Heavy Metal and the Pink Shirt...

This past weekend my older sister Jenni and her boyfriend Troy came to visit. I was super excited to have them out to visit--and I'm sure they both were excited to have a weekend away from work and kids! I even learned how to make (from scratch no less--including the crust!) Pecan Pie--which I made for them as a 'Welcome to my Humble Abode' present. (Hey--if you come visit me you may get a pie too--what kind do you like?)

We had a lot of fun--spending the ENTIRE day on Saturday downtown Chicago (after a local breakfast at the hoppin' Seven Dwarves restaurant!). As soon as we parked downtown, the skies opened up and the rain fell. We walked (fast!) to a nearby Walgreens to buy an umbrella from their quickly dwindling supply! Of course, within minutes of leaving Walgreens with our new (but cheap) umbrellas, the rain stopped.

We went on to walk for quite a ways along the lakefront before getting in a taxi to take us the rest of the way to Belmont and Broadway to the location of Troy's FAVORITE music store of all time...Metal Haven. It's basically a hole in the wall CD shop devoted entirely to hard core heavy metal music--a favorite of my sister and her boyfriend (they were in town, after all, to see a Megadeth concert!). Anyway, the Metal Haven experience was an interesting one, to say the least! Music I had never heard of, with CD covers I wouldn't describe to my own grandma, and a lot of black. In fact, as I stood idly and obviously against an empty wall, I realized I stood out like a sore thumb. It wasn't because I wasn't perusing the CD's with interest, or talking about the latest cool metalhead concert. It was because I was the only one--the ONLY one in the store NOT wearing black. And not only was I not wearing black--I was wearing PINK! It is like the complete opposite of black in a heavy metal store! I was sure all the metalheads in there saw me as a Legally Blonde type of girl (except I'm brunette) with her little pink shirt and her pink painted toenails. I'm sure they were wondering where I was stowing my pink clad chihuahua!

Well, it was an entertaining stop for me AND for everyone else in the store, I'm sure!

After crazy Metal Haven we took the El train back to our car and then drove to Navy Pier where we went broke paying for parking. We walked the length of the Pier--nearly getting blown away at the end of it! We considered going on the Ferris Wheel, but that option was ixnayed by the guy of the group. He said he wasn't interested. Jenni and I know he was scared! We walked past all the silly 'Funhouse' mirrors--nearly peeing our pants with laughter at the one that made it look like our heads were about three feet long. Good thing we don't really look like that. It's not pretty. We then briefly considered hitting up Bubba Gump's restaurant for dinner, but quickly re-thought that idea when we learned the wait was over 2 hours!

We left Navy Pier not too much later and drove to North Avenue, where we located Exit--the heavy metal bar that we would visit later that evening--another of Troy's 'must see's' in Chicago (again--I'm still wearing my pink shirt!). But Exit wasn't open yet, so we wandered until we found Iggy's--a funky cool outdoor martini and expensive food bar. In fact the food ended up being so expensive that we just had a martini and ate the free bread. Such silly cheapskates we are! After Iggy's we went to Exit--and were basically the first to arrive. It actually wasn't that scary of a bar, considering it was a heavy metal bar. I felt much less out of place than I had in Metal Haven--in fact, some of the people in Exit had on green and even blue shirts! But I was still the only one in pink. But Exit was fun--and pretty low key. Us oldies were out of there by midnight and besides a pit stop for midnight milkshakes at Mickey D's, were were crashing in our beds by 1:00 AM.

All in all it was a fun weekend--come again Jenni and Troy!

PS--FOR SALE: barely used like new umbrella. Walgreens brand. $5.99 OBO