This year it truly was a family visit only, the only headliner that looked good to me was Foo Fighters, and Lollapalooza 2017 left a persistent bad taste in my mouth, so going to it was not on my radar at all. It was just weird luck that it was the only time all 3 of us could get off work. Bill insisted on being the only driver of his newish 6 speed Mazda, so I got a good start on my reading.
We arrived in plenty of time for supper, ravioli in a rich homemade sauce and garden salad, I had to help my dad read the directions on the ravioli package, so he is having eye trouble on top of hearing trouble, but this print was small enough that I needed magnification myself! The boys did some tech troubleshooting for their grandfather, and Bill started streaming Our Planet, which was a nice pairing with the first book I dived into, "The Uninhabitable Earth".
The next morning we travellers had a late brunch (my dad was up and at it early as usual) , then we caught a Metra train for downtown since parking is a nightmare during Lolla. We saw some festival attendees at our station, recognizable by Camelbaks on the dudes, and short shorts & skimpy tops on the girls, 2 stops later the train was totally infested with them, most not wearing masks, the girls going back & forth while trying to keep their body parts inside their clothes. So we got all the people watching for the low price of a train ticket! I just hope they were all vaccinated.
Our purpose downtown was the Chicago River Boat Architectural Tour and to see my sister Diane's new place.. I don't know what Diane paid for the tour, but it was well worth it, super educational and full of photo ops, though I made better use of some than others.
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| It will always be the Sears Tower to me! |
Then I think it was Peter, Diane's partner, who thought it would be cool to walk back to their place along the lakeshore. It was very nice, and not too hot, but some of us were not used to walking 5 miles at once! So we whined a bit and dived right into the chips and dip when we got to our destination. We had a rather upscale burger cookout as you might expect in a place like this! It is technically a condo,but feels like a house and has a private entrance.
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| Bill, Ted and Joe lounging |
Thankfully Diane was able to drive us back to the suburbs though it might have still been early for running into drunk Lolla attendees.
Sunday started out at a relaxed pace but was almost ruined by DuPage Medical Group! I was able to hear the call since my dad has his phone turned up, they told him to come to the ER right away because a blood culture from Tuesday made it look like he had a raging infection of some kind. We were all baffled because he clearly wasn't sick after walking 5 miles the day before. He had been in to urgent care for a stomach bug the weekend before, followed up with his doc on Tuesday and supposedly everything was fine. After a couple hours of undoubtedly expensive further testing they let him out in time for dinner and admitted the other test might have had "external contamination" . In other words, he got to pay for their sloppiness so they could cover their butts.
Joe and his girlfriend Hannah brought their cats over for a visit before we went to dinner. My dad sits for them so it's like their 2nd home.
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| Toulouse |
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| Avignon |
Anyhow, the afternoon drama made us extra glad to be having a relaxed dinner at Reza's. Persian food is a bit different from Armenian, but still, many things tasted like what Auntie Rose would have made. We went a bit crazy on bread and starters, the tabbouli was top notch, and the eggplant dip ( a cousin of baba ganoush but slightly different) was yummy. So then when our huge dinner portions arrive, we knew we'd need doggie bags! Sadly no room for dessert.
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| My dad, my nephew Joe, and Hannah |
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| Chicken Kabob Sultani |
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| Lamb kabobs |
Then we did obligatory family photos since it had been so long and who knows when we can all manage this again.
My dad, Bill, Diane, Ted, me & Joe - Hannah took the photo
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| Bill, Ted, & Joe |
Then it was back to Minnesota and our own cats since Ted had to get back to his new job. We were lucky to have nice driving weather and no accident-causing traffic jams either way.
