dinner with doofus.

I spent most of the past week in Chicago, hosting-slash-attending a HOW conference for freelancers. It was the first event we've done for this group, and by all accounts a home run.

Friday after the conference wrapped, Bill picked me up and we spent a fun weekend together. He introduced me to Algerian crepes and to Vietnamese food that afternoon and evening, and then we hit a neighborhood spot Saturday morning for brunch. The place bills itself as featuring coastal southern cuisine, and it was all grits-and-gravy goodness.

We hit two (count 'em) farmers markets on Saturday morning and stocked up on items for an all-veggie dinner: a rainbow's worth of cherry tomatoes, some fingerling potatoes, some local broccoli, arugula, goat cheese, beets, bread ...

hello, b.

A shout-out to Rob, who's on his way to Bangkok for business, via this lunchtime post. Hi, B! I figure your flight should be arriving at the Bangkok airport in about an hour (I checked online, and it's an 11-hour time difference from here to there). After this trip, you'll probably never want to set foot on an airplane again! (Except maybe for our upcoming trip to St. Barth.)

Things are super weird when Rob is traveling; I find that I don't much mind being alone, but don't particularly love it, either. I tend to not have wine with dinner, get a few projects done in the evening, and then go to bed early and read. Wrigley is funny, too -- he's more clingy than normal, he barks when he thinks a car is pulling into the drive (Is it him? Is it him? Is it him?) and seems to sense that something isn't quite normal in his little world. I suppose you could say the same of me.

back in bloomington.

Spent a fun 24 hours or so in Bloomington, where we managed to hike all around campus and town in spite of some really cruddy weather Saturday night. We watched the (very good) first half of the IU-Michigan State game at Nick's. Nick's is awesome: It never changes. The waitresses are rough around the edges but sweet, the crowd is a mix of Bloomington types (was that Ralph Waldo Emerson in the front booth?), the food is consistently good for a college bar. We recalled spending many weeknights there in our senior year at IU, especially during basketball season, when pitchers of beer were cheap and the popcorn just this side of stale. Halfway into my second pound jar of Killian's, it occurred to me that there's a always a point during the evening when the beer starts to taste a bit sour. Thing is, that happens earlier than it used to. (Oh, and we watched the truly awful second half of the IU–Michigan State game from our room at the Grant Street Inn. And feel asleep. Not that we missed anything.)