You look happy--did you see a kitty or find a sticker on the ground or something?

Ok Chicago—at this point it may not be possible for you to be any cuter. Seriously, I don’t understand why anyone would go to Disney World if they lived in Chicago, because to kids who grew up here it probably looks rather glum—a sad and hollow specter of what a really charming and adorable town should be. Because today I realized that Chicago doesn’t leave the cute in its near suburbs or in-town neighborhoods—Chicago brings the cute to the business district.

I’m currently freaking out from cuteness as a result of the Christkindlmarket, and month-long annual German marketplace set up at the Daley Plaza in Chicago’s downtown Loop. I went there today during my lunch break with a couple of friends from work. It is primarily German-themed (and I’m talking real Germans manning and womanning the booths), although I saw booths from Peru, Ukraine, and Poland as well. The Daley Plaza is outside the Daley Center which houses, among other things, the Cook County Circuit Court. For the month before Christmas, it is transformed into a freaking German village, complete with indoor attractions including the most authentic German candy store I have ever seen and a BAR (of course they constructed an indoor bar in the plaza outside the building housing the Cook County Circuit Court. This is Chicago! There might be a bar inside the actual Daley Center for all I know). There are no fewer than three candy shops, two stands that seem to sell nothing but intensely elaborate beer steins, and more Christmas ornaments than you can shake a stick at. And I’m talking about the ludicrously colorful yet terrifyingly delicate kind my Grandma got from my Great-Grandma and gave to my Mom, not some southern Christmas Store crapola.



There is also a life-size crèche and although I am not entirely comfortable with the appropriateness of a life-size crèche outside the Cook County Circuit Court building, to be quite frank the unmitigated adorableness of everything else kind of made up for it (that’s how they gettcha, isn’t it? Seriously: all you insane southern county judges, if you had been smart you would have surrounded those old ten commandment slabs with a couple of litters of French bulldog puppies NO ONE WOULD HAVE NOTICED your silly reactionary tactics.)

In any case, I will be back to Christkindlmarket ASAP and I will buy lots of candy, eat some sweet cheese fritters and potato pancakes and possibly buy one of the many pickle ornaments
for my Christmas tree. Happy Holiday season!!!!





ALSO there is a Holiday El Train...that carries Santa around with the commuters.

You've come to tell me somethin' you say I oughtta know

We have had quite the weekend! Friday and Saturday were both awesome, in very different ways, but both in ways that were very CHICAGO......

Friday night Disc0 and I had my (rescheduled, due to an unfortunate influx of work last weekend) romantic birthday night on the town...we stayed at the Peninsula hotel (oh so fancy, even though we were a few levels down from the suite last graced by Brangelina) and dined at Avenues, stuffing ourselves on Chef Graham Elliot Bowle's 10 course palate menu. There was only one dish that both of us agreed was "just good." Everything else was absolutely amazing and lived up to all the hype: the wine, the service, the view, and the FOOD. It was also very unpretentious, which was most welcome. The Peninsula also gave us a lovely bottle of champagne since it was my birthday, which aided in my falling dead asleep in a well-fed stupor.






Saturday was the 40th birthday celebration of one of Disc0's good friends from his days working in advertising. The birthday boy is a musician, so his band had a reunion show and he also hosted sets by two Chicago-based country bands. His band was super cute, playing lots of angsty songs he wrote 15 years ago, and they're all really good musicians. Can I just tell you that I am possibly more into country music now than I was living all around it in Atlanta? At the party, I was exposed to the band that I think will fill the empty space in my life where Atlanta bands Hot August Knights, Kingsized, and Amy Pike and the Last Cold Beer used to be: Fulton County Line. That is, I will follow them around and go to their shows and learn their set list and be a weekend groupie again. I'm pretty sure the lead singer is a bona fide cowboy, and if not he sure dresses the part from his boots to his beard to his hat to his full length duster coat. And he does a pretty kickass shimmy while he croons and yodels (you heard me!) They have a standup bass, a pedal steel guitar, and electric banjo and I love them.

Now we're spending the day doing some prep work for our first time hosting Thanksgiving! We are sooo excited to see our families! Yay!

Andersonville: Revisited

I know I've talked about Andersonville before, which is just a northbound hop, skip, and a busride from my hood. I love it because it evokes my Swedish and lesbian heritages, etcetera. But I've only really been there during festivals, of which Andersonville host many. So disc0 and I decided to take a little vacay and spend the afternoon there yesterday.

It was delightful.

We rediscovered the feminist bookstore Women & Children First, where I became immediately ashamed of the fact that I had just the day before ordered Alison Bechdel's memoir from Amazon.com. Am a moron?! Not only is there a great feminist bookstore not so far from me, but they have a website from which you can buy any book in print!! I will not let this happen again. The sales clerk was very kind when I had to admit the indiscretion (because I was buying another Alison Bechdel graphic novel--the one in which the bookstore at the center of the story line has to close because of online and big box bookstores!!--and she recommended the memoir).
Then we had delicious coffee at Sweet Occassions
, an adorable bakery/sandwich shop/coffee shop. It didn't even make me mad (very much) that they already had Christmas decorations up (wait until after Thanksgiving, dudes! WOW!) because they were so friendly and the coffee was so good. I'm more of an espresso drink gal when I have coffee at all, but when I ordered a latte they told me they were not allowed to make espresso drinks! Because there is a Starbucks in the same set of buildings, and so their lease says no espresso drinks! As evil corporations go, Starbucks generally gets pass from me, and in this case the Starbucks was there first...but damn, let the Mom n' Pops make their lattes! Sheesh. But as I said, their non-espresso coffee was fantastic, and the same can not be said for Starbucks.

Then this morning we went back and had a Viking Breakfast (well disc0 did, and I had Swedish pancakes with lingonberries). It was delicious and presh--you know I love a place where the sign says Valkommen or Vilkommen and they serve limpa bread...