A weekend with Raja

Plans with aadroma (and others) meshed well and made it a full and rewarding weekend. It wasn't without its bumps, of course; I got so frustrated trying to make plans via text on Saturday morning that I finally just got dressed and hiked over to Jigglypuff's apartment, where he was staying. Honestly, it's hard to see how anyone can think coherently in the chaos of that household. But I managed to squeeze a meeting place and time out of him before leaving.

When I did, I was at loose ends, so I wandered on over to Smack Dap to give it a try. It's a nice little café and one of the employees was super solicitous about explaining the items and even giving me a little sample first. (Another was a bit more sceptical and needed some convincing that the chili powder liberally sprinkled over my fried egg with no warning really would fuck me up before she gave the go-ahead to remake my sandwich.) I even managed to screw up enough courage to chat up the handsome beardo at the next table (albeit just as he was preparing to leave).

This still left me with four hours before dinner and I was considering whether it would be worth seeing if I could fit in a showing of Us, but I arrived home to find an invitation to a meet-and-greet for the local challenger in the aldermannic run-off and I felt a civic duty to be there. The incumbent's attack campaign had gotten very nasty and is in danger of eroding enthusiasm among the Good Liberals who supported challengers in the primary.

The attendees, like our hosts, were predominately female activists d'un certain âge. It was a very pro-challenger crowd, so much so that we actually spent a substantial portion of the Q&A coaching him on what approaches might help him fight back against the Machine. I'm considering what more I can reasonably do in the scant week remaining to shore up his support; currently I'm focussing on convincing my friends and neighbours to overcome their hesitations and not sit this one out, since the low turnout means it could easily boil down to a handful of votes.

Dinner was at Strings, a ramen shop in Lakeview. Despite the trendiness of the cuisine and the gimmicky sound of the name, it was a good slurp. I'm glad aadroma insisted on eating before we went to the concert venue, City Winery, because as much as I insist it doesn't matter, paying their inflated prices for middling food would have soured me somewhat on the experience.

As it was, I had a much better time than I'd expected. I knew literally nothing of Idan Raichel beforehand except that aadroma was a big fan, and even he wasn't prepared for how charming he could be in a relatively intimate room. At his father's insistence, he skipped a family funeral to be there, and that naturally coloured how I viewed the performance. I was in an unbreakable good mood for the rest of the night, chatting animatedly with aadroma on the El and completely forgetting to settle plans for the next day until I was finally home.

Those plans were for another visit to King Spa, and that also went better than I'd expected. My journalist friend had never been and fully committed to the experience, so I got the pleasure of viewing it through his eyes as well as Raja's. We ran into so many folks I knew there that I had to defend myself against suggestions that I "know everyone". In fact, I ended up adding to my circle of acquaintances someone I've been anxious to meet ever since FB first suggested him to me and finding out both that he's way more interesting than I'd first anticipated and that he comes with an equally engaging husband.

We dropped our visitor off at O'Hare in the rain so he could make his sad voyage back home to the "Independent Republic" and then extended the conviviality by heading back to my house for warm tea. Was my pal the landscape architect who'd organised the trip just being friendly or is he sweet on me? Either way it left me feeling pretty damn good about my recent life choices.