accidentally fabulous

the summer has been a rush of plans, activities, events and friends so far. may flew by, june has come and gone and though i've had a great time staying busy, i was very much looking forward to this past weekend of having absolutely nothing to do. my biggest goal for the weekend was to go to the grocery store and perhaps do something that somewhat resembled physical activity. maybe.

so when the roommate initially proposed that we visit the taste of chicago for dinner on friday night, my first reaction was to wonder why in the hell 2 sane chicago residents would venture to the taste on opening night. however, the weather was gorgeous, i had no other plans and the list of participating restaurants and food vendors was too tempting, so hunger won out over common sense in the end. we headed to the taste and thoroughly enjoyed tapas portions of samosas, curry-spiced fries with chutney sauce, toasted ravioli, falafel, cheesy garlic bread, pound cake with fig vodka butter sauce drizzled with chocolate (i just drooled on my keyboard) and - just for you arrested development fans - frozen chocolate covered bananas. (10 cents, however, does NOT get you nuts) all in all the food was great. i won't even go into a description of our fellow taste attendees - that would have to be another post of its own. suffice it to say, i will never be returning to the taste of chicago again, but i am glad that i went once to sample lots of yummy goodness. the end of the night consisted of a movie and a bottle of wine, which was exactly what i needed after stuffing myself silly.

having no set plans on saturday, i slept very late, had lunch outside at one of my favorite neighborhood places, played tennis, went to the grocery and had a fabulous healthy dinner. later that night i went out with friends and we simply sat outside, had a few beers and just enjoyed good conversation and the nice weather. after the friends left, roommate and i headed across the street to the irish pub where we had a couple more beers, met a romanian guy who gave us a grueling geography lesson and bought us a round, and finally got kicked out by the bouncer when the bar was closing. we stumbled home and i don't even remember my head hitting the pillow.

sunday dawned sunny and warm and begged everyone in the city to come out and play. i obliged, going with the roommate to the beach and lying in the sand, soaking up some sun, and dozing to the new ryan adams cd on my ipod. it's been a long time since i felt sand between my toes and relaxed to the backdrop of vivid blue water. having worked up quite an appetite with all of our outdoor activity, we abandoned the beach in search of mexican food, outside seating and some margaritas. we found what we were looking for in logan square and a pitcher of margaritas later we were spontaneously on our way to the pontiac for honky tonk bingo. very few things compare to sitting outside, drinking beer, and listening to a vulgar man with a thick country accent call bingo numbers and give away shitastic prizes like rubber chickens, cardboard airplanes, hot wheels, and crayons. amanda was one of the lucky winners - she got a 1000 piece puzzle and you better believe we'll break that bad boy out one of these nights. honky tonk bingo night would not have been complete without some country music and fulton county line gave us our fill. after a couple beers and several rounds of bingo, we decided to be responsible and call it quits. driving back toward our apartment, we approached a certain bar which, for reasons that need not be discussed or rehashed, has been dubbed "the gates of hell." as luck would have it, there was a parking space right outside and it was as if amanda's car parked itself and chucked us out in the direction of the bar. once inside we chatted with the bartender and ended up having drinks and doing a couple of shots with him and his friend. finally after midnight we payed our tab and headed to the nastiest of nasty - the taco bell.

tucking in after 1 am with my belly full and my head fuzzy, i had to smile about the weekend. it was stress-free, fun, and everything just fell into place from the weather to the bars to the random people we encountered. it's the kind of weekend you just can't plan for and you don't want to end. muy bien!