Who Wants to Have an Adult Sleepover?

Summer is coming to a close here in Chicago. The past several months have been packed with all the things you'd expect from summer in the city: we had the chance to take in some "Shakespeare in the Park," we enjoyed some local outdoor festivals (where we tried our 1^st bacon doughnut), and we grilled out at the community garden.

A few weeks ago, we even had a chance to see by brother, Jon, and his wife, Andrea...for about an hour. It was rather unexpected. They were flying back from a mission trip in Haiti with the youth group from their church, and they were supposed to catch a connecting flight home to Kentucky from O'Hare. Because of a delay, they ended up missing their flight and made the decision to “sleep” at O'Hare. So Cary Anne and I drove out to meet them, and we spent about an hour catching up and hearing about their trip.

A couple of weeks later, CA's birthday rolled around. After she opened her gifts, we decided to head downtown to eat at an Irish restaurant Cary Anne wanted to try. Sadly, as we were walking out, Cary Anne shut the door before turning to me and saying, “You have keys, right?” I did not. So CA managed to lock us out. Luckily, since it was just the push-lock on the knob, we were eventually able to successfully McGuyver our way back in to our own place. (You can read about the whole ordeal over on my comedy blog.) So we ended up at dinner at The Kerryman about an hour later than we anticipated. It was actually a really nice night, and we got to dine out on the patio. The food was good, and we were endlessly entertained by the people next to us who were far too old to be having a conversation sprinkled with gems like, “In a decade, I don't think people will be getting married, because if I like a guy, I just want to have sex with him, not fight with him about loading the dishwasher” and “You can come over to my place tonight. My wife is out of town. I mean, we're not gonna do anything; just an adult sleepover, you know?”

Around that same time, I had to venture out the DMV to register our car here in Illinois. When I walked in, I was “greeted” by a large, older man on a chair wearing the lifeless expression every DMV worker has in TV sitcoms. He handed me the proper form to fill out. About half way through, I realized that the title was solely in CA's name , and she was supposed to be present to sign the form. I looked down at the fine print and saw that forging someone's information on the form could result in a $10,000 fine and up to 5 years in prison. I walked back to the large man and asked him for advice.

“Couldn't you just sign her name for her?” he said, barely looking at me.

I looked back down at the fine print. “I could...I guess?”

“Well, geez, that's what I would do,” he said, looking off in another direction to inform that the conversation was over. In the end it didn't matter because CA ended up having to fax her ID and written permission to add me to the new car title. Overall, the whole process was about as painless as you can expect from the DMV, and now were legitimate Illinoisans.

Lastly, here's our 5 seconds-a-day footage from July. Enjoy...

Celebrations (all of which involve food)

The great thing about moving to Chicago is that it has given Cary Anne and I a chance to pursue our dreams; the bad thing is that so much dream-pursuing has resulted in limited "quality time." Cary Anne has been working on shows for weeks on end, and when I'm not in improv class, I'm out trying to hit local open mics. Luckily, we have been able to squeeze a date into our busy schedules every now and then. A couple of weeks ago, I was able to see Cary Anne's show, "The Sea," and it was highly entertaining. I'm so proud of her for being a part of it. Afterwards, we walked down to a new burger joint of Belmont called Indie Burger, which combines great food and great music. The place had only been open for 3 days when we went, so everyone was extra nice and eager to please. It definitely has the potential to become a hipster hangout with all organic food and walls lined with concert posters. And since we discovered it so early on, we're like hipsters at the hipster place. Hipster Inception. However, we're not always so hip. Sometimes we just go to the Dunkin Donuts with a Baskin Robbins attached and eat with all the other fatties.

That same week end, we had a cook out at church. Three of our members were having a birthday during the following week, so after worship, we pulled out some tables and set up a feast. We probably should've started the cooking a little earlier because everyone had to wait and graze on pita chip while Zach cooked the meat (slowly) on a small grill by the parking lot, while Sam & I alternated holding the flashlight. Eventually, everyone got stuffed on burgers, brats, and chicken, and the board games came out. I passed rude, intimidating notes to the other teams during Cranium, and Cary Anne got way to into Apples to Apples. Later I created some racial tension. We started cutting and distributing the cake when Lisa came back with a slice and said, “Darius doesn't want his. He doesn't like chocolate.” Across the room I yelled, “Darius! How can you not like chocolate? You are chocolate!” He pretended to be made and flip a table. While I'm excited for our church to grow, right now I'm enjoying looking around the art gallery filled with 30 people, knowing I know everyone's name.

Then, on Monday, UK played Kansas in the NCAA Championship. I was hoping Cary Anne and I could  go to The Pony Inn for the game since it's the official UK alumni bar here in Chicago, but Cary Anne wasn't crazy about the idea since we went to the The Pony for 2 other tournament games and it was absurdly crowded. Luckily, our friend Josh called ahead. (Josh also moved to Chicago from Lexington. During the years I was working at Krispy Kreme, he was working only a few blocks away at the Movie Tavern.) The Pony informed Josh that there had been a line of UK fans waiting to get in since 4pm, and they were gonna stop allowing more people in over an hour before tip off. That successfully squashed that idea, so instead Cary Anne and I met up with Josh and his roommate, Courtney, at a surprisingly quiet bar in Wrigleyville. In the end, we all enjoyed watching Kentucky beat Kansas 67 to 59. Cary Anne kept rolling her eyes as I took to the streets yelling, "C-A-T-S! Cats, Cats, Cats!" No one joined in, and even the homeless people tried to avoid contact with me.