The Doss is back in town: A full weekend report.
As I type this, Anne is on her way to O'Hare. She was here for a whirlwind two days, and it was just what the doctor ordered in terms of a recharge. I didn't do a lick of work while she was here, and it was nothing less than awesome.
She got into town on Thursday night, and I managed to catch up with her for half an hour before heading to bed. Friday, I had only an hour of class (!) so was home by 10:30 and pretty much had the entire day at our disposal. We hit Strange Cargo where we got some sweeeet deals ($6 sweaters, anyone? Seriously.), Ann Sather for lunch, The Gap for some necessary purchases and poked around in the shops in the neighborhood. That night we met up with Todd and then wandered over to Katja's where she had prepared dinner and offered up left over alcohol from her last party. Afterward we had some catchup time at the L&L Tavern in my neighborhood. It did indeed have a good jukebox, as was promised.
Saturday we brunched it up at Nookie's Tree (yum!) and then Anne and I took the express bus downtown to walk around the Magnificent Mile, down Michigan to Marshall Field's. That was sufficiently tuckering that we ended up coming back to my place and lazing for a few hours before heading to Evanston for Mirhiya's baby shower, thrown by Katie, Nikki, and Sarah. An excellent party, and chock full of sweet baby gift goodness. There were many things decorated with bumblebees, which I enjoyed very much. Yay for babies!
Finally, Anne and I wandered back to Wrigleyville to this bar called Wrigleyville North. Anne had seen in the Reader that they have a bluegrass band playing there Friday and Saturday so we went to see what was up. It ended up being a no-frills bar with a band that did country covers, which was still very enjoyable. There were like four people in the place, and I think that all of them were regulars, so we stood out. A rundown of our encounters:
1.
The Band: There were like five or six people in the band, and to put it as concisely as possible, I will quote Anne and report that "they were all a bunch of characters." They went from young middle aged to grandfatherly, they rocked some cowboy hats and boots, mullets, grizzly adams beards, and had to be THE FRIENDLIEST BAND EVER. They would do a set and then wander down from the stage and talk to everyone in the bar. Every single one of the guys came up to our table to chat, to find out where we were from, to ask if we had any requests, and to encourage us to come back. They were responsive as well: as soon as we asked for some Willie Nelson, they did a rocking version of "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain." The keyboardist bought everyone in the bar a round of drinks. I'm serious, these guys were so awesome. Another band member wandered in while we were there and was a deadringer for Sam Elliot's cowboy in "The Big Lebowski," which Anne and I had watched earlier that day.
2.
Older Guy who May or May not have been employed by the bar: This guy was barrel-chested, sported an iron gray crew cut, and a black t-shirt with some sort of wolf-scene on it (you know the kind). He also came over several times to chat and to encourage us to come back and told us at some point that if we stayed long enough he would "dance with one of (us) girls."
3.
Humpty: Egg-shaped fellow sitting silently at the bar. His back was to us, but he would swivel on his stool at a rate of approximately once a minute to survey the room. You could set a clock to it.
4.
Blue and Mullet (pronounced "Moulee"): A couple who appeared to be regulars who were very, very into the band and also very, very into eachother. They seemed to be good-natured good hearted people, but were fun to watch since Mullet would pat down his winged mullet throughout the night and Blue was a bit on the blowsy side. Mullet was also wearing super tight faded black jeans over his cowboy boots and Blue was wearing a low cut shirt that was, well, blue (hence the nickname). The two had disappeared for about ten minutes for a little while during the night...
Now, while all of these people were friendly, I would be negligent if I didn't talk about how much these old dudes LOVED Anne. It was fricking awesome. I could tell that they were wowed by her curls and blue eyes and couldn't get enough of it. They would come over and moon and smile It wasn't leery or gross: it was more courtly if anything. Her cup runneth over with the admiration from these gentlemen who had varying lengths of hair and varying numbers of teeth, and she couldn't have been more gracious. It was very sweet, actually.
Needless to say, it was a good night. I'm sad that the Doss has left me, but it's time to get serious about some studying. Those pesky three midterms that are waiting for me don't seem to be going away.