Taste of/it's just lunch

Crazy sun-baked guy with sign at the Taste of Chicago (an insanely crowded annual event downtown with basically food and drink and many, many people.If you are from Chicago, you usually stay away from downtown for a week...) I LOVED the people watching.

OK: I'm nervous now.

I just set a first lunch date for tomorrow - he's in the neighborhood and is coming by my work. I dunno. Weird for him to see me in that environment? Maybe. (I also just realized that I scheduled it right in the middle of my Cardio Pilates class. I can't decide whether to see if he can change it to a bit later,, and then go to lunch with me slightly sweaty and out of breath, or whether I should skip class and just go to lunch, since I'll miss enough work anyway.)

I think I'm also nervous because, unlike the other dates of this past week, I don't have any new dates to look forward to, so this is kinda the end of the line. And of all of them, this one I have talked to most on the phone before meeting, and I like his voice. A lot. He's funny, too. I can tell it's different, because am starting to really worry about my looks. Erg.

In other news, I geekily hosted a music trivia show downtown as part of the Department of Tourism's crazy "Art of Play" promotion this summer. Not a lot of people showed up. The questions were pretty hard, and, since we wrote them 6 years ago, were also a bit old and out of date. I had to do a lot of ad-libbing and probably skipped about 10 questions because contestants didn't even know enough to guess. It went fine, though. Got paid, and made a fun sash for the winner to wear, a nice sign, etc. Also got to wear my red straw cowboy hat in public - that's always fun!!


Robbie Fulks and band on the Illinois Lottery stage. GREAT show.

Also, since I had a great parking space and was down there anyway, went to see the Hoyle Brothers and then Robbie Fulks at Taste of Chicago/Country Music Fest. I also got some food first, because I was starving. There was a dance floor at the stage, and in between the two sets, I learned two line dances! That was super fun. Then my friend A arrived, great to see her a little, and she is feeling better, and E came down too, but I didn't see him until afterward. We all went and got more food afterward.

In both food excursions at the Taste, I spent a total of $14 (you have to buy tickets in $7 strips), and here are all the things I ate with those 22 tickets:

- an incredibly delicious chocolate covered frozen banana with nuts
- a "taste portion" (just 3 tickets) of curry fries
- a "tp" of italian fries - with parm. cheese and herbs on 'em
- roasted corn on the cob (yummy!!)
- a "tp" of (like, one-fourth of) a cheeseburger from Billy Goat's, which was not as good as I remembered it from when I was 8
- a "tp" of a delicious chopped salad from Lou Malnati's, which makes me want to eat that now, for dinner.

OK! With that, I'm off to try to cram in everything I haven't done in 37 years (and mainly, in the past week) into the last few hours of my Sunday. Have a good week!