The Jennifers...or When Birds Attack

So this was the weekend of Jennifers, as it was my sister's birthday and Clare's sister's visit to Chicago.

My Jennifer, or Jenny, JBean, or Chuck as she's know by her friends celebrated her birthday by paying a whole lot of money to go to a salon and get her hair done. Granted it did look nice and the highlights were good especially in light of what they look like on most Asians, but for the amount that she paid I could have bought a few rounds of golf, an iPod or Liza Minelli for a day. Seriously though, I suppose my perspective is skewed since I usually don't spend more than $20 on a haircut. Granted, I'll probably go 5-6 times more in a given year than she will but still. Anyway, we went out for dinner as a family Saturday night and that was nice. We ended up at Domo 77, a local hibachi restaurant. If you've never been, I highly recommend it. Our chef was great and successfully executed the onion volcano. All in all a good time.

Earlier in the day I was able to spend time with Clare and her sister Jennifer (did I mention it was the weekend of Jennifers?) downtown. As Jennifer mentioned in the Ezell blog, the food was great but the beignets were ridiculously good. I had the Max burger, which is a 1/2 pound of ground beef, rib tips, bacon, mushrooms, barbecue sauce and cheddar cheese. Did I finish it? Of course, but I've felt lighter.

After lunch we decided to kill time before their movie and took a walk around Millennium Park. The jewel of the Chicago Park District, Millennium park was officially opened in the summer of 2004. It has outdoor art in the Bean, or Cloud Gate as it is officially known, and the water faces fountain/sculpture. It also has a Frank Gery designed amphitheatre which we took a walk around. Next to the theatre are the gardens. They have a recreated prairie landscape, wading pool/river, and an evergreen "forest." This is the point in the story where we get into trouble. As we were walking past some of the evergreens a kamikaze finch comes out of nowhere and pegs me right in the back of the head. This was a traumatizing experience, and in case you can't picture it I'll provide a vivid reenactment. Suffice it to say Jennifer and Clare thought this was hilarious, but at least they stopped laughing long enough to see how I was doing. Obviously, from the post incident picture above, I am ok.

So to summarize...Jennifer T - good birthday, great highlights. Jennifer E. - good visit, great food. As for the finch, well let's just say that I'm hanging around Millennium Park with a sling shot during my lunch hours.