Wicked-ly Fun Weekend
Me, the wife, MJagger & hubby Officer Friendly headed to the Windy City with two other couples to take in WICKED (hence, the green lettering. Long live the wicked witch of the west!) MJagger led the way to food, fun and camaraderie for the eight of us. Our journey started at "W," the feng shui-overload hotel on Lake Shore Drive (where art meets function, or so they say). I'm not kidding about the whole feng shui thing--pebbles line the darkened hallways, bathrooms with wooden shudders, metal bowls hold wooden balls of yarn-looking twig thingies, room ceiling painted black. Whoa. I felt like the rich and famous meets the Dali lama. It was a gay boy's dream spot. The first photo is my artsy attempt to take a picture of the hallway; the second is the pebbles lining the hallway, complete with hot-pink room number on the floor. The wife and I had never seen such a thing before. (The photos do no justice to actually being there. Trust me.) The hi-light of "W" for me was the lobby bathroom--you can peek into the men's bathroom and they can peek into the women's bathroom. You think I'm kidding? Check out the sign warning you of the whole we-can-see you thing:

After we finished giggling in the bathroom, we cabbed it over to the Oriental Theatre to see WICKED, a fabulous musical about the wicked witch of the west. If you haven't seen it (even if you're not a Wizard of Oz fan, which I am not), you should really check it out. (That whole tornado thing and those flying monkeys were scary in the movie, don't you think?) There is nothing I can say in the blog that would capture what seeing the show was really like. Suffice it to say, I'd go again. The ladies of the group loved it. I love the Witch of the West--she sure got a bum rap in that Oz movie....No wonder I like the color green. The men looked a little bored--okay, a LOT bored--I think they were worried about the NFL draft while being stuffed in theatre seats--but, they were real troopers.

One of the "bad" things about going to the theatre for women is that the intermission is NEVER long enough and there are NEVER enough bathrooms. (Thus, I severely restrict my intake of fluid when in a very crowded situation, like concerts, ball games, protests, day after thanksgiving shopping...). Poor MJagger had to pee with a vengence. As soon as the lights popped on for intermission, she streaked directly to the potty. Unfortunately, the line for the women's room was frightfully long. MJagger FINALLY got to the stall when she heard, "One minute--the show will begin in ONE minute--please take your seats." MJagger realized if she wasn't back on time, some evil usher person would not let her in for at least ten minutes. So, MJagger passed on the washing of the hands, practically drip dried and literally ran across the lobby--boobs in one hand, dress in the other....she didn't want anything bouncing up or out. Officer Friendly took one look at her and said to the wife, "gosh, it looks like she's been sprinting." MJagger sat down and puffed, "I WAS running!" Of course, about five more minutes passed before the show began, so MJagger was understandably miffed. (MJagger was wearing a dress that most decidedly needed her to use two hands while running. That's what ya get for wearing a dress & having cleavage, I say.) Another "bad" thing is that they don't want you to take photos of the theatre, let alone the actual play. I almost got myself thrown out trying to take contraband photos of the set before the festivities began. I miffed a few ushers off but luckily didn't get the camera confiscated.

Once the final curtain went down (and the men were done cheering), it was off to Morton's Steak House for a carnivorous delight. Now, as a vegetarian, I was mighty worried my dinner choices would be limited--like, "Here's your roll. Would you like butter with that?" I need not have worried--they had a vegetarian plate that made me weep. It had the biggest serving of broccoli I have ever seen on one plate. I had to take a picture of it because it was so spectacular. My spinach salad, which came before the meal, looked like they dumped the entire bag of spinach on the plate. Popeye would have been proud. (I was a little worried about the steroid-sized asparagus, but I ate it anyway. If I start growing more chin hair or if my voice gets lower, I'll know it was the stalks.) As for the meat-eaters, may I say that those were some of the biggest pieces of animal I have ever seen on a plate? We were seated right by the kitchen--I swear I saw a cow crawl by once or twice.

Once we were done stuffing our faces, we headed off to "Howl at the Moon," a dueling piano bar, which on this particular night, was crawling with with drunken bachelorhood. There was nowhere to sit, so we just propped ourselves near the bar and tried to stay out of the way of loaded brides-to-be. You don't need cigarettes when you go to this kind of place--save yourself the six bucks--it's so smoky that the second hand smoke is probably stronger than the real thing. Oh, my aching sinuses! You can see the smoke wafting in and out of your lungs. Even so, I highly suggest dueling piano bars, as you can sing along and no one cares. Where else can you sing Billy Joel and Sir Mix-a-lot in the same hour? (And yes, I really did have long underwear on. I was cold. They were my "dress johns," so I really didn't see a problem. We got a few candid photos of the long johns but I didn't post them to protect my few morself of decency.)

(Im fact, I can't show you most of the photos I took--don't want to jeopardize the anonymity of my friends, even though I've got some pretty good "blackmail" photos from the piano bar. You'll have to ask to see the photos in person. Believe me, I will GLADLY share these tasty tidbits of photojournalism.)

Once we were done smoking, standing and singing at the piano bar (it gets really old having to stand hour after hour, even when wearing long johns), we walked down the street in the rain to find somewhere to sit and drink beer (not me or the wife--we're designated walkers--water for me & the wife, thank you). We ended up a brewery. This was the second time I saw the guys smile (the first was when they saw their steaks), as this was the home of the "Drink Tower." Ah, male bonding over the beer-filled tower is always a welcomed thing. I think I saw Officer Friendly shed a tear in happiness over the beer tower.(The photo really doesn't do the beer tower justice, as you can only see half of it here.) The wife and I called it a night just as the beer tower was drained.

We returned to "W" to find it a-hopping. Loud dance music greeted us at the front door and the lobby was filled with well-dressed-prom-going-teenagers. (Either that, or there were a lot of young types attending wedding receptions somewhere in the building.) The wife and I were worried it would be loud on our floor (god, we are getting old--worrying about such things), but our concern was for naught--it was serene and feng-shui-ee for the night. The feathertop beds were delightful. Too bad we didn't know the alarm was set by the previous patron--that woke us up way before we would have liked to have been up and at 'em. So much for feng shui.

As if we hadn't eaten enough on Saturday, we finished our weekend at Maggianos for Sunday Lunch with MJagger and Officer Friendly. Oh, my poor stomach. My poor colon. My poor digestive tract. I am not used to eating this much food in a week, much less in a 24 hour period. I'm sure it will take me a week to digest all that food. My intestines agree that this was certainly a very WICKED weekend....