the cure for homesickness

Rachel and Christian came to visit! It was so fun! Guys! I can't even tell you how fun it was! We did practically no work the whole time and just laughed and drank wine and ate food and omg we are sad they are gone now.

Here they are being all like "woah this house is beautiful / Indiana rules":


Their reaction to our surroundings made us remember how much we loved it during our first several weeks here -- not that we don't still love it, but with the combination of homesickness and the natural taking-things-for-granted-ness that always builds up, the thrill had somewhat faded. It was invigorating to watch them exclaim at the huge house, the sense of space, the remarkable amount of architectural beauty, and of course the awesomeness of the uncles/grandma.

The first night we went to Tim's studio for beer and geez ("geez(sp?)" = Tim's name for his particular genre of music, generally but not exclusively made by people over 40, i.e. "geezers"). Then we spent a weirdly warm sunny afternoon running around Fountain Square, a 50's-style 'hood with a wonderfully preserved old theatre and diner, bowling alley, lots of vintage/antique places, and a bar called Radio Radio which obviously rules.



We wandered through the nethers of the art-studio complex by the Big Car Gallery and stumbled upon this monster made of, I dunno, whiteout?, but Rach wasn't skeered:

My uncle Pat had a party, so we finally got to see his house in all its glory. There are no words, really, and the pictures definitely do not do it justice. How do you describe a party at the home of an insanely generous and witty bachelor who calls himself "The King" and built a karaoke stage and a bar in his home and has nine-foot paintings of Madonna that he commissioned himself displayed on the wall? You just can't. Somebody needs to make a sitcom or reality show about my uncle Pat and his roommate Jay. Seriously. It's just way too hilarious and awesome not to be enjoyed by the masses.


Then we went to Chicago for one night, which was a lot of driving for a little stay, but it was really fun to be running around a big city again.


And then Dan got food poisoning from the restaurant in Chicago. Aaaand it was his birthday dinner. We arrived back in Indianapolis just in time for Dan to have one night of complete hell, and then it was over. We spent the day lounging around the fire, watching movies, and playing Catan while rain poured against the windows. (Note the transfer of the Catan Winner's Medallion from Dan to me WOOO.)



Their last night here, Rachel and I sat on the couch and had a long awesome talk while Dan and Christian went to Tim's studio to sip tequila and record what Tim called a "space jam," which apparently doesn't put anyone but me in the mind of some Bugs Bunny / Michael Jordan movie from the nineties. Dan and Chris were both super inspired by the night, mostly by Tim's laid-back and less-cerebral (i.e. un-Lyon-esque) approach to music-making.

And then they left and Dan and I were both hit with a TON of actual work. Like, I immediately began twelve-hour workdays. It sucks because their whole visit was so invigorating (that's just the perfect word) that we wish we could transfer the energy to creative stuff. Sigh/reality.

More soon about our plans for the short remainder of our trip and the drive home. Thank you Rachel for taking pictures!