One Inspired Evening

My friend from work was selected along with 70 artists to auction off their artwork for charity.  I was so proud of him!  This would mark his 2^nd year in a row in which he was chosen to participate.  The invitation was cocktail attire and I knew I didn’t have a dress to wear for this occasion.  I opted for a black lace mini dress I had worn for New Year’s once and decided to leave on my leather trench the whole night.  I didn’t realize leather trenches were back in style.  Luckily I kept mine well hidden in my coat closet.  I rarely wear it because it’s heavier than my other coats.  I have never been to an art auction before.

My nerves were a mess that night.  I hate that I still get this way from time to time.  I apologized to my friend for the way I was acting.  I hate being embarrassed like this.  In the end, I finally calmed down.  I ran into another artist friend who was auctioning off his canvas painting.  He and my friend hit it off.  Afterwards, we all went to the after party at Emporium at Fulton Market.  They had some pin ball machines and we tried playing a couple of games.  In the end we headed off to Key Club on Hubbard Inn and hung out there for a while.  I haven’t been out all night in a long time.

The Luck of the Irish

This week I’m heading to my next adventure.  Obviously I’m very nervous about my flight but I’m constantly keeping myself busy.  My nerves were pretty bad last night.  Hence, time to wrap up March’s events!

After that horrible sickness, I started to feel myself again.  I made a haircut appointment on St. Patty’s Day Saturday because I wasn’t sure I was in the mood to join in the festivities.  My friends were letting me know they were going to meet up for the dying of the Chicago River.  I knew there would be a time restriction, and told them I would meet up afterwards.  I was surprised they were still out.  Needless to say, the group had dwindled down.  We stayed at Celeste for a while until my friend grew hungry.  She ran into another friend who was heading to Maple & Ash.  He invited us all along and we jumped into a Lyft ride and headed down there.  I felt so underdressed when we walked in!  It’s definitely a fancy place but we were still wearing green for St. Patrick’s Day.  My friends ordered appetizers and everything was delish.  It was good times despite not celebrating traditionally at a pub.  Lol. 

WhirlyBall Birthday Party

Back in March I attended a surprise birthday party.  She had no idea her friends and family were planning this.  I wasn’t sure at first if I could make it.  I knew I had some errands to run.  Once I realized the party was not until later than expected, I knew I was good to go.  I’m just glad I didn’t walk in on the actual unveiling of the surprise.  Lol

I did not want to participate in whirlyball but had to since the teams were outnumbered.  I am TERRIBLE at sports.  Of any kind.  In this case, not many were having the best luck with their carts.  It’s hard to navigate if you can’t control your cart.  I was going backwards for some time!

We had cupcakes and cocktails and then we decided to bar hop towards Courtland’s Garage.  Our friend was enjoying her birthday and we didn’t want to stop the celebration just yet.

Since that weekend was Daylight Savings weekend, I ended up not feeling well on Monday and didn’t go to work.  I don’t know what I had, but I made my way to work Tuesday, only to call in sick Wednesday.  I was out of it the remaining of the week.  I have not been that sick in years.

Kaskade at Tao

One of my favorite djs was coming to Tao and me and my brother decided to purchase tickets.  We were thirsty for some good music and  wanted to come out of hibernation from the long winter months.  For the most part, there were some electronic djs that I didn’t get a chance to see in January and February, but for the most part, some shows were too difficult for me to make it to.  One of them performed on a Sunday night, and I knew I couldn’t miss work the next day for some show.  Another dj was in town but the weather was horrible.  Kaskade always draws a big crowd, and we knew we had to act fast before the tickets were sold out.

Well guess what happened?  I bought my ticket and sent over my proof of purchase to my brother.  He informed me that he was going to get his by lunchtime.  To his surprise, the show had sold out!  Now what?

I tried looking for other sites to see if anyone else was selling tickets for this event.  Nothing.  On Instagram they held a contest 2 days before the show to give away some tickets.  I was getting desperate.  I figured worst case scenario I’ll give my ticket to my brother and he will have to go by himself.  Kaskade is his favorite dj and I didn’t want him to miss his performance. 

I didn’t win the contest, but a promoter of Tao did mention to contact him for tickets and table service the night before the show.  Me and my brother were not interested in table service, but were hoping to score one ticket if possible.  I lucked out with the promoter contacting me right away and asking me how many tickets I wanted.  “Just one,” I replied.  Dead silence.  I decided to continue the conversation on my own hoping I didn’t come off as a pest.  “Is there somewhere I can purchase the ticket?” I asked.  He finally replied an hour later that he was going to put me on his guest list but that I still had to pay.  No problem!

The next day me and my brother decided to head to Tao early in case we were going to run into any issues with this promoter.  The biggest joke in the industry is that there probably isn’t a “guest list” and might be denied at the door.  For all I know, his Instagram account can have a fake name on it!  We walked up to the bouncer and my brother was granted entry with my ticket.  I told them I was on the guest list courtesy of the gentlemen’s name.  I showed him our conversation via Instagram and the bouncer told me to go on in.  After security checked my purse, I was stamped and granted entry as well!  We scored!!  Not only were there no problems, but the guys at the door never charged me at all!  Me and my brother decided to celebrate at the bar.

Since we got there pretty early, it was fun people watching.  The club filled up pretty fast and eventually Kaskade came on and was amazing.  It was the perfect night for us to enjoy some good music!

New Year’s Eve 2018

I am recapping New Year’s Eve.  I knew offhand I wanted to do something low key.  I have over the years gone to:  hotel parties, clubs, bars, celebrated in Miami, went to crowded house parties, you name it.  And I’ve had a blast.  But due to the high volume of work parties, birthday parties, celebrations and get-togethers I’ve experienced over the past 3 months, I was too burnt out to do anything big.  I was relieved my aunt (who will be retiring soon) wanted to host New Year’s Eve at her place with my uncle.  Since they will be relocating out of the country, I knew this might be one of our last get-togethers at their place.  I said yes.

I did my yearly ritual of walking around the block with a packed suitcase to promote more travels this upcoming year.  I know it sounds crazy, but I did not want to miss out on any opportunity not to book something.  I just want the universe to see that I’m serious!  Lol.  I also stuffed my pockets of my sequin blazer with euros and U.S dollars to promote wealth throughout the year.  At dinner I carefully ate my 12 grapes to promote luck, and felt good about not missing anything important.

The ONE THING that did make me nervous was that I did some cleaning around the apartment.  I’ve read two sides to this, one that you SHOULD have a clean apartment to bring in the new year, but the other debate said not to because you might accidently lose something since you are in the process of “getting rid” of stuff.  Who knows?

I had a lovely evening with my family (much better than Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve).  Maybe because we were sharing stories with my aunt and uncle who were in Mexico during the holidays.  I brought some party favors and they were a hit.  I’m glad everyone was happy. 

Aprés le noël soirée

Since the holidays fell on Monday and Tuesday, work resumed that Wednesday.  It was nice having a 3 day work-week.  My brother out of the blue texted me that my Dad’s wife wanted us to come over for dinner.  It wasn’t expected, but I figured I should go because I wanted to see my Dad.  Well it turns out that he wasn’t going to be at the dinner.  I was upset at first.  I had other errands to run and I made the exception on the hopes of seeing my father.  The next day I thought about it some more.  I told my brother in the future, I wouldn’t mind having dinner with my Dad’s wife but I couldn’t guarantee that I could make it to every one of them.  Sometimes the internal dynamics of blended-families gets complicated because you are not aware of who you should be devoted to.  It leaves me and my brothers confused and we sometimes hurt people’s feelings trying to figure out what to do.

That Friday I had dinner plans with my friend who was in town.  She was trying to get a group together and settled on Café Con Leche restaurant in Logan Square.  Some of her friends that showed up use to work together at a retail store that is no longer around anymore.  It seems that my friend was having a blast seeing everyone.  I need to visit her out at the East coast one of these days.

Christmas Eve 2018

I’m FINALLY posting about the holidays!  Lol.  Since I’ve been laying low so far in January, I think I should be able to catch up to January posts much sooner.  Lately I’ve been reading a book about French culture and I am intrigued!  I’m hoping to finish some chapters this weekend.  I didn’t realize MLK holiday was this upcoming Monday, so this would be a perfect opportunity to do that.  This book has made me realize that I’ve been missing out on some of my travel experiences.  For the most part, I’ve traveled to get things off my bucket list.  But I’ve noticed when I come back home, I feel that I had a void that I couldn’t figure out.  Once you encounter a new place, it becomes something bigger than you!  The good news:  you get to enrich your life with new experiences.  Reading about France and French culture has made me want to go back and venture out to other regions.  After all, France is about the same size as Texas! 

Back on Christmas Eve, I watched what I ate throughout the day because I knew I was going to have a feast later on.  My brother and mother came to pick me up, and we rode off to my aunt’s place.  My mom made a dish as well.  I felt bad because my aunt and her family were rushing a bit, but it was ok since we knew we were going to have a long night ahead of us.  Unfortunately, some of our family members were out of town, but we made the most of our little group.  It was nice seeing my cousins open up their gifts.

Danny’s Bar

A few Fridays ago, a friend had sent out a facebook invite to her birthday weekend bonanza.  She listed all the things she would be doing from Friday-Sunday.  She noted, if anyone wanted to join in the festivities to contact her.  I wasn’t 100 percent sure what my plans were yet, and as the day went on, I called up one of our friends to see if she was going.  She told me her and her boyfriend would be heading out soon to the party, and asked if I needed a ride there.  I told her I would uber it since I was not ready yet.  In the end, I got there before my friends, but I did not see the birthday girl.  She chose to celebrate at Danny’s Bar in Wicker Park.  It was my first time there, and the place was packed.  I saw my friends walk in and we found a spot towards the back.  Her boyfriend went to the bar, and me and my friend took pictures to kill some time.  After about 20 minutes, we texted the birthday girl to see what time was she coming.  We waited and enjoyed our cocktails.  5 minutes later, she texted us back that she had fallen asleep on her couch.  She was trying to get rid of a cold and was not coming out.  Me and my friend decided to go back home.   We were both tired from work earlier and were not up to hang out at the bar.  It was funny if you think about it…

University Club of Chicago

I’m back to recapping September events!  I need to catch up since it’s already November!  Yikes! After that long holiday weekend, I worked an event at the University Club of Chicago.  We helped check guests in with their badges and greeted them as well.  It turned out to be a great turn out for us and we even got a chance to sample their appetizers.  I’ve never been there before so it was a treat to step inside this private social club that has lasted over a 100 years.  I was impressed by the history and enjoyed working that evening.