Boxing and a Big Surprise

This is my first time blogging on my brand new shiny laptop! It's nice to no longer upload photos on other computers that don't belong to me. So far, I'm enjoying myself. 

On Friday afternoon, I drove to the city (in afternoon rush hour traffic). Grace (who actually just ended up staying at the house Wednesday and Friday since I was able to take care of the dogs myself on Thursday) just came in after work, so she caught me on camera with all of my stuff. 

One night in the city requires a lot of stuff!

I got to the city (Wrigleyville area) around 5:30 pm. I parked near my friend Nicole's apartment. We hung out for a little while, and then we walked over to LA Boxing in the magnificent spring weather.

I did say before that I wasn't sure if I was going to get a good workout. I even did the Barre 3 Fit class in the morning just in case the boxing didn't do anything for me. I actually expected the class to be cardio kickboxing, but Nicole told me before I left that it was real boxing. We'd have to wrap our hands and use boxing gloves.

I was really excited, because I took Krav Maga classes when I was in high school. I still have my wraps and gloves, but I realized that I forgot them when I got on the highway. Nicole told me that I could borrow them from the club, anyway. 

So, as it turned out, the class kicked my butt. 

We started with a warm up that included 100 jumping jacks and 50 push ups, crunches and high knee jumps. We then started boxing "rounds" where we do a sequence for about three minutes or so, and then we end the round with jumping push ups (jump high in the air and then do a push up) followed by something else such as squats. I can't remember the last time that I sweat that much. I also have never done so many push ups in my life! I did 15 on my toes during the warm up before I had to move to my knees for the rest of the time. Nicole, however, is a machine! She stayed on her toes the entire time. She takes these classes several times a week, but I was every impressed.  Two days later, my muscles are still sore. 

I'm bad at boxing, by the way. After a year plus of Krav Maga, I can't even remember how to punch properly! I still had a lot of fun.

I also got to try the class for free! They didn't charge me a cent for an hour-long class or using their wraps and gloves.

It was 8:30 by the time we left the studio, so we immediately began discussing dinner possibilities. We decided to order Thai food and also stop by 7 Eleven for a snack. I got one of my favorite snacks: swirly string cheese!

I was actually so excited about the string cheese that the guy at the cash register started making fun of me. It's a mix of cheddar and mozzarella. It's so curly when you peel it off. 

I also grabbed a Sabra pack with pretzel pieces and roasted red pepper hummus. It was such a cute little snack pack!

We ordered dinner while getting ready. Nicole and I both ordered Pad Thai with tofu. 

The Surprise

Now, for the rest of the night's festivities to make the most sense, I have to backtrack to early last week when I heard that Luiz, Irene's fiance, was throwing a surprise party for her on Friday night. I was very excited about it and willing to help in any way that I could. So when I woke up on Thursday morning with a message from Facebook telling me that Irene created an event for her birthday on SATURDAY night, I knew that it was my time to help. 

Here was the issue: Irene invited about 200 people to her party on Saturday night, obviously not knowing that we were in the process of planning her surprise party for Friday night. After spending a greater part of the morning talking to Luiz and my friends Andi and Goda, we decided that we had to let everybody know about Friday night WITHOUT Irene knowing about it. 

I copied and pasted the names of the people she invited into a Word document and divided it up into four parts for me, Luiz, Andi and Goda. We were then supposed to send an individual message on Facebook to each person. 

Around 5 pm, we ran into another problem: Facebook doesn't like it when you send too many individual messages. After 25 messages, I got an alert telling me that I could have been harassing other people and I was banned from messaging for a few hours to several days. Huge bummer. It all ended up okay, because we managed to get their e-mail addresses. Then, Andi sent out a mass e-mail. 

All was still not well, because Irene told me on the phone that she didn't want to go out on Friday night. She's taking four classes online, so she wanted to use the night to study. Andi and Goda told me that I needed to come up with an elaborate lie to change her mind, so I told her that I couldn't go out on Saturday night. I said that my parent's plane got cancelled, and they couldn't reschedule  until Sunday morning. I told her that Grace was not able to stay with the dogs another night, so I had to watch them. I told her how much I really wanted to be part of her birthday celebration, and I begged her to come out for a little while. She ate up every word, and she agreed to come out Friday night for a girl's night. 

It all worked out in the end. Irene met us at Nicole's apartment at 10:30 (Luiz dropped her off and said that he was going out with some of his friends), and we took a cab over to Public House in River North. Andi met us at the door with a box for Irene containing a red heart necklace and a card. The card said some funny things like the fact that I was a liar and that Luiz was the best and to find the red balloons. Sure enough, there was a whole party of party of people by a few red balloons. 

She was so surprised!

Irene's mom provided a beautiful cake!

We had a vodka table for the party, meaning that there was pre-purchased vodka and a lot of mixers in our section. Andi and Nicole's roommate Nikki made us some drinks. 

As you see, there are also taps on the table. I don't think they were available for our party since we didn't pay for them, but I guess you can reserve a table and drink as much beer as you want (as long as you pay up). It beats the need to buy drinks at the bar. 

I also saw a few people with a ginormous cup of beer. Oh my gosh. These guys were all drinking it, and it took them a long time to finish it!

There were also taps in the wall. There are slots for credit cards, and the taps dispense beer after you pay (I think that's how it works). Cool, right?

I had one drink and then felt very, very sick. I almost felt like I did on the plane to Dallas. I couldn't even eat a piece of cake, which is an obvious indicator that I am unwell! I still managed to stick around and mingle for two hours. I left with Nicole at 1 am, and I slept like a baby. I'm still not sure what made me feel so horrible, but I hope that it doesn't come back!

Andi also cheered me up by taking me to the Photo Booth downstairs. There were three other photos, but I think this was the most flattering/appropriate. Man, those things would be fun to have at my wedding!