And Mom & Dad too!!!!

  …OR, THE BEST BLIND DATE EVAAHH!

Off the bunch of us went to Coco Pazzo for dinner.  C1 and the Goober, having come to the city to visit some old friends, were already there to greet us. 

So, we all sat down to eat, drink, and, well, talk!  Early on, the waiter came by to get drink orders, and none of us paid much attention to him because we were all talking about 3 or 4 thousand different things.  The waiter finally looked at me and said, "Okay, I'll be back in a few minutes, you get everyone to decide on the drinks."  Waaaa?  Yeah, great, pick the quietest person in the group to get everyone organized.  That'll work.  Do you guys remember me telling you all to get your drink orders figured out?  Yep, that really worked.

It was a very, very good time.  So good, we pretty much closed the restaurant.  So good, that the table next to us felt our incredible energy and felt compelled to give Mary and Jacek their doggy bag to take home to their pup, seeing as they were out-of-towners and couldn't take the steak bone with them.  So good, that we outlasted our first waiter and went on to the second one. 

When our second waiter first came to the table, C1 told him we were all on a blind date.  The waiter looked at her like she was wacked, and went on with his business.  We chuckled.  When he came back, he had someone's credit card, I think, with their full name on it.  C1 remarked that she didn't realize that that was the person's name, and the waiter, overhearing that, muttered, "Wow, I guess you guys really are on a blind date!".  Probably one of those you-had-to-be-there moments, but we all thought it was pretty funny.  Blind date indeed.

After dinner, there were lots of hugs and promises to get together again.  Dee and I went home and awoke on Sunday to T making lots of french toast.  T is the breakfast cook in our house.  I can cook a Thanksgiving dinner blindfolded with one arm tied behind my back, but dudes, I cannot flip a pancake.  The damn things usually wind up half in the pan, half out, batter sticking all over the place.  Dee spent a little more time playing with Abbey the dog, and then we were off to the airport.  And I'm still looking forward to the next ALTcation.

  …OR, MASSACRE OF THE LADYBUG!

These bloggy/newsgroup meetings have their own unique moments of hilarity.  For instance, how do you introduce yourself to someone you've met on-line, but never met face to face?

Dee and I were to meet Mindy and Mary & Jacek in front of a well-known coffee shop at the Merchandise Mart, and then we were going to head to the One of a Kind show to meet Kim & Will.   Mindy was waiting there when Dee and I arrived.  After a timid "Ummm, Mindy?" on my part, we all introduced ourselves and chatted while we waited for Mary and her husband.

Mary's intro was much cooler than mine.  She walked up to us and said, "So, are you guys part of an on-line support group?"  We all got a good laugh out of that. 

So.  Up to the show.  And dudes, Kim and Will's artwork is simply amazing:

Pictures don't do justice to how colorful and vibrant these pieces are.

Well, Kim and Will were working, so after talking and taking pictures, the rest of us headed off to browse the rest of the show.  And what a show it is.  We put in 2 1/2 hours, and still didn't see the entire show.

We had a great time talking as we browsed, discussing the wackier side of adoption, blogs, y*h@@ groups, and the like.  Every now and then we stopped at a booth to get a closer look at something; sometimes it was to getter glimpse at a funky piece of jewelry, or to gawk at the price of a tiny little sculpture, or to admire a painting.  One such booth, we stopped and stared at a painting on the wall, with a price tag of $2700.00.  Seriously.  It looked something like this:

Again, seriously.  Mindy and I exchanged a disbelieving look, and the artist happened to see and promptly came over, sweet as sugar, asking if we had any questions.  We politely declined her offer to discuss the painting.  As we walked away, I remarked that I could throw some paint on a canvas just as well, and then I'd name it "Massacre of the Ladybug", in honor of its black and red smeared goodness, and charge $2700.00 too.  The concept was a hit!  In fact, Mary said that she would jump right in on the project.  Is it done yet, Mary?  I'm anxiously waiting!

Soon afterwords, Dee, Mindy and I happened upon a booth with funky hats, scarfs, and such.  We started chatting with the 3 ladies running the booth.  What a riot these ladies were, mostly because they were on like their 6th glass of wine for the afternoon.  They were all retired, and they make these things for art shows just as a way to pass time.  If I'm having half as much fun as these ladies were having when I'm that age, I'll be doing okay.

Of course, we weren't getting out of that booth without trying out some of the goods.  So here's Dee and I, internets protecting glasses added:

<oooops, even disguised photos are limited-time only!>

No, I did NOT buy the hat, but I did walk away with the scarf.  Dee scored the hat:

You know how some people can just wear hats?  Dee can wear hats.  She looks famous in hats. 

We started goading Mindy into trying on a headband.  After much pestering, one of the ladies chimed in with, "C'mon, listen to your best friends there, try on the headband!"  Mindy and I looked at each other and cracked up.  Yeah, best friends who just met 2 hours ago, we both said.  We laughed a lot with those ladies.

By this time, we were getting tired and hungry.  We had dinner reservations for all of us at 8:00 p.m., plus we were meeting the last (but not least!) of the Chicago ALTcation group, C1 and the Goober!  Time to move the party.

To be wrapped up in CHICAGO ALTCATION, PART IV… OR, THE BEST BLIND DATE EVAAHH!

  …OR, CRAB GOO!

Saturday, Dee and I headed out late morning to Chinatown.  We did a little browsing at a couple of stores.  It had been a long time since I had been to Chinatown, and Dee had never been.

This gateway is the entrance to the Chinatown Marketplace, which has a bunch of little shops and restaurants.  We spent all of our time in Chinatown exploring the market.   Lots and lots of great little shops with tons of dish ware, sake sets, bamboo plants, vases, pottery, Buddhas, you name it.  Dee and I both scored a new purse; I picked up some tableware and Dee bought a lantern.   

I should note here that all these pictures came from Dee.  I pulled my camera out, only to find that the battery was going dead.   $^%$#%#@.

After a while, we started to get hungry, and so we started to look for a restaurant.  After browsing several options, we settled on a little restaurant, one whose name unfortunately escapes me.  The hot tea was very welcoming, as it was quite chilly that day and the wind was really ripping through the market.

So.  Dee orders Crab with Ginger and Scallions.  I order Orange Beef.  (Hey, did someone just call me "whitey"?  Shut up.)  Orange Beef is Orange Beef – nothing too unique, but it's spicy and I like spicy.  See the red peppers?  Go ahead, click on the picture to enlarge.  Yum.

Dee figured her dish would bites of crab with the ginger and scallions.

Um, wrong.

Our first clue should have been that the waitress had to run to the kitchen to check on availability as soon as Dee ordered.  What Dee got was a beautiful looking dish of barely cracked blue shell crabs in a gooish sauce.  Beautiful, but, how the hell do you eat this stuff?  Without those little crab forks, no less? 

Talk about getting into your food.  ***Disclaimer – not for the faint-of-heart***  First, we'd grab a crab, rip him in half, ignore the innards (I know, they're a delicacy, but I have a strict "no innards" policy), and and twist off the leg section.  By this time, our hands were covered in a fairly slippery coating of goo.  Then, we figured that the trick was to twist apart the leg section in such a way as to break each leg off separately with it's corresponding chunk of meat, thus giving us an ample bite of crab for our troubles.  Problem was, it got awfully difficult to twist apart the legs with the goo sliming up our fingers.

Ahhh, success.  Check out the chunk of crab meat.  We weren't going to let the crabs win at this game.  We were just imagining that the wait staff got their entertainment for the day watching us wrestle with this lunch.  Oh, the crab was tasty, though.  Very sweet meat.  The Orange Beef wasn't half bad either.

Well, after the crab, I felt that something sweet was in order.  So, we headed down to the candy store.

This store had a gazillion different kinds of dried fruits, with samples out to try.  I wound up buying some dried strawberries.  Most of the candied fruit was really good.  Also, they had lots of milk candy and some other cute novelty stuff and…

…dried fish?  (rubs her eyes for a moment)  The dried fish added a, shall we say, pungent fragrance to offset the sticky-sweet fruit.  Interesting.  I stuck with the candied fruit.

After the candy store, it was time to head north to the art show to meet up with more ALT peeps.  We hailed what had to be the stinkiest cab in all of Chi-town, with a driver straight out of the twilight zone.  Jeez.   Luckily it wasn't much more than a five minute drive.   There was much more fun to be had for the day.

To be continued in CHICAGO ALTCATION, PART 3… OR, MASSACRE OF THE LADYBUG.

…OR, ACK!  I FORGOT MY CAMERA!

A couple of weeks ago, a bunch of us ALT folks got together to visit, attend the One of a Kind Art Show in Chicago that Kim and Will were showing at, have dinner, and hang out.  It was a wonderful weekend of meeting familiar friends for the first time, of putting faces and personalities together with blog and newsgroup posts, of interesting and honest discussion and lots and lots of laughter, of warmth and sharing and promises to get together again soon.  Bloggy/Y*hooGroup meetings rock; I highly recommend one as a means of lifting your spirit.

So, Dee from Chasing China came into town on Friday.  Dee stayed at our house for the weekend; we went straight to the house so that she could get settled and meet her new best fur-friend Abbey. 

Here's where I'll interrupt with Life Lesson # 35,863 for A.  A day or so before Dee arrived, this was the conversation with A:

A:  So, who's coming?
Me:  Dee, from _________.
A:  She's staying here for the weekend, overnight?
Me:  Yeah.
A:  And, how do you know her?
Me:  Well, our internet group, the blog world, etc.
A:  IS THAT SAFE TO DO?????

Well, my short answer to A is, no, it's not safe to meet someone over the internet and then invite them into your home.  Don't you ever do that! 

The long answer is, given that Dee is:

1. A pre-adoptive parent…
2. With the same adoption agency as us…
3. And has gone through all the same background checks as us…
4. And has been certified by the FBI as not being a criminal…

this seems to be pretty safe.  Afterall, China is eventually going to be sending her home with a baby; so I don't think we have anything to worry about.  But still, A, don't do it yourself!

Or, in other words, do as I say, not as I do.  Heh.

Anyway, it was great having Dee as our house guest.  I don't think there was one moment where we at a loss of something to talk about.  Meeting these ALT gals is like a cross between discovering a new friend and catching up with an old friend. 

People sometimes shake their heads in amazement when T and I tell them that we work together.  I always come back with, well, at least we don't have to have that conversation at dinner where T will ask me how my day was, and then I'll have to rehash my day.  We know how each other's day was because we were both there, so we can move on to other, more interesting topics at dinner.  It's kind of the same with hanging with fellow ALTS; we know how effed up the adoption scene is these days, so we don't have to explain away any of that.  We can just talk about normal things. 

And, it was so not like having a stranger in the house!

So, the main events of the weekend were planned for Saturday; however, we had plans to meet Anne Marie at a great comfort-food restaurant in the city that night.  I usually figure that a trip into the city on Friday night will take me no more than 1 1/2 hours.  Just as we were ready to leave, I find out that not only was there a police emergency near the neighborhood we were going to, but that there was also a train accident on one of the commuter lines, which meant that there would be additional traffic on the roads.  Wonderful.  The trip wound up taking us 2 hours, which made us 1/2 hour late in meeting Anne Marie.  EEEEK!

And, alas, Dee and I realized sometime during those 2 hours that neither one of us remembered to bring our cameras.  So, sadly, there are no pictures of Friday night.

Anne Marie wasn't able to make it to the show on Saturday, so it was great to be able to meet her on Friday.  We had a good dinner and sat for a bit afterwards chatting about lots of things.  The night ended way too soon.  In hindsight, I wish that we had taken some time to see some of the Christmas lights in the city after dinner, since Dee had never been to Chicago during the winter.  Dee, you'll just have to come back next year!  And Anne Marie?  It was lovely spending time with you, and I look forward to the next time we can meet up!

After dinner, it was back to the house to rest up for the next day. 

To be continued in CHICAGO ALTCATION, PART 2… OR, CRAB GOO!

Walternatives posed the question, Where Are You Right Now?  So, I'll bite.  On this stunningly beautiful fall day in southern Wisconsin, I'm blogging at my camping trailer, as I sadly pack it up for the winter:

Ahhh, and the humble little table I sit at.  So, trailer furniture is all, well, kid's size.  Which means T looks like a giant sitting in the chairs, but they suit me just fine. 

Hmmmm, normally there's a beer on the table next to my laptop, but since we're packing up, the fridge is empty.  Usually in September, I'm ready to get this place closed, but then when we have a day like today, high 50's and sunny, it's hard to leave.  No one else is around right now, and it's very quiet.  Except for the chipmunks running around.  And the R&R playing in the trailer.

The next picture shows my lifesaver for this past summer, my Sprint PCI card.  There is no internet access here at the campground, and although the card doesn't pick up a high-speed signal, it is a little faster than dial-up.  Next year we should have a high-speed signal for the card up here.  I may come up here with laptop in hand and never leave.

And there you have my blogging home away from home.  The sun is setting rapidly, and I refuse to turn the gas on, so I better get back to packing.

Addendum, 10:21 p.m.:

Back at home, still with my laptop, this time at my favorite perch on the couch.  Conveniently, there's an electric outlet next to the end table, so that I can plug the laptop in.  It's a comfy couch, but I miss my trailer already.