Happy Hour

Around 4:00 yesterday I hopped on the train and rode the ten minutes downtown to do a little shopping before I met friends for happy hour. Yeah I said friends, nbd. Not only do I have friends in my new city, but I meet them for happy hour. I'm finally able to experience the post work drinking get togethers I've been longing for for so many years. Chris, Kate, Katy and I met at The Cedar Hotel between Rush and State street. Just four young professionals hanging out catching a drink after a busy day on the grind. A lawyer in training (Kate), two salesmen (Chris and Katy), and a culinary specialist (me), just talking about what young professionals talk about. We discussed politics, Kate is going to a political thing tonight because the drinks are cheap. We talked about sales in the 2011's, Chris and Katy believe nobody has any idea what they're doing at their company but that's okay because the bossman is a huge pothead and really doesn't care. And I talked about knife skills. It was a pretty good moment. The only people missing from our middle aged 20something group were Joey and Phoebe. They'll come next time.

Katy told us all how Chicago isn't really that new to her because she's from North Platte, which everybody knows is nicknamed "Little Chicago," she said it even says so on the internet if you google it. Google wouldn't put it if it wasn't true. Little fact that not too many people realize is that Norfolk is often called Little Los Angeles. I'm not sure if this is on google yet but it should be. Now Kate is from Michigan, but according to her she hasn't seen Suh driving around in that shiney black car that he appears to be on TV. I wonder if that really is his house on the commercial. I think it's his mom for sure, but why would she relocate to Detroit? And more so, why in the hell wouldn't Suh buy her a nicer home? Well anyway, Kate now lives in the Boys Town area in Chicago. At first I didn't realize that Chicago had a christian ran institution for troubled young adults, but good for them. We need more places like it. Kate said she likes living there because she feels very safe. I thought it was kind of odd Kate would choose to live in an orphanage home at the age of 24, but who knows, maybe rent is cheap. And like she said, she feels safe. But as it turns out, the neighborhood is just called boys town, it's not an actual "Boys Town." The boys town in Chicago is a little bit different from the Boys Town in Omaha if you catch my glittery pink boa drift... I'm hoping to go out with her there soon. There's nothing like a gay bar to boost the old self esteem.

Well eventually happy hour always turns into drunk hour. We moved on from the Cedar Hotel, which side note is very different from the Cedar Motel. I googled Cedar Motel to figure out where it was when Katy told me that's where we were meeting. I was very confused as to why were doing happy hour at a seedy old motel outside of Chicago, maybe Katy had a secret weird fetish for hookers? But that's when I realized it was Hotel, not Motel. But after we left the bar with the confusing name we went to a little spot called Pippens. It was a cozy hole-in-the-wall with great french fries. We drank more, chatted about our cool hip lives in Chicago, and somehow the conversation always ended up with college drunk stories.

But the thing I've noticed thus far is that Chicago is a bro friendly city. Kid you not, last night at Pippens Kate, Katy and I were the only girls. Every other table was full of guys. I know Denver is called Menver, but Chicago should have a cute nickname, as well. But good luck trying to incorporate the word men or guy or boy or dude into Chicago because it's impossible. I've been trying for the last hour.