This Past Week.

Saturday, I was supposed to work 12 to 6. I got a call at 8 that morning asking if I could come in at 10 and work until 6:30 for a full eight-hour shift, so someone could go home early. I did.

Sunday, I was supposed to work 12 to 6. I got a call, as I was driving to work, asking if I could come in at 2 instead. "Two until when?" "Close." Someone had called out. I covered.

Monday was a normal eight-hour shift.

Tuesday, BJ, Sam and I left the house at 7 in the morning, picked up our friend Raequan at 7:30, grabbed some breakfast, and headed to Chicago.

Oh my goodness, Chicago.

We went to the Brookfield Zoo first, and were there for four or five hours. We saw almost everything, and I took a million pictures of almost everything. The three best things, that had HUGE impacts on me, were the three things we paid extra for: the dolphin show, petting (de-barbed) stingrays, and the butterfly house. I was exhausted and in pain by the time we left, but I was also excited the entire time, like little-kid excited, it was AWESOME. The dolphin show almost made me cry from pure kid joy, the stingrays were so adorable and wonderful and calming, the butterfly house was a photographic dream, MAN...it was fantastic.

Next was The Chicago Diner, a vegan/vegetarian restaurant recommended to Rae by a co-worker. I want to make this co-worker cookies for suggesting it, because OH. MY. GOD. Some of the best food I have ever had. The milkshake was to die for. The atmosphere was fun and cozy. The waitress was amazing--she helped explain the menu without being pretentious or condescending, answered our questions about the food and Chicago, and even drew us a map of cool places to go within walking distance. The whole experience was...awesome.

Next was Navy Pier, which was basically just shops and restaurants that we enjoyed toodling around in. After that was Mitsuwa Marketplace, a Japanese store BJ and Sam are fond of visiting, and Woodfield Mall.

We didn't get home until past one in the morning, although that was mostly the fault of the GPS on my phone, which is, in a word, moronic. Honestly, the best parts of the trip were outside the car, because being in the car meant following directions from a phone who didn't understand the real world we were currently driving in.

But yeah. That was Tuesday, in Chicago.

Wednesday was Aurelie's birthday. The original plan had been to go to Lake Michigan, chill for most of the day, then go back to Goshen for dinner and drinking. I met up with Aurelie and Allie at Quincy's, gave her her presents, had breakfast, hung out for a bit. She changed her mind about the lake--as was her birthday girl prerogative--and decided on a movie instead.

I was fading quickly at this point, having only gotten about five hours of sleep after 14 hours in Chicago after five hours of sleep, and realized that it was either go to the movies and hang out, or go to dinner and the bar later. I chose the latter, Aurelie said it was fine, and I went home and crashed for a few hours. Sadly, crashing didn't mean sleep so much as not-moving-or-thinking, so it was only half as restful as hoped, but still.

I picked Aurelie up and took her to Buffalo Wild Wings, where a bunch of people came out for her birthday dinner. After that was The Constant Spring, which was full of a different birthday party, all of which were drunk and doing karaoke. Beatles's karaoke. While drunk. I was displeased.

Still, it was good people, good time, Aurelie had a blast. Mission accomplished. :)

Still didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night, either.

Yesterday, Thursday, was an eight-hour pre-closing shift. I started out fairly upbeat and able, went downhill to exhausted and hungry, ate, and became just plain exhausted. I was basically pathetic and whiny from four o'clock on to the end of the night.

Today, I don't go in until 4:30, and I close. I got a text from the Morning Shift asking if I could come in at 2. I might fall have if I didn't have a To Do list that literally can't be done the rest of the weekend.

And then it's four more days of my six-day work week after that. Then three days off. Whee!

There, now we're all caught up. Now if I could just get a couple of hours of time where I'm awake and don't have shit to do so I can call all my parents and not be a terrible daughter...