Day 1

I can look on the wall or look out the window.

     Let me tell you about my day yesterday.  It was the first day of being downtown on a workday since my summer break started.  It was the kind of day that I envisioned when I would daydream about living downtown this spring.  Actually I'll add a tidbit about the night before as well because it allows me to post another picture.  On Sunday we went to church in Lisle and had a graduation party to go to but we also made a trip to IKEA.  Now that is not my typical place to shop, but I actually suggested it this time because I wanted to find something to put on the wall at the apartment.  I found something.  So Sunday night we came downtown and I hung my new purchase in our living room.

     Monday arrived and the only thing on my agenda was a retirement party back in Lisle at 5:00 pm.  This woman I know had to work so she was up and moving around 6:00 am and that got me up as well.  I'm pretty sure she enjoyed leaving for her 6:30 start time at 6:15, another reason we are downtown for the next two months.  I looked in the fridge and saw that we needed milk.  I went down the elevator and across the street to the building that houses a Treasure Island grocery store and bought a bottle of Oberwies 2% and came back up and had breakfast and started planning my day.  I decided that I would go back to Lisle early and finish up a few loose ends before the party.  I also decided that I would take the train.  Union Station is 3.25 miles away and that gave me the perfect opportunity to do a couple of the things that I love, walk and people watch.  For an observer like me, Chicago during early morning rush is visual chaos.  It was great!  The train ride, chores, and walk from the train station in Lisle to my house were uneventful.

I read a Facebook post about a free
concert in Millenium Park so I stopped on
my way home to the apartment...Sweet.

     The worst part of my day was the retirement party, not the party itself but my misinterpretation of an email that said this year the party was going to be more casual than last years.  I took that to mean casual attire and so I wore a polo with shorts.  I was the only one of 150 or so guests that made that misinterpretation.  It was very embarrassing.  Since I was only going to stay for an hour going back home to change wasn't much of an option so I just toughed it out.  I'm sure I added a couple of levels to my weirdness quotient in most people's minds, but I hope no one saw it as me being disrespectful.  I caught the 6:38 back to the city and reversed my morning course.  I did stop at a concert for about 10 minutes and then went back to the apartment.  The doorman (yes we have a doorman because we're cool like that) said there was a package for us.  It was our cable box so I hooked that up when I got up to floor 51.  Timet to eat.

     Eating at 9:00 pm in Lisle doesn't happen often for us.  In fact there is about a 50/50 chance that by 9:00  pm in Lisle we are already in bed.  But hey this is the Summer of Brick so anything goes.  We ate in the same building as the Treasure Island at the Bistro Pacific  that serves pan-Asian cuisine.  I had the Chicken Pad Thai and TWIK had Bie Bim Bop.  I'm giving it 4 out of 5 bricks for good food and better than average Chicago prices.

     So that was my exhilarating first real day in the Summer of Brick.  I logged 8 miles walking, did the commuter thing, embarrassed myself among my peers and colleagues, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.  In the words of Ice Cube, "Today was a good day".