needed some Starbucks. As we were walking to Starbucks, Janae was messing with her hair. She turned to me and said, "Does my hair look messy enough?" Of course, I doubled over in laughter. I've had lots of people ask me if their hair looked ok, but I have NEVER had anyone ask me if their hair was messy enough.

We made it to Starbucks and tried to order some decaf coffee. Starbucks informed us that after 12 noon, they quit brewing decaf. I am not sure Gina was hearing any of this information. The Starbucks lady proceeded with the information and said, "Can I offer you a decaf Americano?" All of a sudden Gina piped up and said, "Now, why would you offer us that?"

I walked over to the creamer/sugar/ stir station to find Janae doubled over in laughter at Gina's question.

I realize some of this may not be funny to you, but it's my blog and it serves as sort of a journal for me as well, so I have to have a record of the things I am sure we will say for the rest of our lives. Just quit reading if you want. I'll never know:-)

We got back to the L station and got on only one wrong train. It was Gina's fault. Janae had actually said we should take a different one and once again, Janae was right. Her friends and family who have known her for so long would have been so proud of her.

We found our car. We drove past a car that was on fire- interesting. And, we made it safely back to Gina's. Pretty good for an Ohio girl, a girl with a broken GPS, and a postpartum mom.

This was supposed to be the car that was on fire. One of these days, I'll pull out the real camera instead of trying to use my phone.

There's more.... stay tuned!