Well it started classy, and that's the point

"Where words fail, music speaks." ~ Hans Christian Anderson
Originally uploaded by Villa Sams.

I should know better than to overload my social calendar during the week. I don't have the stamina that I used to. But when the weather is so great, and the City of Chicago presents me with so many interesting social opportunities, what's a girl to do?!

I called into the Shedd Aquarium last night to case the joint for a birthday cocktails celebration I'm looking to host there. I managed to score a couple of free tickets courtesy of the lovely PR fella there so me, Bork, and Waldo wandered around, sipping cosmopolitans and stuffing our faces with jalapeno cheese poppers and corn chips. The music was wonderful - a couple of live jazz trios dotted around the facility - but the piece de resistance was easily the outdoor Terrace. I have found my heaven in Chicago - alcohol, fresh air, Lake Michigan, a city view - it is paradise.

Then I went to the South Loop to join the Shedd's PR guy and one of the other staffers at a bar for a few drinks. It was wonderful to catch up and I had a great chat to one of the guys whose military career has been amazing - I'm talking trips to the White House, meetings with leading politicians, paratrooper with the SAS, the whole lot. Before I knew it, we'd been at the bar for two hours and it was time for me to head home.

But of course I didn't do that, did I? I grabbed a cab and headed over to the Viagra Triangle to join Biggsy et al for yet more drinks. My cab driver waxed lyrical about how married men are far more interesting than single ones, and then proceeded to give me his cell number so he could be my personal taxi chauffeur around Chicago - a man on call to drive me anywhere I want to go? Lucky me!

Division & Rush on a Thursday night is not a particularly pretty place, and yet I made the best of it. A couple of tequila sunrises later, and I was in tiki torch heaven. I had flower leis around my neck, Jenn had somebody's cowboy hat on her head, and we were having a ball. A bouncer followed me into the toilets to forceably evict a woman who'd locked herself in there and, as I applied my lipstick & gloss liberally, he told me that I looked fabulous and my lips looked juicy. He was built like a wrestler and I almost wanted to do something crazy so he'd pick ME up and throw me out, but I had a drink back at the table that I wanted to finish. So I just gave a girly giggle and left. Awesome.

Crawling into bed at 1am, and then oozing out of bed at 6.30am today, I am a little rough around the edges. But as has been typical of my summer in Chicago so far, I spent last night doing things I haven't done here and I had a wonderful time - tequila hangover and all.