Jason and Layla Visit Chicago

My friends Jason and Layla were in town the past few days, visiting Chicago and exploring downtown with their two kids (Roman and Miranda). Liz and I met up with them today, towards the later part of the afternoon.

Jason and I go way back, as we were both colleagues in the same Creative Writing MFA program at OSU (he was there for Fiction, I was there for Poetry). It was exciting to see all of them, as it had been several years since we last hung out.

Our initial plans were loose, but due to a rather unexpected snowstorm… we ended up meeting them at their hotel, and just hung out there for a good while, chatting. Roman, we found out, was full of stories and was just a bundle of energy… bounding around the room, doing impressions of animals, and generally being all-around entertaining.

A bit later in the evening, we all decided to go grab a bite to eat. As the weather didn’t really allow us to travel too far away from the hotel, we decided on going to Ed Debevics (only a few blocks away).

While it’s been a place I’d heard of a lot as a Chicagoan, this was my first visit. The theme of the place is pretty kitschy, and the running thing about the restaurant is its faux-rude waitstaff. As an example, on walking in the door, a young man at the counter greeted me with a nod and a “hey – what’s up Hippie.”

I had heard some stories about small kids giving the server a picture they had drawn with crayons… and the server ripping up the picture (making the kid cry). But for our visit, no one got THAT deep into character, and were for the most part playfully rude.

L to R it’s Layla, Miranda and Roman.

Jason, a man who (literally) wears a lot of hats.

Luckily (?) for us, when the server antics began… we found ourselves sitting in a pretty good location.

After getting incredibly stuffed on burgers and malteds, we made our way back to their hotel room… and hung out some more. A lot of our time centered around the kids themselves, talking with Miranda (who oftentimes spoke more like a teenager than a six year old) and talking listening to Roman.

Of late, Roman’s gotten obsessed with animals and the ice age, and really seemed to be enjoying nature documentaries. I was cracking up a ton listening to him, as he did a lot of impressions, and even talked in the same sentence structures as TV documentaries. Jason and Layla both marveled at how many things they thought he was making up at first… only to find out they were actual facts that he had learned.

Roman, showing us a brief history of animal evolution… using a few props. Everything on the floor here he placed himself. And in my opinion, his model demonstrates the intricacies and interconnectedness of things with remarkable accuracy.

Fun night tonight, seeing everyone again. It was particularly cool to have Liz finally meet some of my grad school friends, as they comprise this whole other (big) part of my life… and the two haven’t really intersected, until tonight.