The older you get, the less you see your birthday coming. It's no longer the frame that you fit your day into. It slowly becomes one of the pieces in the frame of any other day. That frame for me was spent driving to Ohio for a friend's wedding.
Thankfully we fit a joyous birthday picture into that frame.
A couple of friends and I made the trip out to Ashtabula, OH, way up in the northeast corner. On the way we stopped at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame! It was sweet. I saw tons of memorabilia including Michael Jackson's outfit from the Billie Jean video as well as rejection letters written to none other than U2! It was wild. We also saw handwritten lyrics for Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" and Aerosmith's "Walk This Way." Oh, and Flava Flav's clock. After all that rock, Lauren rolled down a hill. Rock 'n' Roll? Complete.
Next the three of us checked into our motel (with an "m"). It had that characteristically sketchy look about it: wooded lot, empty parking lot, blinking office sign. Add the rainbow-colored awning lights and the dim office and you're ready to go somewhere death is less imminent. But the room was actually really nice and served its purpose for three days. We dropped off the stuff and headed out for a birthday dinner. I ate a steak, and we shared a lovely conversation with the locals at the table behind us. They invited us to a party! But the party is next week, so we're not going.
Saturday we went all around Ashtabula, Kingsville and other towns to look at covered bridges. Apparently it's the greatest concentration of covered bridges in the world. It's got the longest, and now they're building the shortest (18'). That's what small towns do, I suppose. We saw 7 bridges, and I must say the pictures we took were way more exciting than the actual bridges. Also, Amish pastries.
After the bridges we grabbed a quick bite and headed to the wedding. I had been to the church before; our college choir sang there on our Ohio tour in 2004. It's a small world after all. Between wedding and reception we stopped at a bar (dry reception) to get a drink. The entire time Lauren and I spoke in fake British accents, which caused the bartender to exclaim, "You guys are fun to talk to!" They also accidentally served me an extra pint. I'm not sure why the bartender apologized three times for giving me a free beer, but she did. I drank about half before I was too full to go on.
At the reception we ate a lot of food, and got our dance on. Somehow I ended up in a dance-off with a guy from Ohio, and apparently I won. I did the puppet legs, and a little floor spin, and he gave up. I think I yelled something like, "Chi-town, baby!" It was funny, since they were all from Columbus (C-bus), we were the Chicago crowd, and that's just how it had to be. I've never really been associated as "from" Chicago, so it was crazy to experience that. Good times were had by all.
The next day we left. We stopped on the way back at a Perkins, and also detoured through the south-side of Chicago. It was my first exposure to the area, and it's like a different country. I didn't see a single light-skinned person outside of our car the entire 5 miles or so down the stretch. Once past Pulaski Rd, it was your typical caucasian suburban experience once again. Crazy. People say Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, but words don't do it justice.
And that was the weekend! I thought I'd read some, but I couldn't. That's okay; taking a weekend off makes me want to get back to work.
How was your weekend?
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