Journal of Random Tangents

Snow and other random stuff...

2012-02-10T15:54:00.000-05:00

Why have all my posts been so random lately?? I guess it's just a reflection of the discombobulation in my brain right now. But here's a good topic: SNOW! We're getting some nice wintery weather today... I guess we've averaged about one decent snowfall per month this winter? That's just unacceptable for Chicago... I moved here with the understanding that there would be snow. Lots of snow.

Today's little storm began with some nice, gentle flakes:

And has progressed to windy, billowing, horizontal snow-clouds:

Fuuuuuuun!!! (Hey, I don't have to shovel anything or drive anywhere... ergo: fun! :))

So far, the lines on the street are still visible, so there haven't been any entertaining traffic issues yet. But the day is young...

Yesterday's weather:

Piva:

Riff:

And yes, Riff does have a scratch below his left eye -- it was bestowed upon him by Piva, who was NOT in the mood to play whatever game he wanted to play... when will he learn? (Probably never...)

Well, that's about it for today... maybe next time I can come up with something more substantial to talk about...

Random thoughts: Super Bowl Sunday edition...

2012-02-05T17:55:00.000-05:00

So I was looking back over that list of grammar pet peeves (which, again -- was NOT altered from its original form in any way), and I realized that I actually have an issue with #2. There IS an instance where an apostrophe can be used to form a plural -- when you want to refer to more than one SINGLE letter. As in "I received straight A's in English because I'm so awesome at this whole writing business." You NEED the apostrophe in that case, because "As" (or, to add a couple of other examples, "Is" and "Us") is an actual word. So while I agree that in the vast majority of cases an apostrophe is never used to form a plural, there IS an exception. An exception to every rule, I suppose...

Is everyone ready for the Super Bowl? I don't know what that means... it just seems like the thing to ask. I guess it means, "does everyone have enough chips and guacamole?" (Darn... now I wish I had chips and guacamole...)

I'll be rooting for the Giants, even though I've never really had an absolute favorite pro football team. I do like the Baltimore Ravens, but that's only because they were named in honor of Edgar Allan Poe, and as far as I know, that makes them the only football team with literary ties. (I could be wrong about that -- I have no idea how most football teams acquired their names...) That's not weird, right? I'm sure plenty of people choose teams based on their relation to favorite writers. But since I do consider myself an East Coaster, by default I must like the Giants. I believe the New York Jets are the equivalent of the New York Mets, which means I can never like THEM... (Although this makes me wonder -- are there any Giants/Mets fans? Or Jets/Yankees fans??)

I probably shouldn't watch so many episodes of House Hunters International... it makes me want to move overseas for a few years, just to see what it's like. I'm thinking either Europe or Asia...

This super-mild-for-Chicago winter is making me think that I might not need my snow boots again this season. I keep checking the extended forecast on weather.com with the hope that I'll see a little snowflake icon to signify wintery weather. I've hardly even needed my scarf or gloves this year. And to think that last year at this time, we were still digging out from under the couple feet of snow poured upon us by the blizzard...

Speaking of last year at this time, I just went back to check my blog posts from last February, and discovered that I made Brussels sprouts for dinner the night of the Super Bowl... which is interesting, because I was planning to make Brussels sprouts tonight, as well. Weird. (I also made Caribou hot chocolate last year -- and darn it, now I want chips and guacamole AND Caribou hot chocolate...)

Okay, I'm talking about food too much... I should go think about what I'm making for dinner. So far, I have Brussels sprouts, chips, guacamole and hot chocolate on the menu...

So many rules...

2012-02-02T09:59:00.002-05:00

Saw this on a friend's Facebook page. I did not alter it in any way. This is exactly the way I found it. Pay no attention to the fact that the font is slightly different at the end -- I'm sure that's just some kind of computer glitch. You know how computers are...

And just a bit more randomness...

2012-01-29T15:07:00.000-05:00

1) Yesterday, we finally broke down a bunch of boxes that had been scattered in the condo and hauled them down to the recycling bins. I think most of them were leftover from Rick's new computer build. He prefers to buy his own components and assemble computers from scratch... this results in many empty boxes and mysterious random metal and wires. I never know what can be thrown away and what needs to be stored in case of computer emergency. But we definitely don't need any extra boxes cluttering up this place... it's nice to finally see the floor behind the couch again...

2) I have a weird thing about people reading things that I'm writing before I'm finished writing them -- I don't like it. Rick thinks it's bizarre... he was just standing behind the couch, commenting on the fact that I'm writing for the blog, and I instinctively turned my computer screen away from him so he couldn't see the words. I don't know why -- but I've NEVER liked people to read anything that I'm in the process of writing. Until I'm finished with it. Don't ever read over my shoulder...

3) So I'm not normally very political on my blog (or anywhere else, for that matter). And, to be honest, I haven't been paying a whole lot of attention to this year's campaigning -- I've sort of gotten a little sick of politics over the years. But I did hear about Newt Gingrich's plan to colonize the moon by 2020, an idea which has received a lot of criticism from all ends of the political spectrum. (Cue whiny voice): Ohhhh, what a stupid idea... it's too expensive... it's so unrealistic... what a waste of money... Um, hello??? It's a COLONY on the MOON!! How freakin' awesome would THAT be??? A MOON COLONY!!! We could be living in space! My kitchen could have a view of EARTH -- not "earth" as in "dirt"... Earth, as in PLANET EARTH!! You'd better believe I'm voting for that... I'm voting Gingrich/Moon Colony in 2012. (I have a suspicion that Faisal thinks I'm being serious... I will expect a text message in 3...2...1...)

4) Speaking of Faisal, I've been TRYING to convince him to watch the movie "Ronin" for weeks now, without success. Before I saw this movie, I absolutely refused to buy a four-door sedan-type car, because I was convinced that they were "boring" and only for people with kids who needed easy access to the back seat of their car. And then, not too long after I'd seen Ronin, Rick dragged me to an Audi dealer to test drive a four-door sedan. I was convinced that there was nothing that could convince me to buy the car... and then, as I pulled onto the interstate and quickly accelerated, I noticed that the car sounded EXACTLY like the Audi in Ronin. I mean, I assumed that engine sound was some kind of special effect that was added after the fact... but no, those cars actually SOUND like that! What's more, it was fast and nimble -- I could picture that little Audi on a cobblestone street in Europe, rounding corners at high speed with surprising agility...

Needless to say, I bought the Audi.

I hope we can drive Audis on the moon...

It's a random kind of day...

2012-01-26T15:56:00.001-05:00

I am (or rather, I WAS, when I started writing this last night) waiting for Rick to return from a Dell event with carrot cake in tow... actually, I don't think he's TOWING the cake. Although if he WAS towing the cake, that would be awesome -- because how big would that cake have to be in order to require towing??

Is it funny that I love carrot cake but I hate carrots? Or is it just proof that with enough butter and sugar, just about ANYthing will taste good?? (Except fish... nothing makes fish taste better...)

Once again, I am startled by how quickly another year is passing. January is almost gone already??? At least this is a leap year, so we get ONE extra day. Twenty-four extra hours. February 29th is like a bonus day... shouldn't it automatically be a holiday or something? Maybe "Free Coffee at Starbucks Day"?

I just cleaned my bathroom with a bleach-based cleaner, and, consequently, even though it's only 37 degrees outside right now, I have my balcony door open to get some fresh air into the condo to counteract the sickening bleach smell. Ick. Perhaps bleach isn't the best thing to clean with. I should add baking soda to my shopping list... (By the way, my cats LOVE the smell of bleach. It's the weirdest thing. Every time I use it to clean something, they start flipping around on the floor like they're high on catnip...)

It has been super foggy here in Chicago lately. Isn't it supposed to be super snowy? I can only see buildings about three blocks in the distance... the Hancock Building is totally gone. I prefer my sunny-day view to this blanketed view. Or at least snow. I really hope we get more snow soon...

And yes, by the way, Rick DID get the carrot cake home -- and it WAS a rather large piece, but he didn't have to tow it...

Hours of entertainment...

2012-01-20T16:25:00.000-05:00

Usually, my view looks something like this:

Today, however, it looks like this:

Snow!! It took long enough, but Chicago is finally delivering on its promise of snowy winters.

I can't believe how many people are out driving in this stuff right now...

I love all the dogs in their little sweaters... :)

For some reason, our street has not been visited by a snowplow yet, even though it's a popular route to get to the interstate and, therefore, very busy. This has resulted in some entertaining traffic-watching this afternoon:

Usually, you'd be able to SEE the yellow line dividing this street into different directions. It's NOT a one-way, but with the lanes covered, many people have started ASSUMING it's a one way. You can see the headlights of a car right under the Office Depot sign -- that person was attempting to make the turn onto this street, but was blocked by the cars that were creating a new one-way street...

ALL of these cars are heading the wrong way...

At last! Justice for the cars driving in the correct direction!

I'm off to jump on the treadmill... hopefully exercise will help me warm up...

Still missed...

2012-01-18T00:52:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, when it's late at night and there's nothing good on TV and you're alone and contemplating life and surfing the net for melancholy poems, you stumble across something completely unexpected. (And I have to make a side note here -- is it any wonder that so many kids are being diagnosed with "ADD" these days? The internet makes it pretty much unavoidable for everyone -- you can start out searching for information on the American Revolution and end up on some random website clicking through pictures of zoo animals. Not to mention the fact that every TV has 500 channels, cars come with complete entertainment systems, and every kid and their dog has a cell phone. ADD?? Yeah... sure... THAT'S the problem...)

Tonight, for instance, my deficient attention span led me to randomly click on various websites and to search for various people, places and things. And it was through one of these random searches that I stumbled upon a site I'd never seen before -- one that has been around for almost ten years. Someone created this website back in September of 2002 -- right after Aimee died. (For more about Aimee, check out this post.)

And even though it's old, and hard to read, and some of the links don't work anymore, I spent about an hour crying after I found it -- because I had no idea that it even existed, and I have no idea who created it, and I found it very sweet that someone cared about her enough to go to the trouble of creating a website in her memory. And how many times over the last ten years have I wished that my sister was still in my life?? More than I can count... sometimes it surprises me how much I miss her, considering I only knew her for a few years. I've wanted sisterly advice many times over the last ten years... thank goodness I can still ask for brotherly advice any time I need it... :)

One of the best things about the website I stumbled upon was the discovery of a few pictures I'd never seen. There were only a few, and when I clicked through all of them I was wishing for more. But isn't that the way life goes sometimes? The very best things in life are fleeting moments... the most we can do is hold on to each one as long as possible, until the moment passes and we move on to something else. And then just be thankful that we HAD that moment in our lives...

I'm thankful I had Aimee in my life for a short time...

This weekend...

2012-01-15T18:02:00.000-05:00

*We got our first real snow of the season here in Chicago, and it finally feels like winter...

*Rick and I tried a new kettlebell workout, and I can no longer walk up stairs thanks to all the squats and lunges...

*I read some melancholy Edgar Allan Poe stories just because I wanted to (have I mentioned that I really love Edgar Allan Poe??).

*I tested out mom's theory that tea made with water boiled on the stove tastes better than tea made with water boiled in the microwave. (My verdict -- I can't tell the difference. :))

*I finally ordered a pair of boots that I hope will keep my feet warm in the Chicago-winter-sub-freezing-temperatures, after walking a couple 17-degree miles in boots that were NOT designed for cold weather. (After your toes go numb, how long, exactly, does it take for frostbite to set in??)

Hope everyone had a good weekend, and, like Riff, is looking forward to the week ahead. (Okay, so maybe he's actually staring at falling snowflakes...)

Because I have nothing else to say at the moment...

2012-01-11T21:42:00.001-05:00

I started writing something else for the blog this morning, but was promptly interrupted by laundry and dishes and a walk down to Starbucks to buy coffee beans... etc, etc. And since (so far) it's a little more thoughtful and insightful than my usual nonsense, I figure it deserves my full attention some day when I have nothing to do but blog and analyze my weird life. (Oh, wait -- I analyze my weird life 24 hours a day... :))

But in the interest of posting something -- I just found this unfinished questionnaire thingy in my list of drafts. So I think I'll finish it and post it. Hooray! So here we go:

What was your first job? My first job actually began as a volunteer gig at the Sparta Public Library in Sparta, NJ. After I'd been there a couple months -- helping patrons and shelving books for free -- the library director called me into his office and asked if I'd like to be PAID for what I was doing. (You had to ask?? No, I hate getting money for doing work. Keep that stuff to yourself.) That job was great because I was surrounded by books... when things got slow, I had plenty of reading material.

Have you ever seen a stand up comedian? Um... I don't think so... oh -- maybe on a cruise ship once? (Does that count?)

When was the last time you played mini golf? Wow... I can't even remember. A looooooong time ago. I think Rick and I may have played mini golf once when we were dating? Maybe??

What was the last picture you took? I took this picture of the moon rising behind some buildings last night... but it turned out kind of blurry:

Burnt food: yes or no? I'm not a big fan of burnt food, but my dad loves it. Every time I make cookies for everyone, I have to make sure to burn some for dad. :)

If you have a pocket full of change, what do you do with it? I keep all my change in my wallet, so I never have a pocket full of change. (But when I start to accumulate too much change, I put some of it in one of the random jars of change we keep in the closet... Someday, we'll have to figure out how much random money is in the closet...)

Can you touch your tongue to your nose? Uh, no... (can anyone actually do that??)

Do you scrapbook? No, although I made a couple scrapbooks years and years ago when the whole scrapbooking trend was taking off. But eventually, I realized that I had neither the time nor patience to make a scrapbook of every semi-interesting event in my life...

Do you buy lottery tickets? The only time I've ever bought lottery tickets is when the jackpot reaches some ridiculously huge amount... and then it's usually Eric and Faisal's idea, and we all pool our money and buy tons of tickets and never win a thing. What an unlucky bunch we are...

Do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it? I guess it's obvious from all the pictures on my blog that I love to be behind a camera. I don't necessarily MIND being in front of one, either, but seeing as I'm an extremely insecure and self-critical person, I only like about two percent of the pictures that are taken of me...

Scruffy or clean shaven? Uhhh... me?? Or are we talking about men here? Because if we're talking about men....

Oh, hello there Jason Momoa... what's that?? You want to run away with me to a tropical island and live on the beach? Well, if you insist...

(Hey, it's Rick's fault that I even KNOW who this guy is... If it weren't for Stargate Atlantis, I would be totally ignorant of Jason Momoa's existence. ;))

But to answer the original question (was there an original question???) -- actually, I'm usually more partial to clean shaven... but there's always an exception to the rule...

What’s your favorite sundae topping? It depends on the ice cream -- if it's just plain vanilla, then I guess I'd go with hot fudge. But I LOVE chocolate ice cream with marshmallow topping. It can be hard to find a place that actually offers that combo, though...

Do you own slippers? I don't... I just wear a lot of socks...

Did you ever have a tree house? No... but when we were kids in Austin, we lived in a new housing development and were across the street from a bunch of empty lots... I remember Eric and I and some friends collected random scrap wood from the houses that were being built on the street and made our own little fort in the woods. I used to hide out in there and read books...

How you do relieve stress? Exercise -- it's pretty much the ONLY thing that works for me. If I didn't have my treadmill, I'd go insane...

What’s your favorite Dr. Seuss book? You know, this is probably some sort of blasphemy, but I've never been a huge Dr. Seuss fan. I mean, some of his books are a little bit creepy -- all the psychedelic colors and weird characters and made-up words... and the only reason you should ever eat green eggs and ham is if you WANT to be hospitalized with a nasty food-borne illness. (What kind of "doctor" ARE you, Dr. Seuss???)

Have you ever taken dance classes? Nope... in fact, I think the ONLY dance "experience" I have is from playing the part of a townsperson in my high school's production of "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." My friend Ali and I were taught a great little dance part for the "town social" scene...

Which do you use more: the thesaurus or the dictionary? Hmmm... interesting question. I actually use both of them fairly often. But I MIGHT use the dictionary slightly more often...

What’s your favorite form of exercise? Walking and jogging are pretty great -- simple, easy, cheap... but sometimes I like the structure and challenge of a dvd like Insanity or P90X... I also love to swim, but I'm not really a swimMER... if that makes any sense...

What’s the longest you’ve ever waited in line? I'm not sure... I can remember a couple really popular movie openings where I was in line for at least an hour... Other than that... maybe at the DMV?? If I've waited in line longer than an hour at the DMV, I probably blocked the horrible memory from my brain...

Can you use chopsticks? Yes -- in fact, I think I'm rather adept with chopsticks. They're kinda fun to use...

What is your favorite salad dressing? Blue cheese, unfortunately... because that has to be the WORST salad dressing for you. (Why can't I love a good fat-free vinaigrette?)

Can you sing the alphabet backwards? Hold on a sec.....

Nope. Definitely not.

Do you have any allergies? Well, I'm definitely allergic to cedar... and mosquitoes (although I think I'm starting to be LESS allergic to mosquitoes than I used to be... they used to inevitably swell up to the circumference of baseballs... lately, they're more like golf balls... And I think I completely avoided being bitten at all this past summer, which is highly preferable). I also seem to have a weird reaction if I eat too many almonds or drink almond milk... Which is is sad, because I really LIKE almonds. (But it could be worse -- I could be allergic to chocolate...)

Crunchy or creamy peanut butter? Crunchy...

Have you ever hitchhiked? Do you people know me AT ALL???

Okay, that should be enough inconsequential information for one night... Off to watch sci-fi shows and eat (unburned) cookies...

Dusting off the camera...

2012-01-07T13:09:00.000-05:00

As I was looking through my windows at the outside world last night (when the sun was setting and casting a reddish tint on the buildings), I suddenly realized that it has been far too long since I posted any cityscape pictures on this blog. And no, I don't have the panoramic skyline view I used to have... but I still love to gaze at the many-hued buildings in my line of sight and I like to watch the ever-changing scenes out on the streets and sidewalks. And I like to keep an eye on that cupcake store across the street... just to make sure it's not going anywhere...

I was especially intrigued by the bright moon last night...

My slight view of the Merchandise Mart down the block...

I still love the Hancock Building...

I've been staring at these Christmas lights on a balcony across the street for weeks...

Have I mentioned I have a great view of the Office Depot??

I also have a great view of the aforementioned cupcake store, but no pictures today... maybe next time...

New year, new randomness...

2012-01-03T12:49:00.000-05:00

And so begins the post-holiday slump.

My tree is down... my decorations have been packed up in boxes and carted down to storage for another year... my Christmas cookie recipe card has returned to its place among all the other recipe cards I use infrequently... and the workout music on my iPod will be decidedly less festive from now on. But I shall, of course, continue to post random thoughts:

I've had a really annoying sinus (possibly stress/migraine?) headache ALL DAY. I took a Sudafed and about fifty-seven Advil this morning, but it only managed to take the edge off. And I really didn't want to take a fifty-eighth Advil, so I've just been attempting to stave off a recurrence of this morning's pain with various natural remedies. I've been drinking lots of water, putting a cool towel on my neck, and rubbing my earlobes (something I just read about on the internet... and maybe it's just the placebo effect, but I think it helped a LITTLE bit??). I also somehow managed to still walk/jog 3.5 miles on the treadmill. But I'm thinking at this point, the only thing that will knock this malady out is a good night's sleep...

Rick has been in Indiana all day. The quiet house finally motivated me to finish emptying our suitcases from our trip to Austin and tidy up a bit. I don't know why, but every time Rick is gone, I seem to clean more... (This place will be spotless in a couple months when he heads back to Vegas for a work conference... I'll be cleaning for days...)

Why does my weird cat like to sleep in the sink???

I'm starting to think that Chicago is going to miss out entirely on any decent snowfall this winter. We've barely had a THING so far, and the long-term forecast is pretty boring for the next couple weeks. (Yes, I WANT snow. Yes, I'm weird.)

I realized today that I need to find a Chicago-area eye doctor -- I attempted to order some contact lenses online (since I'm about to use my last pair), and was informed that my order couldn't be processed because my prescription has expired. Apparently a current prescription is required by law before contacts can be purchased at an online store. Curses. Foiled by the "law." (I'm sure there's a place on the internet where I can buy illegal, black market contact lenses, right? Not that I'd ever do that...)

Okay, Mr. Headache, you win... I'm off to take my fifty-eighth Advil.* And then maybe I'll head to bed early...

*I haven't LITERALLY taken fifty-eight Advils. Please don't call 911 on my behalf...

Goodbye 2011...

2011-12-31T16:05:00.000-05:00

What will happen next year?

See you in 2012...

Random Thoughts: After Christmas Edition...

2011-12-28T15:52:00.000-05:00

1) Please tell me I'm not the only one who feels like I've been eating non-stop for the last two weeks?? If I believed in the concept of juice fasts, I think I'd be ingesting nothing but the watery innards of fruits and vegetables until New Year's Day. But seeing as I am of the opinion that bodies work best when they are fed a reasonable combination of carbohydrates, proteins and fats, I'll just have to do my best to rein in my calorie count for a while. And it's a good thing I'm so in love with my treadmill... because I'm going to be seeing a lot of it...

2) We returned from cold, rainy Austin last night. Actually, it was only cold and rainy the first few days we were there. After church on Christmas Eve, we exited outside into a freezing cold downpour... the kind of weather that makes you want to curl up on a couch in your PJs with a mug of hot cocoa. (Hey, why didn't I have any hot cocoa over Christmas?? I think that's about the only thing I DIDN'T eat or drink...) Yesterday, however, was sunny and beautiful, so of course it happened to be the day we were leaving...

3) We got bumped up to first class on our flight home. At first, we were excited about the prospect of actually getting food on the plane, since our flight took off right at dinnertime. But then we realized that we were on an American EAGLE plane -- the little tiny ones that are usually reserved for short jaunts between cities in the same geographical region. We're always on American Eagle from Chicago to Buffalo, but we've never had an American Eagle plane from AUSTIN to Chicago. And since the planes are so small, there's no room for any kind of REAL food. But we did get a bag of pretzels and some cookies. Which is more than they gave out in coach...

4) When we got back to Chicago, we waited more than an HOUR for our luggage to show up on the carousel. At first, we thought perhaps they'd posted the wrong number (which is quite a common occurrence at O'Hare...), but eventually we saw Austin pop up on the board for carousel 9, so we stood there waiting for something to happen. There were four or five other flights listed on the board for 9, too, and yet the bags coming into the terminal were few and far between. Every five minutes or so, a random bag would show up and take a lonely journey around the carousel. But the bags from the Austin flight never appeared. After about 40 minutes or so, Rick finally went over the baggage counter, where a long line had already formed, and an angry mob was beginning to materialize. I mean, it's one thing to misplace ONE bag... it's quite another to misplace an entire PLANE-load of bags. Finally, after we'd been standing in baggage claim for an hour, SOMEONE figured out where the bags were and started loading them on the conveyor belt. Our theory is that whoever was supposed to drive the bags from the plane to the terminal decided to go on break, and never asked anyone to take over. (Flying is so much fun... :))

5) Only three days left in 2011... where did the year go??? (Seriously, does anyone know?) I guess I'd better get going on my New Year's resolution now and walk on the treadmill for a while. I hope everyone had a great Christmas... :)

And to all a good night...

2011-12-24T23:52:00.000-05:00

I completely forgot to bring a camera with me to Austin, so I've been experimenting a lot with the camera on my new phone. I've been doing what anyone would do when they're unfamiliar with the capabilities of their new phone/camera:

Taking silly pictures, of course.

Really silly pictures...

No, I mean REALLY silly pictures...

Clearly I have issues...

I didn't realize how cold and rainy it would be here in Austin this week, so I spent much of the day grateful for the fact that the ONLY sweater I brought has a nice, cozy hood...

That's the least goofy picture I've taken of myself within the last 24 hours.

Anyway... I always wish I have a camera when I'm at our church's candlelight Christmas Eve service, and this year was no exception. Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, my camera is back in Chicago. I did manage to snap a quick picture of some of the decorations before the service started, but one of these years I WILL get a picture of all the candles lit up at the end of the service.

I hope that everyone has enjoyed their Christmas Eve, and I wish everyone (even those of you who don't celebrate the holiday :)) love and peace and joy and contentment -- now and throughout the coming year.

Merry Christmas!!

Four days??

2011-12-21T15:50:00.000-05:00

We only have four days until Christmas?? How did THAT happen??? I must've dozed off...

Fortunately, I think I'm mostly ready, although I'm refraining from wrapping the few presents I'm taking to Texas until after I GET to Texas. Don't want the nosy TSA agents unwrapping my gifts to make sure that jar of Play-doh isn't a plastic explosive. (Did you know that? Modeling clay looks like plastic explosives when it's run through an x-ray machine... probably best to just go with Legos...) Actually, no one is getting any Play-doh this year. I kinda miss Play-doh... that was fun stuff...

We leave for Austin tomorrow afternoon... so, since our weather today has been exceptionally gray and gloomy, I've had my tree lights on all day. I figure I should enjoy them as much as I can today, since it's probably the last day before Christmas that I'll get to admire my tree-decorating handiwork. (Not that it takes much of a talent... :))

(Pay no attention to that box by the table... it's a telescope -- eventually we'll actually set that thing up somewhere so we can more easily spy on the neighbors... haha! Kidding! Sort of...)

I only half-UNpacked from our trip to Vegas, so I'm already half-packed for Austin. But I suppose I should go busy myself with the final planning and packing I need to take care of. The cats are going to be sooooo annoyed with us for leaving again... :)

Randomtastic...

2011-12-19T14:48:00.000-05:00

1) I made copious amounts of cookies over the weekend, which are now boxed up and ready to be distributed to the cookie-deprived masses. (The "cookie-deprived masses" being Eric and Faisal... can two people constitute a "mass"??) And I am ashamed to say that I've accidentally eaten about five-sixths of the copious amount of cookies I made, so there are only about five left. (Eric and Faisal -- you each get two and a half cookies. You're welcome.)

2) On our way back from Las Vegas, I ended up behind possibly the slowest people to ever go through airport security. It was a sixty-something (I'm guessing) couple from New York City (they were very chatty with the TSA agents), who required no less than EIGHT plastic bins for their random personal items. Just when I thought they'd retrieved their last bin and I'd attempt to reach for the ONE plastic bin I needed, they'd grab another one. I've never seen people go through airport security with so much stuff -- they had coats and sweaters and scarves and shoes... bags and belts and hats... necklaces and bracelets and watches. They each had about fifteen layers of random accessories to remove before they were finally ready to go through the body scanner. The only good thing about this was that they were causing such a back-up in the line that by the time the TSA agents got to me, they were herding people around to the plain old metal detector to move things along more quickly.

3) I was quite happy to get back to Chicago after several days in Vegas -- not that Vegas isn't fun... but the last day we were there, it suddenly hit me that even though Christmas was less than two weeks away, there was nothing very Christmas-y about Las Vegas. Here in Chicago, the buildings are lit up red and green, the trees on Michigan Avenue are outfitted with white lights, random decorations are everywhere, and holiday music is piped into every store. In Las Vegas, things seem to stay relatively the same all year round -- the lights on the Strip are always bright... the music in every store seems to be geared toward dancing in a club... random decorations are few and far between. In fact, our hotel didn't even HAVE holiday decorations -- we stayed at the Cosmopolitan, which was a really nice hotel, but perhaps trying a bit too hard to be "modern." (Or maybe I just like modern every time of the year except Christmas... :))

4) For some reason, Rick has been added to the subscriber list for a magazine called "Black Enterprise." It now comes in the mail regularly. He has no idea why he's been receiving this magazine lately... but it's probably for the same reason I've been getting "Asian Small Business Monthly."

5) We're getting ready to head down to Austin for Christmas. I would lament the fact that I have no chance of having a white Christmas this year, except Chicago has been sorely disappointing in the snow department this season. I woke up to falling snow a couple days ago (which may or may not have resulted in some sort of happy snow dance in my living room... yeah, let's just say it did NOT result in that...), but after about an hour, the falling snow retreated into billowing flurries, which faded into nothingness... And since it's been rather warm (for December, at least), the snow that DID manage to fall didn't stick around.

6) I'm off to eat lunch and then jump on the treadmill for a while... I ate FAR too much in Las Vegas... I'll be burning off those calories until January...

What happens here...

2011-12-14T00:18:00.000-05:00

Supposedly stays here... but what if you were unlucky enough to have a room in a hotel with bedbugs, and the bedbugs hitched a ride back to your house in your luggage? Would THAT stay here? I mean, is the "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" concept truly magical? Because that would be pretty awesome. But I have a suspicion that it's more ad campaign than magic...

Fortunately, our hotel does not have bedbugs. It DOES, however, have a great view of the city, which I have documented with many pictures. (It also has a great view of the airport, and I've spent much time mesmerized by the flights of the departing planes... I'm a little obsessed...)

I took all of these pictures from our balcony:

I'm still not quite used to being on Pacific time, so I'm thinking a bed will be in my near future... hope everyone had a good weekend!

Too much noise...

2011-12-11T11:09:00.001-05:00

I'm finishing up packing for our trip to Vegas this afternoon. I did NOT get a good night's sleep last night, so I can't necessarily say I'm looking forward to a day of travel... but hopefully I'll feel better after a cup of coffee...

I was up late packing and planning for this trip, and when I finally got to sleep, I couldn't get my mind to shut off long enough to sleep well. I got up around 2:30 to use the bathroom, then attempted to fall back asleep. Piva jumped up on the bed and curled up next to me... our white noise machine was set to "thunderstorm," which is just the sound of falling rain accompanied by an occasional sound of distant thunder... as I started to get comfortable -- with a purring cat curled up next to me and the calming sounds of the white noise machine lulling me to sleep -- I was startled (actually, "startled" isn't a strong enough word... more like "forcibly ripped from my peaceful state) by a huge BANG somewhere outside. It was like a cross between a loud clap of thunder and the sound of a bowling ball falling into a dumpster from a five-story height.

Piva shot off the bed to find a good hiding place, and Rick and I both got up and searched the cityscape outside for clues to the origin of the sound (an explosion? Did a transformer blow up? It definitely wasn't thunder -- too cold and clear... Did someone literally drop a bowling ball into a dumpster outside???), but everything looked totally normal -- a few random middle of the night cars on the streets... nothing on fire... nobody screaming or running... no sirens... all the electricity seemed to be working.

But after hearing that mystery sound (and how is it possible for a mystery sound to be so loud?? A sound that loud should have some kind of OBVIOUS source...) it was impossible to fall back to sleep very quickly. I was wide awake for the next half hour, anxiously waiting for another loud bang... eventually, I started to think that it may have been some sort of isolated incident, and perhaps it was safe to stop listening so intently to nothing in particular. But it was at least another half hour before I finally dropped off again...

And of course I woke up about fifteen times after that... I told Rick this morning that he should walk up and down the halls of our building and ask anyone he sees if they know what the loud sound was last night. I mean, honestly, I'm not only seriously curious about what could've caused that noise, but I'd like to know if I should ever expect it to happen again. If last night was "Drop Your Old Bowling Balls Into the Dumpster Five Stories Below" day, I'll have to remember this date so I can expect it next year...

But for now, I'm off to finish packing... and to find coffee... lots and lots of coffee. See you with Las Vegas pictures soon!

What? More random stuff?

2011-12-06T11:50:00.001-05:00

1. Yes. Yes, it IS another blog post full of random stuff.

2. There are only 19 (19!!!) days until Christmas, and I have far too many things to do. Even more than I would usually have to do, since Rick and I, in our infinite wisdom, decided that this would be a good time to take a small vacation and head to Vegas this weekend. We're also heading down to Austin for Christmas. Which means that I really need to have most of my gift shopping completed this week. Because when we get back from Vegas, I will be using all my free time to bake cookies for Eric... :)

3. It has been far too cloudy here in Chicago this last week. I wouldn't mind it so much if the cloudiness was accompanied by snow... but, save for one little ten-or-fifteen-minute flurry a couple weeks ago, we've had NO snow so far this season. It's just been cloudy... cloudy, dark, dreary, depressing. I need sun. Or snow. I'll take either one...

4. So last year at this time, I was attempting to stretch out in my cramped 600-square-foot apartment (which, by the way, only had one wall of windows and tended to stay dark most of the day)... and now I have a corner loft condo with 14-foot ceilings and tons of light. Ah... much better. I remember that everything in that little apartment was so dry -- walking across ten feet of carpet would build up crazy amounts of static electricity, and I was constantly getting shocked. I tried to counter the dry air with a makeshift humidifier -- I kept a big pot of simmering water on the stove all day, hoping that the steam would make a difference in the tiny space. I think it actually DID work... but of course the same kind of thing wouldn't be practical for my new place. So far, we haven't had super-dry weather... but I'm sure, just like snow, it is inevitable...

5. I just happened to look outside my window, and could've SWORN I saw snowflakes... but now I'm not sure. I think I'm having winter-wishful-thinking hallucinations...

6. Could someone tell me who came up with this year's Starbucks holiday campaign?? In case you haven't seen it, the tagline is, "Let's Merry." Let's Merry??? It sounds like an advertising campaign from Japan that was haphazardly translated to English. Let's Merry Happy of the Fun Santa Day! Maybe it's just me...

7. I think that's about all I have today. Now everyone go to Starbucks and enjoy a cup of merry...

Random...

2011-11-29T16:23:00.001-05:00

I just saw a comment on another blog, referring to the amazing sight of a jar of cookie-flavored peanut butter, and the commenter said that she "literally died and went to heaven" when she saw the picture. This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine -- "literal" means LITERAL. It means that whatever you're talking about, it actually HAPPENED in reality. In this case, it means that the commenter ACTUALLY died and went to heaven. This person is now dead. Dead because of a picture of a jar of peanut butter. How tragic and strange...

Anyway... look at this picture:

It looks like a big pile of bedding and towels ready to be washed, right?

But look again:

See anything strange?

How about now:

Yeah, Piva decided it would be a good idea to burrow into the middle of the towels and hide for a while. Needless to say, I didn't get my laundry done in as timely a manner as I had hoped... I still haven't re-made the bed. But c'mon -- I couldn't just evict her from that cozy little hideout, could I? She looked so comfy... and I suspect that she felt like all those towels were good camouflage to protect her from crazy Riff.

I have eaten approximately 4,376 Christmas cookies today. And I've already been informed by several people who were also in possession of my cookies that I need to make more. More cookies will be coming, adoring cookie fans!! (By the way, I really appreciate that so many people like my cookies... maybe I should start charging for these things... Or at least Eric -- I should charge Eric. :))

Okay, while I'm on my Christmas-cookie-sugar high, I should go make the bed that still needs to be made...

Is it just me?

2011-11-24T01:00:00.001-05:00

Or does it feel like this year FLEW by? Like even more quickly than usual? I mean, it seems like just a couple weeks ago that I went downstairs to the Whole Foods in our temporary-apartment building and bought the necessary ingredients for Christmas cookies... I can remember mixing up the dough in my tiny kitchen, in preparation for a night of cookie-baking and Elf-watching with Eric. I don't think that first batch lasted more than a day... I made more cookies a few days before Christmas in our rental condo -- we'd JUST moved in, so boxes were haphazardly strewn about the condo, and half of my kitchen utensils were still missing. But I made a point to find what I needed to make cookies -- because Eric never would've forgiven me if I'd used the "I can't find my rolling pin" excuse for neglecting to make more cookies...

Last year, because of our moves and the fact that we were far from settled, I didn't even THINK about putting up my Christmas tree. All of my holiday decorations were in storage, and even if I'd bothered to find them, decorations of any kind would've served as nothing more than extra clutter in our already cluttered condo. But THIS year, we have our own place, and although I can definitely do more to de-clutter (especially since Rick decided to build a new computer and there are now random parts/boxes in our living room... ohhh so many random boxes...), at least we have a bit more space and a nice tree-appropriate location in front of the windows overlooking our balcony.

So yesterday, we trekked over to our storage unit down the street to look for boxes of Christmas stuff. We have a history of needing to find seemingly unimportant (and usually very small) things in our storage unit... so many bad memories... don't remind me. But in the course of searching for Christmas stuff, we serendipitously came across something I've been looking for since we moved up here -- the magnet for my treadmill. It's attached to a bungee cord, and you're supposed to wear it on your wrist while you're on the treadmill -- the point being that if you fall off, the magnet disconnects from the treadmill and it automatically stops. I never actually wear it... but the treadmill won't START unless that magnet is in place. And since I was unable to find the magnet, I couldn't use my treadmill when we first moved into our new place. I tried to find a refrigerator magnet or something that would trick the treadmill into thinking the magnet was there, but I couldn't find one that was big enough. Fortunately, dad has the exact same treadmill, and he was nice enough to bring his bungee-corded magnet up so I could use it for my treadmill. And dad DID manage to find a suitable magnet to replace the cord -- but now he can actually have the real magnet back.

And we also found the Christmas stuff, in case you were wondering. I just finished putting the tree up, as Rick reminded me that this is actually the first Christmas that Riff has seen a tree. I braced myself for an onslaught of curious cat hijinks, but surprisingly, it was Piva who was the bigger nuisance. (Although Riff HAS already managed to knock one of the ornaments off the tree...) I also realized that I need about two more strings of lights for my tree... it's looking a little sparse. Oh well -- no way am I heading out to a store this weekend, so I'll just save that for next year...

Onward...

2011-11-18T10:57:00.001-05:00

One year ago today, Rick and I pulled our car into the parking garage of an unfamiliar building on Superior Street. The car was full of only what we absolutely needed (which turned out to take up EVERY available space within the interior), and, unlike every other road trip we'd taken to Chicago, we did not end the night in a a fluffy-duvet-cocooned hotel bed at the Sofitel. No, instead, we carted our car-sized load of things up an elevator to the 20th floor, and opened the door to our tiny -- er, COZY -- 600-square-foot temporary apartment, where we attempted to find space for our pared-down possessions and spent the first of many nights on a much-too-hard-and-too-small bed...

Since that day one year ago, so much has occurred:

We moved from one temporary place to another. Our condo was still small, but the view made up for it:

We survived our first Chicago blizzard and celebrated with Caribou coffee!

Our attempts to purchase not one, but TWO downtown condos fell through, leading us to believe we'd never find a place we really loved. And then, just as the lease on our temporary place was about to end, we found THE condo -- it may not be absolutely perfect, but it covers most of the bases: tons of light, cool loft design, great exposed brick and cement, decent view, more square footage than either of the other places we tried to buy, and a great location. (The cupcake store that just opened across the street doesn't hurt the appeal, either...) And everyone -- especially Riff -- is very comfortable here...

Mom and dad bought their own downtown condo so they'd have a place to stay for all their visits up here. Which turned out to not only be great for them, but great for those of us who need a place to park, or do laundry, or have impromptu pizza parties as well... (have I mentioned that my mom and dad are awesome?? :))

And then, of course, there's this guy:

Over the past year, we've tried new restaurants; learned the best routes for driving from one side of the city to the other; hung out with new friends and spent more time with old ones; fell asleep with window-rattling street-paving trucks just outside our building; discovered that having everything we need within walking distance is pretty darned cool and convenient; marveled at fireworks and sunsets and skyline views; eaten more Indian food than we ever have in our lives (YES!! :)); and have still barely scratched the surface of all this city has to offer.

Bring on year number two...

Tuesday random stuff...

2011-11-15T11:33:00.001-05:00

Today IS Tuesday, right? I had to think about that for a minute before I wrote it...

Well, mom and dad have been introduced to Connor, and I don't think Rachel and Eric will ever be getting him back. If they want to see him again, they'll have to have another baby, so mom will switch back and forth. Otherwise, mom is going to be holding him indefinitely...

I have decided that I really need to order some throw pillows and maybe a table runner from World Market. I need to get this condo looking more "put-together" than it is now. I will excuse myself for the fact that the box containing the Christmas tree has been sitting by the hall closet for a couple of months... because we'll actually be using that in a few weeks, anyway. So I can SORT of justify the fact that I haven't bothered to drag that box down to storage -- I'd only have to drag it back up again, anyway. But there are still so many other areas of the condo that need to be straightened up or spruced up or tidied up or otherwise up-ed... I figure throw pillows and table runners are a good place to start...

Speaking of Christmas -- as usual, the Christmas commercials on television started way too soon. I think I even saw a few BEFORE Halloween this year. And don't get me wrong -- I LOVE the Christmas season. But when it seems to last for a quarter of the year, it sort of makes it seem less festive and special. I wish advertisers could hold off until at least a week or so before Thanksgiving. Personally, I think that's a good point to start the immersion of holiday songs/decorations/food/etc. (Although I have to be honest... I HAVE listened to Christmas music a couple times lately when I've been on the treadmill... but I've been tempering it with a good dose of Indian music and random pop tunes. Come to think of it, my workout playlists have been quite eclectic the last couple weeks...)

So the other night, Rick and I were sitting on the couch watching TV, and apparently an accident occurred a block away at the corner of Ohio and Orleans -- we somehow managed to miss it, even though we have a clear view of the intersection. But we heard the sirens of an ambulance and a firetruck, which stopped alongside the accident to offer assistance. It looked like a cab ran a light and broadsided another car. Someone from the back of the cab was loaded into the ambulance, a few cops and firefighters stood around and talked for a few minutes, and then everyone dispersed -- leaving the two damaged cars sitting on the side of the road for the tow truck. Well, about an hour later, we heard MORE sirens, and ANOTHER ambulance and firetruck stopped in the exact same location -- we're guessing that someone saw the disabled cars on the side of the road, assumed the accident had just occurred, and called it in. I couldn't help but laugh -- I could only imagine the reaction of the emergency workers when they peered into the cars, only to find them empty. Needless to say, after that, a police car with flashing lights was parked next to the accident until the tow truck arrived...

Well, I'm off to work out... where I'll possibly be listening to Christmas music... but maybe not... :)

The Day Which Must Not Be Named...

2011-11-11T17:20:00.001-05:00

My friend Nick has an unusual fear (not that I can talk -- I have plenty of rather bizarre phobias myself...). He absolutely can not stand to look at the clock when the time reads 11:11. According to Nick, this is simply because it's the only time during the day when all four numbers on a clock can be the same. And I'm not sure what's so scary about that, exactly... but again, who am I to talk??

So it would stand to reason that years and years ago, when 2011 seemed miles away, I wondered how Nick would handle today's date -- 11/11/11. Because if one minute of 11:11 on a clock is bad, how much worse must it be when an entire DAY is comprised of that single number? Twenty-four hours of the somehow-for-some-reason evil number... calendars everywhere proclaiming its existence, newspapers shouting it out like a headline, the internet rife with superstitions and stories of its perceived significance. What would Nick do on such a day??

Well, for starters, he blocked his Facebook profile so those of us who know of his aversion to the Time and Date Which Must Not Be Named wouldn't be able to inundate his wall with posts. I'm also fairly certain he turned his phone off, even though I, personally, haven't tried to call him. But anyone else who has attempted to call him today has been met with nothing more than a voicemail message. Silly Nick... 11/11/11 is harmless. Everyone knows that the world will be ending on 12/21/12.

Besides -- historically, GOOD things have happened on this day. For instance -- Faisal was born!! Probably sometime back in the 50's... but he WAS born on 11/11. And how can it be a horrible, scary day when this was the day that one of my very best friends arrived on the planet? How can it be evil when we have an excuse to head out for a great dinner (and hopefully some kind of chocolate for dessert)?? A day that gives you a chance to eat chocolate is NEVER a bad day...

And there's no doubt that the world became a better place when Faisal showed up... without him, there's a fish and chips restaurant in Lincoln Park that would be out of business... Rick and I would still have an entire storage unit filled with unused stuff, instead of extra cash... I may have never discovered the wonder that is British chocolate... my iPod would be decidedly lacking in awesome Indian music... random strangers wouldn't be offered help with heavy suitcases or unwieldy boxes nearly as often... and I'd have one fewer person who still talks to me even after I demonstrate my obvious bouts with insanity. In short -- Faisal rules. And, therefore, so does 11/11.

But for some reason, I don't think Nick will ever agree with me... :)

Welcome to the world...

2011-11-09T22:50:00.000-05:00

Just got back from meeting my new nephew, Connor. He arrived about three weeks early, and only weighs in at 5 pounds 4 ounces... but he's healthy and strong and can already make a touchdown sign with his arms, so he's obviously a football fan. He's pretty awesome.

He's even tinier in person than he looks in pictures... and it occurred to me, as I was holding him, that he only weighs about half as much as Riff... (Eric suggested we put a little saddle on Riff and let Connor ride around on him... and Riff is so laid-back that he MIGHT actually allow that...)

I kept patting his hair... I couldn't help it -- it's so soft! And he has so much of it!

Okay, Lisa... Step. Away. From the baby hair.

Connor has already requested that I make him cookies... although I have a suspicion that his dad will be eating them. But still -- how can I refuse? Besides, I wouldn't mind some cookies, myself... and I figure "Connor wanted cookies" will be a great excuse to make cookies in the future... right? :)

I am a creepy cupcake stalker...

2011-11-04T21:12:00.000-04:00

But who can blame me? Every day, as I innocently look outside my living room window at the cacophony of city life on the street, I can't help but see them: rows and rows of adorable little cakes, which taunt me with their billowy frosting and high sugar content. So close, and yet, from my condo vantage point, unattainable.

I mean, really -- look at them:

Look at them!!!

How am I supposed to resist them?

Okay, so I couldn't resist them forever.

We happened to be walking up out of our parking garage into the lobby of our building at about 6:50 tonight, and looked through the window across the street at the cupcake store, which is only open until 7. But the great thing about living across the street from a cupcake store that closes at 7 is that you can leave your condo at 6:50 and still make it to their door with plenty of time to spare.

A chocolate cappuccino for Rick...

And chocolate/vanilla for me...

We haven't tried them yet, but hopefully they aren't TOO good. It's one thing to stalk cupcakes from afar... but it's much different to invite them into your home on a daily basis...

So scary...

2011-10-31T23:53:00.000-04:00

Did everyone have a happy Halloween? :) I'm actually not much of a Halloween fan, myself. I only tolerate its existence because it's the gateway holiday to the Thanksgiving/Christmas season. But in general, I find it rather annoying... not only because of the mixed messages we send kids ("Don't ever take candy from strangers... Unless it's Halloween, in which case, you should knock on their doors and demand it!"), but also because the television airwaves are clogged with horror movies and shows about haunted landmarks. I almost watched a show tonight about "the scariest movie moments ever!!!" or something like that... but then I decided it might not be the best thing to watch when Rick is in Minneapolis and I have to sleep alone tonight. (Well, alone save for my over-protective cats, who will, no doubt, curl up on either side of me and keep watch until morning...)

Instead, I opted for a show on the science channel about the myriad of bacteria, fungi and mites that inhabit our bodies on a daily basis. I know what you're thinking -- how could that possibly be LESS scary than those scary movie moments?? Um, yeah... it wasn't. In fact, this show will haunt my dreams tonight. IF, that is, I manage to fall asleep, now that I'm thinking about the millions of mites who are living in my mattress and pillow and waiting for me to tuck myself in so they can feast off my skin cells...

I was slightly worried about Halloween in a condo building, because I wasn't sure what the protocol was... would every kid in the building be running up and down the halls, knocking on every door? I never have any candy, so I wouldn't have answered... but it's not like I have a porch light to extinguish, to signal my non-participation (although according to my mom, this tactic did not work very well for her tonight... :)). And I wasn't looking forward to hearing knocks on my door for hours on end. But the other day, when Rick and I took the elevator (a rare occurrence, actually, because we're only on the third floor... but we happened to be loaded down with grocery bags...), we noticed a sign describing the "voluntary trick-or-treat" they'd organized for the building. Anyone who WANTED to give out candy could get a pumpkin sticker from the front desk and put it on their door -- that way, the kids would know to only knock on doors with pumpkins. I thought that was a great idea -- and quite effective, as I did not have one stray door knock tonight...

Although I have to admit, as I peruse Facebook and read about various friends' forays into their neighborhoods for trick-or-treating, I feel a pang of nostalgia for those plastic, orange, candy-collection receptacle pumpkins... how they would transform -- from an empty, hollow shell, to a seemingly endless pile of sugary variety. Every day would bring a new assortment of sweet treats... and an occasional reject (Black licorice? Yuck... Gum? Boooooring... And don't even TRY to pass off fruit as an acceptable Halloween giveaway...). But now, as an adult, there's really no chance of procuring piles of random candy for free.

Maybe I'll just head over to that cupcake store tomorrow. Right after I scrub off the bacteria, fungi and mites, of course...

A few random odds and ends...

2011-10-28T14:03:00.000-04:00

I've been a bit of a blog slacker the last couple weeks... but if you'll notice, I am still going to end this year with more posts than I've had in the last three years. Which I consider a small victory. A strange victory, to be sure... but a victory, nonetheless.

So what's been going on the last few weeks? Well, I've finally decided to reveal to the world that I AM a vampire...

I actually TRIED to fix the glowing eyes in this picture, but apparently there is some kind of incompatibility between iPhone pictures and the photo software on my computer. The light reflecting off my huge pupils is bright enough to use as emergency illumination during a blackout... Anyway -- this was dinner with our friends Doug and Julie a couple weeks ago... and I believe it was the same day Rick decided to try an iPhone for the first time. Consequently, the following pics were all taken with an iPhone...

Have I mentioned that my little brother is about to be a dad??? That's crazy, seeing as I still have memories of us playing "let's jump off the four-foot-high porch while holding a blanket to see if it'll act as a parachute..." (I mean, c'mon, that was a fun game... and no one ever broke an ankle, so it's all good...) We went to a baby shower for Eric and Rachel last weekend:

Little bitty Yankee shirt...

Little bitty Rutgers socks and onesie... Yep, this kid is already a sports fan. :)

I think Eric really liked this little light-up seahorse toy... and since he's still afraid of the dark, that'll come in handy...

Last weekend we also had the chance to finally try Cite, which is a restaurant on top of Faisal's building. I've been wanting to try this place for a while, mainly because I miss the awesome city views I had at my last condo -- and Cite is on the 70th floor, surrounded by a circle of floor-to-ceiling windows. I could've gone up there to stare out the windows all night, and I would've been content...

I love this picture, because the lights inside the restaurant were reflecting off the glass, and they kind of make it look like aliens are landing in Chicago...

I guess that's it for now... hopefully I can be a better blogger throughout the month of November (which is sneaking up on me at a frighteningly swift velocity...). Have a good weekend, everyone!

My dad is MacGyver...

2011-10-18T13:51:00.000-04:00

Mom and dad are in town for the next couple weeks... which is great, because that means we get to eat out a lot, and mom will probably bake pies. Oh, and it's just nice to see them, too. ;)

It also means that there are extra people around to help with various errands and tasks -- and when dad is in town, I especially like to think about anything that might need to be fixed... because I am convinced that my dad can fix anything.

Take my vacuum cleaner, for instance. I was cleaning the house a few days ago, and pulled out the vacuum cleaner to take care of the floors, but realized there was a problem -- the handle was stuck in an upright position. My vacuum is designed so that the handle is supposed to easily pivot backwards with very little effort -- but no matter how hard I tried (and I didn't try TOO hard, because I didn't want to break it), the handle wouldn't budge. It seemed to be stuck on something, but my own cursory examination of the vacuum revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Not that I'm a vacuum expert... I doubt that I would recognize anything "out of the ordinary" on my vacuum cleaner... unless it suddenly sprouted arms and legs or a raccoon jumped out of the hose...

My first thought was, "I bet dad could figure this out." It seemed like one of those puzzles that an engineer would consider a challenge -- I pictured my vacuum cleaner lying in pieces on the floor... a deconstructed project with a simple solution.

So, when mom and dad dropped by my condo yesterday afternoon, I pointed out my badly-in-need-of-a-good-vacuuming carpet and the unfortunately useless cleaner sitting in the corner. Dad immediately went to work, attempting to figure out why the handle was stuck, searching for the cause of the malady, removing various parts of the vacuum, wondering why there was a raccoon in the hose... (Okay, still no raccoon in the hose... but that would explain so much...) My mom and I were able to tear him away from the vacuum cleaner long enough to eat lunch at the deli down the street, where he did a quick search on his phone for a solution to the stuck handle problem.

By the time we got back to the condo, he was armed with information and ready to tackle the fix. Within five minutes, he'd used his Swiss Army knife to dislodge the handle... and, in lieu of WD-40 (although I offered olive oil and Pam spray), a tube of Chapstick proved a serviceable remedy to keep the mechanism sliding freely. A Swiss Army knife and Chapstick. All you need to fix a plethora of problems...

Like I said, my dad can fix anything. :)

I'll have to start adding an extra mile to my daily workout...

2011-10-13T16:17:00.000-04:00

When you move into a new place, there are certain criteria to use to help you determine if you've found a decent location. Is the neighborhood relatively safe? Is it convenient to work or school? Is there a grocery store nearby? A drugstore? A Starbucks? A Caribou? Are there plenty of restaurants around?

We've been fortunate enough with our location to answer yes to all of these, but this morning, I added a new question to the list: Is there a cupcake store literally thirty paces outside your building door???

YES!! (Well, there WILL be in about five days...)

Ever since we moved into this place, I've been staring wistfully at the empty retail space in the building across the street, wishing someone would rent out part of it for a grocery store. There's a ton of empty space over there, and plenty of room for something cool like a Whole Foods. And while I don't mind walking the seven or eight blocks to the Jewel Osco down the street, I'd love something more "specialized" close by for days when I realize I just need that ONE thing that I forgot to get, and hey! I can just run right downstairs and pick it up! (I guess I got sort of spoiled those few weeks we lived in our temporary apartment with the Whole Foods right in the building... that may be the only thing I really miss about that tiny little box of an apartment... :))

Well, still no Whole Foods... but this morning I noticed a UPS truck parked outside in front of one of the smaller empty retail spaces. I spied like a voyeur... er, rather, nonchalantly glanced at the storefront, and realized there was a woman sweeping inside. She helped the UPS guy carry about six large boxes into the building, and that's when I finally realized that SOME kind of store was about to open in that space.

And then it finally dawned on me that the big banner hanging in the window of the store WASN'T just an advertisement for a cupcake boutique about a mile away across the river (which is what I've been assuming for the last month)... it was also the announcement of that cupcake store's NEW location, which happens to be right outside my front door! (Cue excited happy cupcake dance...)

So now I'm quite sure we made a great choice when we purchased this condo -- a Starbucks cappuccino AND a cupcake within a five minute walk of my abode? I think that's about as good a location as any. :)

The 'burbs...

2011-10-09T19:50:00.002-04:00

I just realized it's been more than a week since I posted anything... you guys must've thought I'd fallen off the face of the earth. (Strange that none of you emailed me to ask if I needed help reentering the earth's atmosphere... I mean, if someone falls off the face of the earth, you have to assume they're in orbit somewhere, maybe hanging onto a random piece of space junk, and will, eventually, plummet back to terra firma just like that satellite a few weeks back...) Actually, I don't know WHERE I've been... I guess I have been at a loss for words...

But today, I have a few PICTURES, so I can keep the words to a minimum. :) Rick and I drove out to Naperville this afternoon to check out the autumn color -- we don't have many trees here in our immediate area. Although the trees in the Office Depot parking lot are looking quite pretty:

I think we're still around a week away from the peak color-viewing time (although some trees are already BARE at this point), but it was nice to get out into the suburbs and see some foliage and look at all the nice houses (there are some BIG houses in Naperville...).

One of the "already bare" trees... made even more barren-looking by the usage of black and white photography... :)

Oh yeeeaah, THAT'S what suburban neighborhoods look like... I'd almost forgotten. :)

This was my favorite -- it was in the middle of a cemetery, and I kinda wanted to go inside and get some pictures of the tree alongside some of the headstones... but I didn't want to be disrespectful to anyone who might've been at the cemetery for a reason. So I settled for a shot of the tree next to a lamppost...

And can someone please tell me -- WHAT is "brain respiration"??? (This was a yoga studio, so I'm guessing it's some kind of silly term someone made up to allude to the indescribable existential oneness of spirit, mind, and body that can only be achieved by harnessing the power of the brain through sun salutations and a perfect warrior pose...)

Okay, that's all I've got for now... I suppose I should go allow my brain to breathe for a while...

Changing of the seasons...

2011-10-01T18:56:00.000-04:00

Happy October, everyone. I'm happy to say, that even with the chilly weather we've had lately, I managed to wait until October 1st to turn my heat on. Okay, to clarify -- I waited until it was October 1st in Asia (thanks, Faisal :)). In reality, I broke down yesterday morning and finally flipped the switch on the heater, because when I ventured out to the kitchen to make breakfast, I realized my hands and feet felt like ice... It was either accept the fact that summer is really, truly over and turn on the heat, or spend the entire day huddled under a blanket. The heat won, and I am now willing to accept the arrival of autumn. This year, by the way, is sort of flying by at an alarmingly fast pace. Wasn't it just Christmas? Have we really been here in Chicago for almost an entire year??

Sometimes, I forget that this used to be the view from my condo:

Ah, amazing downtown view, how I miss you. And yet I love this condo about a million times more than our rental, so I can deal with the loss. :) Besides, the view here isn't HORRIBLE. Just last night, in fact, as I was making dinner, I looked out the windows and suddenly realized the setting sun was casting an amazing orange-pink light on the buildings, and I ran to get my camera (which was flashing with a low battery indicator, but I managed to snap a few photos before it died).

Unfortunately, in the time it took me to finish chopping whatever vegetable I was chopping, wash my hands, and grab the camera, the light changed -- it was much more impressive when I first noticed it. But at least it made me realize that I should probably keep my camera handy around here, just like I used to at the old place.

Besides, with the way time is flying by, apparently Christmas will be here in about two minutes, and I'm sure I'll have pictures to take of snow and lights and trees. I should start making my shopping list...

It's time for...

2011-09-29T13:27:00.000-04:00

...baseball post-season!!

Who's excited??

Okay, Eric is.

Anyone else? :)

Scientific observation...

2011-09-27T19:24:00.000-04:00

This morning on Facebook (ever the source of fascinating conversation), a friend of mine commented on how much she hates fire. Which prompted me to vehemently concur ("I concur, vehemently!" Any Bones fans out there? Yes? No? That's probably my favorite line from the entire span of the show...). It also reminded me of a couple high school science experiences, which I will, of course, recreate for you here...

When I was a sophomore, I took biology with, I can only assume, a classroom full of biology-challenged individuals. There were only two people in that class who ever managed decent grades -- me, and a girl named Sara. Every now and then, our teacher would allow us to complete some assignment on our own during class -- a situation I normally embraced in other classes with pen in one hand and book in the other, secure in the knowledge that my shy, quiet self could simply do what I do best: work quietly on my own to the betterment of my good grades. In biology, however, my quiet, solitary study time at my desk would suddenly morph into a group of desks gathered around me like metal to a magnet... and, a few rows away, Sara would be surrounded by her own group of desks. We had (unfortunately for me) gained reputations as the only two people who understood what we were doing, and that, in turn, meant that we were unwilling (at least on my part) group leaders.

But Sara and I recognized that perhaps our mutual affinity for the subject could be beneficial when it came to choosing a lab partner for our once-a-week lab work. We paired up, of course, which I assumed could be nothing but positive for me and my biology grades. And then I discovered something about Sara that I hadn't previously known: she was insanely, ridiculously, acutely afraid of dead things. And you can't avoid dead things in biology lab. At first, it wasn't so bad... okay, I thought, I can dissect this earthworm on my own. No problem. Okay, I can manage this frog. (And really, the frog was pretty cool -- those little tiny frog organs are so nice and neatly arranged... they're even color-coded... it's really quite fascinating to dissect a frog...)

And then one day we walked into biology lab and found ourselves face-to-face with sharks -- not big sharks, of course, just little foot-long baby sharks... but sharks, nonetheless. They were slippery... they were rubbery... and they may have been babies, but they were still the biggest dead things we'd had on those biology lab tables. And Sara, as usual, flat-out refused to go near it. I attempted to shove a scalpel in her hand and coax her into TRYING, at least. "I'm not doing that," she stubbornly insisted. "You do it." And I have to say -- cutting open that shark was one of THE most unpleasant things I've ever done. Unlike the nice, neat, color-coded frog, the shark burst open like a rubbery gray balloon full of nasty gray liquid and mushy gray rubber entrails. (What the HECK was inside that thing???) But eventually we made it to the end of the year, Sara and I receiving the highest grades in the class (and frankly, I should've been given extra credit for completing the brunt of the lab work).

The next year we moved on to chemistry, where dead things were replaced with dangerous chemicals and Bunsen burners. The gas for the Bunsen burners was turned on with a lever at each chem lab table -- the only problem was, you could never really tell how MUCH gas was flowing until you held a sparking flint over the gas and lit the flame. If you weren't careful, that flame would shoot toward the ceiling, causing our chemistry teacher to run over and adjust the gas before anyone singed off their eyebrows. I HATED lighting the Bunsen burners, because I've always been insanely, ridiculously, acutely afraid of fire... you can see where this is going...

Once again, Sara and I paired up for lab (although I'll admit my comprehension of chemistry is not quite as stellar as my comprehension of biology...). And I soon discovered that Sara was not too fond of fire, either. This time, however, as we prepared for some experiment or other and the Bunsen burner was required, I was unwavering. I shoved the flint in her hand and told her to light the Bunsen burner. "I'm not doing that," I stubbornly insisted. "You do it." And EVERY time we needed the Bunsen burner in chemistry lab, I would think back to that horrible, squishy, rubbery shark... I would cross my arms, stand back, and make sure that Sara had the honor of lighting the burner. (Force ME to dissect a disgusting shark, will you? Fine. If your hair catches fire, I'll be sure to think about putting it out...)

Yeah, I guess I have a pretty lame idea of "retaliation." But as I watched that flame shoot toward the ceiling and stood back as our teacher adjusted the flame, I couldn't help but feel the tiniest bit of satisfaction... :)

The wrong size... but in a good way...

2011-09-23T16:06:00.000-04:00

Today was one of those rare, magical days that comes along once in a blue moon... when all the planets align (even Pluto, because Pluto will always be a planet to me), and the universe is in perfect synchronicity. I like to call it, "the day that I tried on those pants that used to be way too tight and now they're way too loose." I just LOVE days like this...

It started out as just another "tidying up" kind of day. I've finally managed to clear all of the winter clothes out of the bathtub... What? You don't keep your winter clothes in the bathtub?? Actually, I don't usually keep my clothes in the bathtub, either, but that happened to be where I tossed everything when we first moved into this condo and I had to put all our clothes in the bathroom when our hardwood floors were being refinished. (The bathrooms being the only rooms in the house with doors... and doors were needed to keep the wood dust at bay...) I eventually found storage for all of our warmer weather clothing, but, since we moved into this place in July, I sort of found myself ignoring that giant pile of bathtub sweaters that I walked past every day...

Recently, however, the temperatures have been dipping lower and lower, and the need for sweaters is about to be a daily occurrence. So I figured it was time to delve into the pile of bathtub sweaters and start organizing them. And today, as I gathered the last few items to wash/fold/stack in the closet, I noticed a pair of pants at the very bottom of the pile. I recognized it as a pair that I'd bought a couple years ago for work, but I'm not sure I ever actually WORE them because they were a bit too snug. So I figured, why not? Might as well try them on... And they fit perfectly -- maybe even a bit too big...

This, of course, prompted me to try on OTHER items of clothing in my closet -- in particular, I was interested to try on a pair of gray pants that I used to wear to work. I HATED those pants, because they kept shrinking the longer I worked... but I kept wearing them now and then, just because I didn't want to show up to work in the same outfit every single day. By the time I quit my job, those pants were my least favorite thing to wear to work... every time I wore them, I was reminded of my failure to eat nothing but celery sticks and lettuce leaves, and my obvious lack of motivation to work out for more than an hour a day. But today, I decided to throw caution to the wind, and, at the risk of feeling inadequate and unworthy of the chocolate chip cookie dough I just made, tried on the much-too-tight gray pants...

And not only did they zip right up, but they literally FELL OFF even when I had them buttoned. So now, instead of being unable to wear those pants because they cut off my circulation, I am unable to wear them without risking arrest for indecent exposure. I like the second option much better than the first...

So now, newly motivated, I am off to work out. And I may even indulge in a celery stick or two before dinner tonight...

This never happens in suburbia...

2011-09-20T20:42:00.000-04:00

I spent part of the afternoon watching a group of loitering police officers out on the street corner outside my building. Eventually, I realized there was also a group of officers a block away, and a block past that, too... And then a bunch of Traffic Management Authority workers started appearing on various corners, wearing their neon orange vests and halfheartedly directing traffic even though the lights were working just fine. I also noticed blue police blockade barricades sitting in groups on the sidewalks, and I finally realized what was going on: An Important Person motorcade was about to come by.

We noticed the first Important Person motorcade a couple weeks after we moved into this condo. We were sitting on the couch watching TV one evening, and I noticed that the street outside had been blocked off. My first thought was that some kind of construction was going on... but then I saw about five cop cars fly by on one of the cross streets a block away outside... shortly followed by a line of black, official-looking cars... followed by more flashing blue and red lights. I texted Eric, since, as a police sergeant, he tends to be privy to Important Person information -- and he told me that Joe Biden was in town.

So when I saw all the cops and barricades outside this afternoon, I texted Eric again -- and it turns out Biden was in town again. So I hung out near my window for a while, waiting to see the motorcade. I assumed it would be just like last time, when the cars traveled down the cross street down the block. But when the motorcade finally made its appearance (and seriously, those poor cops were hanging out on the street for an hour and a half before anything interesting happened), it made a turn directly onto MY street and headed RIGHT past my living room window. I fumbled with the camera on my phone, attempting to turn it on before the cars passed by... but of course I was too late.

So when, a couple hours later, I noticed that the cops were STILL hanging out on the street corners, and, what's more, they were starting to set up street barricades again, I deduced that Biden's motorcade was about to retrace its steps. And THIS time I was determined to be ready -- I got my camera and stood at my window, waiting for an opportunity:

Hey, I may not have voted for the guy, but he's still the Vice President of the United States. And this is the closest I've ever been to someone who is in charge of running my country in some way... (And what I don't have a picture of here is the ambulance that was following the whole motorcade -- is that just in case Biden has a sudden heart attack?? Or in case of some other unforeseen misfortune?)

And that was my excitement for the day... :)

Weekend randomness...

2011-09-18T22:17:00.000-04:00

* It was beautiful here yesterday -- sunny, not a cloud in the sky, 60-something degrees -- and then today was cloudy, rainy, and cool. It's hard to believe that autumn isn't actually HERE until Friday... I'm so used to 90-degree Septembers that this new-found "fall weather" thing is quite a novelty. And I have to admit I'm quite looking forward to the fall colors on the trees -- since we didn't move up here until November last year, we missed most of the autumn foliage and started right away with naked winter trees.

* The chairs that we ordered when we bought our kitchen table FINALLY arrived the other day, after being backordered for months. We had to assemble them ourselves (and can someone tell me why we keep buying furniture that needs to be assembled?? If I ever see another allen wrench, I'm going to scream...), but we finally have a complete kitchen table set. One of these days I'll get some pictures up on the blog...

* We went to dinner last night with Eric and Faisal, and sat at a table next to a big window by a neon sign. I noticed a couple little bugs flying around, no doubt attracted by the neon light, and flitted them away with slight annoyance. And then, not too long after we'd ordered our food, Faisal looked up at the window near the ceiling with some mixture of fear, disgust, confusion and trepidation. We all followed his glance up the window until we realized there was a HUGE spider in a web -- INSIDE the window, no less. Somehow, he ate his entire dinner with that thing hanging over his head... of course, it led to an evening full of the old "use your hand and pretend it's spider on the shoulder of the person next to you" trick... and Eric and Faisal pointing to the wall behind me and inquiring how the spider managed to climb behind me so quickly... and something about spiders in my hair... needless to say, the next time I eat there, I'll be checking the area around my table for uninvited guests...

* Why does it seem like there are NO good movies starting anytime soon? I guess it's because we're past the summer blockbuster season, and we've moved on to the boring, lame movie season. And then right before the end of the year, we'll have all the Oscar contenders...

* Every now and then, as I look at the top floors of the Hancock building, I'll see a camera flash. Probably someone in the Signature Room on the 95th floor. And I understand that people want to take pictures of the view from up there -- it's a great view. But what, exactly, do they hope to accomplish with the camera flash?? Are you expecting to illuminate the entire city with that tiny little thing? Because it's not gonna work... sorry... Lately, I've also been wondering why the lights on top of the building are colored green at the moment -- they usually change the colors according to the season. But green? Green seems more suited to March. September seems like more of an orange or yellow kind of month.... But maybe it's just me...

* I just made chocolate chip cookie dough for the week. A few months ago, I came up with the brilliant idea of making a batch of cookie dough and freezing it, and then just making a few cookies at a time. This way, I take away the temptation of eating fifteen cookies at a time, and I control my cookie portions. How smart is that?? I am a genius. (No? You don't think so??) I always want to eat some cookie dough, but I restrain myself with thoughts of salmonella. I mean, the chances of actually getting salmonella from the raw egg in cookie dough are pretty low, I suppose... but I just never want to risk it.

* And speaking of cookies, I think I'll go eat the few I made tonight. Hope everyone had a good weekend...

Happiness is...

2011-09-14T12:35:00.000-04:00

I'm drinking coffee with a splash of past-the-expiration-date milk. I think it's making my coffee taste a bit off... that's not bad, right? I won't die from drinking slightly "off" milk, will I? Nah... I'm sure it's fine... (This is more a testament to my addiction to caffeine than my nonchalance towards possibly spoiled food. I'm actually rather OCD when it comes to slightly spoiled food... therefore, I obviously REALLY love my caffeine...) I wish I was like my dad and Rick, who have developed a taste for black coffee... but I still prefer mine with milk, even if the only milk in my house has been around since the Revolutionary War... (I know what you're all wondering: "Why didn't you just walk down to that Starbucks on the corner, Lisa? They have coffee AND fresh milk..." Yes... that would've been a good idea. Oh well...)

And speaking of things you find in a kitchen -- this morning I was reading some of the healthy foodie blogs I like to read, and someone was expounding on the benefits of a "kitchen work triangle." She recently bought a house with a U-shaped kitchen, after living with a galley kitchen for years, and apparently the new layout is much more efficient. I, myself, have sort of an L-shaped kitchen with an "i" next to it... (I just need to work in an "s" and an "a" so my kitchen will spell out Lisa... :))

I'd never heard of this "kitchen work triangle" thing, so I googled it and found this article on About.com. People have actually done ergonomic studies to suggest that ideally, the refrigerator, sink, and stove should form a triangle. And what's more, there are actual "principles" to adhere to with this work triangle idea:

Each leg of the triangle should be between 4 and 9 feet
The total of all three legs should be between 12 and 26 feet
No obstructions (cabinets, islands, etc.) should intersect a leg of the work triangle
Household traffic should not flow through the work triangle

Amazingly, my tiny little Li-shaped kitchen manages to meet these requirements (although just barely), which is good -- because, as the article says, "an efficient kitchen is typically a key point in having a happy life." Uhhh... what??? My kitchen layout dictates whether or not I have a happy life?? Really. The kitchen. If I have a triangle layout in my kitchen, I have a better chance of having a happy life. Forget about my family and friends and relationships and contentment and security and love and fun and adventure and chocolate (sorry Rachel -- chocolate post is coming soon, I promise! ;)) -- when you get right down to the basics, it's all about the kitchen. Wow... I've been waaaaaaay off...

Personally, I think it's more about coffee than the kitchen... well, as long as you don't use slightly off, possibly spoiled milk...

10

2011-09-11T19:57:00.001-04:00

All week, I've thought about what to say today, on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and honestly, I've had a hard time with it. I mean, here I am, a supposed "writer" -- someone who can form "profound" statements out of a clever placement of carefully chosen words -- and yet I'm drawing a blank.

Not that I can't think of a million things to say... I can remember where I was that morning... I can remember that my first thoughts when I woke up and walked out into my sun-filled living room were something along the lines of, "what a perfect day." Isn't that crazy? My first thought on September 11th was that it was a PERFECT day. That changed much too quickly...

I can remember seeing those images of the planes hitting the towers, aired over and over and over on nearly every channel imaginable... and, consequently, I STILL can't watch that footage without breaking down. I saw it too many times that day... I saw it so many times that it's been burned into my memory. I tried not to think about what the people on those planes must've been feeling, when they realized the path their hijackers were flying... and yet I still had nightmares for weeks afterward that I was a passenger on one of those planes -- thankfully, I woke up from that terrifying nightmare when my dream-plane hit the building. The fact that people had to literally live and die that way is more horrible than I want to imagine...

I can remember that I spent much of September 12th logged onto the internet, searching for information about Islam to counter my ignorance and the inevitable rumors and accusations that would follow... searching for verses from the Qur'an... searching for an explanation for the nonsensical ramblings of Nostradamus (how many ridiculous internet rumors were flying around about Nostradamus and 9/11??)... searching for ANYTHING that had absolutely NOTHING to do with the attacks. I must've watched more of the Travel Channel than I'd ever watched in my life... and I've watched a LOT of the Travel Channel...

But I can also remember the hope and the determination that slowly returned to everyday life... I remember my first trip back into the city after 9/11, for a Yankee playoff game, in a stadium filled with fans who just wanted to be excited about our national pastime -- and that game is still THE most awesome baseball game I've ever attended. I remember eventually feeling like the world was NOT coming to an end, and like perhaps we DID have a future of some sort.

And I remember wanting to get back on a plane and see the world, without letting what happened on 9/11 scare me into a life limited to ground travel. That can never happen. I will never be deterred from exploring this planet and all it has to offer. I will never allow the cowardice of a few who claim to speak for an entire group to prevent me from learning the truth from those who are willing to teach me.

And yet none of this truly does justice to this day, or to the people who lost their lives, or the people who lost loved ones, or the people whose lives have been affected in a myriad of ways.

And, to different extents, perhaps that is all of us.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

When is Eat Chocolate Day?

2011-09-07T14:04:00.000-04:00

Apparently, yesterday was "Read a Book Day," and I didn't even realize it. It makes sense that the day after Labor Day would celebrate book-reading, considering yesterday was probably the first day of school for many kids around the country. Or at least many of the kids in the north -- down south, school generally starts sometime in the middle of August. (But summer vacation starts earlier, at the end of May. It's early summer vs. late back-to-school. And after experiencing both, I believe I liked late back-to-school better... :))

So in honor of a belated Read a Book Day, here are a few quotes from some of my favorite books:

To Kill a Mockingbird:

"If you shouldn't be defendin' him, then why are you doin' it?"

"For a number of reasons," said Atticus. "The main one is, if I didn't I couldn't hold up my head in town, I couldn't represent this county in the legislature, I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do something again."

"Atticus, are we going to win it?"

"No, honey."

"Then why-"

"Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win," Atticus said.

(Atticus Finch, by the way, is, unarguably, the greatest lawyer in the history of literature. Seriously, you can't even argue with me, because it's just a fact.)

"The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box."

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:

There was a lust of wandering in his feet that burned to set out for the ends of the earth. On! On! his heart seemed to cry. Evening would deepen above the sea, night fall upon the plains, dawn glimmer before the wanderer and show him strange fields and hills and faces. Where?

Away! Away! The spell of arms and voices: the white arms of roads, their promise of close embraces and the black arms of tall ships that stand against the moon, their tale of distant nations. They are held out to say: We are alone. Come. And the voices say with them: We are your kinsmen. And the air is thick with their company as they call to me, their kinsman, making ready to go, shaking the wings of their exultant and terrible youth.... Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.

Brick Lane:

What could not be changed must be borne. And since nothing could be changed, everything had to be borne. This principle ruled her life. It was mantra, fettle, and challenge. So that, at the age of thirty-four, after she had been given three children and had one taken away, when she had a futile husband and had been fated a young and demanding lover, when for the first time she could not wait for the future to be revealed but had to make it for herself, she was as startled by her own agency as an infant who waves a clenched fist and strikes itself upon the eye.

"Oh, Karim, that we have already done. But always there was a problem between us. How can I explain? I wasn't me, and you weren't you. From the very beginning to the very end, we didn't see things. What we did -- we made each other up."

The Shadow of the Wind:

“Every book… has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens… When a library disappears, or a bookshop closes down, when a book is consigned to oblivion, those of us who know this place, its guardians, make sure that it gets here. In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader’s hands. In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you see here has been somebody’s best friend.”

Now everyone go read a book! We may be a day late for a Read a Book Day, but better late than never... :)

Getting comfy with comfortability...

2011-09-03T15:19:00.000-04:00

So, one of the fun things about Blogger (apart from the fact that they recently changed their interface and I'm all confused now... wait, is that fun??), is that you can see which of your posts are popular with the masses. The "masses," in my case, being the ten people who read my blog on a regular basis, along with the random people who stumble upon it from day to day.

And what I find amusing is that, without a doubt, the MOST popular and MOST read posts on my blog are those that have anything to do with my favorite made-up word, COMFORTABILITY.

Go ahead -- type, "is comfortability a word?" into Google and scroll through some of the results. Somewhere in that list, you'll find a link (or possibly two) to my blog. And while I just can't quite bring myself to completely concede and allow Faisal his fake word, I suppose I must admit that its exclusion from legitimate dictionaries has resulted in increased blog traffic. So it's good for something, at least... :)

And speaking of comfortability -- I am still amazed at what a wimp I've become after less than a year in Chicago. I just spent more than a week in the oven-like temperatures of Austin, and yet it STILL feels hot here when the mercury climbs up to 90. Although I suspect the humidity is a big culprit here, since Austin has absolutely nothing in the way of precipitation, even in the form of air-suspended water vapor. The dry air makes quite a difference in Austin. And the humidity makes quite a difference here in Chicago. I'm trying to decide which is better -- oven or sauna?? Hmmm... with an oven, you can bake cookies and chocolate cake... but with a sauna, you just get all sweaty. Yeah, I'm gonna have to go with oven. :)

I shouldn't complain about the heat, though -- because sooner or later (and I have a feeling it will be sooner), summer will be over and I'll be wearing sweaters again and warily eyeing my winter coats in the closet, wondering when I'll need to pull them out. How did the summer go by so quickly?? I theorize it's because we were so busy during the late spring and early summer -- searching for a condo to buy, taking care of the purchase, moving, trying to get settled... which, to be honest, I'm still working on. If I can feel completely settled in by the first day of autumn, I will consider it a success.

And settling in, of course, requires a certain amount of comfortability... but if comfortability doesn't really exist, how can I ever get settled?? Does this mean comfortability DOES exist???

Darn it, Faisal... you win again.

Just kidding -- "comfort" still works just as well... ;)

Random thoughts...

2011-08-30T15:17:00.000-04:00

Yep, just plain old random thoughts today. Still working on unpacking/cleaning after our week in Austin. When we got home, our nice new red rug was covered with little tufts of cat hair. Sigh... as much as I love my furry troublemakers, they require a constant amount of maintenance... :)

By the way, the carpet we bought IS, in fact, RED -- apparently the pictures of it have a tendency, on some computers, to look PINK. Both my mom and Rick's mom mentioned that they thought our choice of carpet shade was a bit on the lighter side of the red spectrum... and then my mom got here and saw it in person and said, "oh it really IS red!" YES, it's red! :) It's sort of a dark brick red... if it looks pink on your computer, it is a technical anomaly. I would never own a pink carpet... I've never been a fan of pink. Now, purple, sure -- and we actually DO have a purple throw rug in the bedroom to match our purple accent wall. But THIS carpet is red:

Whatever it is, Riff loves it...

Anyway, on to other randomness... I really wonder about some of these ads on TV for ridiculously specialized cooking gadgets. I just saw one for a little plastic container for boiling an egg -- you crack the egg, pour it into the little plastic thingie, and then boil the plastic thingie. This way, you don't have to bother with that insufferable chore of peeling the shell off the hard-boiled egg. Really?? Do I need to spend money on something just so I don't have to peel a shell off an egg? Personally, I'd rather peel a shell off a hard-boiled egg than crack open a raw one... I don't worry about salmonella with hard-boiled eggs...

Has anyone other than me read the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy? Actually, I'm still struggling through the final book. The first one was just "okay" (slow at the beginning, pretty good in the middle, slow again at the end), the second one was actually pretty good, but now the third one is draaaaaaagging at a snail's pace, and I'm trying to decide whether to finish it (because I've come this far and I really don't want this stupid book to get the best of me) or to just give up and find a copy of The Hunger Games (which I've wanted to read for a while now). The funny thing is, my dad is reading a "thriller" written by a Norwegian author (the Dragon Tattoo series was written by a Swedish author), and he's discovering the same thing I discovered: apparently "thriller" in Scandinavia has a different meaning than "thriller" in America. Both of the Scandinavian writers spend a lot of time with exposition, and not a lot of time with action. For instance, I just waded through an entire chapter that spelled out the history of the Swedish security police in great detail. And I just... don't... care. But at the same time, I don't want to be defeated by a few hundred pages hidden in my Kindle. Must... finish... slow... book...

Okay, I'm off to work out (which I actually kept up with when we were away -- but I also ate about five thousand calories every day...). Hope everyone is having a good week so far...

Weather woes...

2011-08-27T23:10:00.000-04:00

Texas. Is. Hot.

I mean, it is just ridiculously hot right now. I saw 109 on some thermometer today, which I believe is the highest temperature I've seen all week. (It is NOT, however, the highest I've ever seen here -- I remember one year where we hit 113, more than once in a summer...) Usually I'd spend a day like this holed up in an air conditioned building... and while we did spend a good part of the day at Rick's parents' house, for some reason it was decided that today was a good day to figure out how to use the new riding lawnmower in the garage. After about fifteen minutes in that garage, trying to help Rick and one of his sisters get the battery hooked up (which involved searching the house for wrenches), I retreated to the living room couch to cool off. I'm not usually one to absolutely HATE the heat, but I seriously felt like I might just dissolve into a mushy puddle on the driveway if I stayed out too long...

And meanwhile, friends and family in the northeast are contending with hurricane Irene (which will no doubt pour copious amounts of rain on a part of the country that COULD spare some rain for the parched south -- if everyone up there would just set out rain barrels and then ship them down here, it would be much appreciated). Our friend Eric (not to be confused with Eric my Chicago pet-sitter/second-favorite brother) apparently told my dad that hurricane Irene is so bad that it should be renamed hurricane Lisa. Heeeeeeeyyyyy -- I'm nice! I'm nice, and I'm quiet -- I can sneak up on people and they don't even realize I've arrived... you can't say THAT about Irene. I've never flooded anyone's basement, I won't turn off your power, and I don't chop down trees... In fact, I'm pretty sure Eric has downed a few trees in Montana, making him more like a hurricane than I have ever been...

But I do hope all of you up there in Irene's (NOT Lisa's) path will be safe and will avoid any major damage of any kind. (And IF you can figure out a way to ship all that water down here, please do so...)

Tomorrow we head back to the relative coolness of Chicago, and, possibly, to a condo with two angry cats who have sold most of our stuff on the internet. But like I told my brother -- it's hard to be mad at them when they're obviously so ingenious and intelligent. :) See you all back in Chicago...

Randomness from Austin...

2011-08-25T12:30:00.000-04:00

So yesterday Austin hit 100 degrees (actually, more like 103) for the 70th day in a row, which is the first time that's happened since 1925. Which kind of makes me wonder -- who in their right mind would've stuck around back in the un-air-conditioned 1920s for 70 days of 100-degree heat?? How did they stay cool back then? How did they get their ice to freeze so they could enjoy cold glasses of lemonade on the front porch? How could they stand wearing so much extraneous clothing?? I don't even enjoy walking from the comfortable, air conditioned house to the comfortable, air conditioned car, or from the comfortable, air conditioned car across a baking parking lot and into a comfortable, air conditioned store... (The only way to attain comfortability in these stifling temperatures is with air conditioning, obviously...)

Rick and I were waken up by a phone call around 2 in the morning (never a good thing...) from his mom, who told us that his sister and a friend (who work nights and were carpooling) were hit by a drunk driver. Rick's sister had to be cut out of the car. We spent a sleepless hour waiting for updates, and eventually learned that amazingly, neither Rick's sister nor her friend were seriously injured... the drunk, of course, was perfectly fine, which always seems to be the case. But really, what is WRONG with people??? How difficult is it to NOT DRIVE if you've had too much to drink? How difficult is it to NOT DRINK if you know you have to drive?? Either option is acceptable -- just choose one. It is astoundingly stupid to get behind of the wheel of a car when your judgment is impaired...

So it looks like the northeast might get a hurricane to round out the week of natural disasters that began with the giant earthquake. (What was that California? It wasn't that big? Okay, well, you let us know the next time you have a "major" snowstorm or a "killer" tornado... :)) I think my favorite joke about the earthquake so far is the one about how the D.C. earthquake originated from a previously unknown fault called "Bush's Fault." Hahahaha... :)

I can't believe Steve Jobs is leaving Apple and making my stock crash. (Actually, from what I've seen, it's not doing that badly... I think I'll hold on to it for a while longer... :))

I'm a bit anxious to get back home, because Eric keeps sending me messages about all of the cat's shenanigans. Apparently, they've employed a personal chef, created a website to sell all my stuff, and have learned how to use pay-per-view. We need to get back before they list our condo for sale and figure out how to drive...

Does anyone else find it rather creepy that Gadhafi had a photo album full of pictures of Condoleeza Rice in his compound?? I'm also a bit unsettled by the fact that the rebels ransacked the home of Gadhafi's daughter Aisha... which may not have bothered me as much if there hadn't been so much little kid/baby stuff lying around in the photos... (Note to self: Do not ever become a part of a "regime"... because once it crumbles, people will break into your house and go through all your stuff...)

Okay, I'm off to do... something... to be determined...

What I've learned...

2011-08-23T21:40:00.000-04:00

...the last few days I've been here... or "an excuse for a random picture post":

Wasps nests are BAD. This one was under the eaves at Rick's parents' house -- Rick got a can of wasp-killing Raid, aimed it at all these little flying daggers, and sprayed away. The wasps scattered outward (prompting Rick and me to perform a little "get me away from these wasps" dance... it was quite graceful, I assure you...), but to the credit of the "kills on contact" claims on that wasp spray, the bugs began to fall to the ground like tiny little skydivers, sans parachutes...

There are cats I can put on the blog other than MY cats! Like this three-headed cat that used to live on mom and dad's couch... (That's Ozzie, Tiger and Koala... Ozzie, unfortunately, went to see Allegro and Echo and Kiko in pet heaven last week. As you can see, Tiger and Koala absolutely LOVED Ozzie and always wanted to be close to him... much to Ozzie's chagrin... :))

And this is Gracie, one of the cats who lives with Rick's parents... she was watching us spray the wasps and wondering why humans are so weird...

I've also learned that I look really, really short when I'm standing with my brothers and cousins... and I seem to have an abnormal amount of abnormally dark hair, comparatively speaking.

Sometimes, I can be sort of crazy...

But really, I'm quite sane. Most of the time...

The Land That Rain Forgot...

2011-08-20T22:29:00.000-04:00

Hello from Austin, where the temperature has been above 100 for nearly 70 days in a row, and the last rain that fell was who-knows-how-long ago. Consequently, much of the city looks like this:

And this:

Thank goodness for THIS:

Yes, that looks MUCH better... (we won't talk about the fact that even the pool temperature is hovering around 90 degrees...)

Strangely, the heat doesn't feel THAT bad during the day -- the humidity is practically non-existant, which helps. But for some reason, as soon as the sun goes down, it is stifling out there... it's as if the temperature control center in my brain KNOWS that when the sun goes down it's supposed to be cooler. Breezy. Maybe even slightly chilly. So when I walk outside after dark and it's still 95 degrees out there, it feels like a suffocating blanket of heat...

We drove down past my old place of employment and ate at Uno pizza for lunch -- it was one of my favorite lunch places in the area where I worked. And before we left the restaurant this afternoon, I had to get one of their frozen blended coffee drinks, which I think are the best of any coffee place I've ever tried. Which is saying a lot for someone who's a Starbucks/Caribou/Seattle's Best coffee junkie. I used to get one before I returned to work on Friday afternoons, so I could sip it while I counted down the minutes to weekend freedom...

I'm not sure I ever got a decent picture of the 360 bridge up on the blog -- so I took one today while mom was driving:

One of Austin's landmarks...

And hello Ex-Place of Employment!

Okay, I believe I'm monopolizing mom's computer right now, so I'll wrap this up. Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Odds 'n' ends...

2011-08-18T13:12:00.000-04:00

... a.k.a. "random thoughts." :) Not much time to write today, since I'm getting ready for our trip down to Austin tomorrow. I'm sort of half-packed (which means I've created a pile of clothes in the closet that I WANT to pack... but nothing has actually made its way into a suitcase yet), but I still have a lot to do before tomorrow. I must not forget to pack a swimsuit, as it's about fifteen thousand degrees in Austin right now, and mom and dad have a pool...

Speaking of the heat in Austin -- Texas SERIOUSLY needs some rain. A few days ago, a grass fire broke out in a little town north of Austin -- about 20 mobile homes were either damaged or destroyed. Some people lost everything they owned. And I can't help but think that the fire was started by some idiot who threw a cigarette butt out a window... that seems to be the cause of about 90 percent of those grass fires in Texas... (Hint: if it's a million degrees outside and it hasn't rained in fourteen years, do NOT toss any kind of burning object into the grass... I make the assumption that this is common sense, but perhaps not...)

I saw someone walking down the street holding a clipboard earlier today, and it reminded me of one of the things I REALLY like about living in a condo -- no solicitors! I used to HATE it when my doorbell would ring at random times during the day if I wasn't expecting anyone... because I always had to make the decision to either take a chance and open the door, or hide in my closet until the person left. (And I wasn't literally hiding in the closet -- our closet had a window that overlooked the front porch, so I could see who was standing there... I would check to see who it was, and then wait to make sure they eventually walked away. This, of course, makes me sound like some kind of creepy reverse-voyeur -- yeah, I don't walk around looking into unsuspecting people's houses, but I DO look out of my OWN house to watch unsuspecting doorbell-ringers...) When I DID take a chance and answer the door, nine times out of ten it was someone trying to sell me something. And if they happened to have a really good story (like the single mom who was selling magazines to make ends meet...), I was always too nice to turn them away or say no. Which means I ended up with far too many candy bars for charity and magazines for single moms...

I'm getting a little freaked out by the maneuvers of several military jets which have been flying over the city for the last twenty minutes. I'm not sure what they're doing, but they're making a lot of noise and there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to their flight... (They've also obviously disrupted the commercial flights in the area, since no one else can fly when these things are zipping around the airspace...)

We're meeting up with Eric for dinner tonight, so I can give him our keys and he can take care of these crazies while we're gone:

And no, I did NOT just say that so I could put more pictures of my cats on the blog...

Okay, maybe I did...

Werewolf and Jungle Girl...

2011-08-15T21:24:00.000-04:00

My awesome friend Faisal bestowed upon me another Indian music playlist -- 25 songs of a ridiculously addictive nature, which I have been compelled to listen to more than I care to admit over the last few days. The weird thing is, the first listen-through of each song is always the same -- sort of a, "okay, yeah, this is pretty good... not bad..." And then the SECOND listen-through is more like, "oh my gosh, I LOVE this song!! This is the best song EVER! No, wait -- THIS is the best song ever!!" What the heck?? It's like music infused with heroin or something... (Is that possible? Heroin music?? Is there a market on the street for this stuff?)

But I'll get back to Indian music in a minute... first, I must ask: if I think that teenagers are idiots, does that mean I'm getting old? (In my defense, I thought that teenagers were idiots when I WAS a teenager. It's pretty much been my opinion for most of my life...) I ask because over the last two days, I've had a bizarre text message exchange with a girl (who, I'll admit, I'm assuming is a teenager) named Faith, who mistakenly punched in MY phone number when she was attempting to reach a guy named Jacob. I actually ignored the messages last night, which were something along the lines of, "hey jacob this faith kayla gave me ur #." After a couple messages, Faith decided to go ahead and CALL the number, at which point I thought, "okay, as soon as she hears my voicemail and realizes this number belongs to a girl named Lisa, she'll give up..."

But nooooooo... of course not. Around midnight I got "goodnight faithy out." Well, at least she was done for the night. I figured she'd wake up today, meet Kayla and Jacob at Starbucks, and ask Jacob why he kept ignoring her last night. At which point Jacob would explain that he'd never gotten her messages, they would double-check the number, and Faith would realize that she'd been texting the wrong person. The little trio would laugh over their frappuccinos and lament the rapidly approaching school year and gossip about unpopular kids.

So you can imagine my frustration when I got another message around noon today, that once again said something like, "you there jacob this faith." (And by the way, EVERY time this girl said who she was, it was "this faith." I'll let the lack of capitalization slide, because depending on the phone, it can be a pain to capitalize words in mid-sentence. But the lack of "is" was seriously annoying. This Faith?? Who is she, some sort of jungle kid? Like "me Tarzan, you Jane"??) At this point, I figured I should go ahead and tell this girl that she had the wrong number, so I sent a message back to that effect. She then sent one to me that said, "wht?" (You can't even be bothered to throw the "a" in there???) So I replied with a very clear, "you have the wrong phone number -- I don't know you." That seemed to do the trick...

And then two hours later, once again -- "ae u jacob? this faith." (I'm guessing "ae" is Jungle Girl shorthand for "are.") The reply sent: Nope, sorry, you still have the wrong number. I then received a strange message which said, "rhen which jacob are." That's it. Rhen which jacob are. WHAT?? Is that even English? (Remember how I said I'd get back to the Indian music? Here ya go -- the Hindi lyrics I've been listening to the last few days make more sense to me than that message did.)

After considering it for a while, I thought perhaps what she was TRYING to say was something like, "then which jacob are you." Because perhaps she was absolutely convinced that she was talking to someone named Jacob, but it was not the correct Jacob. Wow. I didn't bother to reply again -- I'm just hoping that eventually the light bulb came on and her Jungle Girl brain was able to process the concept of a "wrong number." C'mon Faith... I have... well, I have YOU in you...

Is THIS who you were looking for??

Up in the air...

2011-08-14T20:25:00.000-04:00

For the first time in -- uh... since I can remember? -- I wore a jacket on an August afternoon when I was walking outside. (Have I EVER needed a jacket in August? Maybe when I was a kid and lived in Buffalo...) It was about 70 when we went out for lunch today -- which wouldn't have been jacket-worthy if it had been sunny and calm, but it was cloudy and very windy, so I threw one on just in case I got too chilly. Granted, I WAS a bit warm by the time I got back home, but I was glad I had it at first...

I'm also glad we're heading to Austin at the end of the week, where the temperatures are still hovering around 100 every day -- because I really want a good dose of Super Summer Overkill before settling in for autumn in Chicago. Spending a week in oven-like temperatures will remind me of how nice the changing of the seasons can be... :)

I can't even remember the last time we were in Austin -- it's a been a while. In fact, it's been a while since I've flown anywhere. (Rick, on the other hand, has been jetting off to exotic locales like Kansas City and Fargo on a weekly basis...) We actually drove past the airport last night on our way to dinner with some friends out in the 'burbs (I also haven't been out in the 'burbs in a while... and why do I keep saying "burbs"?? It's a really weird word). And I did what I always do when we're near the airport -- stared in fascination at the low-flying planes overhead, simultaneously wondering how they stay aloft and where they've been or happen to be going. I especially like to see something big, like a 747, just after it takes off or right before it touches down -- I'm amazed by those things. They defy all logic... they should NOT be able to float in the air the way they do. In fact, the one time I traveled on a 747, I was slightly disconcerted by the amount of time our plane stayed in contact with the runway before lifting off... I had time to read an entire chapter of a book before that thing was airborne (that may be a slight exaggeration... :)).

I'm also just, in general, fascinated with airports. Or rather, not the AIRPORT itself, but the idea that everyone inside the airport is traveling somewhere. I walk through the terminal, reading every destination on every board at every gate, jealous of the cool places ("aw, why can't I be on that plane to Milan??") and curious about the not-so-cool places ("I wonder why all those people are headed to Fargo..."). I'm amazed, when I get to my own gate, that so many OTHER people have reasons to travel to the SAME place I'm going, at the SAME time that I'm going. I guess airports, for some reason, bring out some sort of naturally curious streak in me... there are so many stories in an airport. Would it be weird for me to go from person to person and ask them where they're going and why? Yeah, that would probably be weird...

But at least I know where I'M going this week... which reminds me, I really should start thinking about what to pack for Super Summer Overkill weather...

You'll never guess what this post is about...

2011-08-12T01:11:00.000-04:00

Did you say cats?? Ha! You're wrong! (If, however, you went with the second most obvious answer and were thinking "random stuff," you are absolutely correct...)

So Rick is off to the thriving metropolis of Fargo, North Dakota today. My guess is he'll absolutely love the place, come home, and announce that we're moving. (Okay, maybe that's the OPPOSITE of what I imagine will happen...) I've been to Fargo once, years and years ago when I was a teenager (okay, maybe not THAT many years ago... ;)) when we were taking a family road trip across the country and stopped to visit some friends from New Jersey who had moved there. Apparently there wasn't much to do in Fargo, because we hopped over the border into Minnesota to visit a Swedish heritage museum. I remember there were huge Viking ships in that museum... I actually recommended it to Rick, since he has some time to kill tonight, but I guess he's not all that enamored by the idea of Viking ships and Swedish heritage...

I stumbled upon an episode of Fraggle Rock earlier today, and, since I am apparently an eight-year-old, I watched the whole episode. (The sad thing is, I think I actually remembered the episode from back when I was a kid...) The show was obviously on a channel aimed at kids, with commercials aimed at their moms... so it wasn't a surprise when I saw an ad for a little mini blender designed to make baby food. It was a cousin of the popular "magic bullet" blender, which is a small, compact blender that doesn't take up much kitchen space. But I WAS a bit taken aback by the name of the baby food blender -- am I the only one who thinks that "Baby Bullet" sounds a bit disturbing?? Maybe it's just me...

I'm watching a show about jellyfish on the National Geographic channel. It's sort of freaking me out. I'm not sure I ever want to swim in the ocean again. (Not that I was particularly fond of it to begin with... I prefer to just lay on the beach and listen to the waves...)

I'm slightly disappointed that someone has finally decided to change the color of the lights on the top of the Hancock Building from red, white and blue to just plain white. Not that I'm über-patriotic and expect them to keep the colors of the flag up there at all times -- but plain white is just... boring. Now it's just like a bunch of really bright office lights. A little color adds a bit of interest to the skyline... (but why is there never any purple?? Just sayin'...)

Well, it's probably close to my bedtime... I will no doubt have nightmares about giant jellyfish tonight. Perhaps I should read for a while before bed... (And on a side note: Do you suppose my brain will ever be organized enough that I can write an entire, coherent post again? All these random thoughts are so... random.) Good night!

Sorry...

2011-08-09T11:54:00.000-04:00

... but it appears we have more cat pictures...

As you can see, Riff REALLY likes the new carpet we just bought for the living room. (Actually, we bought it several weeks ago... but it was finally delivered yesterday.)

It does look rather comfy...

I really did just want to get some pictures of the new carpet, but Riff pretty much camped out on it as soon as it was on the floor. But hey, he's such a photogenic little guy. Plus, I know Faisal is slightly freaked out by him, which I find amusing. Not that I can totally blame him... Riff can be a bit disconcerting. Like when I wake up in the middle of the night and see him on my nightstand, sitting patiently, staring at me. (Why does he DO that??) And when he shoots lasers from his eyes:

And when he sleeps in THIS bizarre position:

(How is that comfortable???)

But really, Riff has much more to fear from Faisal than vice versa... I mean, Riff has never threatened to EAT Faisal... (or HAS he? Mwahahahahaha... :))

Anyway... I like the new carpet except for one thing: the "new carpet" chemical smell. It started bothering me last night, to the point that I actually sort of felt a bit nauseous. And this morning I woke up with a huge headache, which has, so far, failed to disappear... I've decided to blame the carpet (although I suppose it COULD be a weather-related headache). I've opened the door of our balcony and turned on the ceiling fan, hoping I can air out the condo and convince the odoriferous carpet to be a good little accent piece and stop making me (almost literally) sick. The funny thing is, Rick can't smell anything at all -- and he usually has a much more sensitive nose. And Riff obviously doesn't care, either...

But I believe I'll find some excuses to leave the house today so I can get away from this new carpet smell and immerse myself into the fresh air of downtown Chicago... hey, it's not ALL car exhaust and sewer drains... :)

Discombobulated post...

2011-08-03T12:12:00.001-04:00

I seem to have about a million different topics running through my head today, yet none of them are sure they want to be full-fledged blog posts. You know what that means -- randomness! (I know, it's much too exciting for words... :))

We got more thunderstorms last night... lots and lots of lightning. A bit TOO much, in my opinion. Actually, sometimes I wonder if I'm more afraid of the lightning, or the sudden claps of thunder that follow. I've never been a fan of sudden loud noises. And when you see that lightning flash, you never know if what follows will be a low rumble, or a sharp crack. In fact, after a particularly bright flash of lightning, I tend to instinctively cover my ears in preparation for what I assume will be a sudden loud noise. (Don't EVER sneak up on me and make a loud noise -- I WILL hit you in the face... fair warning.)

Rick and Faisal and I went to see Captain America over the weekend. It was pretty good, but I feel like I need to see it again because I was distracted by the people in the row we happened to be sitting in. There was a couple with a little girl -- I'd say no older than two? -- who, for some reason, thought it would be perfectly acceptable to bring a toddler to a 10:45 pm showing of a PG-13 movie. Sure, why not?? Just because kids should be in bed at that hour and a PG-13 movie probably has some scary-for-a-two-year-old stuff in it doesn't mean a family outing isn't in order. But here's the best part: this couple FELL ASLEEP for the ENTIRE movie, while their wide-awake, two-year-old child sat on her mother's lap and watched the whole thing. We were sitting in the front row of the second section of seats, which meant there were railings and a little ledge drop-off to the floor in front of us. At one point, this little girl dropped something on the floor, and, while her oblivious parents slept, looked as if she might attempt to crawl over the railings to get down to the floor. I'm not usually one to meddle in the affairs of strangers -- or one to even TALK to strangers -- but if that girl made a move for the railings, I was ready to jump up and start yelling at those people. (And don't think I can't yell at people when I need to -- remember Rick's encounter with a possible pickpocket in Naples? Rick told his mom he'd never heard me talk so loudly...) Fortunately, the girl settled down for the second half of the movie... her parents literally did not wake up until the lights came on after the movie. It was strange... very, very strange...

I just heard a girl from India say that the chai tea lattes at Starbucks are better than any chai tea lattes she's ever had in India. Wow, for some reason, I never would've expected that from Starbucks. I've never tried a chai tea latte at Starbucks. Not because I don't like tea -- I love tea, but usually when I'm at Starbucks I'm looking for a caffeine fix... and tea never has enough caffeine for someone who's addicted to coffee like I am. When I drink tea, it's usually at night when I'm winding down and wanting to get sleepy anyway. So perhaps some evening when I'm not worried about staying awake I'll try a Starbucks chai tea latte...

We've actually made some decent progress with our unpacking/getting settled endeavors this week. Still a few things that need to be taken care of... and we're waiting for a carpet that we ordered a zillion years ago to show up (I think it's finally been shipped, so hopefully it'll show up this week), and two of the chairs we ordered for our dining table have been on backorder (hoping those will show up within the next couple weeks, too). But I'm starting to think that MAYBE this place will be organized soon. I wasn't sure for a while there... And then I can actually do things like invite people over without feeling like the world's most horrible housekeeper...

And now I'm off to fend for myself in my search for lunch, as Rick is walking someplace downtown for a "business" lunch. (I put "business" in quotes because I think it's really just a reason for people to go out to lunch and charge someone else for it... :)) Hope everyone is having a good week...

Friday random thoughts...

2011-07-29T14:10:00.000-04:00

Must not post cat pictures today... do not want to turn into Crazy Cat Lady. (Actually, I'm fairly certain I passed the "crazy" part of that equation about ten years ago... are the cats inevitable now?? Perhaps I should get another dog sometime soon to even things out...)

So the last two or three nights in a row, we've had pop-up thunderstorms that roll into the city and stick around for half the night. Rick has been LOVING this, by the way, because we've seen some pretty serious lightning strikes from our condo living room. Never mind the fact that I've been cowering in fear in a little ball of nerves on the couch... okay, that's probably an exaggeration. I've only gathered myself up into a little ball of nerves two or three times over the last few days. I actually find the storms here less threatening than the storms in Texas, maybe because I know there are so many tall buildings around to act as lightning rods. In Texas, the tallest thing around is usually your house... or possibly the trees next to your house. And don't get me started on hail and tornadoes... I wish we could send some of our rain to Texas, because they need it so badly...

Some contractors came to sand and paint our balcony today -- so now it looks like we have a brand new balcony on our who-knows-how-old-it-is condo. (How old IS this building?? I'm not even sure...)

How is it already almost August? I'm just now starting to get used to the summery weather here. We're planning a trip to Austin at the end of August, so fortunately (UNfortunately??) we'll get an extra dose of crazy-hot summer weather before September comes along. This year is going by too quickly... (I probably say that EVERY year. :))

Apparently I am extremely lacking in creativity today, because that's about all I've got... hope everyone has a great weekend!

NOT a cat... totally random Istanbul picture...

Because there aren't enough cat pictures on this blog...

2011-07-27T15:43:00.000-04:00

Here are a few more:

Hey, in my defense, there's also a butterfly in these pictures -- it landed on the windowsill this morning...

Riff then spent the next half hour attempting to devise a way to reach the butterfly through the magical, unfairly transparent-yet-impenetrable force field...

(I thought his head was going to spin around like that girl in the Exorcist...)

And a bonus random picture from this morning, when a storm passed by us (although never quite made it into the city...):

Yes, I DO have a great view of the Office Depot... jealous?? :)

Around the world in one post...

2011-07-25T13:44:00.000-04:00

My blogging efforts were thwarted yesterday by a failed laptop power source. For some reason, every power cord I've had for this laptop ends up fraying over time, until little wires are poking out, threatening to shock me. Rick wrapped my latest frayed cord in electrical tape, which at least prevented an inadvertent shock... but it did not prevent the power source from ultimately failing, prompting my laptop to yell at me about not having the right cord. (I HAD the right cord -- it just looked like invisible mice had been gnawing on it. And apparently once your power cord reaches the "gnawed by invisible mice" stage, it no longer works...) Fortunately, Rick has random power cords lying all over the place, and he managed to find a suitable temporary replacement. But hopefully I can order a new power source for this computer (and try to keep it away from the invisible mice...).

Anyway... not that I'm trying to turn this into a food blog, but I think I'll talk about food again. (Sure, why not? Invisible mice eat power cords... some people eat cat brains... I eat other stuff... :)) So we met Faisal for dinner Saturday night at a Japanese place near his building... Faisal and I thought it was really good. (Rick, on the other hand... well... let's just say we must never again speak of Rick and the Japanese restaurant...) It was one of those places that makes the assumption that its diners are comfortable using chopsticks -- personally, I love such an assumption. But again, let's not talk about Rick... (He is SO gonna get mad at me for this post... :)) I was trying to remember when I first learned how to use chopsticks... I think it may have been at Omei's, which was the BEST Chinese restaurant in New Jersey when I was a teenager. (Granted, I didn't try ALL the Chinese restaurants in New Jersey... but of the ones I did try, Omei's was far superior...) I used to love their stir-fried chicken with mushrooms, and I would use their pre-packaged, disposable wooden chopsticks just for the fun of it. (Wooden chopsticks always worry me slightly -- I wonder how many people get tongue splinters??)

And yesterday, since we weren't finished with our culinary tour of the world, Rick and I ate lunch at Reza's, which is right down the block from us. It's a Middle Eastern/Persian/Mediterranean place, and when we sat down, I was encouraged by the fact that there were so many Middle Eastern/Persian/Mediterranean people eating there. Although I'll admit this was an assumption based on appearances and an observation of languages other than English -- I know I should never assume... :) (It was kind of like the time we went to a little Italian place on Grand, and it was full of Italian people speaking Italian... I figure if the ITALIAN people are eating at the Italian restaurant, it must be good, right??)

However, unlike Indian food (which is like awesomeness on a plate), I've decided that Persian food is just so-so... It's not BAD, it's just not... awesomeness on a plate. There's not enough spice... and occasionally there are some strange flavor combinations. But I did pretty much eat my weight in falafel... (Which, in retrospect, may not have been the best idea. I wasn't hungry AT ALL for the rest of the day. Apparently it takes falafel about 24 hours to completely digest...) I do always enjoy trying new foods (as long as there's no cat brain on my plate, of course), even if it ends up not being a favorite...

At the Japanese place the other night (where I, Fish-Hater, avoided sushi like the plague), Rick wondered why I, as a descendent of a "name-that-ends-in-strom" from Sweden, did not inherit Scandinavian taste buds. In fact, I find most Scandinavian food rather unappetizing. It's not just the copious amounts of fish -- it's the strange, random side dishes that go along with entrees. Piles of onions and capers and pickles and weird herbs... what the heck goes on in Swedish kitchens??? And then there's this:

Really, Sweden?? Even your CHOCOLATE is weird? You expect me to eat something with the unfortunate, onomatopoeic moniker "Plopp"? That's just unappetizing in any language...

But I suppose I shouldn't be so hard on Sweden -- after all, in some roundabout way, I appeared on this planet thanks in part to the existence of Sweden. But I didn't inherit Swedish taste buds... and I certainly didn't inherit tall, blond, Swedish bikini model genes, either (okay, now I'm mad at Sweden again... :)). Maybe you have to eat a lot of fish to be a tall blond bikini model???

And, because I haven't quite gone around the entire world in this post, we bought some Costa Rican coffee on our way back from lunch. There. I think that pretty much covers everything. :)

To myself, on my 73rd birthday... *

2011-07-20T23:27:00.000-04:00

* Eric wished me a happy 73rd birthday this morning... and while I'm inclined to believe his assessment of my age was an exaggeration, there is the remote possibility that I'm too old to remember my exact age...

It's been a quiet birthday here in Chicago... I was HOPING to maybe head out and see the new Harry Potter movie tonight, but my fellow Chicago-based Potter fans had other plans tonight (they probably didn't want to hang out with a 73-year-old anyway). Ah well, on to plan b -- Rick and I had been wanting to try a restaurant not too far from here called Vermilion, which is billed as an "Indian-Latin fusion" establishment. And I'm a sucker for anything Indian, so I figured my birthday was a great excuse to give the place a try. (Side note: Never walk a half mile in heels you've never worn before, no matter how "surprisingly comfortable" they feel when you first put them on...)

So I did my best to make myself look presentable, and we headed out in the 98-degree heat to walk to the restaurant. Seriously, you'd think those of us who lived in Texas for years would think nothing of 98-degree heat, but it is BRUTAL out there this week. And by the time we got to the restaurant, I'm fairly certain all my work to look decent was tossed by the wayside... I probably needed another shower... (such is the price of a July birthday... :))

The restaurant was really good -- I'd say it was about 85 percent Indian with about 15 percent "Latin" thrown in. We started with some artichoke pakoras, which were like battered, fried, slightly spicy artichoke hearts with some kind of dipping sauce. My horrible phone picture probably doesn't do it justice:

For dinner, I perused the menu and decided to go with something from the "dhaba fare" section. (I guess a dhaba is an Indian truck stop -- because when I think about good food, I inevitably think about truck stops in India. Or really, truck stops ANYwhere.) I got the pindi butter chicken, which was REALLY good (another bad camera phone picture):

The only thing that would've made it better was if it had been all white meat, since I'm not big on dark meat chicken, but it tasted great... I may have considered bringing home the leftover sauce just so I could pour it over rice or something, but I refrained from asking... Rick had the lamb shank gassi, which I tried and can honestly say was the BEST lamb I've ever tasted. Lamb isn't usually my favorite meat, but this stuff is apparently cooked for six hours until it just falls apart like short ribs. It was, however, more spicy than anything on the face of the planet. At least that's the idea I got from the way Rick was reacting to it... our server even brought over some kind of cucumber-yogurt sauce to help cut down on the heat, but by the end of dinner, Rick's stomach had eroded away... and then he said he'd probably order it again if we ever came back. (So either it was really good, or Rick is really reckless...) We also tried their chocolate cake for dessert, and even the DESSERT was spicy -- it came with a little scoop of blueberry sorbet on the side, which was useful for tempering the heat of the chili-chocolate sauce on the cake... yuuuuuum.

So all-in-all, a very good birthday dinner... although I just realized that even though I had that chocolate cake for dessert, I didn't get a big birthday cake that will last me the rest of the week... I should've made one for myself. But it's probably best that I didn't... we 73-year-olds needs to watch what we eat... :)

Not TOO bad for a septuagenarian, right??

Walk on...

2011-07-18T14:25:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was one of those bright, sunny, blue-skied, seemingly perfect summer days. So, since it appeared so nice and perfect, we thought we'd take advantage of our newly acquired opportunity to walk everywhere. After a lifetime of living in the suburbs, where a car is a requirement for just about everything from a cup of coffee to a trip to a movie theater, I am loving my ability to walk to so many different locations...

And yesterday started innocently enough -- we decided we'd walk toward mom and dad's place and try a deli down the block for lunch. Halfway there, I remarked on the heat -- the temperatures were climbing toward the mid-90s, and the heat index was somewhere near 100. I hadn't realized this when we started walking... but c'mon, I thought to myself. I'm from Texas! 95 degrees? Ha! I laugh at your 95 degrees and raise you another 10! Rick and I used to walk around our neighborhood in Austin in the middle of summer in 90-degree temperatures all the time. No problem.

But apparently 95 degrees in Chicago (after months of acclimating to cooler temperatures) isn't quite the same as 95 degrees in Texas. "We've become wusses," I said at one point, as we frantically searched for a shady street to shield us from the unrelenting rays of the sun. But once we reached our lunch destination, and the reprieve of sustenance and air conditioning, I forgot all about my comment...

So after lunch, we decided to walk to Argo Tea -- and for some reason, we decided to take "the long way" instead of the more direct route. Where are all the shady streets?? Why is there so much sun??? But again, once I was inside the air conditioned building and had a cold, fruity, blended tea drink in my hand, I felt totally revived and ready to keep walking...

And instead of simply heading back home, we decided to walk out toward the lake. This, at least, provided a nice breeze and plenty of trees, as well as some awesome views of the city toward Michigan Avenue. And then, as long as we'd made it that far, we figured we'd just take a short jaunt over to Faisal's building. It was so close -- mirage-like, shimmering in the hot sun, taunting us with its proximity to the cool water of the lake... at least it SEEMED so close. The more we walked, the more I realized the heat was messing with my mind... perhaps it really WAS a mirage, that tower on the lake... why else would it be out there on the pier, all alone??

Fortunately, my heat-addled mind was able to realize that walking around Navy Pier would be a bit TOO much, and once we'd circled Faisal's building (which I'm still not convinced actually exists...), we headed back toward home. This was the point that I realized my choice of footwear had been a big mistake. While my shoes were fine for a bit of walking -- even a couple miles wouldn't have fazed me -- by the time we were closing in on FIVE miles, my feet were vehemently protesting. Because of this, the walk from that point on seemed longer than the rest of the walk combined...

But we finally made it (and I immediately took what can only be described as the best. shower. ever.), and probably burned off breakfast, lunch AND dinner... plus today's breakfast and at least my morning cup of coffee. My feet are still slightly annoyed by the fact that I took them on such a long journey, but I'm sure they'll forgive me eventually. In the meantime, I'll just sit here in the air conditioning and pretend I'm back in nice, cool Texas... :)

Regarding food, etc...

2011-07-16T22:47:00.000-04:00

One of the things I've missed about having my "own" kitchen is the ability to experiment with food to create new meals. When we were in the rental condo, I stuck to a pretty boring repertoire, not only because that kitchen was tiny, but because I never really felt quite "settled" into that place. My new kitchen is still pretty tiny (at least compared to what I got used to in Austin), but at least I feel like I can settle in for a while. Tonight I made some honey-glazed chicken and a summer vegetable pasta salad, both of which could be described as "winging it" (i.e. I just started throwing stuff together and hoped it tasted good). And yes, it DID end up tasting good...

Somehow, the other night, Rick and Faisal got into a discussion about "strange food," and Faisal mentioned that his grandmother doesn't mind eating brain now and then -- goat brain, mostly (and a quick Google search will bring up recipes that include such)... but he also mentioned that it's not unheard of for people to eat cat brain in Pakistan. This, of course, elicits an immediate American response along the lines of, "What?!? Cats?? Adorable little kitties?? Cute, cuddly kitties?!? Partaking of such cuteness must not be tolerated!!"

And yet a more thoughtful reflection on the topic makes me wonder -- why? Why do we not bat an eyelash at the idea of eating a cow or a chicken, but a cat or a dog as "food" is like culinary blasphemy? Yes, cats and dogs are generally "cuter" than most of the animals we eat... but it has to be more than that. I mean, I think rabbits are pretty darned adorable -- all fluffy and cute with their big ears and little twitchy noses. But even I managed to eat rabbit once -- it wasn't bad. Tasted like chicken. So perhaps it's the fact that cats and dogs are such a huge part of our pet population -- we bring them into our homes, and buy them toys, and feed them treats, and teach them tricks -- maybe our culture of "American pet owner" causes a visceral aversion to the idea of eating these animals. In fact, when Faisal first mentioned the "cats as food" fact, the first thing I asked was whether cats are a common pet in Pakistan -- and it turns out, no one keeps them as pets. It's much harder to eat something that you raise to be a part of your family -- if you've never had a cat as a pet or even KNOWN anyone who's had a cat as a pet, it's probably not as difficult to think of them as a food source... And I know some people keep rabbits as pets, but I've never had one myself... maybe if I had, I wouldn't have been able to try that rabbit stew...

Of course, that doesn't explain why we (and by "we" I mean Americans in general -- not ME, as I have a serious fish aversion) have no problem eating salmon, while at the same time we'll keep tanks full of goldfish in our living rooms. Are fish just really difficult to bond with, even as pets? (Honestly, I can't imagine ever bonding with a fish... and yet I can't imagine eating one, either... :))

It's just strange how we always jump to conclusions about what's "wrong" or "disgusting," based only upon our OWN experiences. If someone half a world away grows up thinking that their mom's goat brain roast is the best dinner ever, who's to say they wouldn't think WE were weird for eating twinkies or nachos or hot dogs?? (Honestly, at least you KNOW what's in a goat brain -- it's a goat brain. A hot dog could be goat brain, hyena lung, armadillo tail, lead paint chips and rat droppings all rolled into one...)

This is not to say that I, personally, would ever eat a cat brain... actually, I wouldn't eat ANY kind of brain. But that's more because I have weird food issues, not because I find fault with anyone's idea of a delicacy... or even anyone's idea of a plain old Saturday night dinner. Tonight, mine just happened to be chicken and pasta salad... :)

Riff under the sheet when I was attempting to make the bed this afternoon. I've titled this picture, "Please don't eat me, Faisal..." Hahahaha! Kidding... just kidding... Faisal is highly allergic to cats -- if he ever ate one, he'd probably blow up like that blueberry girl in the Willy Wonka movie...

Middle of the week randomness...

2011-07-13T14:49:00.000-04:00

Lest I keep anyone in suspense (as I know you've all been waiting with bated breath for the conclusion of this story), I DID finally find my white-noise machine. It was in the very last place I looked -- and yes, I know it's ALWAYS in the last place you look, because once you find something you stop looking... but in this case, it was literally the LAST place I COULD look. I had rummaged through every other box, bag, crate, suitcase and storage container in the condo. And then I spotted my laptop bag sitting on the floor near the fireplace. I hadn't bothered to search through it, since I removed my laptop from the bag the day I brought it over... I had assumed it was empty. Never assume. Because apparently, the same day I brought over my laptop, I also brought over the white-noise machine, which was nestled into a front pocket. I can now once again pretend I'm falling asleep on the beach in Hawaii...

Speaking of the beach in Hawaii... I wish I was on a beach in Hawaii. Just sayin'...

Does anyone ever watch that show Ghost Hunters? It's like the dumbest show ever... these people take night-vision cameras into creepy locations like abandoned prisons and dilapidated psychiatric hospitals, and then film with all the lights off while they act really scared. And then the cameraman will drop a pen, or someone stumbles over an unnoticed chair (because all the lights are off, so how can these people really see where they're going??), and everyone freaks out and starts asking, "what was that? Did you hear that??" Like it's not obvious that someone just tripped over a chair. They never actually FIND any ghosts in their "hunt." How does that show even stay on the air (she asked, even as she realized that "Jersey Shore" is still on the air...)??

I never thought I'd say, "I'm so glad that I get to do laundry whenever I want," but I really AM glad that I can do laundry whenever I want in my new condo. (That is so sad... :))

FYI, everyone needs to watch The First 48: Missing Persons this Thursday night on A&E -- in fact, you should all set it up to Tivo. Do it now. I'll wait. (This show follows Chicago detectives on missing persons cases in the city... and Thursday is going to be Eric's big television debut. I suspect it will be the most riveting two or three minutes of television that has aired on any channel anywhere ever. And Eric has promised me explosions and shootouts and possibly ninja babies with grenades. I'm actually not sure about any of that, but I would definitely record the show, just in case...)

I can't believe the National League won the All-Star game last night... but I CAN believe the U.S. women's team beat France in the World Cup finals... that's kinda cool, and it makes me wish I liked soccer more...

Okay, that's all I've got today, and I'm starving so I should go find something to eat...

There's always something...

2011-07-11T15:26:00.000-04:00

I'm waiting for my lunch to finish roasting -- lately, my go-to lunch when Rick's not around is chickpeas roasted with olive oil, salt, pepper, cayenne and curry powder. The chickpeas dry up in the oven until they're almost crunchy... they turn into yummy, addictive little legumes. I may or may not have eaten an entire can of chickpeas in this manner in the past. (That's only 400 calories -- I checked... :))

I've spent the morning attempting to clean parts of the condo and unpack a few more boxes. My efforts were temporarily side-tracked when I decided to move a tool case that's been sitting on the couch for the last week -- unbeknownst to me, the case (which is filled with 137 wrenches, ratchets, sockets and screwdriver bits) was open. This resulted in 137 wrenches, ratchets, sockets and screwdriver bits scattered on the couch and throughout the case. I then spent the next 45 minutes painstakingly replacing every piece in its respective home within the case. I was tempted to just dump the whole mess into an empty cardboard box, but finally took a deep breath and dove into the metal carnage. I should obviously stay away from tools. I should stick with girly things like... uh... what are girls supposed to do? Cook? And, like, make curtains or something?? Yeah... fewer tools, more curtains... (That's a total joke, by the way -- I would screw up curtains, too... :))

The reason for today's unpacking venture (I mean, besides the fact that it needs to be done anyway) is that I'm searching for a much-needed item: the white-noise machine my mom gave me for Christmas several years ago, which becomes my best friend when Rick is away overnight. Since we started the moving process, Rick put much of his travel on-hold... but he has an upcoming trip to some podunk town in Kansas... I actually think it's called Podunk, Kansas. (My apologies to anyone who lives in or is from Kansas... I'm sure you have a lovely -- albeit remotely situated -- state.) Which means I'll soon have to spend a night by myself, and I'd much prefer to listen to the calming sound of crashing waves or falling rain when I'm trying to sleep...

(Side note: Have I mentioned that I'm fairly certain our new condo is haunted?? Okay, not really -- however, when the bedroom fan is turned on (and I'm one of those people who likes a fan when I'm sleeping), the bedroom light has the very disconcerting habit of turning itself on at random times. Which means that several times, I've woken up in the middle of the night to a room flooded with light. It's a little bit creepy, but my dad has assured me that the culprit is more likely electrical than poltergeist-related.)

But after all of today's searching, I have been UNABLE to find my white-noise machine. Even though I have a finite number of boxes here, most of which we moved over from the old condo (where I did, in fact, have the white-noise machine on my dresser). You'd think it would be simple to figure out where I stashed that thing when I moved it over here. Where did I put it???

I'm just hoping it's hiding here somewhere in a place I haven't looked yet. Because I don't want this to become another New Jersey Cutting Board Incident. (To recap: I had a great Williams-Sonoma wooden cutting board when I lived in New Jersey, which I vividly remember packing into a box when we were getting ready to move back to Texas. But when we got to Texas, I never found the cutting board. I STILL haven't found the cutting board. I KNOW I packed it, but it apparently disappeared into thin air...) But doesn't it seem like there's always something that disappears in a move? Hopefully this time it'll just be a pair of socks or a tupperware container and NOT my white-noise machine...

And FYI, this is what Riff has been doing while I've been cleaning and unpacking all day:

It is SO hard to be a cat...

Independently random...

2011-07-09T18:41:00.000-04:00

As I previously mentioned, I forgot to take a camera with me on July 4th and I was unable to document the fireworks display. But dad gave me a CD with all of the pictures from his camera and mom's camera, so now I have proof that we saw fireworks. Well, I have proof that mom and dad saw fireworks, at least. So in lieu of a "Derek Jeter is awesome" post (which I'll have to work on for next time), here are a few pictures:

This is the horrible view that mom and dad have from their place when you're sitting on the balcony. (Obviously dad took this picture -- hence the Starbucks coffee cup)...

Faisal's building, the site of our fireworks-watching vantage point...

And Faisal has THIS horrible view to contend with outside his window... honestly, I would just move. Maybe to a place with a nice view of an alley or a subway station...

When the fireworks started, we noticed that this blimp, wrapped in a Farmer's Insurance logo, was hanging out in the "fireworks display" area. And it STAYED there even with flammable things exploding around it. I realize blimps no longer use hydrogen, but we were still pretty sure we were seeing Hindenburg 2 in the making... (And, strangely, we all switched over to Farmer's Insurance on July 5th...)

And since this post is much too theme-oriented and not nearly random enough, here's a picture of me reflected in the cabinet where all our TV equipment is:

Plus, an extra-special bonus random picture:

Uhhh... yeah... I have no idea either...

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

The new view...

2011-07-06T13:41:00.000-04:00

And of course, more of this:

Bow to me, human peons. (He's so demanding...)

I wonder what he does when we're not home...

2011-07-05T13:37:00.001-04:00

The unpacking continues, slowly but steadily. I managed to empty about four boxes yesterday -- a couple of them were stacked in the guest bathroom, and were rather in the way of anyone who may have been in there. So now that I've emptied the boxes, broken them down, and readied them for the recycling bin, I have at least ONE room that is completely organized, neat and clean. Everyone is invited to my place to use the bathroom...

One of the fun things about a loft is that everything is open -- even though we have two bedrooms, they're divided from the rest of the space by walls that stop several feet from the ceiling. Apparently, these walls make a great cat perch:

It took us a while to figure out how he got up there -- that bookcase (that cursed IKEA bookcase with the innumerable wooden dowels... :)), is too high for him to jump on top of it. But Rick's study is on the OTHER side of that open wall, where a short cabinet is standing next to a higher set of shelves... and that set of shelves is situated right next to the wall. So a jump up to the cabinet, followed by a jump up to the top shelf, followed by a jump up on the wall, and you've got a smug, much-too-pleased-with-himself cat:

I am fairly certain he is looking down upon us as if we were his lowly subjects... his minions, perhaps.

Anyway... I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. We were invited to Faisal's place to watch the fireworks at Navy Pier... and stupid me forgot my camera. I'm so used to seeing those Navy Pier fireworks from my own living room -- I usually just grab the camera off the shelf and start shooting. No more fireworks from my living room... sigh... :) (Although I did notice, after Saturday's fireworks, that the residual firework smoke eventually made its way down Grand Ave. to our place. So I can't see the fireworks anymore, but I CAN see the smoke. Wait... that's nowhere near as cool... :))

Well, I suppose I should stop blogging and start unpacking again, lest I live in a cardboard-box fort for the next two years. (Hey, cardboard box forts were super cool when I was a kid! :))

Goodbye, skyline...

2011-07-01T19:20:00.000-04:00

I took these the morning the movers showed up -- which was, of course, a perfect, sunny, cloudless day, so I was quite aware of the great view I was leaving behind. :)

But hey, now I'm much closer to the Hancock Building:

Unfortunately, I lose my view of the Sears Tower and Trump Tower. Oh well -- if I REALLY want to see them, I'll just head over to mom and dad's place...

We are officially 100 percent out of our rental condo. (I won't say we're 100 percent moved in here, because we still have things in storage that we might bring over... and I don't FEEL like I'm totally moved in, since half our stuff is still in boxes and a lot of it is just strewn randomly all over the living room...)

Funny story -- the realtor for the family who's renting the old condo asked if we would mind if they moved a few of their things over on the 28th (even though their lease didn't start until today), which was the day the movers showed up to move our furniture out of the condo. And we said sure, that would be fine. But the movers ONLY moved our heavy furniture -- we moved our clothes, dishes, etc. ourselves. So even though the condo was about 95 percent empty after the movers left on Tuesday, we still planned to use Wednesday and Thursday to finish the rest of our move. We went over Wednesday morning to pack some things up, and were surprised by how much the new tenants had already moved into the condo.

At dinner Wednesday night, Rick got a strange call from the realtor, who said something like, "the new renters say they're uncomfortable spending the night at the condo, because some of your things are still there." To which he responded, "um, yeah, that's because it's still OUR condo -- they should NOT be 'spending the night' when we still have two days left on our lease." We assumed the matter was cleared up, and then after dinner we headed back to the old condo to pack up a few more things.

So imagine our surprise when we turned the key, opened the door, and an entire family was sitting in the living room eating dinner. Uhhhh... ooooookay. After we all awkwardly introduced ourselves, they claimed that the realtor told them they could MOVE IN on the 28th. Even though we clearly told the realtor that we needed the next two days to finish moving out, and all we said was that it was fine if they moved some of their possessions into the condo. Somewhere, somehow, the wires got crossed. Needless to say, we packed our stuff up as quickly as we could (much of it piled freely in a precarious mountain of "stuff," simply because we only had two boxes with us...), trying to avoid the occasional stares of the strangers who were now occupying the condo (still rightfully ours). And the worst part? They had the blinds DOWN -- completely cutting off the great view AND the Wednesday night fireworks at Navy Pier... (who WERE those people??? :))

But at least the moving part is over, and the unpacking part can begin. (Because that's the fun part, right? Right???) No pictures of the condo yet, because it's a complete disaster area at the moment. But here's a picture of some creepy, ominous storm clouds that were outside this morning:

And Rick wanted me to mention that this blog was brought to you today by the failure of the hard drive that was powering our Windows television -- he bought a new hard drive this afternoon to get everything up and running again, but at the moment, we have no TV. If we did, it's possible I would be watching something right now, instead of writing a blog post... but I really WAS planning to post something today anyway... honestly! :)

This and that... (aka "random")...

2011-06-27T13:14:00.000-04:00

In case anyone is wondering, yes, I'm still around... I've just been crazy busy with moving plans. The movers arrive tomorrow morning to move all the heavy furniture, but in the meantime, we've been packing up boxes of clothes, dishes, pictures, books, etc., and moving them all over to the new place. As with every move, I am amazed by the amount of "stuff" I have... especially this time, seeing as we've been living in downsized square footage. How foolish of me to assume that we could move our entire condo in a day or two...

So, random thoughts, in no particular order:

I think I've only managed to squeeze in one workout on my treadmill in the last week. But moving boxes counts as exercise, right? And assembling giant IKEA bookshelves?? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that counts...

I'm worried about moving the cats tomorrow... I always feel guilty about forcing them into confinement in their little cat carriers. And taking them to a new, confusing place just adds insult to injury. Although once they get used to it, I think they'll be much happier in the new condo -- lots more room to run around.

We tried the Indian place down the block from the new condo -- Faisal and I somehow convinced Rick to try it. And, wonder of wonders, Rick actually LIKED it. In fact, I think Rick actually liked it a lot. Who could've seen THAT coming?? I had a much longer blog post planned to talk about our Indian food outing, but it'll have to wait a few more days until I have more time to write...

I need to go pack boxes, but here's one last reminder of what I'm leaving behind:

Mmmmm... lingonberries...

2011-06-20T13:50:00.000-04:00

It was a busy (not to mention coughy, sneezy and achy) weekend here in Chicago. I spent much of Friday on the couch, fighting off the virus that took hold last week -- leaving me NO doubt whatsoever that I was in the middle of a bad cold (and definitely not allergies). Rick, meanwhile, spent most of the day at the new condo, overseeing the final Operation Update Condo projects. We've now had the hardwood floors refinished, new carpet installed in the master bedroom, carpet removed from the study and replaced with wood floors, and new paint in the entryway, study and bedroom.

Refinished floors (I know it's hard to tell from the pictures, but the floors look SO much better now than they did at first...).

New wood floor and red paint in the study...

This was the OLD bedroom carpet and paint (it looked even worse in person... the carpet was just... ick...)

And here's the NEW carpet and paint. And, from another corner of the room, you can see --

My purple accent wall!! Yeah, that's right -- I have a purple wall in my bedroom. Finally. (I don't even KNOW how I convinced Rick to allow a purple wall in the bedroom... I'm not gonna ask... I'm just going with it... :))

Anyway... these really aren't very good pictures -- I need to take some with my good camera, instead of my little point-and-shoot (which doesn't have a very wide-angle lens). But the good camera is still here at the rental condo, for last-minute skyline pictures...

Saturday brought more couch time, and then I drank my weight in Dayquil and forced myself to join Rick at the new condo to wait for a furniture delivery -- we got a new bed and a smaller kitchen table (we're going to keep the table we have now in storage, because it really is a nice piece of furniture... but for now, we're trying to downsize...). We paid for the delivery guys to assemble the bed, but we were told the table was easy to assemble, so we should save the money on the assembly and do it ourselves. Which brings us to...

Sunday, I woke up feeling MUCH better. (I am no longer convinced that this cold virus is determined to multiply to the point that it becomes an entity unto itself and can achieve world domination. No, on the contrary -- it shall be destroyed.) And since I was feeling better, we decided to take a little field trip out to the suburbs and visit IKEA. If you've never been to an IKEA, it is quite the experience. And this particular IKEA is even bigger than the IKEA we had back in Austin. It's like a giant home improvement warehouse maze, with Swedish meatballs in the middle. (Since I am part Swedish, I feel that I should appreciate Swedish food... yet in reality I find most of it rather unappealing... Although I DID think the bottles of sparkling lingonberry-apple juice they had at the register sounded pretty good...) We browsed through the kitchen remodel displays to get ideas for sometime down the road (we want to eventually redo the kitchen in the condo, but for now we'll make do with what we have...), and then we found the reason for our trip -- we bought two big bookcases to place along one wall of the living room. And like most of the items at IKEA, the bookcases were sold unassembled, and each bookcase was contained in FOUR separate boxes. Since we bought two bookcases, this meant eight big, cumbersome boxes that we had to wrangle into our SUV, drive back to our building, and then transport to the elevator and up to our condo. That was fun. Let's just say that we got in a good workout after that experience...

Fortunately, we had the presence of mind to NOT attempt to assemble the bookcases right away. But we did assemble the kitchen table. And it WAS pretty simple to put together... or at least it WOULD have been, had we not discovered that one of the table legs was defective. (Doesn't it always seem to work that way??) But I have to give credit to West Elm (where we bought the bed and table) -- Rick called them as soon as we discovered the defective table leg. And even though they were about to close, they told us to bring the table leg to the back entrance of the store and they'd exchange it for us, no problem. It made what could've been a really annoying issue much less annoying... plus we took a break to get dinner next-door at Epic Burger (where I always get the chicken... which, according to Rick, is much better than their burgers... so perhaps they should be Epic Chicken??) -- so everything worked out okay.

And now that I'm writing all of this, I realize I should've taken a picture of the finished kitchen table... but I guess I'll wait until the kitchen CHAIRS come in (they're backordered). And now that I've babbled on aimlessly for a while, I guess I should go find some stuff to pack up -- we have one more week of moving ourselves until the movers arrive!

Various thoughts of a random nature...

2011-06-16T14:18:00.000-04:00

Well, the verdict is in: it's a cold. Definitely a cold. Apparently my usually strong immune system spent about a week and a half fighting off this thing, leading me to believe that what I was dealing with was allergies. But some time last night, my tiny little white blood cells finally threw up their tiny little hands and said, "FINE. Go ahead and take over, cold virus." (So you are vindicated, Chicago -- I guess you have NOT been attacking me with allergens. Yet.) Should I be worried that this is the second cold I've had since moving to Chicago, and I normally go YEARS without getting a cold? Should I also be worried that RICK is usually the one who picks up the cold viruses -- not me -- and yet here I am with cold number two?? Oh well... (sniff sniff... sneeze sneeze... cough cough...)

We found out today that there were FOUR offers on this condo, and the people who will be renting it offered $50 more per month than what we're paying. They also have two kids, and they're going to be living in this little bitty condo. Obviously they are insane. Rick and I have been running into each other, and stepping on cats, and bumping into furniture the entire time we've been here. Of course, that could be partly due to the fact that we have huge furniture -- a king-sized bed, a big dining room table, and a giant sectional couch that pretty much takes up the entire living room (it was perfect in our media room back in the big house in Texas... not so great in a tiny urban condo living room...).

Speaking of condos -- they're working on replacing the bedroom/study floors in the new condo today. They're putting Pergo (or something similar) wood floors in the study, and new berber carpet in the master bedroom to replace the ratty, icky, dog-approved-but-human-rejected carpet that's in there now. And then tomorrow morning, the painter is coming to paint the bedroom, study, and entryway. Once everything is finished, I'll take some pictures of our new-and-improved abode...

Does anyone else think it's sad that you have to show ID to buy cold medicine now? I was even presented with a receipt that said, "stop teenage abuse of cold medicine." Is that the thing to do now? Drink a bunch of Nyquil just for the fun of it? Teenagers are so stupid... (I can say that because I used to be one. And even when I WAS a teenager I thought teenagers were stupid... :))

Well, my cold-addled brain is having trouble thinking of anything beyond, "where did I put my tissues??" So I'm off to drink a bunch of Nyquil just for the fun of it... kidding... just kidding. :)

Out with the old, in with the new...

2011-06-15T16:44:00.000-04:00

So for the last week, my morning routine has gone something like this: get up, get dressed, get ready to leave the house; feed cats, make sure litter box is clean; Swiffer the floors if necessary (and it's necessary much too often); clean and dust counters and tables; make the bed; clean bathroom counter and mirror (which are inevitably splashed with water when Riff drinks from the faucet) -- all of this to make sure the condo is presentable for the parade of prospective renters we've had tromping through every day.

Well, this afternoon we got word that the condo has been RENTED! Perhaps partly thanks to my efforts to keep it clean... or partly thanks to the fact that we asked Riff to act extra cute when people were looking at the condo (at which point he promptly climbed into a laundry bag and took a nap):

But CERTAINLY thanks in no small part to this:

Ah, my view... I am going to miss you... Will the new renters appreciate you enough to photograph you every other day?? I think not...

But we're definitely getting excited about the new place. As I mentioned before, the guy we bought the condo from had two big dogs... they not only tore up the bedroom carpet (which should be replaced tomorrow), but they also scratched up the hardwood floors in the living/dining/kitchen area. They weren't so bad that we couldn't live with them, but we decided to ask our floor guy to refinish the wood -- which is much cheaper than replacing the floors. They sanded them down yesterday, and then applied a coat of stain today... Rick and I went by after lunch to check out the progress -- we couldn't walk on the floors yet, so we just opened the door and looked inside. The floors look AWESOME -- I can't believe how much of a difference just refinishing them has already made! It's got me very anxious to see the new carpet and paint that should all be finished by this weekend. So while I may not have the same view anymore, I think the condo itself is going to have much more personality than this place has. There are always pros and cons, right?

Anyway, I'm extremely glad this condo has been rented, since all plans have been up in the air lately and I haven't been able to stick to a routine. I haven't even been on my treadmill all week -- although we've been getting in plenty of walking every time we leave the condo for showings... plus, I seem to be coughing up whatever is left of my lungs, so perhaps I should go easy on the workouts right now...

In fact, maybe I should just take this time to enjoy the view, while I still have the chance... :)

Okay, Chicago...

2011-06-13T20:48:00.000-04:00

Veeeeery funny.

You knew that one of the reasons I was looking forward to living here was because I could escape the myriad of allergies Austin threw at me every year. Finally, I would be free of the scourge that is "Cedar Fever," knowing that my winter would not be spent in frustrating annoyance; my itchy throat, scratchy eyes, and endless sneezes alleviated only by copious amounts of Benadryl. No, no -- cedar is practically non-existent here in Chicago, and is found only in the places it SHOULD be found: closets and hope chests.

But then you -- tricky, sneaky Chicago -- decided to blindside me with your OWN (and completely unnecessary, I might add) allergens. Grass? Molds? Random dust (as it DOES seem like my condo accumulates dust far more quickly than my house in Austin ever did)?? What are you aiming at me, Chicago??? And what did I ever do to you?

So now, as I sneeze and cough my way through spring, I'm wondering which is worse -- Cedar Fever, or Mysterious Chicago Allergen Malady...

Then again, this COULD be a cold. If that's the case, Chicago, you may disregard this message. But I'm suspicious. Highly suspicious...

And, by the way, random comment: Has anyone noticed that I've now surpassed both my 2009 and 2010 posting totals -- and we're not even halfway through the year?? (Nevermind the fact that half of those posts have been pictures of the Chicago skyline... they still count... right? :))

Please stop calling...

2011-06-09T12:06:00.001-04:00

So remember the other day when I said that if this place doesn't rent, it's not MY problem, so I don't really care if everything looks perfect? Yeah, I take it all back... I care... I really, really care...

Our condo was officially listed for rent Tuesday night. Yesterday afternoon, the phone must've rung every half hour, with a realtor asking to book a showing. So far, we've had two showings yesterday afternoon (we took the opportunity to take some stuff over to the new condo) and one this morning (we went out to Caribou for coffee -- not a bad way to start the morning). We have two more this afternoon (so we'll be heading back to the new condo with more boxes), three (or four?) tomorrow (which means we have to be out from 10 until 4), and at least two on Saturday. I can't even keep them all straight. I also cringe every time the phone rings, because I'm certain it will be ANOTHER realtor who wants to bring a client by to see the condo.

Now, unlike our big house back in Texas, I don't mind this from a "constantly keeping things clean" perspective -- it's actually not difficult to keep 1100 square feet relatively clean most of the time. However, the seemingly unending disruptions are going to wear on my patience pretty quickly. Apparently there's a really hot condo rental market here in Chicago... back in Austin, we were lucky to average a few showings a week... but here, I can't even keep up with all of them... I keep forgetting when we need to be out of here. We did manage to put our foot down about one detail -- one of the showings yesterday was at 6:15... which meant we either had to eat dinner out, or have a really late dinner (we chose the dinner out -- there are just too many great places to eat in this city... :)). But we requested that a note be placed on the listing that says we will NOT accept any more showings after 5:00. Not to mention the fact that since Rick works from home, it's hard for him to just pick up and leave at any random time.

And this is all why, when the phone started its incessant ringing yesterday, I began to clean this condo as I've never cleaned it before. Because I'm just not sure how long I can stand vacating the premises four times a day when I have boxes to pack and laundry to clean and blog posts to write. So I take it back -- I DO care if this condo rents... in fact, I'd like it to rent IMMEDIATELY. Please.

And how could it not rent right away with a view like this???

And this morning's cloudy, slightly spooky non-existent skyline:

C'mon, skyline... THAT is not going to convince renters... :)

Progress...

2011-06-05T22:04:00.000-04:00

Not MUCH progress, but we have managed to move a bunch of random stuff into the new condo. So far, we've been stacking everything in piles in the living room, because we have painters and floor people coming to paint the bedrooms and replace the carpeting, so we don't want a lot of things in the bedrooms just yet. The guy who lived in the condo before us had a couple dogs, who apparently scratched at the carpet quite a bit... not to mention the fact that there are several suspect stains in the carpeting. There's also a weird, textured paint on one wall of the master bedroom -- it looks like someone tried to be creative and paint willy-nilly splotches... but the effect is a little more "elementary school finger painting" than "designer paint scheme."

But even with our limited stacking space, we've been quite busy this weekend, packing up the car with as much as we can fit -- from this condo AND from our storage unit -- and hauling it down to the new condo. Since we don't have to be out of here until the end of the month, we're just moving in small increments at the moment... in a couple weeks, we'll have movers come to move out the heavy furniture.

I remembered to take my camera yesterday, so I got a few slightly better pictures of the new place.

This one is kinda dark... sorry about that... :)

Rick said the last "view" picture I look wasn't so great... but I'm not sure this one is much better... :)

We DO have a balcony, however, which is pretty cool...

Weird textured paint and ratty carpet in the master bedroom that needs to be replaced... (I only took this so I can have a "before" picture... so when everything is finished, I'll post an "after"...)

Living room area again -- Rick disassembled that TV stand in the corner today. When we first saw it, we thought it was made of metal and it looked pretty sturdy. But on closer inspection, we discovered that it was cheap plywood that had been painted silver. So it had to go...

And this afternoon, I discovered an Indian restaurant about a block away from our new place, right next door to a Starbucks -- double score!! Now all I need is a chocolate shop...

Sneak preview...

2011-06-02T18:58:00.000-04:00

In case anyone hasn't heard -- we are officially condo owners! The closing yesterday took a little while -- it already takes long enough to plod through the two-foot stack of papers you're required to sign at a closing... but then once we'd signed everything, we waited more than an hour for the lenders to get back to us to say that everything was approved. Even though they supposedly ALREADY approved everything last week. Apparently they were concerned that we'd secretly run out over the weekend and bought another condo... or a couple cars... or a small private island in the Caribbean...

But eventually, everything was approved, we got our keys, and we drove to our new place with a few boxes of summer clothing from storage. Later, we took over some winter clothing from our rental condo, plus the very first piece of furniture to occupy our new space -- a coffee table that Faisal has been kind enough to keep at his place for the last few months (since our storage unit was completely full and the furniture in our rental condo is about to overflow into the street sixteen stories below...). We've decided that we might need a smaller car eventually -- our new garage is TINY... or, rather, the garage itself is quite big, but the driving/parking areas are very narrow. In fact, in order to maneuver our MDX through the garage, we have to make a three-point turn at one location. And in order to pull into our space, we have to drive uncomfortably close to the cement wall and then hope the mirrors clear the huge columns on either side of the space. Every time we park the car, I'll be holding my breath... Still, it's hard to justify buying a smaller car just for the parking garage... especially since our present car is paid off... and besides -- we hardly drive anywhere anymore.

So I've spent much of the day doing laundry, packing a couple random boxes, and cleaning our rented condo so they can start showing it soon for new tenants. I'm not sure why I'm spending so much time cleaning this place, seeing as we don't own it. To put it bluntly -- if no one rents it, it's not OUR problem. (I am a cold, callous person... :)) I have a feeling it has something to do with my recollection of when I first walked into this place back in December, when the obviously under-the-influence-of-something previous renter opened his door for us and then threw himself back on his couch to watch a game, while we wandered around the cluttered apartment attempting to avoid clothes on the floor and food on the counter. I've never viewed a condo for sale or rent that was left so unprepared for a showing. He hadn't even bothered to toss away his leftover pizza in the kitchen. Of course, as soon as I got a glimpse of the skyline view outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, I was able to overlook the mess... :) But, since I don't want people walking in and thinking that the Worst Housekeeper in the World lives here, I've been busy cleaning up today...

I probably won't have any decent pictures of the new place until we're mostly settled, so in the meantime, here are a few poor-quality camera phone pictures:

Standing in the living room looking toward the kitchen...

Looking into the living room from the kitchen -- the guy who just moved out built his own corner TV stand thing. It was screwed into the floor, which means if we take it out the floor will be damaged -- but we really don't want to keep it there. Although the red sconce lights are kinda cool...

My new view... sigh... :) At least I still have part of the Hancock Building. One thing we quickly realized when we were searching for a condo was that it was very unlikely we'd find EVERYthing we wanted. We'd have to compromise on something. And this place fulfilled most of our wish list -- large square footage, open floorplan, tons of light, washer/dryer in unit... it even has a gas stove, which I prefer over electric. But we had to give up the awesome view. But don't worry -- I'll be sure to continue snapping pictures of the skyline for the next few weeks, so I'll have plenty of photos to browse through when I'm feeling nostalgic... :)

Sir Reginald, Meerkat Sentinel...

2011-05-31T13:06:00.000-04:00

Tireless and ever-watchful... fearless and wise... There can be no entry to Meerkatdom without Reginald's gracious permission...

(Okay, so maybe meerkat life isn't quite so dramatic... and I don't know why I think he looks like a Reginald. Although I can definitely see him as a Reggie...)

Hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day yesterday. The weather here has finally taken a turn toward "summer," and yesterday was probably the warmest, sunniest day we've had in Chicago so far. That, coupled with the fact that it was a holiday, meant that the sidewalks here in Lincoln Park were crowded with people heading toward the lake -- or, like us, heading toward the Lincoln Park Zoo. Don't ask me why we decided, after six months of living a couple blocks away, to finally walk over there on Memorial Day in the hot sun. But walk to the zoo we did -- along with about five million other people... most of them with kids in strollers.

Needless to say, we didn't stay long... pretty much just long enough for me to find the meerkats. I love the meerkats:

This one is yawning, not yelling at me...

This one wanted to come home with me and meet the cats... I almost said yes...

Many of the "outside" animals (the meerkats are housed in an indoor exhibit) were hiding in shady places and sleeping because of the heat... but we still managed to catch a glimpse of a few other animals:

I felt bad for the polar bear -- I'm sure he was quite happy during the winter, but at the moment he's very much out of his element... At least the water looked nice and cold...

Usually, I like to get some pictures of the lions, but they were being quite lazy yesterday -- not unlike my little cats, who also tend to pass out when it gets hot and sunny...

And in non-zoo news -- unless something unforeseen happens, we SHOULD be Chicago condo owners by this time tomorrow. It's been a looooooong journey to get to this point, so it's hard to believe that it's finally happening. Once we've signed the papers and get slightly settled, I'll post some pictures of our new place! For now, we're off to buy moving boxes so we can start packing...

I've never actually played Pong...

2011-05-27T11:38:00.000-04:00

While I was on the treadmill yesterday, I watched Airport '77, which happened to be on one of my movie channels. And even though it's been around since 1977 (what a coincidence!) I had never seen it before. It was, at times, unintentionally hilarious -- as many movies from the 70s tend to be. At least I think they can be hilarious sometimes... I mean, let's face it, clothing in the 70s was just crazy funny -- why on earth did people wear some of that stuff??

Airport '77, in case you've never seen it, is about a group of art thieves who hijack a big, private 747 -- so it's outfitted with couches and various rooms and a bar with a piano... and a super cool, state-of-the-art computerized tabletop where kids can play Pong. This resulted in Hilarious Moment #1, when the two kids on board the plane were playing Pong and acting like it was the most action-packed game ever invented. (Although maybe in 1977 Pong WAS the most action-packed game ever invented??)

As I watched, I realized that many of the actors were younger versions of actors I've seen many times before. (Hey, it's Saruman from Lord of the Rings! Hey, it's the dad from A Christmas Story! Hey, it's that guy from the Naked Gun movies who ISN'T Leslie Nielsen! And is that Jimmy Stewart??) Which was part of Hilarious Moment #2 -- a very young Kathleen Quinlan made an appearance, but it took me a while to realize who she was. I had a hard time tearing my eyes away from her huge, fuzzy eyebrows, which looked like two caterpillars resting above her eyes. These days, a stylist or makeup artist would enthusiastically attack those things with a pair of tweezers... but again -- it was the 70s...

Once the plane hijacking begins, the art thieves subdue the passengers by hooking up a canister of some sort of gas to the ventilation system... meanwhile, the co-pilot, who is in on the hijacking (and, apparently, the worst pilot in the history of flying), flies the plane low toward the water (in the Bermuda Triangle, no less). But he fails to notice the huge oil rig out in the middle of the water until it's too late -- he clips the rig with a wing, and then is forced to crash land in the ocean. And of course at this point, all the passengers begin to wake from their gas-induced stupor, and realize the plane is crashing. This resulted in Hilarious Moment #3 (and I will mention that I literally laughed out loud at this scene) -- this was before all the various special effects we've come to know and love... so as the plane was "crashing," I have to imagine the director told the actors something along the lines of, "just start throwing yourselves onto the furniture." Because that's exactly what it looked like. Someone jumped over the bar onto the piano... another person jumped onto the couch... another person threw themselves against a wall, as another person off screen threw a chair at them... that was pretty much the extent of it...

Basically, the movie was "The Poseidon Adventure" but with a plane instead of a boat. The plane is trapped under 100 feet of water, chaos ensues, a small group is brave enough to attempt to swim to the surface to find help, the navy comes and rescues them... But I have to admit I was interested enough to watch the whole thing...

And now I'm off to the airport to fly back to Buffalo... I probably shouldn't have watched a movie yesterday about a plane trapped underwater when I'm about to fly over two great lakes, but oh well... :)

Ups and downs...

2011-05-24T15:34:00.000-04:00

The last few days have been full of good and bad. We started our weekend with a flight to Buffalo, where we met up with family to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa's 70th anniversary.

Aww... how cute are my grandparents?? The rest of the family dressed in white shirts and dark pants for a big family portrait... which sort of made us look like we were in a weird cult (but will probably result in a good picture :))... And actually, on our way to the party, we passed an Olive Garden that was about to open for the day -- the entire staff was dressed in white shirts and dark pants. I thought about inviting them over for the family portrait as "extras" -- just so we could look like we had a HUGE family -- but decided against it. I did, however, stop by the Olive Garden later on in the day and made about 200 bucks in tips... (okay, maybe not... :))

The party was held in the banquet hall of an Indian restaurant, but sadly, we didn't have any Indian food. That's just wrong. I was literally steps away from all manner of Indian food, but could not partake. (If I had stealthily crept into the kitchen, would anyone have noticed? I should've tried...) But we DID have an extremely yummy cake at our party, complete with purple flowers (I should have also stealthily stolen some extra cake :)):

Afterwards, everyone went to my cousin Kevin's house and hung out for a while. But Eric, Rachel, Rick and I had to leave pretty early to head back to the airport for an 8:15 flight. When we got to the airport, everything seemed fine, and the departures board said our flight was "on time," so we settled in at the gate to await boarding. But we were soon informed that our plane (which was also flying in FROM Chicago) was delayed due to storms in Chicago. Our departure time was pushed to around 9:15... and then 9:30... and then 10:10... and then 10:30.

A little after 9, an announcement was made that the plane from Chicago was finally on its way to Buffalo, so at least we knew that we WOULD have a plane eventually. When it landed, around 10:20 or so, the guy behind the desk at the gate said that once everyone was off the plane, we'd have to board as quickly as possible, because we HAD to be in the air by 10:46 to beat the next round of storms in Chicago. The idea that we HAD to get into the air to beat gigantic storms was already stressing me out... but when there were STILL people walking off the plane at 10:35, I lamented to Rick, "there's no way we're getting on that plane by 10:46..." It takes people fifteen million years to board planes... I don't know why... it seems like a simple process. But there are ALWAYS people who stand in the aisles for twenty minutes, trying to shove huge, over-sized bags into bins the size of a mailbox. (Can you not SEE that your bag is bigger than a mailbox???) Nevertheless, we all gathered our bags and stood up, ready to run for the plane as soon as they made a boarding announcement...

And then, with about five minutes to that 10:46 cutoff, the guy behind the counter announced that the flight was canceled and rescheduled for 7 the next morning. (I should mention at this point that the "departures" board at the airport continued to say that our 8:15 flight was "on time"... it never changed... we thought that was funny...) So after a call to my parents (who, fortunately, were still staying at a hotel across from the airport), and after my dad made a few calls to hotels (because their own hotel was completely booked), my dad picked us up and dropped us off at a Holiday Inn Express. We ran into a fellow Chicago-bound traveler in the lobby, who warned us to be at the airport NO LATER than 5 am for our 7 o'clock flight. He was quite adamant. He insisted that the security lines at the Buffalo airport were of Biblical proportions on Monday mornings... wending through mountains and valleys and treacherous volcanoes... slipping underwater and shooting to outer space... security lines that ripped families apart... battles won and lost... travelers disappearing forever into a vortex of TSA pat-downs and three-ounce bottles of liquids...

And after a (nearly sleepless) night, we arrived at the airport at 5 in the morning and checked in for our flight (again). We then worriedly made our way to the infamous, epic Monday-morning security line and ended up waiting... oh, about five minutes. It was quite anti-climatic. Apparently that guy doesn't travel much...

And of course at the time, the whole thing seemed like such a big deal and such an inconvenience. And then we heard about the massive tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri... and suddenly, our canceled flight not only seemed like less of a big deal, but also a SMART decision on the part of the airline, which decided not to take any chances. We made it back to Chicago safe and sound on Monday, so who are we to complain?

And then yesterday afternoon, we got word that my uncle, who had been very ill with leukemia, passed away. And once again, little things like flight delays and sleepless nights were put into perspective. In the grand scheme of things, a canceled flight now and then is no big deal. Sometimes we need reminders about what's truly important in life.

Uncle Charley, of "jump off the garage into the pool" fame...

Land of warmth and sunshine...

2011-05-21T21:43:00.000-04:00

We're in Buffalo for the weekend -- the gateway to Canada... or something like that. I've always found it interesting that the Canadian flag is often flown right alongside the American flag here in Buffalo. And I'm not sure if it's still like this, but when I was a kid, if you happened to have a few Canadian coins mixed in with your American money, merchants wouldn't give a second glance. Of course, I think it also resulted in some slight confusion in my child-mind, as I don't remember ever thinking of Canada as another COUNTRY -- in fact, I think, perhaps, I may have thought it was the 51st state... At the very least, I thought it was just that place we went to now and then with the really big waterfall and the yummy maple candy...

But this weekend, we'll be remaining here on American soil just outside of Buffalo, in the area where my mom grew up. My grandparents are celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary, and the whole family has gathered for a party in their honor. My grandparents are so cute -- even now, at 89 and 95 years old, they joke with each other and hold hands everywhere they go. They have the kind of marriage we should all hope to have... and it's lasted for 70 years, so they've obviously done something right. :)

As our plane landed at the Buffalo airport, I remarked to Rick how nice it was to be here in May... instead of, say, January. Buffalo can be a bit miserable in the middle of winter, but at the moment, it's quite warm and pleasant and everything is green. We spent much of the day sitting outside behind Grandma and Grandpa's log cabin (which, by the way, they built themselves...) underneath the cherry tree that used to provide many a pie and jar of jelly, and watched woodpeckers and cardinals and bluejays flitting from tree to tree. It's funny, because most of my childhood memories of Buffalo are of the WARM weather, not the cold weather... although Eric did reminisce about how the patch of land near the beginning of the long driveway back to the cabin used to be filled with evergreen trees -- Grandpa sold them every Christmas, and that was always where we cut down our own Christmas tree...

But this weekend, there's no snow... just warmth and sunshine. And even though I've heard it's supposed to rain tomorrow, at least I can be content in knowing that there WILL be cake. Sun = not guaranteed. Cake = guaranteed. Sounds good enough to me... :)

What I'm pondering today...

2011-05-18T22:33:00.000-04:00

After listening to Rick's distressed, confused outbursts coming from the study this afternoon, I'm wondering if we'll ever actually close on this new condo. We are, apparently, up to our knees in various forms and paperwork... we've already signed and faxed so many documents, and we don't even close for another two weeks. It's encouraging that we've managed to come farther than we have with any of the other condos we attempted to buy... yet it still seems rather far away. Which makes it hard to get into "start packing up to move" mode...

I wonder why my neighborhood grocery store marks all the prices on items in cents. For instance, the sticker on the box of tea I bought a couple weeks ago proclaimed that I owed 359 cents. Not $3.59, but rather 359¢. For some reason, this makes me feel like I'm paying more... I mean, three dollars is just THREE dollars... but three hundred cents is three HUNDRED cents. (Yes, I do realize they're the exact same amount...)

Can someone tell me why television networks keep cancelling perfectly good shows?? Three of the shows I'd started watching and enjoying this past season have already been cancelled... metaphorically and unceremoniously dumped into a vast empty lot under an interstate overpass. (Probably somewhere in New Jersey.) They got rid of The Chicago Code, which we'd really been liking -- especially since we got to see so many familiar landmarks, and the show had worked with the Chicago Police Department to ensure accuracy. They'd even used some officers as extras... Eric was planning his big television debut for next season, but THAT'S not gonna happen now. They also cancelled Mr. Sunshine, which was probably suffering from low ratings -- I really liked it, and I could never even remember exactly when it was on. A victim of bad scheduling on a boring network. But the one I'm REALLY upset about is Outsourced -- I did NOT expect that one to get cancelled. Sure, it was occasionally a bit insulting to Indians AND Americans, but it was the only show on TV where I could get a Bollywood fix... and it had one of the best characters on a sitcom -- a quiet, shy girl who blended into the woodwork and was often forgotten... but who had hidden talents and important things to say to anyone who might listen... I affectionately nicknamed her Indian Lisa. I wanted the show to continue at least until Indian Lisa became a CEO or the prime minister of India or something... I'm so disappointed...

I'm wondering when Chicago went from the Windy City to the Foggy City. We've had some crazy fog here over the last few weeks. Like scary, mysterious, impervious mist -- the kind that no doubt holds all kinds of secrets and monsters. (I think perhaps Faisal thought I was a bit strange when I suggested in a text message this afternoon that there may have been brain-eating zombies hiding within the soupy mix... but honestly, if brain-eating zombies WERE to plan an attack, the fog we've had in this city the last couple days would be the perfect hiding place...) I'm assuming the fog is just a "spring" thing around here. But I'm not a big fan, since it means my skyline has been temporarily eradicated...

Rick just returned from a dinner with a colleague, and he brought me chocolate cake, so I am now pondering whether or not I should go eat it... wait, what am I saying? It's cake! Of COURSE I should! Hope everyone is having a good week... :)

"This one's going on the blog, isn't it?"

2011-05-16T15:54:00.000-04:00

Is what Rick said when he saw this picture:

Yes. Yes it IS going on the blog. I mean, c'mon -- the skyline AND my cat? It's two of my favorite blog photography subjects in the same picture! Nevermind the fact that I have nothing interesting to say and this is pretty much going to be the extent of today's post -- it's a cute cat! And the Chicago skyline! All rolled into one! What more could you ask for?? (And don't ask for a more substantial blog post, because it's just not gonna happen today... possibly tomorrow... but not today.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have Very Important Things to do...

The ocean is scary...

2011-05-13T18:40:00.000-04:00

I just finished watching the documentary "Oceans" on one of my movie channels. I think they may have shown this movie in the IMAX theater at the Bob Bullock Museum in downtown Austin a couple years ago (and maybe mom and dad and Rick's mom and dad saw it?), but I never saw it. And while I'm completely terrified of large bodies of water and hate boats unless they're big enough to have restaurants and shops and casinos, I'm also absolutely fascinated by what goes on underneath all those mysterious waves...

And the movie was quite interesting, with some amazing, beautiful underwater cinematography. But as with most documentaries about the natural world, it showcased not only the "good," but also the "bad." Baby sea turtles that hatched on land were frantically scuttling toward the ocean and then plucked from the sand by hungry sea birds... fish with unusual camouflage talents snapped up smaller, unsuspecting fish for dinner... one strange-looking lobster/shrimp-type thing proved to be extremely territorial when it attacked a crab that dared to venture too close to its den -- Lobster-Shrimp ripped the crab's leg right off, then head-butted it into submission and tossed it on its back to die... it was like the Little Mermaid ordered a mob hit...

So you can imagine how I may have burst out laughing when the credits rolled and I saw the usual, "no animals were harmed in the filming of this motion picture." What?? Um, am I the only one who saw those baby turtles get eaten??? I'm not even sure I'll be able to go to a seafood restaurant with a lobster tank again -- those lobsters can get MEAN... I think the better wording may have been, "no animals were harmed BY HUMANS in the filming of this motion picture." I would've believed that...

Anyway... the Blogger site was down for a while yesterday and this morning, so even though I took these fabulous, stunning, one-of-a-kind skyline pictures last night, I wasn't able to post them until now:

I took these as a storm was rolling in last night, and I was hoping to maybe catch some lightning -- as you can see by the last picture, I was using a setting that kept the shutter open for 15 seconds. But all I managed to catch was some swirly street lights (apparently I moved the camera just as the 15 seconds was up... :))

Okay, I'm off to check under my bed for scary lobster hit-men...

Pros and cons...

2011-05-11T16:40:00.000-04:00

We're discovering that one of the bad things about living in a high rise (or at least an older high rise -- this place was built in the 60s, I believe) is that you have to wait for the maintenance people to switch the heat over to air conditioning. And they won't do it until it's already BEEN warm for a certain amount of time, because once The Switch has been flipped, there's no going back until cooler temperatures return and heat is needed again. At the moment, the heat seems to be off... but the air conditioning still isn't ON. And the last few days have been quite warm... and even though I've been keeping the window open when we sleep, I inevitably wake up feeling much too hot and sweaty. Last night was particularly bad, as it was not only warm, but humid as well... When I got up this morning, I immediately stripped the sheets off the bed and headed downstairs to the laundry room to wash them. I don't like feeling gross and sweaty when I wake up in the morning... ick... (What? Nobody wanted to hear about that? Too bad... :))

Actually, when it's not humid and the temperature is just right, I rather enjoy sleeping with the window open. That would be one of the PROS of living here -- I never would've kept a window open all night in my house back in Texas... I'd be much too paranoid that someone would climb in through the open window. Not that we lived in a bad neighborhood -- on the contrary... but if someone WAS creeping around at night looking for a house to rob, they'd be awfully happy to see a house with an open window, wouldn't they? Yeah, they would. But I don't imagine anyone would be so desperate as to scale sixteen stories to get to my open bedroom window here (maybe Spiderman's evil twin?).

So at the moment, I have the "air" on -- which means the fans are just blowing around room-temperature air -- and two windows open in the living room. And since the sun seems to have retreated behind hazy clouds, it's finally feeling a bit cooler in this condo right now. We're supposed to get some rain later today, which should cool things off even more. Who would've thought that I'd have more of a problem cooling off in CHICAGO than I ever had in TEXAS???

But air conditioning woes aside, Rick and I are pretty psyched about the warmer weather. Over the weekend, we walked all over the place -- around Lincoln Park on Saturday, to run errands and buy coffee and tea at Argo... and then downtown on Sunday for dinner at Q (where I was presented with homemade peanut brittle and a "happy mother's day!" It's easier to just politely say thank you and accept the good wishes than to tell a complete stranger that my only "kids" are of the feline variety :)). The walk to and from downtown is really quite pleasant when the weather is nice -- I didn't mind it much during the winter, either, but it took a few minutes to get to a point where my teeth would stop chattering... and after about a mile, my feet and legs would start to go numb. It's much nicer to walk a couple miles with all feeling intact...

And now I'm off to be crazy and work out in my non-air-conditioned condo. But what does it matter? I'd end up getting all sweaty anyway... :)

Happy Mom's Day!!!

2011-05-08T16:42:00.000-04:00

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!

My mom and Rick's mom...

Mom with her favorite child... and Eric...

Mom covering up the extraneous portion of this sign in Hawaii...

Mom, if you were here, I'd make fajitas and bake you a key lime pie! We'll definitely have to plan that for the next time you're in town! :)

Friday night random thoughts...

2011-05-06T22:07:00.000-04:00

It doesn't feel like Friday for some reason... maybe because we were in Austin last weekend, and came back with mom and dad on Monday, and then Rick's schedule was weird this week, and mom and dad left this morning, so everything has been off-kilter this week and my mind doesn't know what day it is. (It's FRIDAY, Mind... it's Friday...)

We walked about a half mile to dinner tonight. The weather is starting to get really nice -- I wore a jacket, and about halfway to the restaurant I had to take it off and carry it. It was only about 64 degrees, which, when I lived in Texas, would have seemed freezing cold -- in fact, I used to classify anything below 70 as "freezing" in Texas. You really get used to the weather wherever you live... which, by the way, is here:

Seriously, I have a problem. Someone take my camera away from me...

Okay, this may be the shortest list of random thoughts ever, but we're about to watch a movie, so I'm off to make popcorn... have a good weekend, everyone!

Guess where I am?

2011-05-03T00:01:00.001-04:00

Oh, I suppose I made that too easy. :) As usual, I could not resist the call of the skyline... the Sears Tower seems to be pink tonight? I'm not sure why that is... but I do like the ever-changing colors of the skyline. (Needs more purple... :))

We flew home this afternoon -- Rick and I had seats in an exit row, which not only provides more leg room, but also apparently results in super powers. At least that's what we concluded from this sign over the emergency exit door:

We interpreted it to mean, "Do not listen to an iPod when using your laser-vision eyes to start fires outside the window." You don't even get laser-vision in first class...

When we got home, I was greeted with this:

That would be nearly an entire roll of toilet paper in a giant pile on the floor. I'm pretty sure THIS guy was the culprit:

Yeah, he TRIES to look all sweet and innocent, but I know better. And he never unrolls toilet paper like that when we're at home -- so he probably thinks we'd never suspect him. And then he goes into Operation Distract Owner With Extra Cuteness mode and rubs my feet:

See how adorable I am? I could never be suspected of such a crime. I'm sure the paper simply fell off into a pile by itself. These things happen. Tuna???

Okay, I'm about to fall asleep, so I'm off to bed... Do you suppose my laser-vision will still work in the morning?? :)

Happy weekend!

2011-05-01T18:21:00.000-04:00

We're hanging out here in Austin, where the temperature has seemed stiflingly warm the past couple days... apparently I've really gotten used to the cool weather in Chicago. :) But as a type, a cold front is moving into the Austin area, and Rick is hoping for some thunderstorms tonight. And while I don't necessarily share Rick's affinity for bad weather, I won't mind a few storms... as long as they move out of the way before we board our plane back to Chicago tomorrow.

We've had a good weekend -- had a great family dinner Friday night, where we ate far too much food... just like our Friday nights always used to be. :) It never seemed like the weekend had started unless I came home from a Friday night family dinner feeling way too full and vowing to never eat again. (And then, of course, I'd wake up starving on Saturday morning... I don't know how that happens...)

Last night we met our friends Nick and Cindy for dinner at North, which is one of my favorite Austin restaurants. Chicago is such a great foodie city, but North is one of those restaurants I'll HAVE to visit any time I'm back here. I got the strozzapreti pasta, which has spinach and mushrooms and pine nuts and parmesan cheese... it's one of my favorite dishes at the restaurant, but Rick got the short ribs and they were awesome. I've been on a strange short rib run the last few months -- I'm not usually a red meat kind of person. I'm about a hundred times more likely to order chicken or a vegetarian dish at a restaurant. But a few months ago, I took a chance on the short ribs at the Roy's restaurant that was in the lobby of the first apartment we stayed at in Chicago. They were SO good that I started trying short ribs at other restaurants -- sometimes with not-so-good results (they HAVE to be cooked until the meat is super tender and starts falling apart, otherwise I end up on the other end of the appreciation spectrum and think they're gross... it's a fine line for me with red meat...). But the short ribs Rick had last night actually made me rethink my vegetarian dish and wonder if I should've changed my order. At one point, Rick and Cindy ended up in a heated theological discussion (as they are often wont to do) and I was able to sneak several bites of Rick's meal without him even noticing...

Nick and I, on the other hand, are the types who like to avoid conflict... so we stayed out of the discussion and instead spent our time praising the incomparable beauty of the classic gray Yankee away uniforms. ;) (Nick's actual feeling on the subject is that the Yankee away uniforms are the ugliest uniforms in the major leagues. Although I think perhaps he just says that because he's not a Yankee fan... I mean, c'mon -- do you really think the Oakland yellow/green combo is attractive? Is the Tampa Bay sky blue REALLY a color grown men should be wearing to play baseball?? :))

And in non-Austin news: our offer for the new condo was accepted this weekend, so perhaps third time's the charm?? We have an inspection on Tuesday (the same guy who did the LAST two inspections... we should be getting some kind of group discount on these things...), and hopefully -- HOPEFULLY -- we can close by the end of May. I will stay cautiously optimistic about this, but I don't want to make TOO many plans until we finally know for sure that THIS is the one. At least, unlike the last two places, this condo needs very little in the way of rehab. The only thing I'd want to do before we move in is replace the carpet in the master bedroom. Any other improvements can wait, because it's in pretty good shape...

We head for the airport tomorrow morning and then it's back to Chi-town, where, hopefully the trees will be slightly greener and the weather will be slightly warmer and a new condo will soon be in the future... that's the sign of spring, right? Green trees, warm weather and closing on condos?? Yeah, I think that's the way it goes... :)

Randomy randomness...

2011-04-28T23:47:00.000-04:00

So I just finished unpacking from our California trip, and now I'm packing AGAIN for a weekend in Austin. We haven't been down since Thanksgiving, so it'll be nice to see everyone. We're looking forward to dinner at Rick's parents' house tomorrow night -- that was our Friday night tradition for years. And hopefully we'll be getting together with some friends over the weekend (if said friends can find a babysitter... :)). The great thing about packing for Austin is that it's already about 500 degrees down there... so I don't have to worry about a coat or heavy sweaters...

Is anyone else sick of hearing about the royal wedding? I can't wait until William and Kate have finally tied the knot so I don't have to keep hearing about all the "romantic details" of the upcoming nuptials. C'mon, news channels... I'm a cynical American... I. Don't. Care.

Have I mentioned that my brother is awesome?? He happily took care of Piva and Riff while we were in California, and he's going to check in on them this weekend while we're away again. Someone is getting a free dinner at Morton's! I mean, not Eric... I'll just get him a coffee mug or something. But I'm sure SOMEone, somewhere, is getting a free dinner at Morton's...

We saw a great condo yesterday and have extended another offer. One of these days we'll actually manage to buy a place. Rick has been in the habit of posting all of our condo selections on Facebook, and, unfortunately, none of them have worked out. So this time he kept the listing out of the social network loop in the hopes that he wouldn't jinx it. (Or maybe just because it's getting annoying to announce our intentions to buy a place, only to have some complication pop up...)

And a few more random vacation pictures:

Old church in San Francisco...

Stuffed otter on our bed at the hotel in Monterey (it was 20 bucks if you wanted it... I was hoping they gave them out free with the room... but nooooooooo, of course not... :))

Bunny (with chewed up ears??) on a trail off Highway 1...

Highway 1 scenery...

Does anyone remember that scene in Harry Potter where Dumbledore takes Harry to the cave to retrieve the locket, and before they go into the cave, they're standing on that big rock surrounded by ocean? Yeah, that's what this reminded me of...

Waiting for our turn to drive through a one-lane construction zone on Highway 1 (apparently a lot of the road was damaged during the rainy season, but most of it was minor, so they were just corralling everyone into one lane... but the part we had to detour around was actually washed away completely...).

A California vineyard...

Okay, I suppose I should go finish packing for tomorrow...

Laundry day!!

2011-04-27T13:21:00.000-04:00

I thought maybe if I acted really excited about it, it would be more fun... but nope, it's still just laundry. :) (And it really DOES seem to be some sort of official Laundry Day today -- I was lucky to find two empty dryers for my clothes. It's busy down there right now...)

Look what we returned to:

Green stuff! Although it's still rather sporadic in the park:

But the point is, we finally have visual evidence of the change of seasons. We can stop wondering whether or not spring will really show up, and start wondering whether or not we'll ever be able to find our warm-weather clothes over in our storage unit... (And as you can see, it's cloudy and foggy today -- otherwise you know I would've had another skyline picture here... :))

In celebration of the Sprouting of the Green Stuff, I shall, at some point today, break into some of this:

Yeah, no way was I coming home from Ghirardelli empty-handed. (And nevermind the fact that we have a Ghirardelli two miles away in downtown Chicago -- this is VACATION chocolate. It's different. Just go with me on this.) I also came back with a bag full of taffy from a candy shop at Fisherman's Wharf -- they literally had about a hundred different taffy flavors... barrels full of colorful sugary chewiness...

Oh, and I must report (with some hesitation) that I quite enjoyed using my Kindle on this trip. I can definitely see how it's a great travel accessory. But I'm not ready to toss away all my paper books... there's still something to be said for holding a BOOK in your hands... being able to flip back to a section you've already read... seeing how many pages are left until the end of the story... Reading a Kindle is sort of like reading with blinders on -- you only have a good view of the immediate page you're reading. Everything else is hidden... it's a bit strange at first. But it's a great idea for travel, and I'm sure I'll be using it again...

Okay, off to fold laundry (laundry day!!!! Nope, still not exciting...) and then we're heading out to look at a condo with our realtor. After I eat some chocolate, of course...

Goodbye, palm trees...

2011-04-25T23:54:00.001-04:00

At dinner tonight, I overheard the waiter at the table behind me ask a recently seated patron if he had "any immediate appetizer requirements." This resulted in a flurry of responses inside my brain:

Yes! I need crab claws! Crab claws forthwith!

I require shrimp cocktail post haste!

Of course I require appetizers, my good man! Do I look like some sort of namby pamby, appetizer-eschewing commoner??

Why is there not a bowl of spinach-artichoke dip on this table RIGHT NOW?

Personally, I don't find appetizers dramatic enough to warrant immediate requirement... :)

And as we ate dessert (a reasonably sized slice of chocolate cake, which we split...), Rick asked me if I was "enjoying the last dessert we'll be having for the next three weeks." Well, I WAS, until he said that... (Apparently someone thinks we've been eating too much dessert this week... :))

We spent the day walking around downtown San Diego. The weather was PERFECT today -- I hope I soaked up enough sun and warmth, because I'm assuming it will NOT be quite the same when we get back to Chicago. But we had a great week of ocean views (and inland detours) and rocky cliffs and palm trees and salty sea air... so we're ready to get back to our cats and our skyline view and our regular old trees (which will hopefully be turning green by the time we get back) and our giant lake.

See you back in Chicago!

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T23:52:00.000-04:00

I hope everyone had a good holiday! This may be the first Easter that we haven't been near family, and, consequently, we spent our day in hotels and on the road. We did, however, listen to Don Francisco's "He's Alive" on our iPod in honor of the holiday, which is one of the best Easter songs EVER. (Mom, remember the Ted Cornell Chorale version of that song? I think that's my favorite arrangement -- unfortunately, we don't have it on the iPod. :)) Of course, my absolute favorite Easter song has to be the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah... but for some reason, it seems to be reserved for Christmas performances. I don't know why that is. I mean, not that I'm complaining about people performing it at Christmas... but Handel DID include it in the "Easter" portion of the Messiah. The fact that it seems to be all but ignored this time of year is a bit strange... I would petition for more Easter performances of the Hallelujah Chorus...

Anyway, our driving on this Easter Sunday has brought us to San Diego -- the final city on our journey. (Cue sad face here... :( Okay, YOU guys probably aren't sad, but I am... :)) On the one hand, I wish my vacation wasn't winding to a close... but on the other, I'm looking forward to getting back home and making sure Eric didn't free our cats out into the wild... (Just kidding -- I'm sure Riff and Piva have been extremely grateful to have company now and then this past week. :))

Yesterday's drive took us south into Santa Monica, and the farther we drove, the more we were reminded of Hawaii -- sandy beaches, palm trees, sunny skies, rolling green hills. (In fact, Rick and I both decided that this trip has made us miss Hawaii, and perhaps we need to find a way to get back to Maui soon...)

Those houses on the beach are owned by some very lucky, and, presumably, very rich people...

Our hotel in Santa Monica overlooked this area. Right behind those palm trees in the middle, you can see the original Muscle Beach (there's another one located in Venice Beach now, but the one in Santa Monica is the original). It's been there since the 1930s, when men did manly things like climb on top of each other to create testosterone-fueled man towers:

We didn't see any of this kind of thing going on... but we did see a bunch of guys swinging from metal rings like monkeys... honestly, it sort of looked like fun...

Oh, and I have to post this picture for mom and Aunt Carol -- we saw this street on our drive today:

We have no plans for tomorrow except to visit a place down the street called "Chocolat" (hey, the reviews online said they have great espresso... that's the only reason I want to check it out... why else would I want to go???) And then it'll be back to reality... but hopefully reality will include some chocolate... :)

Happy Earth Day...

2011-04-23T01:25:00.000-04:00

While I'm not much for the increasingly popular idea of turning off all your lights on April 22nd to show solidarity with Mother Nature and to stop evil, evil man-made global warming, I DO have a love of the natural beauty found on this planet. So in honor of Earth Day, we took some pictures (although honestly, it was less "in honor of Earth Day," and more because this is what we saw on our drive from Monterey to Pismo Beach today :)):

Before we set out on our trip down Highway 1 today, we happened to hear on the news last night that part of the highway was closed due to a landslide -- apparently during the rainy season, part of Highway 1 washed away into the sea. (Fortunately, no one was on the road when it happened, because it's a looooong way down...) As we drove, we kept seeing signs: "HIGHWAY 1 CLOSED 50 MILES AHEAD"; "HIGHWAY 1 CLOSED 35 MILES AHEAD," etc. We assumed there would be some sort of a detour once we reached the closed section, but since we'd only planned out about 100 miles to drive today, we weren't worried about the extra driving.

Does everyone remember my story about Saddle Road in Hawaii? The car rental company in Hawaii was so paranoid about that road that they actually threatened to void the car rental agreement if they found out you drove on it. Well, the "detour" road around Highway 1 was about fifty times worse than Saddle Road. In fact, to call it a "road" would really be using the term quite loosely. It was more like a winding hike and bike trail that had been paved to accommodate cars... a one-lane path that hugged a sheer drop-off into a valley of redwoods and brush and (I can only assume) the rusted-out remains of unlucky cars. Ten miles of the twisting, turning, motion-sickness-inducing "road" took us at least an hour to traverse. Eventually, the road settled down into something less chaotic, and a yellow dividing line appeared to prove that we were finally on a TWO-lane road. (We were also, we discovered, on a military base, surrounded by tanks and barracks and wide-open fields of obstacle courses -- normally not open to civilians, but an exception has been made, considering it's the only road around Highway 1...)

By the way, you'll notice I took no pictures of this section of our journey -- this was mostly because I was fighting off a bout of car sickness, and was afraid to move my head in any direction for fear of upsetting my already unbalanced equilibrium. (Well, that, and there were very few places to stop a car and take pictures on the narrow hike and bike trail...)

Needless to say, it took us several hours longer to reach tonight's stopping point of Pismo Beach than we expected it to take. But hey, we wanted some adventure on this vacation, right? (Happily, it did NOT include plunging off a cliff into a valley...)

And we were finally rewarded with the view from our hotel balcony:

Whew...

2011-04-20T20:19:00.000-04:00

Before we arrived in San Francisco, I knew there was one thing that I absolutely HAD to do while I was here -- go to the original Ghirardelli shop by Fisherman's Wharf. And since Rick and I have been living in Chicago and think we're a couple of intrepid city navigators, able to walk miles in a single afternoon, we decided to forgo a cab and walk to Fisherman's Wharf from our hotel. After all, we've walked from Lincoln Park to downtown Chicago many times -- four miles round trip, no problem. So the mile and a half or so from our hotel to our destination seemed like a simple feat...

Of course, this was BEFORE I remembered that streets in Chicago are as flat as crisscrossed pancakes, and the streets in San Francisco are more like this:

Our hotel, by the way, is at the very bottom of that hill...

And then once we got to the top, we had to walk DOWN another hill to get to the wharf (see Alcatraz in the distance?).

But the good news is, we finally made it to the promised land:

That sundae was huge... I couldn't finish it... even after all that walking...

After Ghirardelli, we wandered around the wharf for a while. I wish the weather had been better -- it's been cloudy all day, with intermittent drizzly rain. So the gray skies and haze didn't make for the best pictures:

We're now back at the hotel, attempting to recover from a day full of hilly walking, and trying to decide where to WALK for dinner... hopefully we can find something close. My feet will never forgive me otherwise...

Long day...

2011-04-20T02:05:00.001-04:00

I should've known, when we walked into O'Hare this morning and breezed through check-in and security in ten minutes flat, that the rest of the day would NOT go as smoothly... and yet, for a few brief moments, I actually allowed myself to think that this air travel thing was actually pretty darned convenient...

And then we got to our gate, and noticed that our plane was delayed. Not a lot -- only a half hour or so. Nothing we couldn't manage. But of course, as these things are wont to do, the half hour turned into an hour... at which point we noticed that our plane (to Dallas, where we would catch our flight to San Francisco) and a plane that was departing for (ironically) San Francisco, were scheduled to leave within five minutes of each other from the same gate. Well, THAT wasn't going to happen...

(On a side note, since about fifteen people asked us today why we didn't just take a direct flight to San Fran: we probably waited too long to make our reservations, at which point every direct flight was either super expensive, or departing at an inconvenient time, or both. And since Rick has been accumulating miles to get to "platinum" status anyway, we figured we'd just collect some extra miles... But as I mentioned to mom earlier -- we ARE taking a direct flight back to Chicago, fortunately...)

Eventually, our slightly delayed flight turned into a two-hours-delayed flight, and it became quite obvious that there was no way we'd be catching our flight to San Fran from Dallas. So Rick got on the phone and switched us over to a later flight... which worked out okay, because by the time we did finally get to Dallas, we were starving and had plenty of time to get food.

So after eating and procuring a couple cocoa cappuccinos from Starbucks (where, incidentally, they had a sign at the register saying "we do not accept tips at this location." What??? We somehow managed to find the only Starbucks in the world without a tip jar! :)), we made our way to the gate, where the flight was scheduled to leave on time. But the longer we sat, the more I noticed a change in the previously blue sky... I asked Rick to check the weather, and a tiny little storm had popped up outside of Dallas. "I hope that doesn't end up coming this way," I foreshadowed... without realizing I was foreshadowing.

Of course, as I said, I SHOULD have known that things would not go smoothly... So yes, the storms got bigger and meaner and ended up grounding all air travel at Dallas/Ft. Worth for a good hour. So our "on time" flight turned into another delay. But the good thing about those Texas storms is that they pop up and run their course pretty quickly, so we didn't have to hang out at the airport TOO long....

(Another side note: when we took off from Dallas, we could see a TON of the wildfires that have been plaguing the entire state of Texas recently. One was so big that we could actually see flames from thousands of feet in the air... not good... hopefully Texas will start getting more rain...)

Finally, at about 8:45 California time (10:45 back home), we arrived in San Francisco and headed toward baggage claim to face our final hurdle: when we switched our flight, we opted for one that departed late enough that we knew we'd have time to make the connection. There WAS an earlier flight, but we would've had to RUN across the Dallas airport to an entirely different terminal to even have a slight chance of catching it. When we asked a gate agent about our luggage, she said she didn't think they'd have enough time to switch our luggage over to that earlier, other-side-of-the-airport flight, so chances were good that our luggage would tag along with us on the later flight. So we stood at the baggage claim carousel at the San Francisco airport, hoping we'd see our bright blue and red bags on the conveyor belt... but they never appeared.

And THIS may be the only time today that things went off without a hitch -- because when we went to the baggage office and presented our claim tags, the woman behind the counter immediately found our bags and brought them out. (You know, sometimes I think those little claim tags are useless, but thank goodness I didn't misplace them on this trip...)

So after an entire day of travel, two cappuccinos, one caramel latte, and hardly any food to speak of, we are FINALLY in San Francisco, WITH our bags, and I think it's way past my bedtime... Food will have to wait until tomorrow... :)