Field Museum

Weekend, Chicago-style

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Even though we live IN THE CITY LIMITS of Chicago, we rarely actually go into the city. Even when people come to visit, we mostly just hang around the neighborhood. So when my siblings came over, we decided to do some of the regular, old-fashioned tourist stops.

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You never know what kind of weirdos you’re going to find at The Bean.

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This was as good excuse as any to hit up Cafecito, and then visit everyone’s favorite dinosaur, Sue:

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Of course, we also left plenty of time for board games.

I think the most memorable game was The Resistance, which I will have a separate post on coming up soon. But we also introduced some new people to Puerto Rico, and found some time to play Pandemic.

You know, in retrospect, I think I am innately something of a story teller. That’s why I enjoy writing and blogging, and why I always enjoyed role playing games. So, for me, the storytelling aspect is always one of the funnest parts about a game. My brain just tries to fit a narrative to any situation. I would imagine that there are people who play a tabletop game and they just treat it as a straight up game: “I move my piece to this spot in the red zone and play this 4th blue card to accomplish the goal”. I suppose that’s kind of fun, but I prefer to imagine it as, “I go to the research station in the explosive diarrhea epidemic zone and cure the childhood obesity epidemic faster than you can say Fecal Microbiota Transplant!” Sure your job is to manage the island of Puerto Rico, but it’s more than just shifting little cardboard squares. Those little brown tokens working in your fields and factories have LIVES! And you can’t just go on a mission for the resistance, you have to know what you’re fighting for! How can you play your card with the proper zeal if you don’t even know if you’re fighting against Hitler, robots, or nut-free classrooms?

All in all, one of the best weekends I’ve had in awhile. Hope to do it again sometime.

Hand, Foot and Mouth

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Some friends came to visit over the weekend and, unfortunately, Evie wasn’t feeling very well. On Sunday, Evie woke up at 4:15 (Happy Father’s day!) and proceeded to have an absolute fit until maybe 6. It was a doozy and I was very embarrassed to have her behaving as such with company over. It’s one thing for us to wake up at 4:15, but quite another for the entire building to wake up then.

We soon realized she was sick with a cough, a runny nose and a slight fever. She’s pretty much always sick though, so we decided to proceed with our plans anyway. We hit up the Pirate Exhibit at the Field Museum…so maybe it was a successful Father’s Day after all! She had a good time at the museum, but on the way home she was clearly exhausted.

Sara had noticed that she had a rash on her hands and was a little suspicious, but later when Evie fell asleep and Sara took off her socks and shoes to get her into bed easier without waking her up, she confirmed her suspicions when she saw a rash on Evie’s feet. It was not surprising, therefore, when we noticed some sores on Evie’s tongue: she had hand, foot and mouth disease. I will save you from seeing some of the awful results that show up in an image search, but if you’re a glutton for punishment it is quite disgusting.

We confirmed with the doctor that there is really nothing we can do except ride out the virus. Our friends wisely ducked out once it became obvious that “irritability” and “tiredness” (which are more or less the same thing) were actual side effects, not just the idle threats.

So we had a couple of rough days, although she seems like she is on the mend now. She can’t bring her plague to daycare this week, so her grandparents are staying with her.

I feel really bad for her because she was probably as miserable as she has ever been in her short life. One of the things we did to help her feel better was allow her to watch a movie. Now keep in mind this is only the second time we’ve ever let her watch T.V. The first was an Elmo potty video. And you can tell she doesn’t see much T.V. because when the movie started and Tinkerbell came out and painted the Disney logo, Evie said, “That was great!” and jumped down from her seat and made to leave.

The height of movie technology

The height of movie technology

She enjoyed the movie, especially the songs, but she got bored before the end. One of the best parts for me is when she went over to our cat and said, “Nala, I’m watching a movie about you. You’re big now.”

(Note to grandparents, this does not mean she’s allowed to watch T.V. whenever!:) )

Another funny thing that happened this weekend, obviously we were taking her temperature a lot due to her illness and, as usual, she replicates what she sees. Therefore there was a very awkward moment for both Sara and I independently when she pretended to take our temperature…let’s just say we don’t take her temperature orally.

In completely other news, the other night I had a dream that I was in Wisconsin and I got a fine for not having a moustache.