Okay. If you didn’t know this, now you do. I am a week returned to the States. I’m still not sure how I feel about it but for the time being it’s pretty five-by-five. I’ve reacquainted myself with my friends and things kind of slipped back into routine…sort of. The lack of Rich is fairly obvious. But I suppose the same thing could have been said about me when I left. Although, because I have incurable crazy, I’m pretty sure people didn’t notice. You know, ‘cuz I keep leaving the country. I’ve done it twice now, and I am seriously considering a third time. But that remains to be seen. Why the hell can’t I just stay put?
These last five days have been pretty cool. It’s nice to be with friends. I emphasize the plurality of that ‘cuz there weren’t too many in England. ‘Twas a shame, really, but I’m not gonna pretend it was otherwise. I mean, my first night back, I went to the Settlement and there were five of us in total. Five. It’s been a while since I did anything more than one-on-one. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind just hanging out with one person…but it’s hella nice to be a with a group again. And of course, one of the things we did was play Oh Hell. Oh how I’ve missed that.
We did some fun things, too. On Friday, it was a day in the city for Toni, VoW and me to meet Brad and Bert for lunch and then see the Pirates Exhibit at the Field. That was way cool. After wandering the exhibit, we decided to keep looking at stuff. And seriously, where the hell have I been? I don’t remember the Evolving Planet being there. Was it there when we went in February ‘06? I think not.
The day didn’t stop at the museum, either. We ended up meeting the Ordonii at Portillo’s for dinner. I know it sounds crazy, but I missed that kind of food. The shakes alone are worth it! ‘Twas to Barnes and Nobles and then to the Halfway House thereafter. Pretty great Friday!
On Saturday, Toni and I went to the Gail Borden Library. Okay, so not so cool for some people but SOOO awesome for me and Toni. That is a pretty sweet library. She had to pick up some research material and I wandered around. I don’t go to libraries other than Schaumburg so it was cool to see what others looked like. (The British Library doesn’t really count since I didn’t have a Reading Pass.) And naturally, once the books were checked out it was back to the Settlement. There was Jimmy John’s to be had and general hanging out ensued. In fact, by the end of the evening, it was a veritable party! GrAl even made an appearance, and I didn’t expect to see them until Christmas!
Sunday was an evening wandering the Richardson Farm Corn Maze, the largest in the world. When it was first proposed, I was a little…jack ass-y about it (not gonna lie). A corn maze? What the hell is that? And then we went there and it was all kinds of AWESOME! Although, Toni, Bert, and I kinda separated from the group to try and go through the maze as mazes were meant to be wandered through — WITHOUT A MAP! Sure, we busted through the corn at points (come on, clearly other people had done it otherwise we wouldn’t have known to get through those ways), but we made a game out of it by trying to avoid being sighted by people. We were doing pretty well, too, until we got to the more populated areas.
Since we weren’t trying to do anything fancy like get to all the checkpoints, we made it out of the maze in an hour. The others were keen to stick about in the cold, so we ended up going to Chilli’s for some food. The biggest disappointment of the evening was the lack of Apple Donuts. It was most upsetting since I’ve never had any before and I was kind of looking forward to trying some. Also, my parents asked me to bring some back for them…and they never ask me to bring stuff back for them! Epic fail.
It has become custom for folk to go to Quiz Night. So on Monday night, I accompanied the Settlers, VoW, Brad, and Vow’s friend Megan (sp?) to a “pub” in Palatine. (It wasn’t a pub, it was a brasserie! Er, I mean a micro-brewery!) I didn’t anticipate being any good, but I was able to help my team with three questions! I get to live! Yay! I may even continue going with ‘em! 
And as it was in the past, Tuesday night I was to the Settlement to watch some TV. It wasn’t the mass gathering of old nor was it the multitude of shows, but it was something familiar-ish to me.
It’s been a pretty good week home.
Oh yeah! And it has been more or less decided that those of us willing to would participate in our own version of National Novel Writing Month. None of us are super keen on registering, but we want to see if we can do it. The rules have yet to be finalized, but we’re pretty set on it. My only problem is I don’t know what to write!