As is known by some, I just had a birthday. In the Daly household, birthdays are things that stretch out into experiences of remarkable longness. Birthday, we ask? Nay, birthmonth.
My celebration started the day before my birthday (August 8), and took the form of a friday-night block-party planning meeting. As it was raining, we met inside the Daly household. I provided a delicious Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake, and we whet our palates on a delightful pre-mixed sangria, straight from the box. Such class.
My birthday proper, the following day, dawned sticky, hot, and nasty, so we sealed off the house, turned on the AC, opened out the sofa bed, made a grocery store run for junk food, and spent 48 birthday hours in icy isolation. Delightful.
But the shenanigans did not end there. You see, some time ago, Eamon and I attended a charity fundraiser, at which we won in silent auction a "luxury Chicago weekend": one night at the fabulous Fairmont Hotel, a gift certificate for dinner at the French bistro Marche, and another certificate for $75-worth of spa services at Mario Triccoci. My birthday wish was to add another night's worth of stay and call it a birthday. The Fairmont was all booked up on my birthday (Lollapallooza-ites apparently having swarmed even the swankiest of luxury accommodations), so we opted for the weekend following.
It turned out to be a lucky thing -- a very blessing in disguise -- as the weather was slightly less horribly hot and stinky than my birthday weekend proper, and we had only the moderate crowd spillover of the Air and Water show to contend with, as opposed to swarms of drunken concert-goers.
Behold, the festive times that were had:
* A deluxe CTA bus ride to the hotel from our Edgewater home.
* A complimentary chocolate cupcake-ish sort of thing, with "Happy Birthday" written on the plate in chocolate.
* A delicious nap.
* Attendance at Mission: Red, a cocktail fundraiser for the Red Cross, where we supped on tasty hors d'oevres, browsed the "candy bar" and sipped many a signature cocktail.
* A marathon night of rest, arising only at the very crack of noon.
* Lunch on the outdoor, open-air terrace of Sixteen, the restaurant at the new Trump Tower (the perfect location for witnessing some of the airborne mayhem of the Air and Water Show).
* A stroll through Millenium Park (with a dipping of the toes in the spitting face fountain) and down through Grant Park to the Museum Campus.
* A sumptuous dinner at Marche, capped by our very favorite of desserts, ice-cream filled profiteroles.
* An early evening of hotel lounging and TV watching.
* Late arisal at the very crack of noon.
* Lunch at the Park Grill, located just below the famous Bean (though we were scandalized to learn that they no longer serve my most favorite of cocktails, a sweet blue martini garnished with a silver-plated jordan almond. It went by the fabulous moniker of the "Bean-tini." R.I.P. Bean-tini. You served us well.)
* Considered shooting a game of miniature golf in Grant Park, but were dissuaded by rain and general ickiness.
* Retired to the hotel for a sumptuous afternoon snack of champagne, a flight of chocolates, and a huge chocolate brownie sundae.
All in all, and excellent birthmonth.
But, friends, the weekend was not just one of festivities and hijinks. Great knowledge was also shared. You see, at the charity event we attended, there was ... a tarot card reader. Those who know me well know that I cannot turn down any offer to read my cards. And when said reading is free with admission, well, that just about seals the deal.
And blissful I was, waiting in line for my reading, until it became clear that this reader -- a psychic numerologist, it turns out -- was not kidding around. One would expect speedy five-minute readings at such event. One would be wrong. This scrupulous individual lavished a full 20 to 30 minutes on each reading. Do the math, and you quickly discover that you are in for a very, very long wait.
Once this fact became clear, I suggested to Eamon that I could miss my reading. To which he replied, "What else have we got going on?," alluding to the fact that we would either stand here, sip cocktails, nibble hors d'oevres as they passed and chat while we waited, or we could leave the line so that we could stand somewhere else, sip cocktails, nibble hors d'oevres as they passed and chat. His logic was unassailable.
So stood we did, some two hours (this is not an exagerration), chatting, nibbling, sipping and so forth. We joked with the fellow in front of us, when he returned from the men's room, that he was not allowed to cut in line. He indicated he understood far too well what sort of dire straits cutting in would cause, and that he would defend the integrity of the line to the very end (well, that was the jist of it, anyway).
And so it went, until a glamorous blond came bouncing up and started chatting with this fellow. Hackles were raised. It was easy to see that her game was to chat her way to the front, where she could bypass the rest of us. I overheard her wheedling with the fellow in front of us who, sweet as pie and dimpling charmingly, indicated that she was shit out of luck.
Still, she hung on, and I rankled as only a plain little brunette can when a frowsy blonde tries to trade on her charms. I expressed my concerns to Eamon, who assured me, "Don't worry, I've got this."
So eventually, some 2 hours plus after first getting in line, we near the very front, and I seat myself on some cushions that indicate you are in the home stretch. The frowsy blond asserts to Eamon, "I'm next!" To which Eamon replies, "No, you're not."
She insists she is with the dimpled fellow in line ahead of us. Eamon laughs (aforesaid fellow had spoken of his absent girlfriend), and assures her she is not with him.
Seeing that her charms are getting her no where, she drops all pretense and queries, "Why do you have to be an asshole?"
Eamon chuckles again, and tells her that we've all been in line for a very long time, that we know she is simply trying to jump the line.
Eamon's assholishness is once again surveyed.
To which Eamon says, "Where are we? At a charity event. How about behaving with some charity?"
It is then that frowsy blonde delivers her coup-de-grace.
"But I'm a cancer survivor!"
To which, Eamon simply laughs and says, "I don't see how that's relevant."
Seeing her wiles, her blonde locks and her most likely fictious hours logged in arduous chemotherapy will get her nowhere in the face of Sir Daly, off she flounces.
(In fact, she makes a beeline for a fellow who had been in line behind us, but gave up to go mingle with the singles, and tells him "That guy stole my place in line," in response to which she received a silent and slack-jawed stare. Apparently, her cancer-survival was no longer relevant.)
I finally did receive my reading, some 2 1/2 hours after getting in line, and my faithful fellow defended my right to psychic insight to the very end.
But all of this raises a question for me. Apparently, cancer survival gets you a free pass to cut in line. I've not had cancer, but I did have benign fibroids removed. What does that get me? The right to pull someone's chair out as they're about to sit down? The ability to push over one senior citizen with impunity? A lifetime of wet willies to anyone who comes within finger-distance of me?
I only want what's coming to me.
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