first things first - bathrooms are pretty important to me, after all, are they not very intimate experiences? airplane bathrooms freak me out - 'nuff said. now, on to more important things (?)...

tt and i will collaborate together on this string of vacation entries as we fly back toward the bay, sf, and our home (not to mention three attention deprived kitties.) the stewardesses feed us shredded chicken and wine, cashews and cake as we to type, hovering around our glasses like bees. today we are first class.

�this whole trip has been first rate, first class spectacular actually � but there are reasons for such exuberance. mostly the reasoning stems from tt's former forced travel habit from which many miles and free bookings have come...but also it was my birthday surprise weekend. (!!) i promise, it does get more and more interesting as the weekend progresses...just bare with the excruciating details (this is a trip to log/remember i am certain.)

wed/thurs

our redeye flight out from sf was pretty uninteresting, actually. shame to waste a first class ticket (so many points!) when they expect you to be sleeping the whole time. i watched tt sleep, does this count? no fun meals - i refrain from calling craptastic roast beef sammiches fun - no movie and no odd happenings.

side note:funny, i said collaborate earlier on, ...there is some sleeping involved this time around too. *shrug* i have the clouds and wine to keep me company as i type...plus, he tends not to mind waking up every now and then to my *poke*poke* to read and comment on what is written so far, after all, this is a team/partnership/duo effort today. i envy his ability to sleep, yes, especially in moving vehicles (i cannot count the number of planes, cars, trains, etc. he bobbed his way through this weekend - heh.)
back to business...

thurs continued

we fly and fly and arrive finally in chicago, delayed only slightly by layover fog in pittsburgh (so close, yes, but the airports are still closed to ticketed passengers, and a half hour of time is not much to schmooze in any case.) by now it is AM and we wait...and wait...at the cab stand for our ride. tt has it covered so i amuse myself with discourse on what it would be like to have that limo (ew), that caddy cab, that armored car as our ride...ooooh! what about that bmw! that would be cool, jag or a mercedes - fun fun! as if on cue a pretty pretty mercedes pulls up and we are chauffeured off to our hotel. surprise! and sink back in to the comfy leather - we hold hands and pick out buildings from the chicago skyline.

chicago is industry made, so it has much the same feel as where we grew up, only much larger and slightly scary (so big! so shiny! so intimidating! so dirty!) we pull up underneath the tracks - elevated subway line tracks - and step out to our hotel. i now think of the hotel as a holiday inn (perhaps slightly cleaner) with a very impressive lobby and funky halls/elevators, but walking in for the first time was an entirely different and unbiased experience. the entry/lobby is about three stories high with carved and mural-ed ceilings - marble and antiques littler the room, statues gleam from every corner, bell hops carry our luggage. this place is freakin' huge...i am impressed. we cannot actually check in until the afternoon, so we drop off our things and off north on the train to see fuckboy and his kitty (this being a human, not an actual cat you understand.) we lunch with many shy glances over at our new, and B-ute friend...and shop for bday boots. this is the funk place of the city, the cool and cheap, the bizarre and black - armed with bubble tea and umbrellas we window shop our way down the street. soon it is time to part and clean up after a long night/day of travel, but on the way to the train we do take time to revisit an early boot discovery and the bday boots are mine! we still need to find cufflinks for tt's special b-day shirt, but we are dirty/tired and need to get back to check in to the hotel.

hotel rooms are good for a few things: random and frequent sex, hot showers and if you are really lucky, hardcore porn. this was a good hotel, but alas, the actual rooms were strangely familiar in decorative style (why oh why cannot even four star hotels match the carpet, curtain, upholstery and bedspread patterns? i mean, sheesh, if you are going to put flowers everywhere, at least make them all the same kind. this irkes me.) there was a pretty marble fireplace and an interesting apparatus in the office window opposite ours. it is a microphone? a fan? a camera? we left the curtains open the whole time, just in case (and of course.) shame and shame, we know. *shrug*

so then there was dinner in the fancy schmancy hotel restaurant (the wine was good...) and nummy micro-beer with fuckboy and more later with kitty after we picked her up from work (she art models - yum!)

we were totally zonked by the end after two days of no sleep. it was time to crash...and back to the hotel we went (thanks for the ride, fuckboy!)

friday, May 21st (!!!)

there is something about a birthday song sung softly in your ear with arms hugging you from behind in the shower - something sweet and timeless, something super cute. i am thirty today, in my thirties and ready to rock (or whatever.) this is an excellent morning for sleeping in and brunch exploration - we found the most awesome jewish deli (adas (aidas?) - go there and enjoy yourself next time you are in chicago - this may be an order.) our bellies brimming with fruit, coffee and lox, our heart full of wonder, and we were off! ...back to the hotel for our jackets/camera etc. and a day of window shopping and cufflink hunting - we have heard of a good place to get funky/art jewelry down michigan avenue (Pistachios!) and plan to hang around there until the afternoon when fuckboy and kitty are free
...i'll turn the entry over to tt now to tell the tale:

so at this point i have a plan in mind. unfortunately, my plans are confronted by a questioning ja who wants to get to the hotel room in the most efficient manor. i, however, would rather stroll though the hotel lobby (as opposed to taking the direct route to our room via the nondescript 'street level' entrance) back to pic of hotel lobby. "why are we going upstairs to the lobby? why? why? why? why?" i endure a barrage of 'whys' at a loss for explanation. grrr. we arrive at a relative spot of seclusion in the main lobby, at which i ask ja whether or not we should perhaps go shopping at the art jewelry place for a ring...for her. i have to raise an eyebrow (or two) for her to begin to get the gist of my meaning ;) . "I just can't wait any longer, and don't want to ever be without you", i say to an increasingly comprehensive, blushing ja. she knows. "are you asking me a question?", ja stammers. "will you marry me?", i ask now wondering if i'll get the answer i hoped for...

of course, at this point i am on the verge of tears, shuffling my toes and feeling a bit weak in the knees. *nod nod nod* behind my hands is all i can do. perhaps it is a sort of justified revenge - after all, even questions asking the obvious deserve answers stating the obvious, so, is that a yes? and i chirped out a little yes, and then a few more just for emphasis. i really had no clue this was going to happen, or that this was a main objective of the trip. i spark, i glow, i feel as if i will burst as we squeeze each other tighter and tighter again - so happy. i never thought i would have love this big, huge, encompassing. i never thought i would be asked to share someone's life (even after living with tt for three years, i only had hopes and dreams, not certainties.) before the trip, actually, i had hoped this would be the time - as it seemed perfect - it seems it was perfect timing for us both.

after a celebratory roll in the proverbial hay we hopped in a cab and went temporary engagement ring and cufflink shopping. we found cufflinks (Pistachios turned out to be fun after all!) but no ring, although there was an amazing lalique ring we window shopped at sax. the ring is more of a dinner prop than anything else (we were now planning to announce it to fuckboy, daver and their respective kitties a dinner) so were not anxious or bothered too much by not finding a ring while out - as a matter of a fact we found a fun marquisette one back in the hotel gift shop (of all places) which sufficed quite well.

ethiopian dinner and announcement were fun, although we missed the davers' company...and ice cream after was great!

side note: there was an ancient woman working at the ice cream parlor (the evil ice cream crone, who knew!) who had been working there for over fifty years. she grumbled and complained, threw the check down and rushed our order. kitty happily announced to the lady, it's her thirtieth birthday today, ...and they just got engaged!!! commemorating and congratulating us - to which the lady replied, um hum, are you guys going to share that? they were busy and we ordered two huge sundays for four people, but still - sheesh! her heart was cold as her ice cream and as dead as her future. we had a good laugh over it though, for sure.

sat/sun

saturday was nummy brunch and aquarium fun. we went apartment hunting with fb and kitty and had a group veggie indian food dinner with old friends. it was good to relax a bit and chat a bit, throw in some manta rays and whales and you have a pretty exciting day!

sunday was brunch and new friends (and jettas!) and home... we look forward to seeing our kitties again, but we will miss chicago, our friends, and the thunderstorms! at least we have documented the trip and engagement in excruciating detail so we can revisit it again and again.
heh.

time to pack up the puter and land. there is not any date or detail info, we are going to need a bit of time to get used to the words fiancee and betrothal before we even think about anything else.

eeeeeep!