Five days in NYC

Last weekend I flew to NYC to see my sister Ruth, who is finishing her second week of radiation today. I haven't seen her since chemo, and it was so so so good to see her feeling so much better and totally rocking her very chic short hair (I probably told her ten times in the first hour how beautiful she was because I was just SO HAPPY to see her looking like herself again, smiling and laughing and talking. So so good to see her). 

Elise also flew out and it was amazing to be there with both of them--we missed our other two sisters and our mom who couldn't be there, so hopefully another girls' weekend is in the offing soon!

We had an amazing mix of laughing so much my face hurt and then having some really good deep discussions that I'm still pondering. And it was so good to be able to chat a bit with Ruth's radiation oncologist and hear how things are progressing.

When I last visited Ruth, we went to chemo and then stuck to her apartment the rest of the time I was there. I slipped out a couple times for runs, but this time Ruth was feeling well enough to manage and extraordinarily packed weekend that left me exhausted-I can't even imagine how she did it! (We did really try to protect her sleep and I had a couple times where I ninja-rolled out of bed so she could keep napping or sleep in.)

Some highlights: we saw Hamilton! On Broadway!!! Ruth and Jordan were SO generous and treated us to tickets and man, it was absolutely everything everyone says it is. So so so so so good (and my favorite little story from the night is that Elise didn't know we were going and started crying when we got in line and realized what was happening). We also saw Puffs the Play the next night and it was really funny and super fun if you are a Harry Potter fan--just lots of little inside jokes and cleverness. And to complete the most amazing weekend ever, we stayed at the Lotte Palace in the Towers, which holy cow, I have no words. I have never before stayed in a hotel room that had a chandelier in both the bathroom and the foyer--and we had a very fun time discovering all the products in the bathroom!! Somehow I sweet-talked our way into a great upgrade and we just had a fabulous fabulous fabulous time and I slept SO well!!! And since it was crazy cold in the middle of the polar vortex, I opted to run on the treadmill instead of venturing outside, and just checked out every detail of the roof of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Wish my treadmill view was always so scenic!!

Since it was New York, we also had absolutely amazing food for every meal--Crazyshakes at Black Tap, chocolate walnut cookies at Levain, afternoon tea at Bosie's, the most perfect burger and blue cheese fondue at The Smith, heavenly heavenly Los Tacos, the divine panna cotta at Little Collins, a killer cheesecake at Magnolia, a deliciously long and leisurely brunch at the Loeb Boathouse (followed by the obligatory traipse through the Ramble in Central Park)...I know I'm forgetting things but trust me, we had a great time! :-)

At one point we were walking along the Hudson in the twilight looking at the sunset gleaming off the icy river and I just looked at these two sisters of mine for whom I feel so much love and told them how grateful I was for the time we were able to spend together--they truly are some of my dearest friends. It gives me great hope that someday my children will stop fighting and completely adore each other. ;-)

Girls' weekend in Chicago

Way back in October, I spent a wonderful weekend in Chicago with my mom and two of my sisters. It was just a couple of days after I'd been told that I needed to take a week off running (but still didn't know it was a stress fracture), but while I didn't run I walked about 20 miles around Chicago! It ended up being pretty achy and I had to take elevators instead of stairs, but was such a blast!! 

I met my mom halfway to Chicago and drove in with her; we went to our awesome boutique hotel that was a block off the Mag Mile (and on the Chicago Marathon route, and yes I cried watching the marathoners when I couldn't run) and met up with Ruth, then we walked over to XOCO to meet Mary Beth, who works downtown. Dinner was amazing, especially the loaded guacamole.

We wandered around downtown a bit and oohed and aahed over Eataly, bought a few yummies and salivated over all the cheese, determined that we'd come back the next day for dinner, then stopped for a midnight snack at Shake Shack.

The next morning we got up bright and early. Ruth and I worked out, then we all ate some of our delicious Eataly purchases from the night before, and walked down to the MI Ave. bridge and bought tickets for the Chicago Architectural Foundation's river cruise. The docent was absolutely fabulous, incredibly informative, and I learned SO much! Unfortunately it was also freezing cold and rained off and on, but hey, that's Chicago, and we still enjoyed it anyway! But I was supremely excited every time we went under a bridge and the rain stopped momentarily. :-)

View of the skyline from the harbor--no matter how many times I see this, it never gets old. I was pretty bummed though that I didn't get to run along the river & the lake; this is the first time in years I've come to Chicago and not gotten in at least 10 miles on that route.

After the river cruise, we headed to Gage for lunch (sooo yummy and loved the atmosphere!) and then spent the evening at the Art Institute. I can't find all of the photos we took imitating various works of art, which is a real shame because some of them were super inventive and made good use of props. Loved revisiting the Impressionist collection and some of my very very favorite pieces, including my beloved Sunday on La Grande Jatte--and my mom bought me a magnetized mini-version of the painting so now I get to enjoy it on my 'fridge every day!! We spent a long time in the Thorne Miniatures, wandered through the Renaissance galleries (my second-favorites), made sure to stop by the Chagall windows, and did some quick blitz-style whirls through the statuary and Asian galleries. Love love love the Art Institute!

We hit Eataly for dinner and had some delicious pasta and pizza, plus some gelato and Nutella bar yumminess. I remember being tired enough and my leg was aching sufficiently that I just sat down on the floor for the hour that we waited for a table. Then we went back to our hotel and changed into our comfy robes and ate Garrett's popcorn and more Eataly treats.

The next morning after Ruth & I did our workout we walked to Yolk and had the most delicious, obscenely large breakfast you can possibly imagine.

Then we rolled out and walked for a loong time to sort of get our stomachs back into some semblance of decency.

We ended up on Navy Pier, where we rented a surrey and had literally the BEST TIME EVER. I was laughing so hard that my stomach muscles were throbbing! I seriously don't think I went 90 seconds without laughing like a maniac. If you've ever spent much time in Chicago, you may be familiar with how there's a pretty steep ramp from the pier down to the north side of the Lakefront Trail, and then the trail itself is super super cambered for a couple of miles until you get down to North Beach? Imagine driving a surrey (since I somehow got appointed as driver) down that ramp when half of it is closed for construction and cyclists are supposed to walk their bikes, and then pedaling like crazy on that camber against the wind trying not to fall off (sometimes more successfully than others). Long story short it was so stinkin' fun and something that I will always remember with great fondness (especially when we would get really competitive and try to pedal like crazy to pass runners...let's just say that we were so not fast at all, despite my ever-so-motivational timing via my Garmin and yelling out our lap numbers). Despite my best efforts, no pedestrians were harmed, although it was pretty darn close a few times (we also went off-roading more than once). 

This is up away from the Lakefront Trail and was about the most beautiful path you can imagine. It reminded me of the eastern end of the Champs-Elysées, plus the addition of a beautiful azure Lake Michigan and the breathtaking Chicago skyline, which you can sort of see on the right of this picture in front of Ruth. 

At some point we rode on a trolley. It was fun. But not as wildly fun as the surreys. 

 

Also at some point we stopped by Mary Beth's office and while she did important lawyer things in the conference room, my mom & Ruth and I decorated her private office with Post-It drawings of all of the really important people in her life, like us. We also spelled out her initials on the wall with Post-Its. Turns out her boss liked the personality that we gave her office and told her to leave it up. Haha! I know we have photos somewhere of this awesomeness, but I don't have them myself. There are also good photos somewhere of Ruth watching the sunset from Mary Beth's office window, which overlooks the river and is a truly spectacular view. We also did some wandering and window-shopping on Michigan Ave. and made the obligatory stop at Wow Bao, where we also did the obligatory make-a-mess-on-the-stairs thing, but this time it was lemonade instead of chocolate bao. It's important to have traditions like that. 

After our Navy Pier fun, we went to Lincoln Park and wandered through the zoo. There was a fall festival going on so we bought elephant ears and popcorn and enjoyed ourselves hugely, and then were very tired and almost fell asleep on this bench before we got up to walk to this really awesome little Lebanese place in Mary Beth's neighborhood. Sidenote: I am SO jealous of her gorgeous neighborhood, since she lives in Lincoln Park which is the neighborhood I have ALWAYS wanted to live in if I were ever to live in Chicago! All the homes are so beautiful and we did a lot of wandering around exclaiming over particularly gorgeous ones.

We also went to a Chinese reflexology place one of the nights--Ruth assures us she told us what to expect, but maybe we didn't listen? It was intense! Glad I didn't know my leg was broken or I would have probably been freaking out a little bit. I was next to my mom and I kept hearing these muffled noises from her as the lady walked on her back. Haha! And we totally maximized Uber and managed to get every single ride for free thanks to strategic new customer bonus credits carefully plotted so as to give everyone the maximum amount of credits. It was quite impressive, really.

The last day we went to church, had lunch at Range, where the food was SO good and I wanted to go back almost the instant that we left, and then we sat on a bench in the park eating macaroons and watching kids play before we had to say our sad goodbyes and sent Ruth off to the airport.

Man oh man, I am so lucky to have such an awesome family! I can't even tell you how grateful I am for my parents and my sisters being some of my very favorite people on this planet. We really missed Elise and Rosalind on this trip and I was SOOO glad that we had an everyone-together-New-Year's to look forward to (plus our amazing beach trip later this year!!). And of course, hugely hugely hugely grateful to my dear husband who held down the fort at home while I was off gallivanting. :-)