Summer in the City

Mismo and Sailor Sue made it to Chicago safe and sound last Friday. Well.....safe anyway. The stay-over in San Juan at the Sheraton was quite nice. As Sue ran out to find a litter pan and kitty litter after Mismo has crossed her legs for 6 hours, room service delivered a lovely 'kitty bed' and food dishes. Mismo was the queen for a day. Getting shoved back into her carry-on cage and traveling another 6 hours to get to Chicago wasn't her idea of a good time and the next day Mismo spent several of the 6 hours trying to chew her way out of the soft cage while sitting on my lap.

Photo of Mismo on her throne. The little blue bag is for dog owners. It contains plastic gloves and blue plastic pooper scooper bag. Nice!

But how exciting to be picked up by Scott and Leah at the airport and head straight to our lake front apartment where kitty litter and pan and food were waiting - for Mismo. What a fun summer this will be - and is already! We're playing tennis on the courts right across the street. Having friends and family over for cookouts and Cub games.

Yesterday Leah and I went to the game. What fun! We didn't have tickets of course as we walked the few blocks to the ball park. But we had a plan. Go to the Day of Game Tickets window and look for Mike. He was there but standing room only and no sign of any good tickets becoming available at game time. A sold out crowd again on a Thursday afternoon. That's the good and bad news about the Cubs being so good. Tickets aren't available or affordable.

So we walked over to Bernie's to see if our friend Will the bartender and Bernie's icon has tickets. He did not but did have cold beers so we stayed and had lunch before heading out to scour out some tickets. The Day of Game ticket widows were all closed - not surprising - and so we started to make our way around the park looking for any sign of someone selling tickets. Mostly people were seeking tickets. The few tickets being 'vended' were by ticket brokers on the street selling bleacher seats for $150 and box seats for over $200. No thanks ....we'll keep looking. But it was getting very close to game time and we were about to give up and go back to Bernie's to watch the game when we heard someone say...he has 2 to sell. We quickly said - we need 2! Five minutes later we're sitting in the upper deck 9 rows back from home plate writing down the line-up. Wow, that was lucky. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. And we paid only $25 over the regular price.

Leah and I kept score for the whole game until it went into the 11th inning when we ran out of scorecard space. And what an ending! Edmonds (the former dreaded Cardinal) hit a home run to tie the score in the 9th. With the bases loaded in the bottom of the 11th Reed Johnson pinch hitting for Edmonds' gets hit by the pitch walking in the winning run. How crazy is that!

So Cubs win and sweep the home stand. They've won 11 in a row at home. So get in line for those playoff tickets now. We're on a roll.

This weekend should be lots of fun too. Movies, dinners, art festivals and more are planned. Scott is visiting his dad in Tampa over the Father's Day weekend and will return Monday when more adventures in finding Cub tickets will happen - I'm guessing.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO ALL DADS and GO CUBS!