4. Driving

Mary and Madelaine decided that they would miss me so much that a girls' weekend before I leave for forever was a requirement. Since I am flying out of Chicago on the 12th, obviously the answer was to drive me down and see a show. Late Night Catechism was fantastic. I have never seen it before, so I was very excited.

But, let's back-up a moment. This weekend there was a Brad Paisley concert, so all of the hotels were hella-booked. We stayed in Skokie (cookie bonus) and as we drove up to the hotel, we realized that there was a super-classy wedding at the conference center. Please note the sarcasm. So, we decided that driving in to see the show was a bad idea, since we were planning on having fun! The show was showing off of the red-line, so we took a cab to the Howard station. What a trip. Worst cab ride ever. He zig-zagged, did not speak English very well, and was generally bad at following his GPS's directions. It gets better...

We get to the general vicinity of Howard Station and he pulls in to Dominick's. He then gets very confused. At this point, I am starting to rethink this cabbie because he had had incredible difficulty escaping the hotel parking lot. Epic.

So, what is his go-to? Roll down the window and yell at a homeless person in the Dominick's parking lot. Surprise, surprise, the homeless person did not understand him, so he repeated himself. The homeless man pointed vaguely in the direction of the station (through the Dominick's) and off we went. I really believe that he was considering busting through the grocery store to get there when he turned and rolled-down the window again, picking a different person to yell at out the window for directions. After the man did not understand him, Madelaine shouted out the window "Howard--Red Line". He gave us slightly better directions. At this point, we are seriously considering just getting out and figuring it out ourselves. So, we finally discover the secret location of the elusive major Chicago Transit Authority Red Line Station and get out. But we can't. We pay and the cabbie hits the unlock button and we still can't get out. So he gets out and opens Madelaine's door. We were child-locked in. Never again.

So, we wait 20 minutes for the Red Line, get on, head south and wheeeeee! Apparently they are running late because they randomly announce that they are running express through certain stops. Fine by us! Until they announce that they will, in fact, be skipping our stop. At least we only had to get off one stop early.

Long story short, we made it to Late Night Catechism in time to get our tickets, get a drink, and get seated. My mother and religion teachers would be very proud, because I even got called on. After 2 other people got the question wrong (saying that Mary conceived Jesus without having sex), I appropriately answered "Sister; The Immaculate Conception is when the Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin." Yay! Sister then offered me a Virgin Mary holy card. Sweet! OR, I had the chance to upgrade if I could work the word "stain" into my answer. Here I go: "Sister, the Immaculate Conception is that the Virgin Mary was conceived devoid of the stain of original sin."

Guess who is coming to Europe with me?!?!?!

Other highly relevant Chicago update: We went to Jam for brunch. It was BYOB, so we drove around until we found a liquor store, parked, and headed in the direction of champaign. Jam was-- and I cannot emphasize this enough-- DELICIOUS.

The best part was either the food, or the waiter, or the ambiance, or the fact that when Madelaine opened the champagne, just as she pulled the wire cap off, the cork leapt off, hit the ceiling, bounced God knows where and we had champagne! We did not find the cork. We did not look terribly hard. The "POP!" rang through the restaurant and we enjoyed some deliciousness.

As Madelaine said, there is something about Mimosa that just says "Weekend."