Day 4: Chicago

It's a beautiful, warm, sunny day in Chicago today. I'm at Caribou Coffee on Michigan Avenue, across the street from Grant Park. Yesterday I had a very nice lunch at Gibson's Steakhouse with my Uncle Joe and some of his friends. As Audri, the hilarious woman sitting to my right at the table, explained to me, this Saturday lunch group is a long-standing tradition that was started by Irv Kupcinet, a very famous Chicagoan whose column ran in the Chicago Sun-Times for over six decades. "Kup" invited his famous friends, including politicians, celebrities, intellectuals, etc., whose paths would likely never cross if not for Kup, and engage in "the lively art of conversation." Before he passed away in 2003, Kup asked the group's regulars to keep the tradition alive, and so they did. They all go every week, unless they're out of town. The group varies in size from four to seventeen, depending on the week, and attendance is by invitation only. When I heard this, I felt very special.

Sitting to my left was my godfather's law parter, Andrew De La Rosa. The last time I saw him was 10 years ago, when I stayed with his family at their home in London, before and after backpacking around Europe. He has two step-children, Henry and Harriet, whom I met when I was there, and they were both en route to Chicago, Henry from Guatemala and Harriet from London. When I met them ten years earlier, Harriet was thirteen going on twenty-one; At the time, she had a broken arm from crowd-surfing at a concert, or at least that's what she told her parents. She revealed to me (in confidence that I'm now grossly breaching) that the injury was actually the result of a fight she got in with another girl after she kissed the girl's boyfriend at the concert. Hilarious! Henry was fifteen when I met him, and all I remember is that he was the drummer for an extremely loud punk rock band that practiced upstairs. He may have told me more about himself, but I couldn't hear him over the drumming. He's now a US History teacher at a boarding school in London. We're all going to get together before I leave, and I'm definitely looking forward to it.

After lunch, I met up with Lisa and Dave at the zoo. Lisa is one of my favorite people in all the world. She did TFA with me in Houston. Dave is her wonderful, adorable husband. He looks just like Tommy Siegal from Jukebox the Ghost, except about two feet taller Unfortunately, we were able to spend only a little more than an hour together, and then they had to get to the airport to catch a flight back to Portland, Oregon, where they live. It's okay, because I'll see them again in a few weeks when I stay with them in Portland.

In a few minutes, Uncle Joe is going to take me on a tour of the University of Chicago, where he met my parents in 1971. They met after he published their co-authored letter to the editor in his column, "Creeping Individualism." Then I'm going to have lunch with my godparents at Medici in Hyde Park, and after that I'm going to meet Addison (Addie), my godparents' new granddaughter.

I hope everyone is well and I will send another update soon!

Much love,

Danielle