I have no good reason for not updating my Year of Taking blog since June because I have done a TON of taking this summer. So, for my 3 readers, I guess I am "taking" from you since you don't get to read about my awesome taking adventures. Too bad for you.
This weekend Jonathan (aka: my husband) and I went to Chicago with my friend Martta Howard (Type-A overachiever extraordinaire). You have to understand that if you are friends with Martta every action you take could be construed as an opportunity to compete. For example: Martta convinced all of her friends, including me, to procure and use Fitbits (advanced pedometers) as a fun activity we can all do together to improve our health. She has, allegedly, created an advanced web interface that tracks the number of steps that all her friends take so before she goes to bed she makes sure to take at least 1,000 additional steps so that she consistently wins the "step contest". Needless to say she has broken my fragile spirit and I no longer even compete which is why I spend so much time on my couch instead of walking through my neighborhood.
Martta had been to Chicago a few times but mostly for work so she hadn't really spent a lot of time exploring so the purpose of this trip was to show Martta around and have some fun. I found that sometimes those two lofty goals are mutually exclusive as you will see...
We left for Chicago last Thursday and before we left Martta mentioned that she was really looking forward to escaping reality for a weekend. So, to help Martta relax, I created an "airplane fun pack" for her which was comprised of coloring books, stickers, playing cards, crayons and other stuff from the Target dollar aisle. Mostly that was intended as a joke and to lift her mood but of course Martta managed to turn children's toys into an extravagant art experience.
Before we landed in Chicago on Thursday night Martta walked down the aisle of the plane and presented me and Jonathan with gifts of elaborately colored (within the lines of course) pictures from her Spiderman coloring book. The coloring was so good that I am literally having the picture framed. Score 1: Martta. She is such a show off.
In the weeks leading up to this trip Martta kept telling me to bring my workout clothes so I could work out with her early in the morning on vacation. Naturally I thought she was kidding. It is a well documented fact that when I vacation I don't normally get out of bed before 10 am and often don't leave the hotel room before 11:30 am (after a leisurely room service breakfast). On Thursday night when we arrived in Chicago Martta started to seem more serious about the workout thing. She even tried to set up an actual time for us to meet in the hotel fitness center (7 am). That made me nervous. So after Martta went to bed (9 pm) Jonathan and I executed a covert mission, complete with masks and weapons, to move from our original hotel room to one that Martta didn't know about. I managed to give her the slip on Friday morning and sleep until 9:30 am.
Friday was a whirlwind of Martta-type activity which mostly involved forced marches around every possible museum, park, and monument. At one point, when my feet actually started bleeding, I tried to climb a tree to escape. Martta actually grabbed a stick and knocked me out of the tree which seemed to amuse the homeless/transient folks on Chicago's West Side where we had been force marched for 15 miles because Martta heard that "there was a really cool park bench she had to see".
Needless to say, by Friday afternoon I was plotting to roofie Martta's Diet Dr. Pepper so I could rest for an hour. Martta must have sensed that I wanted to drug her and force her to sleep so she tricked by refusing to drink any liquids at all.
On Friday night we met my friend Lana (motto: I love Serbian Gypsies) for dinner at a restaurant called The Publican (motto: meat, meat, meat. Screw vegetarians.). The thing about Martta is that, starting at about 5 am, she goes about 100 mph without stopping so by 8pm she is starting to crash. The transition to old age is going to be really easy for her. Dinner didn't end until 9:30 pm I really enjoyed making Martta stay up past her bedtime because after 9 pm the girl starts yawning and curling into a fetal position. I felt that I was taking some sleep pleasure from her while I expanded my vodka drinking pleasure at the same time. Two-fer!
Saturday morning was kind of a disaster. I thought that if I slept in the closet in our room that Martta couldn't find me and drag me to the fitness center. I was wrong. She actually crawled through the a/c vents into our room and had dragged me all the way down the hall (by my hair) before I could groggily start to fight back. Sadly, I am no match for an endorphin-crazed engineer.
The next thing I knew we were being harassed by a tiny Jillian Michaels (motto: I want you to exercise to death) who was coaching (screaming at) us via Martta's iphone. I could do some of the exercises (lying on the floor) but some were more challenging (getting up off the floor). Martta "took" my morning from me and really seemed to enjoy watching me flop around the floor of the gym in attempt to keep up with her calisthenics. Fail: Liz.
On Saturday we went to Wrigley Field (greatest place on earth) for a noon Cubs game. My friend Matt (motto: I know more about baseball and hair metal than any person living or dead) joined us in our awesome seats along the 3rd base line. During the Cubs game I learned a little tidbit about Martta: she doesn't really like sitting in the sun so I enjoyed watching her sweat in her jeans in 90 degree heat.
After the Cubs game I was exhausted from sitting in the sun all afternoon and drinking beer. Normal people go take naps after Cubs games. However, Martta is not normal. She pitched several ideas for post-Cubs games activities: architectural boat cruise, a hike to Milwaukee, swimming across lake Michigan, kickboxing class with Mike Tyson, or shopping at American Girl Place (hell on earth). I told her I would go shopping with her and when she turned her back I ran into the nearest Irish pub I could find and drank Guinness with some kindred spirits until dinner time.
We had an 8 am flight home today and normal people like me were sleeping. Martta on the other hand knitted 1/2 of a baby blanket on the flight home while also winning 20 games of boggle on her iphone.
When I think about my "Year of Taking" mission and apply it to this past weekend I think that I have been bested, once again, by Martta. Certainly I "took" from her a bit but I think she won this round by making me walk more than 10,000 steps per day, shaming me into working out at 8 am with her, and by forcing me to curtail my vodka intake by planning never ending adventures. I am not sure how long it will take me to recover from this trip but I am pretty sure that at least 2 hours of vodka therapy will be involved.
