Weekend In Paradise.

Well, it was supposed to be. A weekend, two full nights without the kids, spending time in the beautiful city of Chicago, just hubby and me, reconnecting, being together, being alone.

Didn’t start out too terrific. I woke up Friday morning S I C K. Not hangover sick, not migraine sick, not anything specific sick. Almost like pregnant sick – NOT THE CASE though. Like I felt like I had to vomit all day, had a headache, felt like other stuff was happening, didn’t eat, couldn’t get out of bed.

And yes, Friday was the day we were supposed to go to the city for our reconnecting. Well, I had to go. We pricelined our room, and it was way too expensive because you cannot cancel with priceline, plus my rationale was, “If I’m going to be sick, I might as well be sick in a nice hotel room without my parents, my in-laws, my parent’s dog, and my three kids, right?” Right.

And it’s just so darned unfair. I looked forward to this little getaway for months! Our relationship thrives on these reconnecting moments and why do I get sick that day? So, I suck it up, and try to tell myself I am getting better.

A friend of mine and her husband had planned on going with us because her husband works near the city so we were all going to go down there and have dinner together. I almost called her to cancel. I felt really bad about screwing up everybody’s plans. I even told her they could get me settled in the bed and the three of them could go out for dinner themselves, with Hubby being the third wheel.

I took a shower, packed who knows what, grabbed a pillow and a Ziploc baggie and got into the backseat of the car. I had eaten a half of a graham cracker and Fresca all day long. I tried to throw up all day long, thinking it would make me feel better. I couldn’t.

I couldn’t, that is, until I got into the moving car. Yup, I yakked in the Ziploc in the backseat of the car; I moaned, I apologized, I felt yuck. Then we got to the city, picked up her husband, and I told him not to get too close to me.

I thought maybe if I slept a little I might feel better, since puking in the back seat of the car seemed to get some of it out of my system. So, the three of them went down to the bar and I snoozed, got up, and told myself, “How many times do I get to go out for a night in the city?” And I got myself ready and met them in the bar and we went to dinner.

Still didn’t feel all that great, drank ginger ale at dinner. I’m sure the waitress thought I was pregos. I even made the joke once, and Hubby commented, “Uh, you have to have sex to get pregnant.”

“We did!” I assured everyone. “Remember, a couple Sundays ago?”

Yep, sad. I know. But remember, I’m all about the quality, not the quantity.

So, after dinner, we walked around Millenium Park which is so beautiful and they have FREE music concerts on the lawn on weekends, and on Saturday mornings they have yoga and pilates for free. Man, it would be so cool to live in the city. I am such a country-suburb bum. There’s the awesome Crown Fountain where digital images of people are on these big glass thingies, and they spit water out at the people.

We got to bed around 10 and in the morning, I felt so much better. Talk about a 12-hour bug. Whatever it was, it wasn’t fun. But Saturday was! Until a point, that is, but I’ll get to that…

We get up and take a long walk along Chicago’s waterfront. Like two hours long. It was so nice just to be together and talk about what we want to do when we’re old, and talk about how we will never jog together, but maybe we’d bike together someday, and we talked about plans for the day. We had THE WHOLE DAY TOGETHER. We had 24 hours of just Mr. and Mrs. Manic time. The day was O U R S for the taking, and yes, we shot the bed. (Which I guess is a phrase I may have heard previously, or maybe I made it up, or maybe it’s part of a phrase I heard before but I adlibbed a little, anyway, we got too excited too early for our adventure.

See, we had it all planned out that after lunch, we would go to the Taste of Lincoln and then afterward, we’d go back to the hotel, take showers, have an early dinner, then go to Venetian Night on the lakefront and watch the boat parade and the fireworks.

Well, we did have lunch; we did go to the Taste of Lincoln and well, it kind of ends there. Because at the Taste of Lincoln, there was just too much music, and too much people-watching and too much margaritas. A band was playing there called the Ides of March and the lead singer was the former lead singer of Survivor so they played EYE OF THE TIGER and I’M HIGH ON YOU, and then they also played some 38-Special songs like HOLD ON LOOSELY (which I think at one point during my high school career, that was a theme song of mine), and also that So Caught Up in You, Little Girl song, and we were drinking margaritas that were just way too strong, and first of all, I shouldn’t have been drinking anyway since the day before I had been really sick. But I guess after one margarita I suddenly thought I felt better. Dumb. I know. But I was in the moment! I was enjoying one-on-one, so far-and-few-between moments with my husband, and we were having so much fun. Then there was another band called Cat Fight, and they sang songs like Let’s Go Crazy by Prince, I Love Rock & Roll by Joan Jett, and surely some others than I cannot remember, cuz at this point we go to a Hoffbrau House type bar and meet some dudes named Orlando and Xavier and this lady named Carlin, and well, after a while there, Hubby decides we’re done drinking and it’s time for us to leave.

We have to take the EL train back to our hotel room, and after the ride when we get off the train, I walk (okay it was probably more of a stumble) over to the nearest garbage can and throw up. Yes, I am one classy chick who certainly can hold her liquor.

It’s 6:30 p.m.

We go back to the hotel, get into the bed, and through my haze, I’m thinking, “well, we’ll just sleep it off, get up in a little while, grab a pizza and go see the boat show.”

FOURTEEN HOURS LATER…Sunday morning… we wake up.

Hubby’s wearing the same clothes he had on when we ventured downtown on Friday afternoon. Neither of us have showered since we’ve been there, and my head will not stop the PLAY button of EYE OF THE TIGER. But, well, we’re kind of refreshed, and starving!

We go to breakfast and rehash the day’s event, agreeing we both had a fun time, and we’re cracking up at how we can still be those two crazy kids who fell in love with each other 17 years ago, probably right around the time that Survivor hit it big. The only difference is, while Survivor may not still be going strong, hubby and I are!

Peace UP!