Walking, Bliss, and Dinner

John has his second stent put in his heart tomorrow so we headed downtown to spend the night in a hospital before his surgery. Showtime is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 7:00 am so our choices were spend the night downtown our choices were get up at an ungodly early hour in the morning (probably 4:30 am) or spend the night downtown. We like our sleep, so we opted to spend the night downtown.

We took the train downtown and then spent some time exploring Chicago's new French Market before grabbing a cab to the hotel. The French Market is a cornucopia of treats for the body, mind, and soul. There are stalls selling fresh fruits, fresh veggies, fresh meats, and wonderful smelling body butters and potion. We bought an apple turnover to share, sampled some incredible bread, and then dawdled over the blissful smelling potions in Abbey Brown booth. I splurged on some Rose Petal bath salts, a delicious smelling bar of soap, and All that Jazz Body Balm.

An enchanted carriage (okay, a cab) whisked us away to our hotel where we checked in and checked out the amazingly deep soaking tub. After stowing our bags, we walked a few blocks up to the Corner Bakery for dinner. I fell in love with this part of Chicago as it is cosmopolitan and homey all at the same time. We were only a few blocks from the lake front, but it seemed like a neighborhood with grocery stores, stop signs (and not stop lights), and friendly people who took the time to say hello. My meal was a little disappointing and I was stupefied (and glad I only ate half) that the pecan maple bar contained almost 800 calories. That will teach me to read the labels before I pop food in my mouth. John, however, had the club panini and it was awesomely good.

We headed back to the hotel and after getting John settled, I headed out for a walk around the Gold Coast to get my exercise for the day and John settled in to watch a football game. I walked for over an hour, window shopping on Oak Street and wandering through Water Tower Place (the only place that was open). Most of the items for sale were way out of my league price wise, but it was fun to dream and think about what it would be like to have an unlimited budget.

Back in our cozy little hotel room, I ran a bath in the incredibly deep soaking tub, sprinkled in some of rose bath salts and slipped into Nirvana. The tub wasn't perfect as it was really hard to get the stopper to stay stopped, but considering that we don't have a working tub at home, it was awesome to slip into the deep tub and soak my troubles away. Getting out was the hard part as I could have stayed in that wonderfully scented water forever.

After the lights were turned out and we snuggled under the covers of the king size bed, the fears came to light as we both admitted some trepidation over John's upcoming surgery. It's really easy to be fearless in the light of day, but late at night the boogey man comes out and it's easy to let the fears get the best of you.

The things going are way are that John is going to be in a really good hospital, this is the second operation so they have all of his records, and it's not being done in emergency circumstances, but it's still a little scary to think about them threading a needle into his heart, inflating balloons, and leaving behind a metal stent.

Hopefully we won't need it, but wish us luck tomorrow anyway.