crazylady's Diaryland Diary

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8.02.05

The Best Friend� and I left for Chicago about 6:30 Friday evening. After quick stops for smokes and coffee and donuts we were on our way. The drive was actually pretty nice with no major incident besides the time I attempted to light myself and the car seat on fire with a rouge cigarette. I was put on smoking probation.

It took all over 4 � hours to get there and we even found the hotel very easily. The hotel, by the way, was awful. We were on the second floor which we renamed The Hall of a 1000 Angry Cats because that is the only logical reason it smelled as badly as it did. Thankfully our room was not stench-tastic and appeared to be decent.

While waiting for my NLIG to arrive we sat in the lobby people watching. It was a very good weekend for it apparently. There was a power lifting competition IN the hotel. The lobby was swarmed with thick men (and women) in Spandex and muscle shirts. It was frightening and intriguing.

Sarah, the Chicago mom that picked up my NLIG from the airport hung out with us for a little while in the room. The Best Friend� and I ran up to Burger King for a bite to eat which I was too damned excited to eat anyhow, but I made the effort.

After Sarah left the three of us sat around chatting for about five minutes. Then, of course, someone made the suggestion we head down to the bar. There were 3 �yays� and no �nays� so we made out way to the dinky little sports bar on the lower level. As a side note, the button in the elevator that has the �LL� on it does not stand for �Lobby Lobby� as I thought, come to find out it means �Lower Level�. You learn something new everyday.

We were pretty much the only ones in the bar so we hunkered down and had a few beers. Since the scene as so dead (and the three of us being such hip scensters) we decided to head back to the room and drink the Cheap Red Wine we had brought. Hey, we spared no expense. The Best Friend� had a few glasses and went to sleep while my NLIG and I finished the first bottle and then padded (no, we really padded, we�re both tiny and cute and in our pajamas) down to the lobby to borrow the wine key again.

The night manager was an overweight middle-aged walrus-looking guy that we assumed off the bat still lived with his mother. Not that there is anything wrong with that, he just put out those vibes. He left his assigned post at the front desk to take us back to the bar so we could look for the wine key. We found it and he opened the bottle for us, spilled red wine (Cheap Red Wine at that) on his white shirt. He was very cool about it though and was probably wondering why he was opening a bottle of wine for a couple of 12-year-olds.

We ended up staying up chatting until 5:30AM and I am not surprised. We�ve �known� each other online for what, three years now? We are pretty sure we are the same person really. The fact that we were actually standing next to each other was a trick of science. We had a brunch to go to at 11AM so we figured once the sun came out we should likely go to sleep, at least for a few hours.

So I will leave with a lovely snapshot of our hotel, complete with half empty bottle of Cheap Red Wine and the amazing stationery they provided (it was two sheets of printer paper folded in half, no watermark, no nothing)

1:25 a.m. - 08.02.05

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