Monday, June 13, 2011

CUBE 2011; Chicago Underground Blues Experience

Apparently we lost May as well.  We're in a flurry of preparing for a move to DC and everything else seems to fall by the wayside.

I am, however, at this moment in Chicago, as we spent the weekend here for the Blues Festival and the late night dances organized by the local scene, which altogether comprises the event we call CUBE.


As a group, united by Twitter, we attended and moved around the festival, dancing on the lawn or asphalt, whichever suited the stage. (I'm sure photos will crop up on Facebook, which is fantastic, as I took none of the event.)  Per the usual, we ate amazing food, most particularly at Orange and Nohea.

Digging into a dish at Orange called Caprese benedict.

Rosco Street - where Anna (our host) lives

Last night (Sunday), we had an out-of-the-ordinary jaunt.  We had a BBQ dinner with a group of ten friends, and then walked down to the evening dance venue, which was in a restaurant.  But neither David nor I had our dance shoes with us, so after a few dances each, we decided to mass-transit it back to our hosts place.  Usually I do the navigating, but we use David's iPhone. (My palm is amazing for calls, texts, and email, but the maps and browser are not on par with the Apple's genius.) Last night David got us directions back to Anna's house, but he didn't ask me for her address; he just put in the street she lives on.  When we got three-quarters of the way to where the directions were taking us, I asked to take a look at the map, because we appeared to be no where near where we wanted to be.  As is happens, appearances were completely correct -- we were an hour (by foot) from Anna's apartment. 

So we took stock.  Looking around was not particularly reassuring: lots of graffiti, no one out on the sidewalks, seedy-looking bars on two of the street corners, and bars over all the windows.  Most of the signage was in Spanish.  David called a cab company: they could have a cab there in 20 minutes or so.  I checked the bus schedule: the next bus was due in 26 minutes.  Having no other options, we hung out on the abandoned street corner until the bus arrived, at which point we gratefully boarded.  We didn't make it back to the dance - by the time we got to Anna's place, we had lost an extra hour and we were exhausted.

Miraculously, because we got to bed so "early," we were up this morning at 6:30am, and trekked on down to Starbucks (which was the only place open) for some caffeine to tide us over until a breakfast place opened. 


I will leave you with this: on my way to take a very large cup of coffee (read: fuel) to our host who had to work this morning despite getting in very late from the dances, I encountered this sign on a bookbinder's studio:

"Studio hours 11ish to 7ish frequently"

These are the business hours I want for my life.

No comments:

Post a Comment