The End of Todd Super Week

Todd's Super Week (TM) has come to an end with a bang. My Birthday Party was seeing Wicked and eating at the Italian Village in Chicago. First of all, Wicked really rocks. I was impressed. Several people who came with had seen the show 2 to 4 times. But now I understand why they'd come back. It's a great story with catchy tunes and really great set design--including a giant smoking dragon!

We then barely made it to the Italian Village thanks to a tricky closed sidewalk that lured us to walk about 2 blocks out of our way and ended in a dead end. We had to go all the way back and start again. If we were lemmings, we'd be all gone now. We just followed each other through this little tunnel and didn't even question the giant sign that said "CLOSED SIDEWALK." How can 11 people miss the same sign? I don't know. I know my excuse. I saw the sign but instead of reading it, I just thought about pretending to run into it. Anywho, we managed to overcome this setback and get there without being hit by any cars. Which is good because Todd Super Week would have really suffered had the Bears lost AND I got hit by a bus.

Since no one was hit by a bus and the Bears didn't have to play the Colts again, the day was the perfect capper to a truly super Todd Super Week. When it was all said and done, one-forth of my gifts had to do with monkeys. The rest were all related to either Star Wars, the White Sox, Mister Rogers or the Nation's First Ladies. Of course. I may be the only 30-year man who has ever been given a First Ladies Word Search book as a gift. I wear that honor like a badge.

One of my favorite parts of the day was when the waiter tried to lead my party in singing Happy Birthday. After he got them all started, he decided to stop them for some reason. I believe my candle was not lit yet. The problem tho was that the waiter was no conductor. He didn't know the sign for "cut" and just repeatedly waved downward. Of course, my musicically gifted party recognized this as the sign to decrease in volume. So it became like a round of "A little bit softer now, A little bit softer now" until the man finally stopped them. Then, my spumoni with a candle stuck in it was put in front of me. The song started all over. I was so excited that I just sang along. When I realized that I was the guest of honor, I stopped. But man, I can't resist a good sing-a-long.