I heart Salad Spinners and GeekDating 101

I must rave about my favorite Chicago lunch spot, Salad Spinners at the AON Center on Randolph. Aside from their tasty Sunsplash salad (extra chicken!), I have realized that they are very customer oriented as well. I ordered my salad online for pick up. When I got to the store, I had a little bit of a wait until they could ring me up. The cashier was on the phone taking a lunch order. I didn't mine as I was listening to my favorite podcast Geek Dating 101. When they finally got to me (only waited 2 minutes), I wanted to add soup and a drink to my meal. They gave them to me for free! When they told me my total, it was just for the salad. I asked about the soup and drink and they said not to worry about it! They rock. Also, props to their delicious Butternut Squash soup! Sweet and creamy...you just can't go wrong!

A Chicago first

A very cute guy offered me his seat on the eL last night. I never see this happen! And who says Midwestern boys aren't as polite as Southern boys!!?

Also on the weather front, it was the "weathermen who cried wolf" yesterday. Supposedly we were going to receive 4-6 inches of snow. While the white stuff did come down, it was too warm to stick.

Everybody is Irish this time of the year...

I was invited to my first ever Southside Irish parade yesterday. Now, on a side note, let me tell you that I've never seen so many parades until I moved to Chicago. Maybe it was just too damn hot in Florida to have parades, but seriously...this town is crazy about them. Back to the Southside Irish parade, I had heard it was pretty wild but I guess my expectations were way off the mark. My friends picked me up in the morning so we could have breakfast on the Southside before the parade. After breakfast, we park near 110th and Kedzie and walked about a mile to the parade route. We made it to 106th and Western and started to witness the debauchery that is the Southside irish parade. Obviously, people were out in all their green garb. If it wasn't green, it probably had some Irish alcoholic beverage name on it. Big hats that looked like pints of Guiness were my personal favorite. The scariest outfit I saw was worn by these girls: tighty whities with pieces of a green wig attached to their undies. ICK.

What was even ickier was the massive amount of girls "popping a squat" in the alley to relieve themselves of the copious amounts of alcohol consumed. I was a Girl Scout--I have totally peed in the woods before. But in someone's alley witha ton of people around? Yuck. Plus hearing your friend pee right behind you as you block them from view--yeah, no thanks.

Cops were out in full force and even though you aren't supposed to consume beer in cans or bottles in public, people were doing it anyways. Only on Bourbon street can you really get away with this. The cops on 106 and Western were confiscating cases upon cases of beer and tossing them into this big garbage truck. So sad to see good (or bad!) beer go to waste.

After the parade, we trekked it back to the car to drop off our stuff. Mind you, at least one girl in our group had to stop to relieve herself en route. We then head out to this bar/club called Bourbon Street, which I felt about 8 years too old for. By this point, I had been out and about for 8 hours and was dying to go home. But I stuck it out and danced for most of the time. We warded off icky stupid men and generally had a good time. However I was wearing cranky pants BIG TIME by the end and contemplated taking a $50 cab ride back home.

Overall, pretty fun but I'm too old for this crap. I did it once and came home comfortable with the fact that this was my 1st and very last Southside Irish Parade.

Oh--and no I did not engage in public urination! I'm a lady for God's sake LOL

Possible CTA strike

My friend Kim lives in NYC. She was there when the MTA went on strike. She said it would take upwards of 2 hours to get to work in the morning. She lives up by 91st near Harlem and she works in Midtown, around 51st st. She said she would take a cab in the AM and walk home in the PM.

I thought to myself, "Thank goodness that hasn't happened in Chicago"...

Well I spoke too soon evidentally.

The CTA bus drivers' union is meeting with the City gov. on Friday to determine if they can work out some deal. If not, the bus drivers are striking. Of course we still have the eL but it doesn't go everywhere you need it to. I take the bus to work everyday. I live about 4.5 miles from work. Luckily the eL is an option for me, but how about for those people who don't live near the eL?

Damn I miss my car :(