Phew...it's hot here!

Howdy again!

Phew...I don't know about the rest of you, but it's roasty-toasty here in Chicago! AND, since we don't have the luxury of AC (you think we would, based on the rent we pay), we're stuck toughing it out in the heat. Even the dog is panting - that's when you know it's bad. Our dog who, based on the hair I sweep up on a daily basis, should be bald. Our dog who, when it gets into the 40's, starts to shiver. Our dog who, when it get really cold outside, likes to cuddle up with a heating pad. She likes it warm like her mommy. SO, when the DOG starts to pant and I say "It's too hot", you KNOW it's hot!

SO...we had a nice Saturday here. We drove down to Southwest Chicago (not too far into the ghetto) to visit a Polish store/restaurant called Bobak's. We'd seen it on the Food Channel once a long time ago and always thought it would be cool to go there. So...since we live here now, we thought we should visit. We ate at the restaurant first, which had SO much food. My favorite were their mashed potatoes - they had dill in them. How YUMMY! They also had "Pigs in a blanket" - not what you are thinking, though. It's boiled cabbage stuffed with meat and rice covered in tomato sauce and baked. They were OK, but stuffed with pork. Marcia's (Kurt's mom's) are FAR superior. They are stuffed with beef and the sauce is much better. I'm going to try making them sometime, but they are a day-long process. Anyways, all of the other food was really good, too. And at the end we had a little square of cheesecake. Again, not the kind that we are all used to. But it's a kind that Kurt's Gramma Piotrowski used to make. Now Marcia makes it, and it's pretty good too. Something I didn't try, but found amusing, was their polish hot dog on a stick wrapped with bacon. Sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen!

After we ate lunch and were thoroughly stuffed, we ventured into the store. SO many things were in polish, but of course they had the english as well. We saw something (and I can't remember what it was ) that was called bogaty smack. I'm sure it's pronounced very differently than what I'm saying in my head, but I enjoyed the laugh. They even had the "angel wing" pastries and paczki's (pronounced "punchky"). We're planning to go back because it was so good, but maybe not on a 90 degree day ;o)

Funny thing to add...it took us a little over 40 minutes to get there...and only 20 minutes to get back. Gotta love big city traffic. BUT, either way, that was a pretty short trip considering it took us 1.5 hours to get back from IKEA in the NW suburbs - in a normal city it would have taken us 20. C'est la vie!

Anyways we got back and went to a TWO STORY Target - happiest woman alive, I was ;o) We found out that we need a third big bookshelf because we have TOOOO many books. I've been sorting them for the past two days. We have so many history/non-fiction books, we could open our own bookstore! (Something I think Kurt would like to do someday). Anywho...we didn't find the one that we liked, it was out of stock. So we came back and chilled. Of course that's a figure of speech.

There was a music festival goin' on just a block away, so we checked that out. It was pretty boring, so we left and walked around for a while. We ended up eating at a southern inspired restaurant called Wishbone. There, I had the most amazing drink experience of my life. Now...you're going to cringe a little when you hear it, but it's fabulous. Cucumber Lemonade. That's right. Cucumber Lemonade. It's AMAZING! Luckily, the place is on the way to the closest el stop, so you can bet that I'll be stopping by for a glass on the go! YUM! I need to figure out how to make it myself ;o)

OK...now that I've written a novel about the most mundane of things, I should cut it off. Time to put some more books away.

PS - just saw the Police on Live Earth - they're still pretty good for a bunch of old farts ;o) JK...I know they're not THAT old.