beans and soup

I don’t have any siblings, but that does not stop my two younger cousins from filling the role of mildly annoying little brothers. In fact, just a week ago one of them broke my finger and dragged me around the floor by my legs. That’s beside the point, though. We grew up very close and remain pretty close, despite me being a year older than them. One of them, David, lives at home still and attends Wright State University, while the other, Simon, goes to UC as well and spent this past semester co-oping in Chicago. David and I took the opportunity to go visit during our Veteran’s Day long weekend. Many of my favorite moments simply because everything is funny when we’re all together. David and I left on a Friday evening and were set back about an hour because of standstill traffic in front of us. He used this time to put the car in park and recline his seat all the way, telling me to wake him up when we started moving.

Immediately upon arrival David started causing chaos, opening every single drawer, door, and cabinet he could find. I found this particularly hilarious. We unwound by sitting on the couch sharing new music until everyone was about ready to pass out. The next morning is when we actually got up early to catch a train downtown. David had never been to Chicago before, so we had to hit the classics like the Bean and the Navy Pier. I managed to get both of them to stand still for a picture for the first time in my life at the Bean and it’s one of my proudest accomplishments. Another Chicago must-do was get deep dish pizza for lunch. We initially walked into a place that had over an hour wait, so we caught a ride to a different place called Aurelio’s Pizza, which was almost empty. It had a cozy vibe, plus the Ohio State game was on one of the TVs, so we were all set. After we’d gotten the essentials out of the way we took a particularly long Uber ride to a neighborhood called Wicker Park, recommended to me by one of my Chicago-native friends. We took a walk through the park for which the neighborhood was named but it was honestly a little disappointing. The big fountain in the middle was drained, and there was a strange man standing on a box yelling incomprehensible words to an imaginary audience. The rest of the neighborhood, however, was pretty cute. I got a mocha from a place called La Colombe Coffee, also recommended by my friend. A brief stroll down Milwaukee Avenue led us to an upscale Adidas outlet, where David accidentally tried on a $400-dollar pair of shoes and I bought a beanie, and a used bookstore where I bought two poetry books while Simon held my coffee. They’re not exactly the shopping type, but I think they enjoyed just being able to wander the city.

Back at Simon’s place in the suburbs we took a short nap break with plans to go bowling later. However, neither of them wanted to get up so I had to physically drag both of them off their couches with great effort and the promise we could stop and get dinner first. The choice for the latter was a place called Simon’s Restaurant, much to my cousin’s annoyance. They served me the best soup I’ve ever had, soup which I still sometimes dream about. Finally, well-fed and rested, we got to bowl. I don’t know why this is something I was so excited about, considering I am horrible at it, but I guess the prospect of getting to make fun of the boys was pretty fun, and in fact, I did not finish in last place during our second game, which I consider an absolute win. I think I’d consider the entire day an absolute win, because we got to spend more than the typical holiday dinner timeframe together, and there weren’t even any serious injuries! It really made me realize that spending time and taking trips with family can be just as great as trips taken with friends.