For Valentine's Day, we planned to take advantage of an event called Theater Week. For the span of about 10 days, basically 2 theater weekends (Thursday through Sunday), over 100 different theaters, dance companies, and other entertainment venues offer their productions up to the public for, in some cases, significantly reduced prices. I've lived here for 11 1/2 years, and I didn't know about this until THIS year...and the reason I know about it now is because I was lucky enough to befriend a gal at my church (the same one who joined us for Thanksgiving) who is very theatrically minded and on top of things like this. So we worked out something of an arrangement: She'd watch the girls on the Friday before Valentine's Day, and give Daddy and I a chance to have something of a V-day date, then the following week, I'd get the tickets and provide transport for a show that she and I could enjoy.
Well, Friday the 13th arrived, and Daddy and I had put our name on the list to go and see a show called "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum". It's a musical, and Daddy has had the soundtrack for years, but has never seen the actual production, so he in particular was looking forward to it very much. It was playing at a university downtown, so we hopped on the train and headed out--slightly behind our intended schedule, so we were a little anxious about getting there. We were pretty sure the seating was first-come-first-serve since we couldn't even purchase the tickets over the phone. Everything had to be done in person. But we got there in time, and found our way up through various winding halls to the 'box office'...basically a half-door that opened on one of those afore-mentioned halls. Then we got an unpleasant surprise. Despite my having gotten our name on the list, we had not been informed that payment was cash-only, and of course, we only had our cards...on a late night out downtown, why exactly would I want to be carrying cash? The gal in the little office told us there was an ATM downstairs, and it happened to be the one for our bank, so ok, not all was lost, it was just a little inconvenient. We headed downstairs. There was no ATM. We spoke with the security lady behind a big desk. The ATM had been removed a while ago. There was some other bank across the street that we could use, and she really didn't know where another of our banks might be.
We left the building in search of an ATM...and actually found one only a couple blocks away in the first direction we traveled. By then it was 7:15...the house was open, various people who'd already gotten their tickets were in and finding seats, and we were still a 10 minute walk away from paying for a show that started in 15, with, again, no guarantee on what kind of seating we might find, and we had no clue even where the entrance to the auditorium was...This was coming down to the wire, and wasn't so much fun anymore.
We drew out the money we needed, then looked at it, then looked at each other, then made an impromptu decision at prettymuch the exact same time and ditched the show. We started walking north, precisely the opposite direction we should have been going.
Suddenly, the night was ours for the taking, and what would we do? Where would we go? Dinner? Movie? Bowling? Walking? Our friend, who we texted right off informing her of the change of plans was full of suggestions as well, including finding a place to go dancing, which would have been perfect if we'd had our shoes and not been downtown where no swing actually takes place that we know of. It was cold...This past February was brutal, so staying out and walking for too long was less than desirous, but we kept having so many ideas and couldn't decide one way or another, so we just kept walking north. It was wonderfully freeing to be walking downtown with just the two of us, with no stroller or short little 4-year-old legs to time our paces against. It was like we were back on that first day we'd met, though of course at that time we'd had no idea just how nice a walk at our own pace actually is...
Eventually the cold got to us...or at least, to me...but by then we'd agreed on a location to try out--a movie theater with a bowling alley attached. We'd see if any lanes were available on such short notice, and if none were, what films were playing. Something had to work, right? Except we arrived to learn that the whole alley had been bought out for the night by some special group (but 'the pool tables were open' was the cashier's attempt at revenue). The theater's offerings were pretty slim too...So we went back to the dinner idea. We'd both grabbed a very quick meal as we were heading out the door at 6, but it hadn't had much staying power, and after all that walking, we were starting to get a bit peckish. Suddenly deep dish pizza sounded like the best thing in the entire world.
So we went. Now, this being Chicago, there's more than a couple places that one can go for proper deep dish. We picked a spot not too far from where we were (about a half mile) that had a second location less than a block away, in the hopes of bettering our chances. The first place is called Uno's, and it had done so well when it first opened, that it set up shop at that second location with the name Duo's. It has since grown into an impressive chain, but every location afterwards has always been named after that first one. There is only one Duo. Fun bits of trivias. :) We showed up at the first spot and found a fair bit of a crowd, but went in to see what the wait was like: about 20 minutes--we could handle that. We took a menu and were on the verge of deciding what to preorder, so that our wait time at the table wouldn't be as long, when a waiter came over the the host to see if there were any groups of 2 waiting for seating. We didn't think anything of it...it's Valentine's weekend, of course most of the groups are going to be romantical pairs, right? Wrong. Out of that crowd of 15-20 people, we were the only pair. Immediate seating available, waa-hoo!
Dinner was lovely. Relaxed, despite the crowded atmosphere. Delightful pizza that hit the spot exactly. And we ordered dessert--a deep-dish chocolate chip cookie with ice cream on top. Catching a live show is a lovely thing that we haven't been able to do in a long time and that we would like to do more regularly, but this time, NOT catching one was exactly the right way we needed to spend our evening. Funny how things go like that. :)
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