I have now been in Milwaukee for eight weeks, meaning that I have only four more weeks in this city. I can’t believe I have wasted so much time not appreciating being here. I haven’t gone to RiverWest at all, haven’t been to the Art Museum, haven’t gone to a Brewers’ game (BUT I LOVE BASEBALL SO MUCH!!), haven’t really checked out the thrift shops downtown or gone to any of the Third Ward bars. All I’ve done is hang out at Bradford Beach and go to Summerfest a gazillion times. And play some kickball and drink a lot of beer (which, I guess, is a pretty Milwaukee thing to do). I’m always so frustrated with my own inertia. It takes so much to get me to go out and see a place, since I always feel like I have way more time than I really do (case in point: Edinburgh… how much of that city did I miss? How much time did I spend hanging out in peoples’ flats or the same pub over and over? Though, those things are in themselves experiences). I haven’t gone on a single brewery tour yet!! I need somebody to come be my partner in crime!
And even if I have four weeks here, my weekend time is severely impeded. This weekend I’m working 8 hours at a community festival (it’s a jazz, blues, and gospel festival, so it should actually be awesome!), then driving straight up to Nick’s fiancee’s parents’ cottage on Lake Michigan to spend the rest of the weekend. I’m really excited about this, since in all my time in the Great Lakes/Land o’ Lakes, I have been invited to a cabin/cottage/lakehouse only once, and that time it was impossible for me to attend. Also, Nick, his fiancée, Ashley, and their friends are really quality people. I need to decide what to make tonight to bring to share! I was thinking cookies, but that is a ton of effort without a stand mixer. Maybe brownies, though I brought that to the last gathering. Also, I really don’t want to turn the oven on so much, since it’s going to be a hot hot hot (!!!) weekend. Yuck. Oh well, fun times shall be had, whatever happens!
Next weekend, I have to work four hours on Saturday morning, and then I think I might go home, but I have to decide whether to do that or go home the next weekend so I can see my little brother’s band, Flounder Gus, play in the regional Battle of the Bands. They are on FIRE! If they win there, they move on to play at the Illinois State Fair, and I’d have just enough time to go see them before I have to go back to Minnesota. August 5-7 will be my last weekend here! I plan to go see Here Come the Mummies again at the WI state fair (I HIGHLY recommend seeing them if you ever have the chance. Their show was quite possibly the most fun I have EVER had) with ye olde kickball team, then do a brewery tour cruise on Saturday. Seriously, if anybody wants to come up and join me, I am VERY open to this idea! On August 12, I’ll finish work here, drive home, head into Chicago, hang out with the delightful Tara for the night, get on a Megabus at 7 am and be on my way to Indianapolis to visit my friend Emily, whom I have not seen for, oh, more than 7 months (has it really been so long since we left Edinburgh!?)! I snagged the elusive $1.00 fare for my trip home Monday night. I’ll spend the week piloting my thesis interviews, then pack and be off to the Great White North to start my pre-term field class (SO EXCITED!).
Last week, some of my friends from high school came up to go out for dinner at the Safe House, which is a pretty cool (if ludicrously overpriced!) restaurant with a spy theme. It doesn’t say the name on the outside or anything. It’s just a little door in the alley that says something like “International Imports and Exports” or something, and you have to know it’s there, and then know the password or do some stupid task to get in. The best part: if you have to earn your right to go in, you’re on a camera that everybody in the bar and the restaurant can see, so when you go through the hidden passage and walk in, everybody claps for you. Of course, I ruined the fun and found the password on teh Interwebz and ditched the girls. They had to do Charlie’s Angels poses, which was pretty funny to watch, if a little pedestrian. We had to wait forever to get seated, but we had fun exploring the nooks and crannies and hidden passageways of the building, though we couldn’t get the secret phone booth exit to work, and I was very disappointed. All in all, it was a really fun evening and it was great to see some old friends!
I just finished Sloane Crosley’s second book, How Did You Get This Number? Those of you who know me well may know that it is my ultimate goal in life to write a wildly successful memoir or essay collection, and Sloane Crosley’s are at the level I aspire to reach. She’s hilarious, but also insightful, though I did not like this one as much as I liked I was Told There Would be Cake. I highly, highly recommend reading them if you haven’t already. They’re both fairly quick reads and definitely well worth your time. I think this is now quite long for an entry, though it hasn’t really managed to sum up all of my thoughts for the week, so expect more late. I’m VERY upset about HR 2018 passing the House, though I am comforted by the knowledge that Obama has said he will veto it if it passes the Senate, which I hope it will not, so that I can still have some faith in this country’s government.
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