Sushi?....Maybe!

Yesterday to celebrate the birthday of one Mr. OutOfShapeGuy we stayed downtown after my commute from the burbs. I had originally planned on taking the train that got into downtown around 6pm. That plan was still in place, but I had decided to leave my office early and work on my thesis edits at a Caribou Coffee near the Wheaton train station. This way I could get some coffee (which of course was the most important part of the idea) and get out of my office for the last hour that I wanted to work. However, once I was in the Caribou the place was jammed with Wheaton College students and I realized I had left my iPod on my desk so I wouldn’t have any way to silence the masses.

So I decided to just take the train I usually take, then I could work downtown. I knew this plan wouldn’t work as well because I would see Jason and be all, “OH MY GOD HOW WAS WORK? DID YOU MISS ME? I MISSED YOU!” and get all chatty chatty chatty. Days like yesterday are days that I really dislike Metra. The train that was supposed to get in at 3:54 at Wheaton, actually got in around 4:14pm, so about 20 minutes late. Which is annoying, because really....I never take Metra if I ever have to be somewhere on time. This happens a lot with the line I ride because there is interference from freight trains or something. I mean OK, 5 minutes is no big deal, but we are talking 20-25 minutes late, so what’s the point?

After getting downtown Jason had to wrap some stuff at work so I met him at the Au Bon Pain that is next door to his office building. From there we walked in the rain and cold over to the Panera that is on State. Street, with me screaming the whole time, “OH NO, WHY WOULDN’T WE WANT TO MOVE TO CALIFORNIA??? REALLY SUNNY WEATHER AND WARMNESS AND WHATEVER??? NAH, LET’S STAY HERE IN THIS BULLSHIT.” I get cranky in a big way when this time of the year won’t just make the turn to summertime.

So anyways, we went to Panera where I could finally work on editing my thesis and Jason was working on blogging....on this website no less. So he goes to publish it and there is an error message that says something like, you have used the alloted computer time during the rush hours. I was like...a) there is no one here and b) he had been using the computer for maybe 20 minutes. Jason went to ask and they were like, well it’s dinner time it’ll be back on in about a half an hour. We looked at the sign on sheet where it clearly said the rush hours were from 11-2. Whatever, either have stupid free wifi or don’t. Independent coffee shops like Barista would never do that kind of thing. So Panera = super lame.

After having a beer at the South Loop Club on State, just south of Harrison we headed to Tamarind to meet folks for theMan’s birthday. I’m not one for sushi, but Barb mentioned that they had lots of stuff on the menu. Jason, Mike and everyone else ordered sushi, while Barb and I stuck to some regular dishes. I got the red curry with chicken which was a-mazing. However, looking at some of the sushi rolls that Mike had ordered I was intrigued. I tasted one of his philadelphia rolls (dude! they have cream cheese in them! nothing is bad with cream cheese) and I was hooked. Jason got some kind of spicy mahi rolls (I think...?) that had some avocado on the tops of them. I tried that and was also hooked on it. We got our own order of philadelphia rolls since apparently I was going to be eating more sushi than I had originally thought. That’s not to say that the red curry wasn’t delicious though because it was, and I don’t know if I could have a full meal just on sushi alone, but wow those were some tasty morsels.

(Note: I am writing this post on the train....amazing how much longer and more rambley they are when I don’t have so much of a time constraint since this is basically just free time anyways.)

Today I get to have lunch with my Fermilab friend, Prashant so that should be fun, as it’s always good to see him. I have a talk to give tomorrow and so I’ll drive home since I know I can’t count on Metra to get me anywhere on time. Tomorrow afternoon, I am going to Athletico and have them look at my achillies....it seems to be getting worse as pushing on the gas pedal today when driving into the lab was a bit twingy. I just don't want to do something worse to it. They have a free injury screening so we'll see how that goes. Boo. Not. Happy.