The only danger is the temptation to slather lots of salty butter on the sweet bread...mmmm...
In other news, I went dancing last night! Michael Maltenfort (one of Kevin's classmates at Chicago, and an old friend of ours) invited me to come to a beginner class at Chi-Town Squares, a gay/lesbian square dance group. For $7, what a fun time! Very nice and super-friendly people, some mild exercise, and just fun dancing, being whirled about. I could dance lead, I suppose, but it's just more fun being tossed from one partner to another...although I do find that when I'm dancing with a less experienced lead, I tend to guide them anyway. Would hate for us to mess up the pattern, after all. If I'm good, I'll keep going, every Thursday night between now and May. We'll see what happens...
I drove there too. I have a strange proclamation to make -- I like traffic! No, really. It may not be a liking that lasts, but I have to say, it's much less stressful merging across five lanes on I-94 (which you have to do to get from our entrance on the left to the exits I usually need on the right) when traffic is going 30 miles an hour at rush hour, rather than 60+ miles an hour at other times. Hooray for rush hour! The drive up was very smooth, if a bit slow (took about 40 minutes, instead of the 17 that Mapquest promised). Michael says Lake Shore Drive is faster, so I may try that next time; I took it coming home, but I couldn't time it properly because I got lost twice -- once, getting on, where I missed the point where I should've veered right to stay on Route 41, and once, getting off, where the Jackson Street exist came up faster than I expected. Pleasant drive, though -- I didn't realize that LSD has a lower speed limit than I-94; it's either 45 or 40 the whole way, which is nice and mellow. Curvy too, which is fun when it's not too fast, and pretty with the lake right there next to you.
I haven't spent much time at the lake at all, aside from that one Father's Day picnic with Roshani and Tom. Maybe I'll take Kam out there for a while; she's going to be arriving in town either Sunday, Monday or Tuesday and staying for a few days. Not sure what she'll want to do. I also told Sharmi (my little sister, coming in mid-October) that if she and Ryan (her boyfriend) wanted, we could have a picnic and/or bonfire out there while they were here; we'll see what they feel like doing. It may be a little chilly for a picnic by then, although if I remember right, there's usually a few gorgeous weeks here in mid-October.
I started working on Debbie's books yesterday -- the plan for today is to get cracking on those (and ask Debbie when she needs them, which I'm afraid may be very soon). I may also spend a couple of hours writing; we'll see how the day goes. I probably need to make a run out to Paper Source to get some gold tissue paper at some point; my current plan for the covers of these wedding present journals is to do a cut-out in the cover for their names, and on the sheet below that, paste a nicely-printed (maybe on vellum) name, covered with a very thin sheet of gold tissue. I think that'll work. It'll probably take some expermenting to get right, though. We're going for elegant, but still readable (which is why I'm not hand-writing them; my calligraphy is sadly out of practice).
Ooh -- there goes the timer for the banana bread. Gotta go -- must eat!