I (heart) my team

Ah Smelts. Tasty fish. Good teammates. I spent several hours with a bunch of them yesterday and made it through to the other end, deeply grateful to be one of them.

A swim meet in Evanston had me out of bed a little early after a very good dinner with a wee bit more wine than normally I have. Ah well. I had said I would coach the swimmers, and, in fact, I rather like doing so. It's a good way to pull together as a group but also to find time to talk with individuals and know them a little better. Also, to mentally compose the list of future dinner party guests.

I have to say a few things about the meet:

Some fast swimming there.
Some nasty turns by a lot of swimmers. "Janky" was how I described them to one friend.
Some definite eye candy - nice to see some good looking non-Smelts in Speedos. Oh, don't look at me that way.

The team won the meet (well, as I understand it, the large and powerful Evanston team considers it tacky to win their own meet), and well done to them all. I'm utterly proud of them. And no, it does not inspire me in the least to put on a suit and goggles, get up on the blocks, and make a complete ass of myself in front of everyone. I'm altogether skilled at doing that without having to race, thank you very much.

Post-meet, we headed for The Glenwood where the beer flowed and the pizza fed ravenous swimmers (and coach). I got home at around 5, having barely seen Conrad all day. Ah well, he knows the life of Smelts himself, of course.

Just a super job, though, team. I can't wait until Ruth sends out her massive missive to our team list - that will be fun, reliving the enjoyable Sunday with Smelts.

Meet photos:

Adam

Andrea

Billy and Liz

Brian

Lauren

Michael and Bjorn

Luis and Heidi

Mark and Dana

Liz, Adam, and Ruth

Bjorn and Brian

Luis

With Luis

With Ruth



The Glenwood photos:

Liz and Adam

Bjorn, Brian, and Dana

Scot

Michael, Dan, and Lauren

Patrick, Daniel, Bjorn, and Brett

Ruth and Greg (last two photos)

taking the NBF to IML

Many initialisms in that title, though as a librarian, I trade in initialisms and acronyms daily. So...

NBF = New Best Friend = Jeph. A joking title bestowed, I think, by FXK. It caught on and now it's just habit to type it and even use it in conversation.

IML = International Mr. Leather. It's an annual, predominantly-gay leather fetish celebration staged at one of the bigger downtown hotels. This year it was at the Hyatt Regency, which makes me giggle when I think that one week earlier the same hotel was crammed full of medical librarians. It's not TMI to say that we were there - Conrad and I always go only to have a cocktail with our swim teammmates and to point and titter for a bit. We're tourists in that world, and beyond the cocktail, we seldom visit for long.

Conrad and I swam Saturday morning, then gathered up the NBF and Brett to get some breakfast/coffee at Whole Foods.

We had some time after that before we were due downtown, so we enjoyed the May sunshine, strolling down Broadway until we got Jeph to Threadless where he shopped some. A cab ride later and we were downtown heading to meet some of the other Smelts.

My IML photos are pretty tame - I like to keep this blog fairly family friendly. Ask Jeph to see some of his photos and videos from the exhibits - they were a little more NSFW than these ones. What follows are photos of some of the small group of us gathered for drinks up in the bar.

Dana and Conrad.

Brett and Jeph. Poor Brett, we teased him mercilessly about the Barney-purple of his t-shirt. Jeph's own Threadless shirt (You Are What You Eat) was a fitting choice for the event.

Jeph and I scope something/one out, then stand and pose.


Dana, Conrad, and me. By this point, Conrad's broken toe was very unhappy with all his walking and standing.

Frank.

Jeph, Frank, and Brett.

Howard. Not a Smelt but a longtime friend of Conrad's from San Francisco. In town for IML. Conrad didn't get to see him much because of his own work travel, alas.

Dana (background), Luis (sweating up a storm in his latex vest), and me.

Luis, sensibly vest-less. Poor guy. Fetish gear has its own issues, I guess.

Paul, who blew me away by showing up in that leather shirt - very unexpected from a man who has brilliantly coloured swim suits with flower patterns on them!

Eventually we all went downstairs, though I got Conrad back up to the couches to rest his foot after only a half hour or so. Jeph and Brett enjoyed it immensely, however, and I rather suspect next May they'll be back in town.

Tango Sur

Hey, I actually tried some place new in Chicago, and it's a place I think FXK may rather like. Tango Sur, over on Southport, is an Argentinean restaurant, so that means meat. It was, indeed, a protein-laden meal.

Conrad and I had plans to dine with Luis and Dan, with the idea that we'd share some nice red wine and eat some food alongside. Luis supplied a couple of bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon (including a Hess that I particularly liked for the fruit in it), and we settled down to some empanadas and charcuterie before the main courses.

I have to confess, the food wasn't as good as I'd hoped. Oh, I liked the chicken empanadas, and the ham was decent if kind of reminiscent of a pizza roll, but the beef was only okay. Simple salads came out next, nothing remarkable.

We ordered two dishes, each designed for two (the guys took the leftovers home). The one was the vacio, flap steak with sweet potatoes.It was kind of lukewarm, not really tender, and certainly not as flavourful as the garlicky whiff we got from an order passing by to another table earlier in the evening. I didn't eat the sweet potato, but Luis thought they were bland.

The other dish was a paradillada, mixed grill.The short ribs (I think) were a little togh but appealingly salty. The sweetbreads were not treated well, and Luis was put off by them being so chewy. It was his first time trying them, and I still don't think he believes me that they can be wonderful. I didn't taste the sausage or the blood sausage. Dan rather disliked the latter - I last had blood sausage in 2004 in Spain, I think, and I have grown not to like it.

I didn't really understand what dessert was, given the server's accent and the ambient noise. I will say that dessert redeemed the place for all of us. Actually, that makes dinner sound bad. It wasn't. It wasn't as good as we'd hoped, but the room was cozy, we had our own wines, and the bill for three of us was only a little over $100. Given all that - and the opportunity to see Luis (with whom I constantly, shamelessly flirt - he's such a sweetheart)
and Dan (who puts up with my flirtations and is, in fact, a real sweetie as well - too bad he's so reluctant to be photographed!)was well worth it!

2-3 hour party people

Is it a sign of a good party when there's some mighty good shopping for coats on the bed?

If Allison sees this blog entry, she should get a chuckle from the title.

Okay, catching up here. It's 11:11 (hah!) on Boxing Day as I start this. We're well fed and soon will head to bed. Tomorrow there are sales to hit. We have gift cards, and we're not afraid to use them!

First up, more party photos! Conrad and I agree - it was a terrific mix of people (minus some good friends who could not make it). All in all, they were well worth the effort, and we were glad to have them come over.

So, many many people photos, but cute guys included!

;-)

Brad, a swim teammate, straight. Sorry. Heck of a good guy, though!

Daniel, another swim teammate.


Warren, a colleague of mine.

Luis, a swim teammate. Very sweet, and rather cute. Excitable - Jeph knows what I mean by this.

Lou, a teammate stretching back to the days of ACC in Montreal.


Gil, unofficial photographer and a friend from Yoshi's.

FXK and RAS, frequently faces on the blog.

Michael (a Yoshi's regular) and Carrie (a swim teammate).

Luc and Dan (a swim teammate).

Rakhael (Yoshi's regular, also Gil's wife) and Ron (swim teammate, also Carrie's husband).

Kathryn (library person and someone I think the absolute world of), me, and Conrad.

Dan and Medgar.

Me with Luis (hot hot hot!) and his partner Dan.

Ron.

Paul (good friend not from Yoshi's libraries, or swimming), Dan (good friend and financial advisor), Pia (colleague), Kim (good friend and wife of FXK), and Warren.

Laura (friend from Yoshi's and wife of Michael) and Rakhael.

(in foreround) FXK, Jenny (from libraries), Kathryn, and RAS.

Kim, Warren, Jim (Conrad's colleage and Dan's partner), Dan, and Pia.

Dan, Luc, and Dan ( we had 5 Dans/Daniels at the party!).

Me and Pia.

Paul and Allan (good friend, also an engineer, partner of Paul).

Rakhael and me.

FXK and Warren.

Conrad and Daniel.

Rakhael, Medgar, Brad, Ron, Michael, and Laura.

FXK, Kim, RAS, and Pia.

Paul, Allan, Warren, FXK, Kim, and Pia.

Luis and me.

Laura, Michael, and Conrad.