In Chicago, sleeping with two men

Well, really, not sleeping with two men. My husband, my son and I are on vacation in Chicago. There's a family reunion next weekend and since there's so much to do in Chicago, we got here a week early. We decided we'd rather allocate our money for food and entertainment – as we tend to do – and share a cheap hotel room. At 3:00 this morning I realized this was a huge mistake. My grown son's snoring is louder than his Dad's by at least a factor of 10. I had the sense to bring ear plugs, but they were powerless against the ear splitting decibels of his snores. I had my ipod turned to full blast and that helped a little until the power ran out.

And the pillow – oy! The difference between my solitary little pillow and a 1 lb. sack of frozen peas was temperature. That is truly the worst pillow I have ever had. Tonight I'm ordering up about 10 extra pillows.

We arrived around 8:30 last night. We were supposed to go a graduation party for the daughter of one of the cousins but missed our exit off 94 and ended up downtown. At the intersection of Milwaukee and Ogden, we had to wait for a parade of about 200 hundred cyclists – most of whom were naked! What a hoot! I guess it was a Critical Mass ride. The temperature was probably in the low 60's, so there went some pretty hearty cyclists!

We missed the graduation party and came out to the hotel room, checked in, grabbed a quick dinner at TGIFriday's and called it a day. My son said that if that was the worst meal we had in Chicago, he'd be happy. I suspect it will be. Starting today, nothing but real Chicago-style food.