Monday, May 22, 2017

Members Only (Anyone Can Join!)

The past four days or so have been absolutely bonkers. (Sidebar: 'bonkers' is one of my new favorite words to use.) Between Members' Nights at the Field Museum last Thursday/Friday and the Windy Pretties meetup on Saturday and yesterday, I've just had so many exciting events to attend!

trashy diva purple floral rosalind
Since my life is usually a comfortable rhythm of Thursday night jaunts to check out Chicago restaurants, Friday supermarket runs, and laid-back weekends, I'm going to take advantage of this unusual burst of Exciting Activities and tell you all about it!

Members' Night

First of all, as I tweeted immediately after getting home on Friday night, everyone needs to become a Field Museum member so they can go to next year's Members' Night! For those of you who don't know, Members' Nights are two evenings a year when Museum members get to go behind the scenes and see all the exciting things that go on at a natural history museum besides the fabulous exhibits.

During Members' Nights, the research and collections areas are opened to members, and the science staff puts out fantastic demonstrations to show what they do with the 30 million specimens housed at the Field. (Yes. 30 million. With an M and an -illion.)

This sign made me snort-laugh out loud.

I went on both nights and could not stop telling everyone I saw how amazing everything was. Among my personal highlights:

1) a tour of the bird prep lab, where bird specimens are prepared for storage;
2) a demonstration of fluorescent minerals (which I kept referring to as the disco geology nightclub);
3) a tour of some of the oversized anthropology collections, including artifacts from Pompeii (!!!);
4) a tour of the oversized paleontology collections (translation: enormous dinosaur bones);
5) the insects extravaganza, which included an incredible array of pinned insects, an aluminum cast of an ant colony, a variety of live insects that knocked my socks right off, and a touch screen game that I spent far too long playing;
6) a chat with an environmental social scientist who travels to Peru with other Museum scientists to inventory wildlife and work with local indigenous populations to advocate for indigenous land rights and more government conservation; and
7) trying my hand at contributing to the MicroPlants project!

Clockwise from top right: birds, disco geology, blue morphos, the world's coolest-looking aquatic dinosaur, sarcophagi and an archway from thousands of years ago.

In fact, there was so much to see and do that I'll need to bring Jeff back to the Museum to see my new favorite exhibit, because we ran out of time!

The Windy Pretties

If you're a major Trashy Diva fan like me, you may have heard of Divacon: TD's annual get-together down in NOLA for all their superfans. This year, a group of Midwest Divas had our own mini-Divacon, dubbed the "Windy Pretties." (Yay puns!) The fabulous Natalie single-handedly put together an amazing weekend of events and I'm still riding high from all the fun!

windy pretties trashy diva meetup
Pure hype on Saturday night!

I must sound like a broken record, but I'll say it again: one of my favorite things about the retro-style community has been meeting so many lovely, kind people who share my interest in dresses. Chicago has a pretty active group of Divas; we meet up fairly regularly for drinks and/or dinner and it's always such a blast. For someone who tends to be a loudmouthed introvert, it's a rare joy to meet a group of people whose company just feels comfortable.

Natalie did such an amazing job organizing fun events that the Chicago gals were joined by Divas from Wisconsin, Indiana, and even Washington DC! This was super exciting for me, since I got to meet two longtime Insta-pals, Annabel and Haley, and make some awesome new friends! (In fact, you might recognize Haley in the photo above from her guest-starring role in my first post on Bernie Dexter's instant-classic Kelly dress.)

The Windy Pretties kicked off with afternoon tea at Russian Tea Time in downtown Chicago, which was a delightful twist on classic afternoon tea. I drank enough tea to drown a horse and actually couldn't finish all of the pastries that came with the full afternoon tea service. (If you've ever seen me eat, you'd be impressed by this fact.) I had the Russian caravan tea, which was fragrant, had a nice strong flavor without being bitter, and came in a glass that more closely resembled a cross between a beer stein and a medieval goblet.


Of the food at Russian Tea Time, I particularly enjoyed the scones with butter and strawberry jam, and the chicken finger sandwiches. Everything was delicious and I highly recommended taking a leisurely few hours to have afternoon tea there.

Afternoon tea service for two. All this food for two people. YESSSS.

After tea, a few of us popped into the Art Institute to check out the Miniature rooms and the Impressionist paintings, before heading to our respective places to change for the next event. After a lightning-quick trip back to my apartment to Clark Kent into one of my favorite dresses, I got back on the L and headed up to our next destination: Holiday Club.

venice nights day dress

Natalie somehow booked us a private room for a few hours without selling any kidneys or firstborn children, and got a friend to DJ for us, so it was basically paradise. There were a few folks who weren't able to make the tea but showed up for drinks, and I was happy to see a few more familiar faces and meet some significant others! Natalie's friend was such a good DJ! I found myself shouting "YAY I love this one!" practically every time a new song came on.

I also learned what Malort was, and took a great video of some of the gals doing a shot of this hilariously awful Chicago classic. All I will say on the subject of Malort is this: I look forward to the day when I can drink something that was variously described to me as tasting like feet, armpit, and grapefruit. (I don't like grapefruit.)

I headed home from Holiday Club around 10, but I know a stalwart few Divas and their partners went on to Late Bar. Someday I'll go there!

Sunday's main activity was a trip to Vintage Garage Chicago, which was completely life-changing and will be the subject of its own post. For now, suffice it to say that the reason I didn't take many photos was because I found too many amazing vintage goodies to carry them all and safely operate my phone.

It was such a treat to have four days in a row of such exciting activities, and I'm already looking forward to getting together with some of my new Chicago Diva pals for a meetup in June!

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24 comments:

  1. Till you pointed it out I did not realise that the parrots are dead... I am not sure why I thought they are still alive. Blonde moment!

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    1. They do such a good job preserving them that I can understand why you'd think they were alive! There were some live peregrine falcons at Members' Night, too.

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  2. Posts like these make me want to pack my bags and move to a city so I can go to museums and meet up with awesome people more often. Glad you shared this post today, I was already getting curious about the meetup since I saw you posting about it on Instagram!

    x Envy
    Lost in Translation

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    1. The great thing is you could always choose to just up and move somewhere -- the world is completely your oyster! I've only starting doing meetups since moving to Chicago, and it's helped so much to dispel that 'new-city' loneliness.

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  3. Looks like such a fun meet up I wish there were things like this in my city 💖

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    1. I had such a blast! Hopefully you can find some fun meetup groups nearby <3.

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  4. I love the amount of sass in the first photo! Thank you for posting x

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    1. Aw, thanks so much! I make the silliest faces when Jeff takes photos of me, as he did on Saturday.

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  5. Oh my goodness sounds like you had so much fun!!!

    Sarah | sazsinclair.blogspot.co.uk xx

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    1. It was a fantastic weekend! I'm already looking forward to the next meetup!

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  6. This is such a great post! Sounds like you've had so much fun, thanks for sharing!

    Jessica & James | foodandbaker.co.uk

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    1. Thank you so much! It really was a uniquely exciting meetup!

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  7. I've always wanted to cross the pond and visit Chicago. My dad went for work when I was a baby and brought me a tiny tshirt back, I still have it actually! I wish I could come to museum members nights, it looks so much like my kind of thing!

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    1. That is just adorable! My dad went to England when I was very young and brought me a little Paddington Bear, and I treasured it too! Chicago is worth making the journey for, so I hope you make it here someday :).

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  8. So Members' Night sounds amazing!! How fun! And Russian Tea Time is one of my favorite restaurants in Chicago! We make a point to go there every time we're in town. (I love that tea!) So glad you had so much fun this weekend! :)

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    1. OMG, I actually held back a little in the post, but Members' Night was the most exciting event I've ever seen at the Museum! I'd never been to Russian Tea Time but I'll definitely not wait to go back. Maybe some time we can meet for tea!

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  9. Sounds like such a great place and event. You mus have had so much fun! and the food looks amazing! I love afternoon teas! xx corinne

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    1. Thank you, my dear! It really was a fantastic place to hang out with friends new and old and eat loads of sweets!

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  10. Oh my GAH! So much fun!!! I need to find a group :(
    I moved to San Diego and starting from scratch.

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    1. There must be tons of pinups in SD! Or there's always a day trip to LA to see all the awesome ladies up there. How do you like San Diego??

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  11. I love going behind the scenes at museums, I don't get the chance nearly as often as I'd like!
    That tea glass is beautiful, and those pictures of food have made me hungry!
    Cora ❤ http://www.teapartyprincess.co.uk/

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  12. Oh my gosh it looks like you had a fabulous time! I wish I had a lot of social events... I feel like such a bore haha ^^"

    Lizzie Bee // hello lizzie bee

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  13. I too, love the word bonkers. I also love museums- Member's Night looks amazing- and I love your dress in every photo (per usual, let's be honest). What awesome times! So much to love! Oh, AND that shade of red lip is soooo perfect for you!

    Mary Lane @NewYorkCliche
    http://newyorkcliche.com

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  14. This sounds like such an amazing time! I love the sound of Member's Night at the museum, totally up my street.
    Claire xo
    clairelouiisexo.co.uk

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