Lunch & Dinner

Long day. A real estate-themed luncheon and a dinner to go to, a rare double-header of chicken and peas. But the point was to meet and talk and (sometimes) make notes, and I did these things.

The lunch was in Oak Brook, a western suburb, so I drove there, since the network of suburban commuter rail lines isn’t a spider web, but bicycle spokes radiating from the city. The dinner event, the Greater Chicago Food Depository fundraising dinner and awards hootenanny, the biggest event of the year in local commercial real estate, was in the city, so I rode the train from my former regular station in Westmont (free parking!) and walked through light but persistent snow to the Sheraton on the Chicago River, which took about a half hour. Enjoyed walking downtown again after some months, even in the snow.

It wasn’t really a hootenanny, since there was no singing, but I get to use that word so rarely. It was a teeming event, however. More than 2,000 of people attend it, so it needs to be at the Sheraton, which reputedly has the largest ballroom in the city. And it is huge, though awfully bland. Hundreds of tables of with a dozen plates of chicken and vegetables: the kitchen logistics boggle the mind. Since this was a fundraiser for the hungry ($800,000+ raised, they said) I made sure not to waste any of my dinner, since that wouldn’t be right.