Auction Winnings

If you remember back a month or so, I attended a very swanky fund-raising auction. Well, today my friends and I finally claimed the brunch we won, all home-made by Meredith and Cara. It was absolutely delicious: fruit salad, baked french toast, home fries, fritatta, bacon, sausage, lemon scones (with freshly made strawberry rhubarb jam), and, of course, mimosas.

[If you're wondering, the folks in the photo are, beginning with the striped shirt and going clockwise: Angela, me, Leslie, Rachel, Meredith (post-cooking), Angie, Christine, David and Meg.]

So, I'm eating well. The rest of life is good, too. Saturday evening was Summer Breeze, an annual concert/festival at school, and I got to see Andrew Bird, Talib Kweli and Cake (!!!) for $15. The admission price included two free beers and snacks. I love private school.

The only downside was the rainstorm that moved in with about an hour to go. We stood our ground (three people from the stage) until a well-placed thunder (right after the lyric "While Frank Sinatra sings Stormy Weather...") meant we had to call things off. Only about 10 minutes early, though. It was getting pretty chilly, anyway.

Also Saturday, I bought a new (to me) road bike at Working Bikes. Working Bikes is a cool local cooperative that restores old bikes otherwise bound for the junkyard and either (a) distributes them in developing countries where bikes are a primary, very useful form of transportation or (b) sells them for good prices to folks like me in the city in order to fund their shipments of bikes to places like Mozambique. It's pretty sweet.

That's all that's new here, I think. I did sign up for sailing lessons for June (I am SO excited). And, as I think most heard, received funding for my poverty project over the summer (blogging about the experience of being poor in Chicago's neighborhoods). When I have more on that, I will be sure to share.