finally the chicago post

ok yall i was certain that my inability to post photos on my blog again was due to severe brain damage caused by too much diet coke, when in fact it was because i was in netscape. jes suggested i try safari (which is like the mac search engine) and lo and behold, it works just fine. so here we go:

our first night in chicago was chill; alyson, nicole and rolita picked us up from the airport and we went to meet azad and katie for dinner at lucky platter. it was delicious and a great time. then we went back to az's and just chilled and then went to sleep. i was exhausted. az's new apartment is gorgeous and i especially love the "donna suite." here is az and his new ladyfriend katie:



on saturday morning az dropped us off at aly and nicoles and i got to do some abc yoga with ro ro. it was real fun and actually a bit of a work out. each letter is a pose- a for alligator, e for eagle, and so on. ro is so good and it, i mean for real. she has such strength and balance. clearly a noodle gymnast just like her mom. we spent the day shopping, but i am not sure we got much. while ro played in the play area at old orchard, jes got a new battery for her computer and her and aly looked at shoes. it was pretty uneventful except some fuckface kid bit ro ro (nicole found this out that night at bathtime). .little fucker. that night while i went to the bachelorette dinner, jes went to caribou (she was so excited about a chai) and studied and then we met up. the dinner i got was nice, a little grilled tilapia on some greens. the margaritas were divine, but dangerous and got me on the road to a night long buzz. everything was pretty chill and chatty until jodi (my old roomie stacey who is a lawyer's best friend- she went to school about an hour from univ. of illinois so she would visit us a lot) anywho, jodi busted our her present for cheryl and that is when operation penis began.



here is one of cheryl (the bachelorette obviously) with her new butt pincher- which she used equal opportunity for boys and girls- and her purple sparkly penis antennae.



and here is one of all of us doing tequlia shots from testubes: i like to call it "the beginning of the end."



and lastly, the blushing bride to be enjoying her new water gun shaped like a small penis (which one of her friends got filled with tequila...nice)

so all in all the night was fun. it was great to reconnect with my old roomies, see cheryl and her friend laura do a little scareaoke and then head to the largest straight bar i have ever been in. az and katie were sweet enough to come and pick our asses up from the bar at 1am and take us back to az's apartment to sleep. really i had a bit of a hangover the next day. just a little headache. i don't know why i drink tequla, we have an abusive relationship really.

so sunday was a truly delightful day. we spent the morning at a park near the lake and then went to miriam and zik's wedding which was gorgeous. at the park we played soccer and catch and played on the playground. here is one of aly, nicole and rolita conchita (what a pretty family) on the boat toy:



i know you can't read it, but ro's shirt says "brooklyn" actually so does nicole's. that is the shirt we got for aly but her muscles are too big for it (for real yall). it worked out great b/c the shirt look ADORABLE on nicole and the green of the shirt brought out the green in her eyes. i still need to get another shirt for aly. maybe i will do that today if the rain lets up (its finally raining here. it has been hella humid).

ok and here is a photo that ro took of me and nicole (that is why we are laughing so hard). not only is she adorable, brilliant and a yogini, she is also a budding photographer. she gets that from her momma and her uncle jes.



so after the park we went and got lunch and then got ready to go to the wedding. the wedding yall, was so pretty. first it was in this church on university of chicago's campus which is so elegant and serene. and it was so lovely in it's non-traditional set up. it was still about ritual and love but more about all kinds of love. like love of family and community and each other. it just felt more whole to me. and each person in the wedding party said a little ditty about miriam and zik which is when i really started crying. jes just looked at me like "dude why are you crying?" my two favorite "ditties" were by one of miriam's sisters and one by thabiti from emory. i liked her sisters b/c she is about five feet tall right and when she started she was like "i can't say enough about my little sister miriam, and i call her 'little' because she is younger than me and she had the audacity to grow inches taller than me." i know that doesn't really convey what i wanted to on the screen but it was something about the sisterlove in her comment and her protectiveness of miriam that was so lovely. and then thabiti who is so cute i want to put him in my pocket got up and was like "uh, i introduced them" and everyone started laughing. and then lina from emory sort of led the jumping of the broom part which was cool and then after they were all married and whatnot they walked down the aisle to african drums instead of like pacabel's canon or whatever. and everyone was clapping along. it was like a party.

so my pictures are not the greatest b/c we had this disposable camera (i forgot our camera like a tool) but here goes:

here is miriam after she got married and yes, for you emory folk, she is talking to rhea. seriously that much pretty should not be allowed in one area:



and here is miriam with her beautiful parents. her mom played the piano and sang a song at the wedding and i think her dad is a science teacher which i think is so cool. isn't he adorable?



and lastly, here is miriam and zik after their costume change. how lovely are they?



so yeah, altogether, really nice. got to see some emory folks and meet some nice people. we left a little on the early side because there was an evil demon stabbing me in my uterus (aka i had bad cramps). all i wanted to do was put on my pjs and lay down, which is exactly what i did when we got back to aly and nik's.

our last day in chicago conisted of our tradition: having breakfast at le peep in evanston. i got real lucky this time b/c i was able to gather az, aly, nicole and ro AND my friend from college named erin. after le peep we walked around evanston and did some shopping and ro played this hilarious game where she would stick her two plastic babies in the tree and then she would be a firefighter and save them. i wished i would have saved some film for that, but alas, i did not. anywho here is a post-peep picture. the hot blonde on the right is erin, you have met all the rest.



so that FINALLY was my trip to chicago. sorry it took so long to send off. now i must work on my dissertation and then do my job. happy weekend all.