Home from the windy city

I just responded to so many e-mails. Woot--I feel popular! Okay, not really, but I can dream, right?

It's good to be home, even though home is still in Sarasota for a little while longer. And Sarasota is hot and boring and SO not Chicago. Grr. My kitty missed me, and he's letting me know it, which makes me feel loved ;)

Chicago was a blast. It's just such an amazing place in the summer. I got to wander around my old neighborhood, visit my old workplace and friends, travel on the train...all good. There's a particular smell in the subways of chicago...a mix of oil, dirt, and, uh, human "essence". I suppose it smells bad, but to me it just smelt like home. I used to walk through that underground tunnel twice a day, every day. They're actually renovating that subway, so I felt a little out of place for a moment there.

Let's see...what else did we do? We went to tons of my mom's AMA receptions...lots of handshaking, small talk, and free drinks. By the third night I was reception-ed out. But before that it was fun. Plus, Mom was having a blast bragging about NYU on my behalf. We got to see an awesome show at Second City...I dragged Mom out to an 11pm show, and then made her stay for a little improv thing they did afterwards. She loved it, though. And we were a bit typsy. And then we went downto catch a cab at 1:30 in the morning and I got in a yelling, cursing fight with this drunk guy. That sort of freaked my mother out. She's like 'they're going to shoot you if you do that in New York!'. Today one of the yacht club members was like 'no, no, she doesn't get...they'll shoot you if you DON'T do that.' What can I say...he pissed me off. Took me the whole cab ride home to calm down.

We went to the Blues Festival, and quite a few bars/restaurants. I went to Wicker Park and the Field Museum on my lone wandering days. And to a fundraiser my old employer (Campaign for Better Health Care) was holding. I got to meet the girl who took over after me (whose name is Sydney) and a bunch of other VISTAs. They're all like "Sydney? Sydney Nash?" Pretty cool to be known. Plus, they all still use all my materials and work off my reports and all sorts of neat things. And I fixed their Access database, which "broke" not long after I left. They were really impressed, since it only took me 5 minutes. When I pointed out that it wasn't impressive, because it wasn't actually broken, they were still impressed. Oh well. But it was really good to see Megan, who I was probably closest to Chicago. She's the Assistant Director of the Health Care Justice Project now, so they keep her pretty busy. We had lunch one day, and I also go to hang out with her at the fundraiser. Jim (the big boss) was up from Champaign for the fundraiser, and he was happy/surprised to see me. I even got a hug ;)

Well, that's about it for now. I really want to watch more TV, but the next seasons of Buffy did not, to my chagrin, finish downloading in my absence. Grrr. Then Azureus screwed up and then we lost power. At least, so it appears.