Dr. Love

Yes they call me Mr. Romantic. Take notes fellas cause what you’ll learn in this column promises to help you make the ladies swoon. Angela and I celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary this weekend. So I figured it was time to dial it up on the old romantic meter. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to plan for a few reasons. One, we are still dealing with all these insurance companies and neighbors and such about this flood damage so we were thinking we needed to stay around the house on Saturday because some Allstate guys were coming to check out our neighbors damage. Also, because Angela has a lot of work due in school this week she had to spend a lot of time studying. Plus, we couldn’t go far because of the Yao. I still managed to whisk Angela away for a romantic rendezvous. I know what you’re thinking and the answer is no, we didn’t spend the weekend at the Sybaris.
I decided to surprise Angela with a night out on the town. Even though we live in Chicago we rarely go downtown. We almost never go down there at night. Parking can be a hassle, it’s too crowded and most importantly it is EXPENSIVE! However, I spare no expense for my baby. The first item on my list was to get lodging for the evening. We were so lucky to have our friend Angela offer to take Yao out that night and the next morning. Hmmmmm, where to stay, where to stay? I wanted it to be fancy (The W) but also meaningful (not The W). Then I saw the hotel we stayed at on our wedding night. This covered the fancy and romantic requirements.
My next mission was to pick a place for dinner. This was a challenge indeed. The only place I have ever dined at downtown is the Taste of Chicago and that ended a week ago. Also I was trying to keep with the meaningful theme and the Taste probably wouldn’t have worked. It’s not Angela’s favorite event in the world. What’s up with that? The Taste ROCKS! Basically I have no idea where to eat. I went to Metromix.com to find a restaurant but that wasn’t helpful because they list about a million of em. I went to the Check Please website which was a little more helpful because most of the restaurants they choose are not downtown so I had less to choose from. I came across the perfect restaurant, Roy’s, an upscale Hawaiian place. Not only are Hawaiian place’s rare, but it was meaningful because we went to Hawaii for our honeymoon. How am I doing ladies?
Next we needed a little after dinner entertainment. I had the idea to go to some of our historical hangouts. Our first movie (Black Knight), the first couple of places we went out to when we were just “friends” (Rosa’s blues club, the Green Mill jazz club), our first kiss (at John Barleycorn in Wrigleyville yuck). However, I choose against these places because they are located all over the city, not downtown. They are also not the most romantic places in the world. I wanted to take her to see the Broadway play she has been dying to see, Wicked, but they only had obstructed view seating left. I settled on a Second City at Navy Pier musical which was a comedic take on Romeo and Juliet. This was good because Romeo and Juliet is a love story and we love going to The Second City.
The next day we started out on our trip. I wanted to keep it a surprise which wasn’t easy because Angela kept asking what she needed to pack, do I need a bathing suit?, etc etc. Uh oh she thinks we’re going on a real trip. She managed to get some information out of her friend who told her all she knew was that we were taking the “El” there. Damn, there goes that idea. I begrudgingly fork up the extra 40 bucks to park at the hotel just so I can keep Angela guessing. So, finally we are off. We drive downtown to the hotel. We go check out the room, not as nice as the one on our wedding night but way more expensive. I had a few surprises but I needed Angela out of the room so I could set them up. She mentioned wanting to go look at the pool yes here’s my chance.
“Well why don’t you go do that by yourself cause I gotta take a dump anyway.”
Oh yeah, don’t be jealous ladies you coulda had me. She leaves; I pull out a bottle of champagne and search for an ice bucket. I wait till I think she has gotten on the elevator then I run to the ice machine. I get back to the room in no time but there is a slight problem my key card doesn’t unlock the door. D’OH! So much for Mr. Shmooove. Luckily, I gave Angela the other key so I just had to sit there with a bucket of ice in my hand waiting like a big doofus. It’s the thought that counts right? With all the excitement I forgot to decorate the room with all the romantic items I had brought like the program from our wedding, and our wedding invitation stuff like that. Angela took pity on me and gave me props anyway.
We had a couple hours to kill before dinner so we went to Millennium Park to people watch and get a drink. This was a great suggestion by her because I have never even been to Millennium Park (see I told you I never go to the city). It turns out Millennium Park is this new real cool place to hang out in the summer time. The futuristic video tower waterfalls and the gigantic bean (which somehow has been under construction more than it hasn’t been) are awesome. They also have a nice outdoor bar and restaurant. We each got a margarita and began one of our favorite past time’s, people watching (also known as making fun of the way people dress and look with out them hearing.) We hop in a cab to go to dinner. Man downtown is PACKED! I am not used to all this. Some of the other downtowns I have been to recently; Minneapolis, Cleveland, St. Louis and Milwaukee’s are like ghost towns. Chicago is more like New York than any of these other cities that is for sure. Dinner was excellent. Again we ate outside and people watched. There was a church kiddie corner from us where a wedding was just ending. Angela got to critique all of the bridesmaid’s dresses; I tried to estimate how much their wedding must have cost. A perfect dinner indeed.
After dinner we had a couple of hours to kill before the musical so we window shopped on the mag mile. This always makes me nervous because I have found that window shopping often leads to actual shopping. Apparently, before Angela is able to start working out this summer she first needs to buy an Ipod Shuffle, whatever the hell that is. I suggest trying the workout sans Ipod just to see how she likes it. I am anxious to get out of the Apple store and go to my favorite place to shop, The Liquor Store. We hop in a cab to Navy Pier. Angela still has no idea what we are doing and it is fun listening to all of her guesses. Navy Pier is unbelievably crowded. Tonight is the first night of their summer Saturday night fireworks show. Angela wants to go in to do some more window shopping. I convince her to walk outside so we can window shop for a beer. We decide that Navy Pier is a much more fun place to people watch because the socioeconomic status of the people in attendance is more diverse. Finally, the play is about to start. By this time we are getting pretty tired it’s after 10 and we're no spring chickens. The play was hilarious and woke us up. It ends around 12:30. The city is still very alive. I didn’t know downtown was so active late at night? It helps that there are tens of thousands of people preparing for a bike ride through the city called Late Ride. Our hotel is party central. It’s funny to see all the drunken wedding people. Since I drank a coke at the play, to keep myself awake, I was wired are ready to go. Caffeine doesn’t have the same effect on Angela so it was back to the room. It was fun to paint the town red. I highly recommend Chicago as a romantic weekend getaway.