Cake, not death

Yeah!!  Happy bithday to me!!   I bloody love birthdays.  A tangible sign I managed to cling on by my fingernails for one more year!  This year was obviously special as Mumsie was here to help me celebrate - something that hasn't happened for at least 8 or 9 years! (I was still in my 30's then - crikey!).  Coming off of our latest 10-day detox, I'd spent probably more time than I should have dreaming of the precise provenance of Bread Product and Champagne I was going to indulge in (mmm.....toast) and certainly more time that I should have trying to choose a restaurant to celebrate my Special Day.  Much to my chagrin, I'm still not up to speed yet on whats cool and happening on the foodie scene in Chicago (unlike my concierge-level of knowledge of NYC!) but its coming!!  I've just bought myself the Zagat's guide, plus a book of the top 100 historic bars and pubs and signed up for multiple foodie-type newsletters, so by the time I have my first visitors (yey for July 4th weekend!), I'll hopefully be able to guide us in the right direction!!

Surprise!! Happy birthday me!!

So... to the big day itself!  I had a number of early morning work calls (its 6am!  telecon!  happy birthday!) so I wasnt able to take the whole day off, but I managed to get everything done that I needed to (and was quite productive too - must have been in a good mood!) by noon, so had planned to do a walking tour with Second City (the famous comedy and improv group here in Chicago) around Old Town in the late afternoon, before dinner.  Getting up early for my call, I stumbled half asleep into the kitchen to stick the kettle on - and found that the Birthday Fairy had been in the middle of the night!  It was such a lovely surprise - pressies, flowers, Bread Products and trashy magazines all laid out waiting for me - what an absolute treat!!  Turns out Birthday Fairy was also pretty skilled at seeing in the dark, as everything had to be carefully maneouvered into place in the dark and in absolute silence, for fear of waking me up right next door! Birthday Fairy pretty much had me nailed too - big fat fluffy croissants, Oxford English marmalade (yum) and not one but THREE trashy magazines to keep my ageing brain in tip-top condition. A veritable gluttony of guilty pleasures.

Someone call the fire brigade!
(yum)

My squeals of delight woke Birthday Fairy up, who I duly set about making me a cup of Birthday Tea (well, I gotta milk this one day, right?) and while the kettle was boiling its (unbeknownst to it) last pot of water, I eyed up the brightly colored packages on the countertop and happily indulged in that age-old game of "which one shall I open first?". You know how it goes - the impromptu and utterly instinctive heirarchy of pressies that forms in your mind when you gaze upon a variety of intruigingly-wrapped gifts. First you ALWAYS start with opening your cards. Its like the appetizer of the gifting world. And - at least with my family - there is always a jokey card or two (along the lines of You're Really Old and a Cat Lady") as well as then the Softie Smush-y type card ("You're a Beautiful/Brilliant/One in a Million Daughter/Sister/Aunt) that I'm alarmingly seeming to find less sentimental the older I get. I guess when the two genres collide is the year I should probably start to worry. Cards done and duly displayed, then your attention turns magpie-like (ooo! bright shiny objects) back to the enticingly display of packages (steady) laid out before you. Shall I open the big one first or save that til last? I know what that one is, so should I open that now? Or should I open that interestingly shaped mystery pressie first? Or should I wait to heighten the suspense a bit more? You invariably end up opening the book-shaped pressie first, then the mug, then the edible pressie (you gotta keep your strength up, right?), THEN a mystery pressie, then the most interestingly-shaped pressie (look! a fez! AWESOME!), then your best mate's pressie and FINALLY you ALWAYS end up opening the biggest pressie last. Its just the way these things happen.

Pie-varna

So, following that time-tested Index of Opening, I gleefully tore into my pressies without even attempting to save the wrapping paper (such decadence!). In amongst the choccy and lovely smellies and new kettle (Mumsie absolutely hated my old one with a passion so has been waiting for the day to give me a fancy new one - one that has 6 diffferent settings for water temperatures to go with different types of tea! ("i'll have the Oolong setting please)... Must've been a Brit who thought that one up...), two in particular stand out as favorites among favorites. One - the Doctor Who-styled Fez nitelite holder (thanks, Loopy!) and second, my wheely 4-setting picnic hamper, ready for Ravinia action!! (thanks Mumsie!). So, all in all, the day was off to a cracking start! We also lit the candles on my croissant (fortunately living opposite the local fire station made this a less worrisome proposition than usual) which I figured counted as my fat-burning activities for the day.

After breakfast, time to get on the phone for work calls, til about midday after which, work was officially done for the day and it was Time for Pie! Yep, finally, Mumsie and I were going to hit the pie shop downstairs together for our first dollop of sugar since finishing the latest round of our detox the night before. I think we can safely say we over-achieved on that score. They were bloody delicious - I had savory pork, sage and apple followed by a slice of strawberry rhubarb pie; Mumsie had a big glistening wedge of quiche followed by coconut cream pie. Nom nom nom. Well worth the wait. After such gluttony, we staggered back up to the apartment and collapsed on the couch to digest and read trashy magazines for a couple of hours.

Mumsie had quiche and coconut cream.  Both were
ridiculously delicious.

About 3pm, it was time to start getting ready for our walking tour. I'd come across it online the day before while looking for a comedy show at The Second City for us to go to in the evening, after we'd had dinner. Unfortunately, all the evening shows were booked out, but this actually sounded just the job - a 90min walking tour through Old Town - one of the neighborhoods I'm possibly interested in moving to in the future - hosted by one of the comedians from Second City. Brilliant, I thought. A light bit of exercise before dinner, a tour of somewhere new and some laughs. All for only $15 each! Bargain!

A mildly interesting, old (for here) house in Old Town. 

Um…no. Rather than it being a walking tour around the neighborhood with amusing commentary, it turned out to be a tour about Second City with the neighborhood walking tour an extremely feeble 2-block ramble from one Second City location to the other. It was profoundly disappointing. I kinda knew we were in trouble from the start when our tour guide, an annoyingly “up” and fake chipper improv teacher, got us all to introduce ourselves at the start of the tour. OK – I mean, I don’t really give a sh*t where anyone else on this tour has come from or why they are here, but sure, why not – I can be faux-sociable and play along. So, fine – but it was the over-zealous and enthusiastic little hand clap and “that’s so SO great” that followed each person’s Not Terribly Interesting Introduction that was the harbinger of doom. I’m sorry, but have we inadvertently signed up for an Adult Special Ed class? If not, why are you talking to all of us like we are 4 yrs old?

This wasn't officially On The Tour, but we were so
 bored by this time, we were totally free styling

So, that was the start – and it kinda never really got better from that. Maybe this lady really is a better improv performer than she is tour guide – for her sake, I hope so. The “tour” was useless – basically covering less than a couple of blocks and lots of standing about while she talked to us about – you guessed it, Second City! I’m not kidding when I tell you that one of the points of interest on her tour of Old Town was….. an alley! Not a special alley (with bowling in it, or pots of gold or lined with champagne bottles or Fat Actresses named Kirstie) but a regular, common or garden alley. Yep. “Because we have alleys and NYC doesn’t have alleys so we’re better than them”. Pretty much by that point, the only alley Mumsie and I were interested in was the French version so that we could Allez out of there!

Old Town church - apparently you are in Old Town
 if you can hear its bells

Anyway, so that was a bit of a bust but I guess you gotta try these things. After the “tour” we had about an hour or so before our dinner reservation, so we decided to walk over across from Old Town into Lincoln Park. We saw more in our little self-guided amble in 20mins than in the last 90mins – inadvertently more so, when I *ahem* got us lost a couple of times so our 20min stroll turned into an hour-long exploration! Ooops. Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree for that particular characteristic! But, it was a very pleasant evening and we didn’t mind getting to know at least a small part of town a bit better, so it was fine. We ended up going to a fancy wine bar place before dinner in what turned out to be a fruitless quest for a glass of birthday champagne (what is the fascination with prosecco, people??). The main entertainment was watching Mumsie order, then proceed to drink, a peach schnapps cocktail. Classic viewing.

Caption Not Required

After that, it was finally time for dinner – we’d selected a tapas place so that we could try lots of little bits and pieces and had picked a place that had stellar Yelp reviews. 5-star reviews, recent – and lots of them.

Yelp lies.

Before the disappointment set in.  *sigh*

It was not good. There was one dish that was genuinely delicious – a pea hummus – but the rest of it was pretty mediocre at best. It was a real disappointment. And they didn’t have any frigging champagne either!!! So, alas, dinner was a bit of a let down too – only salvaged by my fabulous dining companion, of course! (we ended up compensating by having another Birthday Dinner the following evening at home – this time, good old fashioned Brit nosh of eggs, chips, beans with bread and butter for chip butties and a very nice bottle of Henri Girard champagne. Bloody lovely). So that was my birthday. Right champion it was too. Thanks, Mumsie for a brilliant day. I’m so glad you’re here.

Beautiful birthday flowers and a
 handmade little vase from Eren