5/29/09 Lord Stanley Declines His Invitation To Chicago, But We Certainly Had a Blast

So I know you're all dying to know how our impromptu trip to Chicago went, and I must tell you that despite the Blackhawks totally forgetting how to skate and pass the puck and you know, score, we had a really awesome time. The Seester and her husband Patto were fabulous hosts, not only with the feeding us and providing a decent place to sleep, but also with the incredibly touristy things like making faces in the reflection of the giant bean and taking us to breakfast at a place that served the most awesome banana bread french toast EVER (admittedly at the ungodly hour of 8am, but I forgive them for that because ya'll, I am not kidding about the awesomeness of that french toast). We even got to pal around with one of the seester's lawyer buddies, which at first sounds like the opposite of fun, (even for such social junkies like us), but it turns out that he was a pretty funny guy, even if he did seem to have an obsessive compulsion to collect all the Star Trek figurines in the kid's meals at Burger King. (Apparently he was collecting them for his girlfriend as part of some bizarre mid-western courting ritual. I know. I don't get it either, but there you go).

We also got a chance to catch up with Tony's brother, which was fun. (We don't get to see him very often, so it was good to see him too). Short of K-town, Chicago seems to have the greatest population of family on both my and Tony's side, so the trip wasn't only a hockey pilgrimage, but also a mini-family reunion of sorts.

Speaking of hockey, the game itself was gruesome to watch due to the above-mentioned failure to skate and shoot and score, but being in the crowd was fun, and the ever more-inventive taunts against Detroit ("UAW sucks!" and "We hate GM!") were interesting. Naturally, it would have been awesome had the Hawks won, but as it was, it was still a great thing to just experience.

Of course, the whole trip has redoubled Tony's campaign to have us move to Chicago so that we can see the Seester and go to hockey games and have dinner with his brother and eat banana bread french toast and make faces in the Bean and generally have a grand old time whenever we want, but I'm not 100% sold. I still have vivid memories of the minus 30 degree weather and snow drifts that come up to my neck. I am, however, considering a summer home there.

Right next to the french toast place, of course.