Perfect Summer Day and Best Discovery Ever

Chicago is known for its summer street festivals.  God bless the people who live nearby who have to listen to a collection of bad bands and thumping for three days.  It used to be the highlight of my summer nightlife.   Can't tell you how many flirts I've met at a variety of fests over the years, but now I just feel old. 

While I love a good drinking bender as much as anyone else, I haven't been to any street fests in a couple of years because it's really the same shit.  Shitty food, shitty light beer (or cocktails made with cheap vodka, wretch!), shitty vendors and shitty, overplayed bands.

Yesterday, one of my gfs came in from the burbs with the purpose of hitting a street festival. We refused the suggested donation entrance fee (cuz we're rebels like that) and as we walked in were greeted with an Amy Winehouse lookalike (drug-induced anorexia and all) who sounded more like Leonard Cohen than a real singer.  We were getting off to a great start.

It was a beautiful, and I mean PERFECT Chicago summer day - 82 degrees, clear blue sky...mmmm... perfect - and I could smell the gianormous Italian sausages, drooled over the extra large corndogs (maybe I need sex) and bad Chinese food.  Now, we're both big fans of people watching and it was a great location to do just that.  There are the overly skinny models dressed in, well, nothing and wearing four-inch heels on asphalt (eeekk, eight hours a day. Dogs be barking!), the leather bag-tanned guy selling surfing photos (where you get on the surfboard with faux background - classic!) and, of course, everywhere you look 20-somethings are getting wasted and hooking up, even on a Sunday (let's just say I was a bit jealous).

Up and down both sides of the block was a woman's shopping wet-dream of faux designer handbags and sunglasses from Prada and Gucci to Kate Spade, over-priced jewelry and this new discovery....a wrap-around skirt-like piece that you can tie into 20 different dresses, skirts and tops.  Magnificent!  I haven't actually spent more than $25 on clothes in the past year (clothing swaps twice a year - hello!) and had to have this piece of revolutionary, hand-made silk.  Seriously, if I can turn it into 10 different dresses, it's totally worth it!  If you know me, you may be seeing it in all it's forms in coming months.  Brills!

We only lasted about an hour and half at the fest - we went, we saw, walked out, and found a nearby patio for real adult beverages, snacks and a bit of suntanning.  It was only four hours of my Sunday but it was living.  I even actually got (gasp) pretty (read: wore a cute dress).  It was one of those times when you're not working, no worries, and just simply enjoying the beauty of life, and its indulgences, with good friends.  Next weekend hoping to go to my gf's in the burbs and spend the day on her bf's new boat.  Is there anything better?