Wow, been 20 days since I last posted. Course the main reason is cuz I’ve not been doing much of anything. But my summer vacation is almost up – teachers first day is Wednesday. Kids come the following Monday.

So to finish off my very short summer, judiang has flown in today and we’ll be weekending here at mom & dad’s cottage at the Lake. Alas, elsaf can’t join us, so we’re missing her. Still, we’ll try to have fun without her. 🙂

Since Judi had to fly into Columbus (cuz it’s so much cheaper than flying into Dayton), I looked around online for a restaurant there to go for a late lunch. I found a pub called The Old Bag of Nails (the Bexley one), so we headed there for lunch. They’ve totally screwed up the roads around the airport, so my GPS got us a bit lost. Once I removed “major roads” from the settings, it got us there pretty easily.

I had intended to get the “all you can eat fish & chips” so I did. Judi ordered an appetizer of mussels and shrimp (I ate the five shrimp, she had the 4 million mussels – an exaggeration, but they do love giving you mussels) and the seafood platter (fish & chips along with battered shrimp & scallops). The food was very yummy. We then agreed to split the homemade bread pudding ala mode. The waitress brought out two servings of it and apologized for getting carried away when cutting up the freshly baked bread pudding. Sure enough, she only charged us for the one serving. It was also very yummy.

Although I had inputted the address for COSI (the Center of Science and Industry) into my GPS, Judi preferred instead to head on home. No problemo. Stuffed to the gills, we squeezed back into my car and I drove us home. When we got off the interstate, I took her around to mom & dad’s new house & showed her around. She was quite impressed.

After a short stop in my house to pick up the groceries I bought this morning, we finally headed to the Lake. We’ve been here a few hours and have been vegging and catching up on our online lives. I even finished my first book for July. (Most of this year I’ve gotten at least 5 books read in a month – July has been an exception. Though I did reread HP6 & 7 just recently.)

Tomorrow, I’ll be grilling t-bone steaks & corn on the cob for Judi, the parentals, Aunt Becky & Uncle Dean. I shall endeavor to channel Elsa’s cooking mojo. 🙂

Normally by now, we’d’ve been to Taste of Chicago by now, but the weather hasn’t been all that amenable for it. Not a problem, there’s lots of fun stuff to do in Chicago.

Monday we headed for the Bongo Room for breakfast. Alas, their tasty eggs Benedicts are for the weekend only, so I had to make due (heh heh) with French toast covered in blueberries & cream. Very very yummy. (Benedicts, what Benedicts?)

We were slow moving at the start of Monday, but eventually headed off to Target to get some essentials. Since judiang moved into this apartment in 2005, she’s had her cable box & DVD player sitting on a cardboard box on an end table in the living room. I finally harassed her enough to get at least something different (poor Judi always having to suffer my harassment – dunno why she puts up with me!) We found a set of bookshelves which looked like they would work (at least until she finally finds the perfect piece for there). One thing the bookshelf does is gives her remote a better line of sight for turning the peripherals on.

Since the bookshelf took up so much room in elsaf‘s car, we returned to the apartment to dump off the Target purchases. Poor http://www.zolajonesdesigns.com/Judi was sat in the backseat nearly bent in two for the ride back. But once the car was emptied again, we returned to our route. Whole Foods was next followed by Jewel/Osco for the final purchases. We had lunch at Whole Foods (I had pizza) and grilled hot dogs for supper.

Tuesday was Visiting Jason Day. Jason Loper is the owner & bag-maker of Zola Jones Designs, a wonderful store on Montrose Ave. He graduated in my sister’s class and is the closest thing I have to a little brother. When he came to Alumni this year (you know, I never did finish writing about that weekend…) I told him that I had to FINALLY visit his shop this time to Chicago. So Elsa drove us to Montrose and we walked the short (but noisy, thanks to all the street work) walk to Jason’s store. We all found stuff at the shop to buy and then we went to Glenn’s Diner (his recommendation) for lunch. The seafood bisque fettuccine (w/ shrimp & scallops) was very yummy.

On the way home, we popped into Michaels (a craft store) and Best Buy. Judi picked up a knitting starter kit at Michaels and Elsa has been teaching her to knit. (Sometimes with amusing results.) I bought some science toys at Michaels as well (mostly sodium polyacrylate-related items). Best Buy provided us with the wiring we needed to hook up external speakers to Judi’s living room AV system. Too tired to attack the Taste for supper, we ordered Connie’s Pizza instead. Mmmm, pineapple pizza!

We christened Judi’s ice cream maker with Bailey’s Irish Cream ice cream. But we needed to let it solidify more, so we went to the clubhouse to play pool. Well, Elsa knitted, Judi & I played. I taught Judi how to play 9-ball and she beat me 3 out of 4 times. The pool shark!

Today was cold and rainy, so we decided to make it Movie Day. But first, we had a leak to worry about. Judi’s guest bathroom had a leak that we couldn’t figure and it was getting worse. The building repairman arrived and determined it must be the toilet. So we left him to it while we headed off for some Cajun food & funny movie. Heaven on Seven was our lunch destination. I had shrimp po’ boy and the etouffee of the day: chicken & crawdad. Tasty tasty. We watched The Hangover and were all entertained.

Now Elsa is knitting, Judi is cleaning the bathroom where the leak was, and I’m typing this. Doesn’t look like supper will be the Taste, but it’ll be wonderful cuz it’s something Elsa’s gonna grill for us. Yum!