A Slightly Busy Weekend

I know I haven't posted much lately. There was a reason - certain people read this regularly and I had certain information that could not be shared and didn't trust myself to not say something that would give it away.

I might have mentioned that I planned to spend the Fourth by "going to a game with the guys." I just never said which game with which guys. Despite many understandable assumptions, I actually started off the weekend of the Fourth here:
Or, more specifically, here:
And these guys just happened to show up:
Okay, so my brother and I plotted this out several weeks ago. I knew I would have a four-day weekend over the Fourth but wasn't sure if I really wanted to go to Illinois or wait until my two weeks after this class and didn't want to get too many people's hopes up. Then my brother and I got talking and he had most of the weekend off too and the Cubs had a home series that weekend. And this year is my parents' 30th anniversary, and neither of us had had any idea what to do for them. So we decided to surprise them. We spread the word that I was not going to be able to travel over the weekend (military acronyms make a lot of things sound really official). He got tickets to the game on Friday afternoon and convinced my parents to take the day off for it (not particularly difficult, you might have figured out that we kinda like sports - 75 more days until hockey preseason, btw), and I got tickets for a plane and flew into Chicago late Thursday night/early Friday morning. Spent the night at the Hyatt Rosemont near the airport, and after a couple hours of sleep and a shower, grabbed a cab and headed to Wrigleyville. The initial plan, which we weren't sure would work, was to meet up for lunch at The Cubby Bear - I would get there early and then my brother and parents would come in for lunch and I'd be there with a table. But between a later-than-planned start and traffic, they weren't able to get to Chicago in time for a pre-game lunch. So instead, I crossed the street to the ballpark and made myself comfortable in my seat to watch the Reds' batting practice:
Excellent tix, btw, K! My parents were definitely surprised to see me sitting in what they thought was my mom's seat. The Cubs apparently were, too - so surprised that they forgot to play the seventh inning and lost horribly. I spent the rest of the weekend with my family in my hometown, and then went back up to Chicago on Monday to fly back to Denver. After spending the day here:
The Museum of Science & Industry! I got to see my Fairy Castle, plus a real space exhibit (they have the actual Apollo 8 and Aurora 7 capsules and a big old moon rock, not just some little sliver of one, sorry Denver!), a cool IMAX movie about the new 787 Dreamliner, and a bunch of other neat stuff. (Yes, I think we've established the fact that I'm a geek.)

It was a really good weekend. Made me remember how much I love Chicago. I really need to spend more time there. Too bad it snows and is generally miserable there in the winter. Not to mention the fact that I'd have no work there. Anyway, back to the weekend, the only real downsides were the Cubbies losing badly TWICE (although I do feel the need to point out that despite the fact that we're 10.5 games out of first, there are also three other teams BELOW US) and the fact that I did not get asked to run away with any cute professional hockey OR baseball players while there. Need to work on that. One of my online friend's responses to this was "What?? I assume the reason I have not been asked these things is because I moved to Chicago with my SO, but I would have figured someone eligible and awesome like yourself would have made it work. I’ll have to complain to Mayor Daley," which I thought was a brilliant idea. He needs to be made aware that the players in his city are NOT fulfilling my personal fantasies ;-) This was right before she chewed me out for being in Chicago and not meeting up with her and several others - next time I'm in Chicago, I now have to take out a full-page ad in the Trib announcing my presence and schedule. My social calendar is apparently much busier than I thought.

I did get some knitting in, though! In fact, I have two projects going now. The New Angle afghan has grown:
There's another four squares ready to be seamed together, too. Just ten more squares and the borders! The guys have been teasing me and saying that it has to get done before this class ends, because it has to be in our class photo. We have two weeks left, so I'm thinking that's probably not gonna happen, but I might try.

I also finally gave in to my recent craving to do some lace again:
This is the start of Melanie Gibbons' Moon Dance Stole (Ravelry link). Well, in this case, Moon Dance Scarf, since I know a.) my own attention span and b.) my pocketbook. (I didn't bring any laceweight or smaller needles with me from Cali, so I had to buy both.) The yarn is Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine, and is a darker, richer teal than in the photo. I am really enjoying this pattern so far and it's going relatively quickly. (It will look a lot lacier and less dense after blocking.) I've been working on this in the evenings and the afghan during class breaks. No timeline on this one, yay!

Class is going better. We've gotten to the point where we know each other well enough to razz each other (they have a LOT of fun with my ankle brace and that whole situation) and we laugh a lot. It helps that we know we'll be working together after this class, and we have a common enemy in one of the instructors. The enemy of my enemy, after all. (I actually have no problems with said instructor as a person, but she dropped too heavy of a hammer on too light of a situation and succeeded in putting all of our backs up. Since we don't have too much interaction with her, we've seen no reason to forgive her for it yet.)

Only two more weeks left and then I get to go back home! Yay! I can't wait to get back to classes, although I'm sure they'll kick my butt. My ankle is definitely still not up to it - it had been feeling better, and I'm technically off profile now, but the past couple days it's been hurting almost as much as it did when I initially sprained it, so I'm most likely going to try to get another appointment for Monday to get it looked at again. I think by the time I get back to California it should be okay, though. And I have orders at least through 1 October according to my flight commander - one more class and then probably a couple months of OJT - so getting paid regularly is always nice.

So I think that catches everyone up for the most part. I'm still plotting the adventures for this weekend. I'm pretty sure I'm going to hit up at Rockies/Padres game either tomorrow night or Sunday afternoon. The Padres are in first and the Rockies in a potentially close second, so that should be an interesting series. There are also a couple movies that I want to see, but I haven't decided which one yet. (On a TV sidenote, I did attempt to watch CSI again and it, again, failed miserably. But I am looking forward to TNT's new series Rizzoli & Isles series that starts Monday. Two of my favorite actresses star in it.) Before I leave the area, I want to go to the Cave of the Winds and go white-water rafting, but that's going to depend a lot on the ankle, so we'll see.

The countdown begins!