{"id":577,"date":"2016-05-16T22:21:23","date_gmt":"2016-05-17T03:21:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/?p=577"},"modified":"2016-05-19T20:47:41","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T01:47:41","slug":"john-megans-graduation-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/16\/john-megans-graduation-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"John &#038; Megan&#8217;s graduation weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[supsystic-slider id=10 ]<\/p>\n<p>So, my almost daughter in law, Megan, John&#8217;s girlfriend, has been living with me for the last two years, while she did her undergrad degree at UW-Madison, and John was in graduate school, getting an MFA in photography at Columbia College in Chicago.<\/p>\n<p>They both graduated the same weekend. UW-Madison and Columbia are on pretty different schedules, so I never thought the graduations would be so close together, but then again, what do I know. The opening reception and champagne toast to the graduates for John&#8217;s program was on Friday the 13th, from 4:00 to 8:00. Megan&#8217;s graduation was at noon on Saturday, in Camp Randall Stadium, and she needed to be in her seat at 11:15. Then John&#8217;s graduation ceremony was at the Chicago Theater, at noon on Sunday, and he was supposed to be there at 11:00.<\/p>\n<p>Just to make it more interesting, months ago, thinking the graduations would be farther apart, Mark got us tickets to see the Lyric Opera&#8217;s production of the <em>King and I<\/em>, on Thursday. Then, even after we realized how much was all going on at once, we really wanted to see the Dressing Downton Abbey show at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.driehausmuseum.org\/\">Dreihaus Museum<\/a>, and tickets were sort of hard to get, but I got a pair at noon on Thursday, the day of the <em>King and I<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>That meant that on Thursday, I got an early bus to Chicago, and we went to the Museum. We had time after to get <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BFUWwklTaSM\/\">sandwiches at Eataly<\/a>, and go back to the apartment and change before heading to the <em>King and I<\/em>. Which reminded me of my mom, of course, since it&#8217;s Rodgers &amp; Hammerstein. <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/doGWPRPFAeg\">Shall we dance<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Friday, worked all day at the apartment, then went to meet John and his cohort at MoCP, and off to the opening. Mark came later, when he got out of a meeting, and after we looked at the work and the toasts, the kids went off to play, and Mark and I got burgers, changed, and drove to Harvard (in the rain, in construction in I-90) where we left my car so I could drive it back to Madison on Monday, and picked up Mark&#8217;s car, and drove the rest of the way home.<\/p>\n<p>Saturday morning I got up early to bake a cake &#8211; I had this vision that we&#8217;d all be eating frsh tender slices pf it before the graduation. But we had bagels instead. The kids and Jeff arrived just as I was about to text them that I was going to get those bagels. Megan&#8217;s parents and brother arrived and we all ate and had coffee, and bundled up and walked to the stadium, where we froze and got sleeted on for 2 hours, listening to speeches. Came back home for snacks, then the kids and Megan&#8217;s parents went off to sight see a bit. Mark and I got in line at Grampa&#8217;s and except for having to freeze for another 20 minutes, it worked perfectly to get us a table for 8 on graduation weekend, at a restaurant that doesn&#8217;t take reservations. After dinner, we saw off Megan&#8217;s family, who were driving back to Iowa. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gibs.bar\/\">Gibs Bar<\/a> next door was too crowded, so we went to Olivers for another drink, then us old folks went to bed and the kids went out.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday morning we all had to be out by 7:00 for the next round &#8211; trip to Chicago, and graduation ceremony. The production values at John&#8217;s graduation were a little higher than at Camp Randall &#8211; Columbia is an art school, afterall. And it was indoors. I think I&#8217;m going to see if the library school faculty can process in to &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/pL4uESRCnv8\">walk this way<\/a>&#8221; next year, like Johns profs did. We went and hung out at the game room at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chicagoathletichotel.com\/eat-and-drink\/game-room-chicago-bar\">Athletic Club<\/a>, the graduates pick, because they went there after crit class a lot. She grew up in Florida, but Eileenrae&#8217;s parents are from Pittsburgh, and her aunt still lives there, so we bonded telling Pittsburgh tales. Then we took the red line to meet Al &amp; Emma at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hopleafbar.com\/\">Hopleaf<\/a>. Where Megan finally got her <em>moules frites<\/em>. It was really good &#8211; craft beer, good food. Mark and I split a salad and steak frites. The bavette, that John correctly called skirt steak &#8211; and\u00a0 it took me until this morning to remember it kind of means flap or bib. Everyone went home and collapsed in front of GoT &#8211; I had to re-watch it Monday night, because I got dozy. I caught the 7:30 train, and made it to work in time for my 1:00 and 2:00 meetings, after feeding the cats &#8211; gave Khan some of his drugged salmon. I haven&#8217;t unpacked yet, and there&#8217;re still newspapers strewn all over the kitchen counter. Something&#8217;s leaking under the kitchen sink, so I stopped at the Starbucks in Janesville and called the plumber.\u00a0I did a little grading on the train, but still need a serious chunk of time to finish completely &#8211; I&#8217;m hoping tomorrow afternoon.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-591 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/khaneating.jpg\" alt=\"khaneating\" width=\"488\" height=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/khaneating.jpg 488w, https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/khaneating-113x150.jpg 113w, https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/khaneating-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 488px) 100vw, 488px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Yikes.<\/p>\n<p>What a great weekend. I am exhausted.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[supsystic-slider id=10 ] So, my almost daughter in law, Megan, John&#8217;s girlfriend, has been living with me for the last two years, while she did her undergrad degree at UW-Madison, and John was in graduate school, getting an MFA in photography at Columbia College in Chicago. They both graduated the same weekend. UW-Madison and Columbia &#8230; <span class=\"more\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/16\/john-megans-graduation-weekend\/\">[Read more&#8230;]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,72,71,22,70,36],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-ds83473gmail-com","4":"post-577","6":"format-standard","7":"has-post-thumbnail","8":"category-blogpost","9":"post_tag-chicago","10":"post_tag-gastropubs","11":"post_tag-graduation","12":"post_tag-kids","13":"post_tag-musicals","14":"post_tag-oma"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":597,"href":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577\/revisions\/597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debslunch.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}