Get me to the ball on time.

The Green Tie Ball is an event held every year in Chicago. It's a fundraiser to raise money for the Gateway Green project. That's the group in charge of finding people to clean up the highways.

Anyway, I went this year. I've been pretty pumped up about it for a while, because it gave me an awesome excuse to wear the fabulous brown silk dress I found a few years ago. Unfortunately for me, I forgot to bring it back from Milwaukee over Labor Day. I considered having my mom mail it, but I decided I may as well go and get it on Saturday so I could have my hair done fabulously. I picked up a couple riders along the way, namely SiQ and another friend who wanted to hitch a ride. All of this seemed perfectly benign.

Well, that was before the heavens opened up. The rain began on Friday afternoon. And continued through Sunday. Saturday morning began normally enough. My friend met me at my place around 10:15 a.m. We hop onto the freeway, and promptly run into traffic at the normal spot. It's moving at a snail's pace, but it ALWAYS moves at a snails pace. Or so I thought. And then I realized that this snail was nearly dead...and we'd moved at a pace of roughly 6 miles an hour. We were literally in the car about 90 minutes and had barely gotten out of the city. And then we were forced off the freeway due to closure. You read that right. The freeway was CLOSED.

Well, this is the information age. So I call SiQ and ask her to re-route us via the internet. (Especially important since there were no detour signs.) But, just as she was finding a route (of sorts), the next freeway entrance was open. So we get on the freeway, thinking we can make up time. Boy were we wrong. We were forced off the freeway AGAIN. We spent the next 2 hours driving through various suburbs searching for a way to the highway.

As a lucky break, I happened to take a road that ran through the forest preserve. And it happened to run into a street I recognized; which led me to the highway. Meanwhile, it's still raining. I finally get to the SiQ's house, pick her up. Get to the WI state border, no rain and no traffic. GAH. So, I finally get to my destination - 5 HOURS AFTER LEAVING MY APARTMENT.

After all of that, I asked my dad to drop off the dress at the beauty shop. I was seriously freaking out. But, the good news was, the freeway was re-opened. I got back to my apartment within 2 hours of leaving.

The ball was great. The dress fit perfectly (it had better -- after 7 hours of travel I was going to make it fit). I even managed to get us into VIP -- basically, I found 2 pins and scammed 2 other ones from some guy - volunteers. :) Just like last time though, another girl was in my dress in a different color. Unlike last time, she was way skinnier than me. :\