Bucket List

I know, I know. What a cliche. But, there lies a truth in every cliche and I’ve recently had the epiphany that we are all, each and every one of us, a cliche. Let’s face it. Not a single thing I or you can or will ever do is truly that unique. Someone out there has done it before, thought it up already, or is at the very least copying you now (yes, I’m talking to you Gaga).  And while that can be viewed as a depressing thought, I prefer to see the glass half full and embrace my own cliches! So I made a bucket list!

Also, summer just slipped by once again, fall is here, and before you know it, we’re going to be buried under 3 feet of snow and a gloomy gray cloud cover for the next six months. If I’m going to survive yet another winter, I need to experience the joys of life beyond my normal winter pastimes of watching back to back episodes of NCIS in flannel pj’s from my couch. So, I made a bucket list of things to do this winter, including planning and dreaming of big-ticket items. I also made some sub-catagories for Chicago-specific stuff and stuff in the Midwest. (Mostly, because when I’m living in the south of France someday, I don’t want to be making small talk with the locals over a bouteille de vin and have to say, “What’s that? No, I never went to a jazz club, blues bar, Second City show, top of John Hancock, insertanyChicagothinghere.”)

In any case, here it is. I’ll keep adding to it as I think of things, obviously. And, I’ll mark them off as I do them, too.

Chickago’s Bucket List

visit cote d’azur and italian riviera

drink wine in tuscany

buy lavender in provence

buy soap at Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella in Florence

have a body scrub

go to a natural hot spring (not a swimming pool variety, but in the actual ground)

learn every position on a sail boat

learn a foreign language (french)

cook coq au vin blanc

Chicago Bucket List

visit Shedd aquarium

High tea at Drake Hotel

Blues Club in Chicago

see a movie at the Music Box

See Second City

Chicagoplays.com

china town in chicago

Adler After Dark at the Adler Planetarium – every third thursday

eat indian food on devon

Eat food from an African restaurant. There is Senegalese at Yassa African Restaurant, 716 E 79th St., or Ethiopian at Demera Ethiopian Restaurant, 4801 N. Broadway Ave.

Play nine holes at the Sydney R. Marovitz Golf Course

Cooking class at the Viking School

Midwest Bucket List

cheese tour in wisconsin

doore county wineries

visit Madison

Lake Geneva

Hike or walk or drive throuhg some crazy forest in Wisconsin

For (F)FSIL

This post is dedicated to my dear (Former) Future-Sister-in-Law… my most dedicated reader, truly my only reader, but dedicated nonetheless, so this one’s for you (F)FSIL!

Somehow I had thought that moving to the suburbs would equate to a quieter, slower style of life. How naive of me! It’s a constant to and fro, here and there, wake up and catch up. And, while I previously assumed life in the suburbs would mean I become a gas-guzzling, tv-watching, frozen-dinner-consuming American, I’ve found it’s in fact much easier here than in the city to jump on my bike and cycle to a cute restaurant for dinner. I can just glide out of my garage and travel a few blocks to our village’s downtown instead of hoisting my bike on my shoulder and navigating two flights of twisting stairs to the street. Not to mention, drivers in the suburbs seem substantially less inclined to offer the pleasant ultimatum of being flung into a curb or becomming one with the grill of a Landrover.

So, on Tuesday night, after a harried day at work for both Guyago and I, we did just that – cycled down to Salsa 17. Locked the bikes up (though, honestly, that’s sort of overdoing it out here) and enjoyed a hard-earned margarita while we split a salad and an enchilada. It was nice; it felt very urban; we felt like conscientious, community contributor citizens. And, thanks to the margarita, we were asleep by 9:30.

So, maybe this whole suburbia thing isn’t so bad. Maybe it’s even better than the city – at least in some ways. Maybe it’s time to take it to the next level. We bought a house. We got married. Maybe it’s time… to… Well, this morning, a nurse called me to tell me the results of my blood work. Last week, instead of cycling to a cute restaurant downtown we instead drove to a doctor’s office, where Guyago was perhaps the first-ever male to enter not only the waiting room of, but an exam room in, a doctor’s office called WomanCare.

In the waiting room, he picked the most uncomfortable seat available (choosing an old church pew set off to the side over one of many overstuffed chairs and love seats) and sat uncomfortably as he marveled at the real fireplace, the handwoven basket holding women’s magazines, the help-yourself coffee and tea station, and the handpainted “Live, Love, Laugh”-style decor surrounding us. 

Later, in the exam room, he sat on a woven seagrass occasional chair while I noisily wriggled around on the paper that inevitably covers all exam tables. A nurse reviewed my files, which felt really odd. I mean, yes, I married him. Yes, we sleep and change clothes and brush our teeth next to each other. I even pee in front of him (come on, who doesn’t?). But, to have a nurse read the details of your health history in front of your lifemate is just weird. Nervously, I sat there fearing she would casually reveal some horrible disease or ailment I had never had. 

When it came time to take my blood, Gayago held my hand. I have to look in the other direction from the needle, and Guyago tried to distract me with questions about what we should eat for dinner and errands we’ll run that weekend. All I could think about was the five vials of blood that were being filled and, afterward as I held a cotton ball against the tiny pinprick, how those five vials that used to be part of me were now sitting across the room on a counter. How strange – that’s me over there. I never feel that way about my poop, but I felt it about my blood. After I mentioned that, the nurse gave me an apple juice. Hm. She must have thought I was getting lightheaded and didn’t want me to pass out in her exam room.

Later, a doctor came in and discussed everything we need to know about diet and alcohol consumption and calendars and tests and family histories and over and over again reassured me not to stress out because that will do more harm than good. But, I could read her mind and what I read was, “Oh, you’ll have plenty to stress about later!”

So, today, the nurse called me and told me I’m immune to chicken pox and the measles. I’m A+ and there are no markers for systic fibrosis, my RPR (?!), HIV, and STD results are negative, no hepatits and my thyroid is normal. She finished the call by saying, “Well, ok! The ball’s in your court now!”

So, now, you know… we bought a house in the burbs. We got married, We have respectable jobs. And now, hopefully, we’ll create some matter and change two to three. Just think, soon Elyago and Laurago may be having sisterly battles of who gets to held the baby next!  

Aw….

DIY?

Since last I blogged, Guyago and I bought a house, moved to the burbs, and got married. The house was built in 1891.

Our house was a hundred years before I celebrated my sixteenth birthday. Here are some fascinating things that happened the year our house was built:

The “Music Hall in New York” – now known as Carnegie Hall – had its grand opening and first public performance, with *Tchaikovsky* as guest conductor.

The first ever long-distance transmission of alternating current happened in June near Telluride, CO.

France and Russia concluded a defensive alliance. France. And Russia.

Stanford University opened its doors.

Basketball was invented.

Some important and seemingly long time ago people were born that year: the Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, Zora Neale Hurston, Cole Porter, and Henry Miller.

Other important people died that year. William Tecumseh Sherman, Georges Seurat, P.T. Barnum, and Herman Melville.

I like to think about what an interesting time it must have been for the people who were building their new home that year. Building it on a quiet, leafy street where, six scores later, I would be sitting in their kitchen, streaming Pandora, typing away on my Mac book and updating my blog.

The house has its grace and its beauty and it has its pains in the ass. For instance, the front of the house was originally a porch. At some point, and I’m guessing that to be around 1920, one of the previous owners enclosed it and made it a gorgeous, large sun room, lined with windows on 3 sides and the front door on the fourth. I totally get why they did that… they took space you can’t claim on a real estate listing and turned it into prime square footage. But, I don’t think I’ll ever understand what could have prompted those folks to put the front door on the back side of the room, facing not the street but the back yard… That’s one of the pains in the ass. I’d like to put pumpkins out on my door steps on Halloween, or decorate my door with a cheery Christmas wreath at the holidays. But…. why? No one sees it. However, it is awesome when you get a fed ex delivery.

Another, more important pain in the ass is the 1,000,000 projects we have to do to update or to correct or to make sane various areas of the house. Don’t get me wrong – the house was move-in-ready when we bought it. There is structurally nothing wrong with it and it is a good looking house. However, little things. Like, the sliding glass door in the kitchen leads to… nothing. What begs for a deck is just a four foot drop to the patio. So, you add it to the check list. How about the absolutely disgusting 1960′s orange linoleum that lines the stairs to the cellar? Yep, add it to the list.

It’s Saturday night and guess what! Guyago’s in the basement cutting wood for the cabinet above the stove that we can’t yet use because it’s half filled with the range’s ventilation unit which is surrounded by gross pink insulation. So, at 8:15 on a perfectly good Saturday night, the poor sucker is downstairs, cutting wood to box it all in so I can put my spices on either side of it.

What am I doing? Well, I’m taking a small break between ripping old drawer lining out of all the kitchen drawers and replacing it with something that doesn’t include pale blue stripes and pink hearts. Later, I’m going to take photos of the weird room in the cellar just beneath the kitchen so we can determine what type of insulation we need to buy to replace whatever is down there now so our kitchen floor isn’t an ice sheet in the winter. And, I’m also about to go find the right drill bit to take the stair edging off the disgusting orange stairs so we can chip off the linoleum and replace it with faux wood stick on linoleum.

Did I mention we’re first time home owners? Sometimes, when we’re doing something like, oh, chipping away 75 year old plaster from the basement walls, I think, “We could be living in a condo in Bucktown…”  But, we’ve only been here a year and 4 months and we’ll be here for many more than that. I hope to use this blog, which chronicled my move to Chicago as a way to keep track of it all.

I leave you with some ugly orange linoleum:

Orange 1960′s linoleum! Possibly installed when the house was already 100 years old..

And after…!

winter II

it’s once again winter in Illinois… I thought I’d thaw out over the summer and be dreading the snow, ice, and negative readings on the thermometer, but alas it never really warmed up here in Chicagoland and I never thawed out. However, maybe that’s good for me? It is hovering somewhere around 30 today and I think it’s warm.

We recently visited our pals back in Baltimore and my cousin (who just had the cutest baby in the world) invited us over and told us she’d make chili because it’s so cold out. It was 38. Hahaha. We didn’t even wear jackets.

So, I’ve been here for a year and a quarter now and I still have not 100% fallen in love with Chicago. I may never fall in love with it, but at least I am beginning to understand it more. For instance, I now know why I never have been able to find that “home town” feeling bar/pub. Because Chicago is a metropolis, not a small, home-town city like Baltimore or Annapolis. You’re really not ever going to run into the same people all the time in a bar somewhere in Lincoln Park. And I’m ok with that, now that I get it.

We did however make some acquaintances with the lovely bartending staff at RJ Grunts, the home of the best hamburgers in the Entire World. (Get the gruntburger… blue cheese, yum).

In any case, I’m entering my second winter in Chicagoland and since it’s been months since I’ve written (sorry!), I have lots to tell you. But not now. My company xmas party is tonight and I have to dash off and become fancily clad. Oh, what’s that you say? “Company xmas party”? Yep, that’s one thing that’s changed since last I wrote… Will fill you in later.

For now, go finish shoveling that driveway and make some hot chocolate and gaze at the xmas tree. Or bundle up and take the dog to the park. Or maybe you have to brace yourself against the crowds and finish that holiday shopping. Whatever you do, I hope you enjoy the coziness of the day. I’ll be back later to fill you in on all that’s happened in the past six months… XO!

Chicago doesn’t have to suck…

Well, friends, as it turns out, I have a loyal fan (yes, I used the singular intentionally) and she recently scolded me for not writing any posts lately. Unfortunately, I’ve been busy trying to procure full-time employment of the variety that rewards one with an actual salary. It’s not easy, as we all know, but I think the worst part for me is the cheap, icky feeling of presenting yourself to someone or some panel of someones and *selling* yourself. Ew. At least runway models are hawking the clothes, not themselves. Wait, did I just compare myself to a runway model? hahaha. Sweet.

So, okay, Loyal Fan (aka: FSIL)… here’s a post made just for you. And it’s called, I’m sure you’re happy to see, “Chicago Doesn’t Have to Suck.” (Thanks, in part, to you…)

Chicago doesn’t have to suck because eventually the sun comes out. Against it’s will, it seems… begrudgingly… like a teenager getting up for school at 6am, with a sour-attitude, a little late, a little unpredictable, a little grumpy… amusingly akin to an entry-level office assistant showing up for work at 8:40am… Shaky, downing gulps of coffee just to make it through the day, letting calls go to voice mail, taking a full hour’s lunch break, putting tennis shoes on at 4:55pm, ready to hit the ‘shut down’ button right at 5pm.

But I digress… Yes, that’s right, Chicago does not suck when the sun comes out. Three weeks ago, it was only 50 degrees Fahrenheit, but I put my bikini on and sprawled across our patio furniture to soak up the rays! Last week, after a particularly brutal job interview which lasted many hours too long, I mixed up a margarita (complete with a salt encrusted rim) and lounged outside, enjoying the sweaty-armpit-inducing 65 degree sunshine. Oh, did you not get the memo? 60 is the new 90!

But, enough about me, let’s get back to Chicago. Perhaps because it’s no longer a risk to go outside without tempting gangrene of the toes or possibly due to my personal impending doom of sitting in a fluorescent-lit office building for 9 hours a day, I’ve decided to Enjoy Chicago! Thus, I concocted a scheme to ride bikes along the lake shore to *downtown*… that elusive section of the city that dazes me with its one way and multi-level streets, soaring buildings, and expensive shops. And who do you think supported this plan? You know it… those same loving folks who joined us to our autumnal adventure to the Haunted House. That’s right: Bro and FSIL.

On Sunday, Guyago and I met them at the Fullerton red line (they having descended from the burbs) and, after adjusting helmets, applying sun block, cinching fanny packs, and pumping tires, we headed east to the lake. Somewhere around Lincoln Ave, my legs began to ache and it occurred to me that this was going to be a long ride. For the first time, I rejoiced that Illinois is flat. I also questioned my judgement … and realized that Bro and FSIL are seriously supportive of my midwestern whims.

However, reaching the lake front was completely rewarding and inspiring. It is beautiful, you know, the lake and all. As you approach it, the buildings around you start to melt away and you cross through the park… the Lilly Pond, the Zoo, and Nature Museum. Grass and trees and flowers make a fantastic lush belt of green before that, too, drops away and all you’re confronted with is the dazzling blue and white of the choppy lake and abundant sky. Incidentally, being from the east coast, I cannot stop referring to the lake as the ‘ocean.’ I’m sure it annoys or amuses Guyago, two emotions that I’m convinced must meld into one when engaged to moi.

After taking a break to gaze east (and in my mind I kept reminding myself that Detroit is out there, not Portugal), we headed south, with the city looming on our right and the lake sprawling on our left. The path stretches along the lake, I have been told, from Indiana to Wisconsin. Ok, that might be an exaggeration. Though, it might be true… I’m not sure because I just made it up. (I spent five minutes googling, was unsuccessful, and gave up).

So, we cycled down along the lake, passing through really pretty parks and along the beach where scores of people were playing volley ball, next to children splashing in the (icy) water, past boats, sometimes across some sand that had been blown onto the path… fellow cyclists, runners, and rollerbladers shared the path while cars glided by on Lake Shore Drive under buildings that grew in height as we ventured south.

Eventually, we left the path and continued south through Grant Park, and then heading west on excitingly busy streets with cars whirling by and the four of us in a neat little line. After locking up our bikes and making vain attempts to discourage helmet-hair, we arrived at a sailing-themed restaurant and had lunch. It was a good reward after all the peddling.

The trip home was, how should I say it… um, yes: Brutal. More than a tad breezy and freezing, effing cold. (Btw, I’m making an effort to swear less, please notice and praise me.) Just as we were about to embark onto the trail, a cyclist rode past audibly grumbling a drawn-out F word as he pumped his peddles and steered his bike directly into gale force winds. We joined him. I can’t tell you the last time I worked so hard in such a sustained fashion. The nice part about rock climbing is that you get to take breaks every time you select a piece of gear and work it into the rock. Cycling upwind for miles on end is like the old adage: one foot in front of the other, except in little mini circles, over and over and over and over again.

Eventually, we reached North Avenue and headed up Lincoln. In all, we had cycled 13.5 miles! At the red line on Fullerton, we said stiff goodbyes to Bro and FSIL, who had to then ride the el 30 minutes and bike *another five miles home!!!* Guyago and I peddled 8 blocks home, I flopped/fell/crashed onto the couch, and then mustered the strength to draw a nice, hot bath complete with epsom salts, my favorite book, and a glass of white wine. We must have stayed in there for at least an hour.

All in all, a terrific day. Chicago is a beautiful city, with gorgeous parks and promenades, awesome buildings towering over a sparkling lake that looks like an ocean. And, until the sun goes behind a cloud and gusts of wind that could toss a trailer hit you in the face, it doesn’t suck at all!

Baltimore’s Homicide Map

Does every city have one of these?

http://essentials.baltimoresun.com/micro_sun/homicides/

It’s an interactive map of the city (powered by google) tracking the city’s murders to date.

Each year as New Year’s approaches, the residents of Baltimore are nightly informed of how many murders have been committed in the city thus far. It always totals somewhere around 300, and I guess the nightly updates from news anchors serve to let us know whether or not we managed to squeak through a year without going over 300. (There are, technically, 650,000 residents of Baltimore, making that an approximate 1 murder for every 2,167 residents).

So, the Baltimore Sun, obviously needing to press into the digital age, has taken advantage of google maps to create an easy and interactive way to track homicides in Charm City. Charming, isn’t it?

You can filter by year, district, and zip code. You can also choose between genders if you want to just see the men who were killed, or just the women, or all. You can select by race and even hone it down by cause of death. Show results and you’ll see a friendly map of Baltimore – the same map you see when you google directions from the Inner Harbor to Charles Village – but this time it has little blue, green, red,  black and white pins scattered across it, one for each murder.

= Asphyxiation

= Blunt Force

= Shooting

= Stabbing

= Unknown

It’s like the pins are colorful little dead bodies sprinkled across the land. Nice. And, it’s highlighted in the local newspaper, so you can check in regularly and keep score till New Year’s.

Your advice: Restaurants I’d like to try

Ever looking for my new favorite restaurant here in Chicago, I have a list of places I’d like to try out. However, I”m sick of getting burned by a steep check for mediocre food, service, or atmosphere.

Let me know if you’ve been to any of these places, and what your experience was like. In return, I swear that I’ll soon post more restaurant reviews. I’ve been to so many in the past 2 months, but have been slammed with some freelance work that finally ended.

Thanks!

De Cero, Mexican, W Randolph

Avec, West Loop

Big Jones, Andersonville

Veerasway, Indian, W Randolph

Bull a Dias, Tapas

and, just curious about bars, too:

The Tasting Room, W Randolph

Violet Hour, Wicker Park

Small Bar… ?

I just moved to Chicago…

After having lived in Baltimore my entire adult life, I have moved to Chicago. I used to love and bash Baltimore; and I’m sure I’m going to do the same here, as I get to know the place. A few obvious points: Chicago is bigger than Baltimore. (duh) But, to put that into perspective: The most recent census says that Chicago has 2.8 million people while Baltimore has 650 thousand. To be fair, there are about 1.6 million in Baltimore’s metro area, but still…Chicago’s metro area (called Chicagoland; isn’t that a riot?) has 9.5 million and Cook County alone has 5.8 million. In terms of geography, Baltimore is 8 miles wide north to south; Chicago is around 30.

That was a lot of numbers, I know. My head hurts, too.

Anyway, let’s talk about tourist attractions. Baltimore has the Inner Harbor, the National Aquarium, Federal Hill (aka: Star Spangled Banner), and … well, to disguise its lack of attractive characteristics, it proclaims its proximity to DC and Philadelphia. What does that say?

Chicago has Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the botanical gardens, the Art Institute, a very good opera, a symphony orchestra that’s in the Big Five, the Field Museum, Michigan Avenue for god’s sake, the Sears Tower, the Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium, the John Hancock building, Lincoln Park Zoo… I’m sure in a few weeks (or days) I’ll have a more personal and unique list of attractions… but that’s pretty damned impressive off the top of my head (and, honestly, a quick google search for those last 4).

Also, Chicago is mentioned in a violent Femmes song, which I began listening to in 7th grade when Melissa Patton gave me a copy of To The Kill on a cassette tape (“that bitch took my money and went to chicago”). Though, I have to give it to Baltimore for getting a shout out from the Counting Crows (It’s Raining in Baltimore) and two from Bruce Springsteen (in Dancing in the Streets Baltimore is mentioned *with DC* and then there’s the wonderfully pegged: “Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack…”)

By now I miss my favorite bar, the Brewer’s Art where Mark Beasley who is one of the best bartenders in the world always has a glass of wine ready when he sees me walk in the door. I miss the gym at Johns Hopkins, which has a nice climbing wall staffed by cutely eager and energetic undergraduates. I miss being able to drive the entire way across the city in 20 minutes to have a drink with my best friend Erin at the Wine Market or roll down Saint Paul Street to Tapas Teatro where I’m sure to find Michael Do if it’s after 8pm.

But I’ve learned that Chicago has about 20… 50…100(?) cool bars to every one of Baltimore’s. I just joined the Lake Shore Athletic Club, which has no climbing wall but does have a pool, track, machines galore, tons of classes, tennis courts, and cardio machines with internet… crazy. And, there’s the blue line, the brown line, the metra. So it takes an hour and forty five to drive across the city. Trains come and go every 5 minutes. Right?

Wether I’m bitter or naive, I think everything’s going to be fine here. So, I guess I can let the loving and the bashing begin…

Half way through the first week…

Well, I’m half way through my first week living here in Lincoln Park… well, ok, Sheffield. Whatever, it’s the same zip code. And, I’ve heard 60614 is Illinois’ equivalent of California’s 90210… Difference being the lack of infinity swimming pools, less Versace shopping bags, and not as many glaringly obvious boob jobs. And maybe that’s a different story in the summer when everyone’s tatas are not hidden under piles of pashmina. We’ll just have to wait and see.

In any case, I’ve managed to unpack almost all of our boxes, find my way to the Target on Elston and the Dominick’s on Fullerton without getting lost, and join a gym (more about that uno momento). My daily duties include taking my fiance – who I like to refer to here as Guyago – to the Clybourn metra station in the morning and picking him up in the evening. And I have to say this about the Clybourn metra station…

Everyday is like a bunch of mommies dropping off their kids on the second week of school. It’s all hurry up, drop off, turn around, and get out as fast as you can with a fair dose of clusterfuck thrown in. Why is the kiss and drop at such a central train stop in such a major metropolis such a small, dead-end corner of asphalt? I mean, this is one of the major stops on the NW line, right? It’s the 60614 zip code, yeah? And there are, like, maybe 8 parking spots and no space to turn around. And, it’s not like people know or, I guess, care how to do such things (myself admittedly included).

Yesterday, I was a few moments early picking up Guyago and snagged one of the few dazzlingly empty spots to wait. Some seemingly nice and cordial girl came skipping off the train, bounced into her friend’s car, and whap-whapped my car door with hers, *twice*. The best part is that, as I sat there unwilling to get out of my car in the rain and glaring at her instead, she didn’t even register me, my car, or the thudding dents she just added to my otherwise imperfect exterior. If you smack my car, the least you could do is throw me a brief, “Oops… my bad!” glance before you continue with your day. And, let me just add: the mommy in the blue Xterra needs to learn how to make a left hand turn in traffic. Being held hostage in the kiss and ride lot while diminutive missus cowers ahead in her SUV just plain sucks.

On to more cheery topics… With the drop off complete, I am free to a) go back to bed, b) go home and write (which is, so to speak, my actual job), or c) go to the gym. The coffee I slurp in order to get me out of bed and into the car in the first place negates plan A. Yesterday I hit the gym and for those of you who are members or have been guests of the Lake Shore Athletic Club, please let me know what you think. So far, I think it’s a great place – plenty of classes to choose from and a decent looking facility. However, considering the ample monthly fee of $200 per couple, you’d think reserving an hour on a tennis court would be free. Instead, it’s $30. But, maybe I’m just cheap. Or, from Baltimore. Things seem to be cheaper there.

I took a class yesterday called Muscle Conditioning. More like Self Esteem Conditioning. It kicked my butt, and the butt of the very fit looking girl to my left. We were in the back and dying while a 50+ year old chick with a teeny-weeny body and a great big diamond in front of me easily pumped out the twelve overhead presses with a ten pound weight. Between the size 2 yoga pants, the 2 carat diamond, the 10 pound hand weight, and the lack of grimace… I was left feeling like a 33 year-old lamo.

In all seriousness, though… I can’t wait to go back tomorrow. After I can move again.

Now, if only the sun would come out before the 5:27pm metra pick up!

I finally found it…

Guyago and I spent the first week or so in our new ‘hood searching for a place to get a decent glass of wine and something to eat other than a burger, fries, or wings. Whilst he’s slaving away at the office, I make lists of places nearby and check out reviews for each. Our plan is to, once a week, make a night out of hitting 2 or 3.

We finally found a winner at Webster’s Wine Bar (Webster and Clybourn). I had read three reviews online, all saying it was pretentious, but I figured that the folks searching for burgers, fries, and wings stumbled into this place by accident and got disgruntled at the lack thereof. My hunch was right on.

First of all, the place is really cozy. It’s sort of dark yet warm inside, with tables up front, a long bar along the right hand side wall, and a couple tables beyond that with walls covered by triangular box shelves housing empty wine bottles. There is a truly incredible wine selection and a fabulous menu. We had pate and a couple glasses of Casa Silva Cabernet Sauvignon.

To say the place is pretentious is ridiculous. Our bartender Vicky asked us what type of wine we were in the mood for, and then suggested a few options. The wine list is a veritable book and covers the globe. Evidently, the owners love to travel and collect wine. Nice life. Anyway, we were so thrilled to find the place we decided to stay and have dinner instead of continuing our restaurant explorations for that evening.

My only suggestions would be to ditch the paper napkins and invest in some cloth ones, get some real salt and pepper shakers, and ease up on the garlic. Sounds picky, but honestly: when you’re ordering off a wine list that carries bottles upward of $200 and nibbling on pate, atlantic salmon, and artisanal cheeses, don’t you want to dab your mouth with a real napkin and grind fresh sea salt and pepper on your salad? Plus paper napkins… so un-environmentally friendly…

In any case, we loved it there and signed up for the wine tasting they’re hosting on Wednesday night. I think it’s as cozy and relaxed as the Brewer’s Art (though, no Mark Beasley yet), with wine as good as Petit Louis, and food to rival the Wine Market. (If you’re not from Baltimore, disregard this entire paragraph… unless you’re going to visit Baltimore and then print it out and take it with you.) One last awesome perk: it’s close enough to the train station that Guyago can walk there in the evenings if there’s a foot of snow out and I’m late picking him up from the train.

Here’s the website: http://websterwinebar.com/

And here’s the wine tasting description:

Th Many Styles of Sangiovese [monthly glass pour feature] $35.
Most known for its supreme expression in Italy’s Chianti Classico zone, Sangiovese (‘the blood of Jove’) also shows a wide variety of profiles throughout Tuscany and the New World: its wines can be angular and lean, dark and tannic, or juicy and fresh. Join us as we explore the many faces and styles of this noble varietal with 20-25 Sangioveses from Europe, America, and beyond.

Lincoln Park: A perfect day in Chicago

In Lincoln Park, on the path between the conservatory and the farm... No, we don't know those people.

The weather is fantastic here and on Saturday we went to Lincoln Park. We walked through the conservatory, which is breathtakingly beautiful and has flora and fauna to die for.

Lincoln Park Conservatory

We then traipsed across the park (passing a wedding and a film crew) on our way to the farmer’s market. To our surprise we ran across some cows. The Farm-in-the-Zoo is a real farm, with a vegetable garden, barnyard, chicken coops, cows, sheep, goats, pigs… you get the picture.

The fellows tending the garden, Kord and Verde, were great! While toddlers ran around and various animals made their funny little noises, Guyago and I chatted with the gardeners for about a half an hour. Verde cut me a big yellow chrysanthemum while we talked and when he asked if I like eggplant, I lied and said yes because I liked the trend that was developing. He cut one right off the vine for me! (If anyone knows any recipes that make eggplant not taste like eggplant, please let me know).

The Barn at the Farm at the Park

As Kord gave me tons of tips on how to set up my indoor herb garden, Verde continued to cut veggies for me, adding a fabulous butternut squash and handfuls of fresh herbs. In exchange, we promised to check out becoming members of Green City Market, the organization that runs the farmer’s market. It’s something like $50 to join, but you get a tote bag and -more importatly- 15% off everything at Sur La Table (Williams-Sonoma rival for those of you who aren’t addicted to buying and never using Le Creuset, like me).

We eventually made it over to the actual market and it was so bizarre and wonderful to walk around in the warm autumn air, with fresh fruits and vegetables piled on tables with the city’s sky scrapers towering above.

Lincoln Park's farmer's market

City Mouse, Country Mouse...

By the way, the farm also has ginormous rabbits. They are called Flemish Giants and right now they are only 3 months old and I’m sure about 20 pounds, at least. They are really, really, *really* cute.

The Flemish Giants are giant-- at least a foot tall. I want to squeeze them!!!

The Wine Tasting

Guyago and I went to the “Many Styles of Sangiovese” wine tasting at Webster’s Wine Bar last night. I guess I’m a moron because I never knew Chianti is a type of wine made from sangiovese grapes or that sangiovese grapes are grown in Tuscany. Frankly, I am not positive I knew sangiovese is Italian. I mean, I probably would have guessed it if I was playing Trivial Pursuit and I was up for a pink pie piece and the question was something like, “From which European country does the sangiovese grape hail?” Most likely I’d have immediately ruled out the Scandinavian countries, along with England and Germany since I’ve never heard of English wine and (most?) German wine is… white. But I’ll be honest and say that Portugal, Spain, and France probably would have drifted through my mind as I mulled over my glass of red and waited for my partner to slap the coffee table and shout out Italy.

Anyway, what I did know about Italian wine is that I really don’t like Chianti. So, when we got to the Sangiovese tasting, I was much surprised and much under-enthralled to find that, basically, we would be drinking it all night. My attitude perked up when our host of the evening got up to tell us about the wines we’d be tasting and I learned that there would be 16 of them. Yee-hah!

The evening was pretty cool. They had the wines lined up on the bar and sheets of paper with them all listed out so you could take notes. There were six Chiantis but also Montepulcianos, Montalcinos, Meremmas, some non-Italian Sangiovese wines (which they just call Sangiovese). I learned that because Sangiovese grapes are grown in Tuscany, which has many microclimates due to the diverse (aka: super hilly) landscape, there are many different names used to describe and identify Sangiovese grapes, hence the montepulcianos, meremmas, etc. In fact, there are 130 different names for Sangiovese grapes in all!

I also learned how to read an Italian wine label. Listen, before you snicker, I *do* know how to read a wine bottle label in English and I’ve drank enough wine in my lifetime to float a flotilla of canoes down the Danube. But, when it comes to European wine labels, the articles just completely fuck me up.

So, for those of you who are like me, here’s how it goes: Castello di Ama 2005 Chianti Classico. The part before the year is the vineyard and the part after it is the type of grape. And if it’s not from Tuscany and is, say, French or Californian, they stick that at the end. Hoorah! Seems simple and you’re probably all thinking I just proved your earlier hunch that I’m an uneducated ingrate, but I really think it’s kind of complicated on wines that say things like, “Casanova di Neri 2006 Rosso de Casanova di Neri, Montalcino” or “Domaine Maestracci 2001 ‘E Prove’ Corse Calvi, Corsica, France.” So there.

Moving on… having learned how to read, we commenced to drink. Turns out that Guyago and I have taste buds made in different factories. They don’t match up at all. Our notes said things like this..

Caparone 2004 Sangiovese, Paso Robles, California

Guyago’s note: “Tinny taste – great sangiovese smell!”

Chickago’s note: “Smells like a barn yard, followed by burning truck tires.”

Luna 2006 Sangiovese, Napa Valley, California

Guyago’s note: “After taste of neapolitan ice cream.”

Chickago’s note: “Smells like paint thinner. Great taste!”

The bar says there will be food with the wine, but they brought out only a couple small (but delicious) thin crust pizzas for the whole gang. I happily made a mental note that the pizza at Webster’s rivals the pizza back home at Iggie’s. In any case there wasn’t much of it last night so after we sampled the 16 wines, we slid downstairs to the bar and ordered dinner.

Altogether, it was a lot of fun and we’ll definitely do it again. There was one or two pompous assholes in the crowd, but by the time we were on wine number five or six, it was easy for us to filter out there voices and just make fun of their clothes and ridiculous gestures. Overall, most people were really laid back and not pretentious at all about the whole wine thing. By the way, today I took the list and googled every wine to see how much they all cost. I saw no trends except that we both liked a $55 dollar bottle (shocking), and that otherwise the prices were all over the map from $14 to over $60, with most of them around twenty bucks a pop.

Here’s what a website called 67Wine.com said about the wine I thought tasted like a barnyard:

“The 2005 Ca’del Solo Sangiovese is dark and brooding with intense minerality, common to grapes grown through biodynamic viticultural practices. In the mouth, the flavors explode…cherried pipe tobacco, chocolate, licorice, cassis, and black fruits…” Dark and brooding? Intense minerality? Grown in biodynamic viticultural practices? Sounds like someone I used to date. For those of you who like that kind of thing, you can get it online for about $18.

My favorite wine of the night was the only French one on the list – the Domaine Maestracci 2001 ‘E Prove’ Corse Calvi from Corsica. It’s about $24 online and tastes like it has a lot of herbs in in. An article on a website called GilroyDispatch.com described it as “rustic and slightly austere” with aromas of “sea salt and Provencal herbs.” Yuh huh hum…

Guyago’s notes (which he has no idea I’ve taken) indicate that his favorite was the Lisini 2005 Rosso di Montalcino. I couldn’t find a single website with a description of what it tastes like, but Guyago’s note says it’s “earthy” and I my note says, “The One I Hate” in scary looking handwriting. Get it online for around 28 bucks and judge for yourself.

One final thought: neither of us had hangovers this morning, which is always a good sign. We even made the 6:38am train with a few moments to spare…

Boo…

No, not as in Boo it ain’t no thang…

Boo as in Halloween, hot apple cider, candy corn, toddler ghost and goblins, and haunted houses.

Being new to the city and temporarily freindless, I’m up for trying new things. Like, Halloween. And, um, going to haunted houses. And when Guyago and I were at the park two weekends ago, I saw a postcard advertisement for something called the Haunted Sanitarium at a place called the Theatre on the Lake. So, this past Saturday night, we rallied our troops (Guyago’s brother and sister-in-law who are totally awesome and my saving grace in Chicago) and the four of us 30-somethings headed east on Fullerton. Just before we drove into the Lake, we parked the car.

I had never been to a haunted house before, at least not that I can remember. That’s probably because I used to have friends that I went out with to normal adult things like cool bars where bartenders with names like Mark Beasley knew my name and had a glass of red wine ready for me as I strolled through the door… but I digress.

The Haunted Sanitarium is held in a building that really was once a children’s sanitarium. *How freaky is that?* The grounds around the building are definitely kind of spooky, with the black waters of Lake Michigan and woods of Lincoln Park all around. There were also some dudes -perhaps homeless- fishing in a canal type area near the parking lot. That scared me, too. The inside of the building was appropriately dark and chilly and, walking in I glimpsed through an open doorway a totally old-school, scary bathroom where you can imagine all sorts of horrible things have happened over the years. However, the Gremlins movie in the Creepy Cafe, where you wait 2.5 seconds till they call your number, deflates the fear factor just a smidgeon…

Back in his college days, Guyago’s bro used to build and run Haunted Houses with his fraternity brothers as a sort of community building effort or something nicely midwestern like that, so he bravely led the pack. Next came the sister-in-law (SIL), then me, and Guyago brought up the rear. The adventures begin with a claustrophobic and seemingly broken elevator ride which has you jumping in your skin right off the bat. The only thing they could have done to activate my fear center more quickly would have been to put me in a replica aircraft engulfed in flames, spinning towards the Earth, with 15 terrorists on board.

But, the broken elevator worked pretty well, too. We walked room to room, first through pillows of black fabric that blotted out all light and completely enveloped us all. We were honestly all holding hands, as if one of us might get lost and left behind. I think they had fans on the other side of the fabric so it pushed against us and there were definitely some staff people back there pushing, too, which made me wonder if they ever inadvertently grab a boob and what would I do if that happened to me, adding the chance of unintentional violation to the scary level. We walked past people dressed as gigantic trees that sprang to life to chase us because everyone knows that the environment is totally scary. There were also evil clowns murdering each other, and a satanic Santa invited us to sit on his lap (and then something gross and alive jumped out of his chest cavity). We got to see people getting tortured (in the fun, old fashioned way… no water boarding or any Guantanamo-esque stuff). We walked through a long, dark hall with slimy nasty things hanging down, which slid along our heads and faces. At one point, Guyago was hunched down holding onto my hunched down back as I held onto SIL’s hunched down back, as she clung to Bro and we were all screaming. I had my eyes closed. And, just when I thought, “this is enough, I hope it’s over soon”… it was.

You pay $10 for the whole shabang and it probably works out to a buck a minute, but it’s worth it. Especially if you have nothing to do on a Saturday night and you live in or near Lincoln Park. Actually, even if you do… it was good to be a screaming, scared kid again for a quarter of an hour or so.

Mission Impossible: 4wd, hatchback, under $18k, heated seats

Guyago is adamant that I get a new(er) car, which is probably a good idea since my 13-year old front wheel drive with hardly any brakes left, crappy tires, and dents on every single side and corner not only is an eye sore but is also no match for a Chicago winter….

The other day he said, “Your car is a teenager.” !! Get thee to a used car lot…

So, we’ve been shopping for cars and I want, evidently, the impossible: a 4 wheel drive hatch back under $18k with heated seats. Did you know that unlike in Europe where people have for decades been on board with the small-is-better concept *and* like practical use automobiles, here in the old u.s. of a., people and car makers alike have considered the hatchback appealing only to social security grannies and community college students who don’t need things like heated seats or CD players.

Now that the global gasoline crisis has set in and better fuel economy is the new black, manufacturers have actually produced a couple hatchbacks with such upgrades as interior insulation. But they have also, as good Americans, made them luxury cars. For instance, the Volkswagon GTI… has 4 wheel drive but also some insane sporty chassis that makes it cost just shy of $23k new.

I know this because we went to a Volkswagon dealership last night. I’m not living off social security, but come on… a base level hatchback for almost a quarter of a hundred thousand dollars? Instead, I drove a Rabbit, which starts just under $16k. It comes seemingly fully loaded with seat heaters and cup holders, was terribly fun to drive and small enough that I probably will stop backing into my neighbor’s trash cans, but I am loathe to buy something that is named after a vibrator. Not to mention it doesn’t come with 4 wheel drive.

So, we’re going to go check out Subarus tonight, all of which come with 4 wheel drive standard.

Which brings me to my dilemma: Would you rather drive a car named after a vibrator or one known to be a lesbian car? It seems every car has a personality… and I ask myself, what’s mine???

From a distance, Baltimore can look so charming…

9:20 AM Thursday, October 30

Megan: this jennifer hudson story is fucking heartbreaking

me: um…?
jennifer hudson….
?

Megan: do you or do you not live in chicago where this story is taking place

me: um…
again… ?

Megan: she is an amazing singer and actress (she won an oscar 2 years ago) and her mother, brother and nephew were all shot to death this week
her nephew was 7
and the person in custody is her sisters ex husband

me: oh right

Megan: he left the little boys body in a car in a vacant lot

me: oh it’s terrible

Megan: its really really horrible
i was just reading an update about it, its been on my mind

me: it’s very sad

Megan: also, rodd saw someone lose control of their breaks and drive into the harbor this morning

me: holy crap!!!!!!
what?

Megan: yeah

me: where?

Megan: inner harbor
coming from power plant-ish

me: what kind of car??

Megan: an suv
the guy got out through the back seat and stood on the roof

The (much awaited for) new car!

YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!

It’s AWD. It’s a hatchback. It has heated seats. It’s small. The best part may be that it has 4 brakes that aren’t grinding into the discs.

We haven named it yet...

Don’t you just luh-huh-huv it? I do… And Guyago is happy that I’m safe. And that we don’t have to spend any more evenings in the burbs test driving cars and breaking the hearts of oh-so-desperate car salesmen.

And, it’s so cute, and so much fun to drive (though I sit forward, clutching the steering wheel, gripped with fear that a stray pebble might bounce off some trucker’s mud flap and nick the pristine “azure gray” paint). It had eight miles on it when we drove it off the lot.

It’s really spacey inside, sits high enough off the road that I no longer feel like I’m driving a go-cart. It has a navigation system, 6 disc cd changer, 3-mode intelligent AWD, 17″ wheels, oh oh oh!!! and keys that aren’t keys. It’s just a thing you throw in your purse and if you’re within 3 feet of the car you can press a button on the door handle and unlock the car AND, once inside, turn a knob and the engine goes on. Howfuckingcoolisthat?!?! Best of all: in the extravagant brochure, there’s a picture of a chick climbing an indoor rock wall. This car was made for me!!! And, um, for Guyago. Yeah, for me and Guyago!!!

Welcome to the family, Suzuki SX4.

B + Peter’s Inn = Jane’s

Ever searching for that perfect place, Guyago and I went to dinner at Jane’s, a restaurant in Bucktown. We immediately liked it and decided it is a mix of two of our favorite Baltimore restaurants: B in Bolton Hill and Peter’s Inn in Fell’s Point.

B used to be a pharmacy and has a vaulted ceiling which creates a huge space that the owners somehow made cozy. Jane’s used to be a bakery and has a huge vaulted ceiling of raw timber, and the word ‘bakery’ spelled out in the tile of the front windows raised floor shelf. Peter’s Inn is extremely cozy and personal, with amazing food. Same with Jane’s! The waitress was extremely nice and we soon discovered that her cousin and Guyago graduated from the same high school.

On a side note, it’s really difficult to get used to *him* randomly knowing people all over town and me knowing no one. Grrr.

Anyway, after chatting with us for a little while, our waitress hand wrote a list of cool places we could go, gave me her email, and invited me out for a drink, saying she feels my pain of being a friendless little girl in a new big city. Isn’t that sweet? She also told me to get ready for the looooong winter and, as she placed a 15 pound salad in front of me, she said, “Welcome to the midwest. We like to eat.”

The midwest —> long winters, nice people, HUGE meals.

I ordered a salad. I got a vegetable patch.

I’m just saying…

Reporting live from Chicago on election day…

The Tin Man has cast his vote…

“Yo,” he was quoted as saying. “I got a brain. Obama, man. All the way.”

Friends in Baltimore…

See this guest room?

It has your name on it. Come visit!

Our dining table and living room furniture don’t look so bad tucked in one ‘combo’ room. If you visit, we could have some incredibly good dinners here:

And, make a fire… drink red wine… console me as I bitch about how I can’t find a bar in Chicago that doesn’t contain one or 18 tv’s…

So cozy…

And, evidently, this kind of view… kicks ass…? No, really, it’s considered awesome. Refer back to blog post one. Chicago —> big. Sky scrapers —> way downtown. Views —> far away. This is what I see from the deck off our bedroom:

While we’re doing show and tell, here’s the rest of the story:

Big kitchen (stupid fridge)… …..

Going upstairs from the living room:

…… you find my office: , a long hall: , awesome bathroom: (big ass tub) , and bedroom: ….

Don’t you love it when your next door neighbor’s have such a nice, manicured yard for you to look at while you sip a Stella in the sun on your back deck? And yours looks like shit complete with plastic lawn furniture and a stone garden? But, I’ve started my own traveling garden (on the rare occurance that the sun comes out, I take all the plants out to the kitchen deck for a little R&R)…, …

Come see for yourself… We’re pretty comfortable by now and everything seems like home, except we miss you! As per usual, we’re open 24/7 (not including major public and bank holidays, in which case I hope we’ll be in Baltimore)…

I’m just here to make a bong…

Remember ceramics class in high school? There were a couple dorky art kids who were really good at it and then a whole slew of cooler stoner kids who were just there trying to make a bong out of clay?

I was one of the art dorks. I was so good at it that my art teacher let me skip art history and lunch to hang out in the ceramics room making stuff.

I decided to take it up again and had my first lesson last night. The first thing I learned is that I’m old. It’s been over a decade since the last time I sat at a potter’s wheel. Think about that… I actually sort of identify myself as a potter, yet it’s been 13 years since I’ve touched wet clay. *That* is what being old is all about. Walking around thinking you know who you are and then realizing you haven’t been that person for a decade, maybe two. All I can do is shake my head.

The second thing I learned is that, despite my former fame as “Queen of Ceramics” (a title given to me in 10th grade by Brian Womack, who was both good at ceramics and also often stoned)… I now really, badly suck.

Last night I was the first of our class of seven to have my cylinder fall over. I went through three large lumps of clay and then four small ones, with pitiable results. When I got home, I had red clay all over my shoes, socks, pants, and shirt. I think there was some clay in my hair. Guyago thought it was cute, but I really don’t remember going to math class covered in red clay.

By the way, in high school I did figure out how to make a bong for the stoner kids. It really isn’t that tough to figure out… unless your stoned all day. So, guys like this actually thought I was cool.

This was fashionable in 1993. Seriously.

Thursday Night in Lincoln Park

I eat a yogurt for breakfast. My lunch consists of an apple and a handful of almonds. I go to the gym for an hour every day. Therefore, I do not at all feel guilty about the amount of butter in this dish. Especially because it is sooooo good…. I took it off the web and it was originally from Bon Apetit.

First, I took a couple pork chops (no bone) about an inch thick and pressed some cracked pepper into each side.

Then I fried them over medium/low heat with a tablespoon of butter, cracking some salt on top. I cooked till just cooked through (which I did by cutting a small slit into one and wondering if that slight pink hue means it’s raw and then thinking it is, it isn’t, it is, it isn’t… ) While it was cooking, I chopped some lemon into pieces and 3 more tablespoons of butter.

I decided to throw some fresh green beans into a steamer, and added some lemon juice and a few fresh thyme leaves to the water. I’ve recently learned that thyme is delicate and actually works best when added at the very last minute, so I saved most of it for the end of the dish. The coolest part, for me, is that I picked thyme from my indoor herb garden. I felt like Martha Stewart.

I covered the green beans and steamed for about ten minutes while I finished cooking the pork. When the pork was just cooked through, I transferred it to a plate and covered with another. Then I added a cup of chicken broth and 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice to the butter left in the pan and boiled it till it reduced to about half a cup. Whisked in 3 tablespoons of chopped butter (yum), 2 tablespoons of capers and a handful of lemon segments.

At this point, I threw the rest of the fresh thyme onto the green beans and asked Guyago to pick some wine.

I returned the pork to the pan and spooned some of the sauce over it. Transfered to two clean plates, added some green beans, and spooned sauce over both the pork and the green beans.

Added candles, soft music, and glasses of wine… and the result was an incredibly rewarding and so-worth-the-calories dinner…

Life is good…

Recycling in Chicago

IS A MYTH.

Yesterday, we drove 13 miles across town, which took about 15 or 20 minutes each way, to drop off our recycling. And this is what we found:

This is a joke. First of all, it’s a single lane drive off a side street so you have to wait for the guy ahead of you to finish, then back up a long driveway, and then… I can’t even believe this is real… then you have to lock up your car and carry all your crap around the back of a building to a dumpster at the edge of a run down baseball field.

Don’t you think a city of 2.8 million people should have a recycling program that involves trucks coming around picking up your recycling? But, that only happens in a couple select neighborhoods here in Chicago, and when I say a couple, I mean a few. A very few.

Here’s a map of Chicago. Every area with a color will have recycling pick up *by the end of this year*. How abysmal. The red dots are recycling “centers.” In Chicago, the word “center” means stupid dumpster. And the green areas don’t even count because they get something called separate collection which means something other than the city picks up your trash.

The rest of us get the option of driving our bottles and cans to one of the recycling “centers,” most of which are reserved for specific types of recycling, like computer parts or motor oil, hence us driving 13 city miles yesterday. And, judging from the size of the bottle and can dumpster, I’m thinking most people don’t do that. Oh, forget it, I doubt the city even recycles the stuff in the blue dumpster. They probably just haul it to the landfill.

I’m hoping the next generation of English majors will continue on to law school and major in environmental law and fix this problem. (Yay Alex!) In the meantime, this English major will continue to complain about it on blogs not enough people read.

I leave you with Guyago tossing our <many> wine bottles to be recycled.

Yes, that’s a pile of gravel in front of it. I don’t know why.

“I accidentally deleted my iPhoto library…”

Here’s what happens if your mac suddenly decides to throw you entire iPhoto library into the trash, and then empty it:

1) You get a weird message for a few seconds about not having enough space for the photo you were trying to drag into your iPhoto library and then WHAM! your entire library is empty.

2) You freak out, close the program, and re-open it. No change. Everything gone.

3) You call your fiance crying. He suppresses the urge to say, “What the f did you do?” and calmly asks you to call Mac support.

4) Mac support tells you that you didn’t purchase the tech support package. You cry. Mac support dude has a heart and walks you through the steps to find your iPhoto library in your trash can. Not there. Mac support dude walks you through the steps to find *any* jpeg on your hard drive. None there. Mac support dude gives you the phone number of drivesavers.com.

5) Representative at drivesavers.com informs you that a) your jpegs are there, somewhere, and not gone forever (whew! – you quit crying), b) if your Word files are not corrupted, your hard drive is safe and you don’t need drivesavers to fix your problem, and c) drivesavers costs $2,000 anyway. She really is nice and you can feel her sympathy through the phone as she advises you to google “I accidentally deleted my iPhoto library.”

6) You google, “I accidentally deleted my iPhoto library” and find that many people have done so, or had it done to them by their surly macbook, and there is such a thing as software that will ‘undelete’ your files.

7) You read up on said software and then wait for your fiance to come home and do it because, obviously, you don’t know the first thing about technology.

8 ) You spend your weekend discussing which programs will work with macs, how much they cost, how they work, etc. You choose one, spend over $100, and let it run for 8 hours, working like a jpeg vacuum on your shag carpet of a hard drive. Your fiance assures you that you didn’t do anything wrong, curses computers, and pours you a glass of red wine. (This is why we love him.)

9) The program finishes and gives you the following:

*Twenty thousand jpegs*

Not exaggerating, though I am approximating. Within each of four folders called, “jpeg2,” “jpeg3,” “jpeg4,” you get the idea… are five thousand images, a couple of which are your photos.

The rest are: thumbnails of absolutely stupid crap such as mac wallpaper samples, icons your computer uses, sample screen shots, font selections, color swabs… it is endless.

There are also file after file after file of EVERY jpeg you EVER downloaded from ANY website. For us, this includes: pictures of various types of cheese. MANY pictures of condos for sale in the Bucktown/Lincoln Park neighborhoods. The insides of cars (remember the car search? I have a thousand photos to remind me!). LOTS of pictures of sailboats… thank you Sailing Anarchy and Guyago’s extreme addiction. Every logo imaginable.

As a bonus, we got some porn! Or, at least some really racy advertisements for porn. When “Hot Latin Teens” popped up, we both turned red, looked uncomfortably at each other, and reduced ourselves to saying, “That *was not* me…” Crazy what your computer will download for you. Which brings us to…

10) You decide to discontinue slogging through the images the software has rescued and tackle it on your own the next day.

11) You tackle it on your own the next day at 9am and, at 4:30pm, you stop, having sorted through “jpeg 2″ and only half of “jpeg4.” (It is a mystery where jpeg1 is…).

12) You wonder if you’ll ever stop looking at 15 duplicates of every photo you took in Hawaii last October and if you’ll ever find any other photos.

13) You write an angry blog and call it a day…

Till tomorrow.

Plowing through a door is sort of a mixed metaphor, right?

Aren’t you glad you don’t have to listen to this kind of moosh mouth for the next four years…

“I’m like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I’m like, don’t let me miss the open door,” Palin said in an interview with Fox News on Monday. “And if there is an open door in ’12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I’ll plow through that door.”

Sarah Palin, quoted by the Associated Press, Nov 12, 2008, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081111/ap_on_re_us/palin

Chicago fights back…

In Baltimore, there is a great recycling program, complete with trucks that come around and empty your little bins and a drive-through recycling drop off center.

There’s also a metro that has one line and a light rail that has one line. Neither intersect. There are some buses, though there’s only one line (the 61) that you can take without risk of being shot or sitting in someone else’s pee.

But, here in Chicago… well, we’re all familiar with the L. For my friends in Baltimore who, at no fault of their own, may not be overly familiar with the concept of mass transit, the L is a system of *interconnected* train lines that run above the ground (elevated… get it… “L”). There are 8 lines! And they all meet each other at various points in the city!

But, the L is not what I’m here to talk about. Evidently, the Fine City of Chicago has provided for us not only the L and the Metra (a system of real double decker trains that go right through the city and out to the distant burbs), but also a damned fine network of buses. To prove it, consider this: they come with racks on the front of them onto which you can hoist your bicycle.

Wait, wait… the really exciting part is that the Fine City of Chicago has also provided us with a website that actually tells you, with great accuracy and considerable logic, how to get from any point in the city to any other point in the city using a combination of its expansive array of mass transit options!

Eat it, Baltimore!

Today, instead of backing the Suzuki out of the garage, I instead plunked in the address of my destination (1742 West Division), the address of my starting point (home), and – I truly love this part – had the option of choosing a time I’d like to depart… or arrive! Within nanoseconds, the friendly Web site told me to walk to the corner, board the CTA #9 bus at a specific time, hop off at the corner of Division and Ashland, and walk to 1742 West Division.

To top it off, the bus was on time (actually a minute early – note to self), didn’t break down, the seats were dry, the people were, if not friendly, at least amiable enough that I believe no one wanted to shoot me. I had lunch, popped into a shop or two, made it back to Division and Ashland and in less than a minute, a north bound #9 arrived.

AMAZING.

http://tripsweb.rtachicago.com/

Baltimore is the new cool. Really? Really.

Holy crap! Baltimore is cool! Rolling Stone said so! This may be old news to you, but they actually voted Baltimore as the Best Rock Scene… in the entire United States!

I honestly would have put my money on Lincoln, Nebraska or even Tulsa, Oklahoma before Baltimore. And I love Baltimore.

It is so weird to read Rolling Stone say that a place like the Paper Moon Diner for god’s sake is a cool place to hang out. They mention the Otto Bar, which I remember from ten years ago when it was downtown in the financial district and – honest to god – I wouldn’t wash my hands after peeing because it was so nasty. At some point it moved up to Charles Village and took over the space previously inhabited by Club Midnight and at that point jumped the shark. Now, Rolling Stone says it’s da bomb. Wow.

Here’s what Baltimore Magazine has to say:

“It’s long overdue, but the national media and its attendant tastemakers are catching on to the fact that Baltimore is unflinchingly iconoclastic, surprisingly sophisticated, and uniquely cool. As we approach the end of the first decade of a not-so-new millennium, 50 is the new 40, green is the new black, fiction is the new nonfiction, small is the new big, and Baltimore, apparently, is the new Brooklyn.”

Now, that is just too much. Oh my god… Really? The new Brooklyn? Come on… The handful of clubs they listed in this article is all we’ve got! That’s it. And most of them aren’t clubs… Ok, Otto Bar. A place called Floristree which apparently doesn’t even have a liquor license. The Sound Garden… is a record store. Normal’s is a used book store… and Golden West is a restaurant in Hampden.

Now, I’m not bashing these places: they are absolutely cool. They’re just not clubs! And it’s just killing me that Rolling Stone calls Baltimore the coolest rock scene in the country and bullshits its way through a list of clubs to prove it.

Not only that… they don’t even mention the #1 coolest band in Baltimore. That’s right. Caleb Stine and the Brakemen. You know it.

I move to Chicago and Obama wins. I leave Baltimore and it’s proclaimed the coolest rock scene in the country. Don’t tell Fargo, but I’m heading their way…

Towson, MD… Not exactly Glen Burnie, but…

It *is* butt ugly.

“There are only a few buildings between the traffic circle in Towson and the Pennsylvania line that are not crimes against nature, brutish insults to any sense of aesthetics.” – Chris Corbett in Baltimore Style

I always thought Towson was built in response to an architectural contest calling for the most appalling building ever.

They’re all this bad. Really.

The things winter in Chicago will drive you to…

Shrink wrapping your windows…

Seems simple enough – go to Home Depot, buy a couple boxes of the plastic window stuff, and get to work. The package says all you need is a tape measure and a hair dryer. Uh huh.

First you climb onto a chair and break your back trying to remove the blind without falling over. Then you break your back trying to reach to the top of the sill and apply a line of two sided tape around the perimeter of the sill. Two sided tape sticks to a lot of things. If you can get that on evenly, you can then break your back trying to apply a thin piece of plastic to the tape, on all four sides of your sill.

**Note to the world: two sided tape and plastic wrap is a hilarious combination. Not.

Turn your blow dryer on high and slowly blow dry the entire plastic sheet so that it shrinks into a nice, tight faux window pane. Break for lunch. Come back and trim the excess plastic off, replace the blinds, and move on to the next window.

When your dining room looks like this, you’re half way there:

Some problems you may encounter whilst shrink wrapping your way to smaller heating bills:

1) the plastic sheet is not long enough for your window so you must apply a thin piece of tape to the bottom edge of the plastic sheet and tape another piece of plastic sheet onto it. Who doesn’t love a challenge?

2) your blinds are fastened too far back on your sill, so you must get a screw driver and remove the brackets, get a drill and drill new holes farther out, get the dust buster and vacuum up the sawdust, move the brackets to the new holes, find out that they are too close together, get the drill and do it over again.

3) the tape doesn’t stick to dirty window sills, you slob. Go get the 409…

4) your blow dryer overheats and dies.

5) you seal the entire window shut and then realize the screen is only half way down (or up, depending on your mood, but if you’re shrink wrapping your windows, your probably not feeling extremely cheery). In this case, you climb through an as yet unsealed window in your slippers and onto the porch roof, shimmy over to the other window and slide the screen up. Pretend the garbage men don’t notice. Seriously, they were emptying the rich-people-across-the-street’s trash… I don’t think they noticed me… I was wearing all black sweats, stealth-like.

6) The plastic tears and you become one with double sided tape and plastic as you try to ‘mend’ it

I stand corrected.

Turns out there are more recycling “centers” in Chicago than I had originally been misled to believe.

I don’t feel badly about making this mistake since the city doesn’t have an official recycling Web site that’s worth a crap and the nonprofit organization that does have a recycling Web site evidently can’t afford to pay anyone to make it worth a crap, either. You’d think, and this is just a suggestion, that a city with a city-wide pick-up program that serves a total of seven houses might want to put important “how to recycle” information on their home page, but I’m no expert…

After logging my 100th hour googling “recycle + chicago” I found a recycling “center” about a mile away from home. Three blocks from the pottery studio, coincidentally, so I had actually driven right by it. Not that I’d notice… I mean, I certainly wasn’t expecting the glory of Baltimore’s Sisson Street recycling center, with its huge containers standing side by side and men with clip boards making sure you put the tins with the tins and glass with glass…

No… no, this was a dumpster. In a 7-11 parking lot. With some overflow.

But, hey… who am I to complain? It’s better than trekking thirteen miles into the wilderness of Hermosa… yikes! And so I rescind (most of, or at least a couple of) my complaints about recycling in Chicago…

Nooooooo…….

I’m not exactly a loyal reader of People Magazine, but who doesn’t love their annual selection of “Sexiest Man Alive”? In the past they’ve chosen shoe-ins like Matt Damon, George Clooney, and Brad Pitt. I mean, duh.

But, Hugh Jackman?

People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive has just jumped the shark.

I'm Hugh Jackman and I'm not as sexy as George Clooney.

We’re officially official…

…residents of Illinois. Guyago took the day off yesterday and we went to the DMV to register our cars and get new Illinois driver’s licenses.

A few differences between Maryland’s MVA and Illinois’ DMV (other than the acronym)…

The staff in the DMV do not seem genuinely and personally intent on ruining your day. An elderly couple in front of us were told they did not have to go back out into the snow to get their proof of insurance out of their car. The DMV official said she just trusted them! In Maryland, not only would she make them go back out to their car, she would most likely tell them they must come back tomorrow to try again.

While standing in line, each person is addressed by a DMV official who asks them what they need and directs them to a counter. In Maryland, you wait in a long line only to find out that it is the wrong one, then stand in another. You then get a ticket and wait till your number is called so you can find out what line you should be in.

In terms of the fees you end up paying, the average cost-per-minute spent at the DMV compared to the MVA is about fifteen thousand percent higher. While it was only $10 per driver’s license (a martini costs more than the privilege of driving in Illinois), it was at least $450 to register two cars before it was all said and done. Ouch.

The most absurd part of our experience is that we had to take a driver’s test!!! I was understandably nervous (the last time I answered questions about the rules of the road was, I’m grieved to say, 18 years ago), so I asked for a study guide. Guyago felt it was unnecessary but conceded, so we took a seat in the waiting area.

Yet, in the 8 minute cram session, I learned some things… For instance, did you know that you can pass a stopped school bus that is loading passengers IF you’re on the other side of the road AND it’s a four lane road? I did not know these things.

We had the Chicago version of and old Abbot and Costello routine administering our tests. They kept it light by chiding us as to who would get the better score and trying to make us bet lunch on it.

In all, there were 20 multiple choice questions and 15 road signs to identify. You could get seven wrong. I was extremely nervous about the difference between a road construction sign and a slow vehicle sign. One is an orange triangle, one is an orange diamond. It’s seriously a toss up.

or ?? Who really knows.

Guyago got his results first and signaled to me that he got three wrong. I stood in line and nervously waited for my results.

Only ONE wrong! Woo hoo!

Last night over a batch of freshly baked sugar cookies and a game of Scrabble I intentionally took a hit on a 4 point word and left the triple word score square to him, which netted him 24 points, enough for the win. I just thought it was too much for a man to be beaten by his woman in Scrabble and a driver’s test in one day.

By the way, for the first time in my entire life I did not lie about my weight on my driver’s license. I’m sure I’ll regret it, but at the time it felt somehow liberating, as if I just shouted to the world and every jerky patrol officer out there, “DEAL WITH IT!”

I leave you with Guyago’s first round of letters. Since we’re not up on our native Hawaiian vocabulary, he forfeited a turn and cashed them in.

Note to the brewer’s of Blue Moon: you should totally sponsor my blog for this *awesome* product placement!

The things winter in Chicago will drive you to, Part II

Introducing the Hot Toddy.

There are all sorts of gourmet recipes for the delicious little life saver, but upon arriving home from the DMV adventure on Thursday, I was fully committed to having it fast and easy. Follow my example to personal bliss that warms the body. And the mind.

Heat a mug of water in the microwave, add an herbal tea bag. After it steeps, remove tea bag and add a teaspoon of bottled lemon juice, about ten cloves, and a shot of relatively inexpensive whiskey. Stir. Drink. Warm up.

We used Jameson Whiskey because Guyago contends that it isn’t as expensive as his favorites (Talisker or Oban) but is still decent enough to drink straight. I was happy because a 750 ml bottle was under $20. I think it was actually $16.

My first hot toddy of the evening involved a slice of lemon with whole cloves gingerly pressed into the fruit. I came up with the quicker and easier method of saying hell with it and just using the juice from the bottle and drinking around the floating cloves on my second.

Two was all I needed. Half way through Scrabble I shed my fuzzy sweater and kicked off my slippers, saying, “Wow, the furnace is finally working.” Guyago responded, “I think that’s the hot toddies talking, honey.”

Hoorah for the hot toddy.

I almost forgot to tell you about this…

About a week ago, there was a knock at the front door on a Saturday morning. Knowing no one, we obviously were surprised and suspicious. I sent Guyago down to see what was going on.

I heard some murmurs. After a while, he came back up and reported that it was a chick rallying support for prochoice legislation and Planned Parenthood and whatnot. I said, “Oh, did you tell her we’re big supporters?” He assured me that he did and commented that she seemed nervous, like it was her first time out soliciting support by knocking on strangers’ doors.

At that point I happened to turn and notice what he was wearing that morning. I proudly present… Irony.

Arts and Crafts minus the Art

Remember I said being in a new city with no friends leads to trying new things? Well, we made candles.

It was one of those things where we had some used candle holders we thought were pretty nice even though the candles were all burned away and we also thought about how much it sucks to throw them out only to end up in a landfill and we thought about how the economy blows and how we’d be 1) recycling and 2) saving money and 3) having fun and 4) making potential Christmas presents all at the same time!

I wasn’t home schooled so I don’t have much talent when it comes to the crafts, but Guyago IS AN EAGLE SCOUT so we jumped right in. We found a store dedicated to candles (which is only one step up from a store dedicated to scrap booking and only because you can light candles on fire and can only dream of doing the same to people’s scrap books). We bought ten pounds of wax, some coloring powders, a handful of wicks, some scent, and we were set. It cost us $33, so of our four objectives, we were already down one.

We went to the Salvation Army to buy a pot we wouldn’t mind ruining and found one with a sort of spout on the side. We were very excited. It cost $1.90. At home, we hammered off a chunk of wax, lined the counter with cardboard, and got to melting…

We started with clear as a test run. We threw in some of the scented oil, which is almond – the thought being that it is seasonally versatile. I think so anyway… it’s very hard to commit to a single scent to have ALL your homemade candles smelling like. It’s hard! When you’re choosing between pumpkin spice, chocolate cookie, spring meadow… almond is like Switzerland.

Anyway, thank god we put the card board down because hot wax has an extremely low viscosity and the spout on the pan didn’t work for crap. Hence, on our first try, wax poured all over the counter/cardboard.

And, evidently, we used a spoon to attempt to straighten out the wick. But soon we had a small army of cute little candles we could tell everyone we made ourselves!

With that success under our belts, we moved on to red, and added more wax to the pot.

Soon we realized we needed a funnel of sorts since the wax pouring all over the place was getting out of control. That and Guyago burned his hands. I devised a patented BedBathAndBeyondCircular funnel. Finally, something useful came out of one of the fifteen thousand they’ve mailed me in the past week.

Here’s Guyago cooling the wax down out in the cold on our lovely deck:

Soon we were rolling. At one point as we were both leaning over the pot and I was carefully pouring wax into one of the candle holders, Guyago said to me in a sort of appreciative whisper, “That’s professional, baby.”

I think our hard work and toil was worth it… look how cute these are!!

As we were pouring the last candle, Guyago said, “I have a great idea but it could have potentially disastrous results.”

I waited for it….

“We could put little flecks of black powder in the candles so they would spark every now and then.”

I looked at him and suddenly saw a seven-year-old version of him, imagining how cool it would be to play with dynamite and do crafts — all at the same time. “That’s brilliant, honey. And we’re not doing that.”

Yay for home made candles!

Back in Baltimore…

Guyago and I hopped a flight to B-more on Friday and spent the weekend in a dizzying whirlwind of friends, bars, and alcohol. I feel fairly rung out by now, but it certainly was an insane drunk fest from Friday to Sunday. I thought you would like to know where we went, in case you’re ever in need of booze in Baltimore.

Friday night began at, of course, the Brewer’s Art. The best bartender in the world, Mark Beasley, was there manning the downstairs bar. I casually mentioned that I have a blog and that I often refer to him on it as the world’s best bartender and that someone out there in cyberspace found it by googling “Mark Beasley + Brewer’s Art.” Obviously to you and me and maybe also to Mark I was telling him this roundabout story so that he would say, “Wow, you have a blog? I would love to read it.” Instead, he shrugged in absolute, unconditional nonchalance. I told him I was hoping he would be more excited about a potential stalker (um, the googler, not the blogger…) so he tried again and said, “Wow!” in extreme fakivity, so I flipped him off and went back upstairs. Naturally, my glass of wine was a freebie. I told you, he’s the world’s best bartender.

Our night at the Art ended at 8:30 because we are all older than we ever remember, and everyone went back to Erin’s house to lounge in her fabulous living room and keep the city safe from observing or accidentally taking part in our drunkenness.

Saturday night we were in much better form and went from drinks at Tapas Teatro to fantastic risotto at Joe Squared to after-dinner drinks back at Tapas Teatro to a blur at Club Charles. Our party consisted of at least 12 people so it was quite a feat and quite a riot to move that many people amongst that many bars. The phrase herding cats comes to mind. We ended up at a private dance party in Michael’s living room where Michael and I danced on his coffee table and on the count of five simultaneously jumped off, causing a glass of red wine to soar across the room and land in a splinter and splash on his white sofa cushion.

Why do you think it is that Michael, Erin, and I ALL own white sofas? It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.

On Sunday we did something hilarious and superbly memorable by surprising my unsuspecting and sweetly naive parents at John Steven in Fells Point. Props to my older brother for kidnapping them and driving them to Baltimore and to my younger brother for joining us with his girlfriend. They thought my brother was going to make them buy a new car or television – two things he keeps insisting they need. The entire car ride, I was told, sounded like this: “Where are we going? I didn’t even brush my hair… why are we getting on the beltway? Are you trying to make us buy a car today? That sign says Baltimore… why are we going to Baltimore? We are not buying a flat screen today – we haven’t decided between LCD and plasma… Is that John Steven? Oooh… we’re going to John Steven for lunch?! (he parks the car outside of John Steven) We are *not* going to John Steven for lunch! I didn’t even brush my hair!”

We walked in ten minutes later and I had that oh-so-rare experience of seeing my father stare at me while trying to cut through the confusion which was warping his mind in order to recognize his own daughter entirely out of context. My mother had the same look on her face but it was a briefer experience because she quickly put her face in her hands and started crying. YAY for surprises! We had a lovely time and then went to Mick O’Shea’s to watch football and introduce all of Guyago’s pals to my parents. My dad had two maybe three beers before laying down the law and making my brother drive them home. A good time was had by all.

Thank you, brother, for an amazing experience.

Since then we’ve been recovering at G+C’s house in the woodsy burbs of north Baltimore. She’s making pear sauce. There are cats and dogs lounging around and a fire in the fireplace. It’s very peaceful.

Oddly, however, Guyago and I are beginning to get homesick… for Chicago. As much fun as we have had seeing everyone and everything, we miss our own bed, our own kitchen, our own neighborhood, and his old friends and my new friends. I guess that is part of the transition: wherever we are, we’ll forever more miss our friends and look forward to coming home to both cities.

Breakfast

I do a lot of cooking and enjoy it. It’s fun to learn new things and eat well and hear Guyago tell me how good it is. But on weekends… Guyago takes over the kitchen and whips up perfect breakfasts.
For some reason, I’m horrible at this. It might be that I’m tired, that I haven’t had any coffee, or that I have a curse when it comes to doing anything before 10am on a weekend, but for whatever reason, if it involves cooking eggs, I’m at a loss.

Guyago, thankfully, isn’t…. Look at this omelet he made yesterday morning.

Perfectly caramelized onions. Bits of gooey cheese melted to just the right point. Slices of tomatoes cooked but still slightly crisp. And the omelet itself… the browned edges. I cannot get an omelet to brown this way and for the life of me have never figured out how. (ok, you know and I know that it’s thanks to the butter he cooks it in, as opposed to the olive oil I always use in my futile attempts to make a healthier omelet… but let’s pretend we don’t know. When you pretend, there are less calories.)

Hoorah for Guyago and his perfect omelet! And just look at that presentation! Together with a cup of Zeke’s coffee and it’s heaven!

Weihnachten in Chicago ist kälter, als Weihnachten Deutschland ist…

This past Saturday we went downtown to the German Christmas market. It’s been a while, but I have gone to some in Germany and they are really wonderful. Yes, there can be some cheap crap made in China passed off as unique and culturally-specific trinkets. But for the most part people are happy and festive, the gluhwein and roasted chestnuts keep you warm and merry, and people of all ages wander around the booths, enjoying the best gift of the season: unhurried relaxation.

Chicago's Christkindlmarkt

In preparation for the trip downtown, we bundled up. We were actually thrilled that it was snowing, because that meant it was warm enough for snow to fall. (This is a concept foreign to me… warm enough for snow?! Wimper, wimper…) I put on long underwear top and bottom, jeans, a shirt, a fleece, my puffy coat, scarf, hat, gloves, ski socks, and boots. We also made adult hot chocolate for the road: milk, fancy chocolate mix, vanilla, cinnamon, and whiskey. In to-go cups. Even the 10-minute walk to the L was toasty

I discovered that Chicago and Germany have more in common than Christmas markets and shockingly cold weather. Both places also really dig outdoor sculpture…

Awesome Picasso sculpture

really tall sculpture by Joan Miró

Nearby, there is a big black and white sculpture by Jean Debuffet and a big red one by Calder. That’s a pretty impressive lineup, not to mention the Chagall I’ll mention in a sec…

At the market, we wandered around, ate a sausage, drank some gluhwein, and checked out the booths selling all sorts of ornaments and tchotchkas from around the globe. We bought a small wooden angel playing the guitar from a German vendor because when I was small and my dad went to Germany for work, he brought me a little wooden angel playing the violin. Back then, I played the violin. He plays the guitar. Now the two angels are chilling out together playing in a band on my mantle.

the angel band

The Christkindlmarkt in Chicago was a lot of fun. On our way back to the L, we strolled past the wonderful Four Seasons mosaic by Marc Chagall. Each side of this large rectangular structure represents a season.

Marc Chagall's Four Seasons

Don’t I look warm? I’m not… And it looks like my leg is broken, but really it’s just that I have frozen little tubes of ice for toes.

I think this side is winter...it's really long.

If you’re ever in Germany or Chicago, I’d highly recommend the Christkindlmarkt. I’d also highly recommend warming yourself with a cup of adult hot chocolate, followed by a mug or two of gluhwein. And check out the sculptures. You will definitely enjoy yourself!

My new service

I’m offering a new service I’d like to tell you about.

I was inspired first by a lady at my gym who befriended me recently and told me that, having a lot of extra time as a stay at home wife, she has started her own business as a fashion consultant. For $240 you get a 3-hour session during which time she’ll come to your place, throw out what she deems the horrible items in your wardrobe, give you a shopping list to replace them, and tell you which colors and cuts of clothes look best on you. She also has a side business as a personal shopper and gift wrapper during the busy holiday season.

Yesterday, Guyago got an email from a friend extolling the virtues of her sister’s availability – for a fee – to come wait at your house for the cable guy if you’re too busy, to check in on your house while you’re away, etc.

I thought, well, hell… I have a lot of flexible time. And, in this tough economy, everyone could use an extra buck, so why not start a business of my own? After some deep ruminations on the overly busy schedules of my fellow women, here’s a list of services I now offer to help you out during these hectic times:

1) If you are too busy to check over your children’s homework in the evening, I can come do that. I will also tuck them into bed and, if you just simply don’t have the emotional energy at the end of your long day, I’ll kiss their foreheads and tell them mommy and daddy love them. Perhaps you’re too drained from the stresses of the day to spank them. I’ll do that, too. Just give me a call.

2) Everyone knows what a home-cooked meal can add to a family’s happiness, but every recipe seems to be 25 minutes of prep with only 10 minutes of actual cooking. Well, I’ll come over and open the cans and boxes for you. Just throw the contents in a pan and voila! you get all the credit for a lovingly prepared meal!

3) Too tired to push the start button on the washing machine / dish washer / microwave? I’m your girl.

4) Freshly brewed coffee is a joy but the sound of that electric grinder isn’t. Let me do the drudge work for you. I will even put the grinds into the coffee maker for you before I leave!

5) Don’t have time to read your New Yorker every week? Skip the reading – I’ll give you talking points you can mention to your friends and maintain your elitist persona.

6) An hour of pilates is a long time! Ladies, you should not have to suffer like that! I’ll go for you! You pick the class, I’ll attend it in your place.

7) Honestly, who has time these days to nag their husbands? No one! Just select a topic and supply me with his business number and I’ll do the nagging for you.

8 ) Not married, but in search of the perfect mate? I’ll sign in on your J-Date and Match.com sites and send your pissy rejections for you.

9) Everyone likes to keep up with the latest celebrity gossip, but People, Star, and Us can take a while to read. Send your subscriptions my way and, in return, I’ll send you emails updating you on various topics such as the Angelina/Brad/Jen backstabbing and the Lindsey Lohan /Britney Spears/ Kirsten Dunst rehab sessions.

I’m working on more services I can offer in the future, but need to take a lunch break right now. Please – whatever your needs are, remember that I’m here to help and my fees are a low $240 an hour! In this economy, who has time to do these things for themselves??

Today’s weather report…

Fri
12/12

1 pm

18° F

2 pm

18° F

3 pm

18° F

4 pm

17° F

Gayago’s birthday

Today is the birthday of one of our best friends in Baltimore. For the purposes of this blog his name would be changed to Gayago, so we’ll refer to him by the nickname his wife uses.

(Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay, he just isn’t, and you know how straight men can be with their sexuality… jeesh, lay off, ok? I’m not a bigot!)

So, ANYWAY, today is Golf-Delta-Mike’s birthday. Happy birthday!

To celebrate, we’re going to happy hour with him and his wife Charlie-Alpha. In our respective living rooms. Via video chat hooked up to our big flat screens.

Hoorah for big screen tv’s!

Hoorah for Golf-Delta-Mike!

By the way, for those of you who may be required to transmit or receive voice messages by radio or telephone today, especially in the event that the safety of navigation or other persons could potentially be jeapordized, here is the NATO phonetic alphabet:

A – Alpha
B – Bravo
C – Charlie
D – Delta
E – Echo
F – Foxtrot
G – Golf
H – Hotel
I – India
J – Juliet
K – Kilo
L – Lima
M – Mike
N – November
O – Oscar
P – Papa
Q – Quebec
R – Romeo
S – Sierra
T – Tango
U – Uniform
V – Victor
W – Whiskey
X – X-ray
Y – Yankee
Z – Zulu

Please also note: when you say numbers, 9 is Niner. Please don’t forget it. Someone’s life could be on the line.

ps- I totally dig the J and the R, especially love the W, but honestly I hate the one for N. It just doesn’t have the same je ne sa quoi as the rest…

The Worst Boss Ever

Eight Worst Bosses to Work For by Holy Taco

Between Guyago and I, we’ve worked for at least six of these. I personally worked for someone who hits 7, 5, 4, 3, and 2. Actually, he gets 1, too, since he was pretty passive aggressive. Like the time I started dating someone I was really into, and my boss took me to lunch (an extreme rarity) and half way through my sandwich he asked me if I agreed that the most unproductive employee is someone who is falling in love. (I told him a suicidal employee is probably less productive.)

He also once asked me to organize and process all of the insurance bills for his seven-year-old son’s therapist and called once to ask me to pick up his shoes from the cobbler and bring them in my suitcase to a conference we were both attending because he forgot before he left the office. Working late? He MADE me work till 7pm the day before Thanksgiving one year and till 5pm on Christmas Eve *every* year. In return, I got a thumb’s up sign from his office.

But, enough about me… On to the top 8 shitty bosses: Eight Worst Bosses to Work For by Holy Taco

My daring day…

I’ve done a lot of daring things in my life.

I’ve climbed to the top of Seneca Rocks.

me!

I’ve been stranded at night in surfer camp in Nicaragua.

I took this picture

I’ve walked the streets of Baltimore at night!

Baltimore

But, driving through Lincoln Park today set me on edge…

There was some slipping and sliding, despite the AWD.

But I got home ok…

This is not my house. It belongs to the rich people across the street.

Whew… !

Frustrations

I would just like to bitch for a moment about something that is absolutely of no concern to you, but I just really need to get this off my chest and out into the great unknown world of the internets. If this was a poem, I’d entitle it, “Frustrations.”

I recently bought a book in the bookstall at Midway Airport on our trip to Baltimore. (Everyman by Philip Roth.) About half way in, I came across this line: “thank god Howie was film society.” Film society… film society…? Like, high society? Hm. After a few minutes I noticed that the book went from page 57 (thank god Howie was…) to page 111 (…film society). I later emailed Random House to alert them of the missing pages and in a few days there was a new copy on my doorstep. Literally… a few days, on my doorstep. That’s amazing customer service. I was encouraged, enchanted, and inspired by this exhibit of customer care.

to Random House!

Once home, I sent an email to L’Oreal reporting that I had purchased a product of theirs (magic marker-style eye liner) for $8 and it was obviously defective. It was dry and wouldn’t work at all.

They responded, asking for the product name, shade or size, lot code, store of purchase, purchase price, and my complete street address. I did my best answering those questions and they snail-mailed me two coupons for $3 and for $5. Wow – awesome!

Two days later, I strolled into the Walgreen’s on the corner and pick up a new eye liner. At the register, the cashier informed me that I could only use one coupon per purchase. I immediately and inherently knew that nothing I could say would change the situation, but I made the futile attempt anyway. “But, the manufacturer sent these coupons to me to replace a defective eyeliner.” She repeated what she had said only 30 seconds before and (this is a nice detail) asked which of the two coupons I’d like to use.

I did some quick deduction in my head and opted for the $5 one, saying, “I think it’s pretty stupid of them to send me two coupons if I can only use one at time,” at which point she interrupted me and – with more sass than I’ve even been able to summon in a single moment – said, “It is *not* stupid! You can use this other coupon the *next time* you buy a L’Oreal product, like for a hair care product or a face moisturizer.”

I decided not to explain to her that I personally do not use other L’Oreal products, that I probably will never again use a L’Oreal product, and that it is not within her job description to interrupt customers to argue with them over how and why they should use coupons on future L’Oreal product purchases.

… BOO!!!

The interaction bolstered an anger inside of me that had been ignited a few days earlier when I tried to get a document notarized at the local Fedex Office. Their website says they have a notary public. I called to verify this and the gal answering the phone said the notary works till 1pm, Monday through Friday. I went in that day, which was a Monday, at 11am and the woman who had answered the phone told me, “Oh, she is off today.” I said, “I just called and you said she works till 1pm every day.” She said, “Yeah, but she’s off today” with a tone that added, “You’re stupid.”

A few days later, I called the same store and asked, “Is the notary there *today*?” and asked what time she’d be there till. I arrive at the store a half hour later and stood under the sign that read, “Customer Information. Our team is here to help you.” You know what happened? The same woman I had dealt with before looks over from the package counter and yells, “You got to come over here….” with a tone in her voice that said, “You’re *so* stupid.” So, I walked to the package counter, stood in line, and asked for the notary. She actually sighed loud enough for me and everyone else in line to hear, turned around to look at another woman who appeared to be stacking a sheath of papers, and then said, “She’s gonna be at least fifteen minutes. You can wait.”

I did wait and when the notary finally helped me, she said to me, “This is ridiculous. Do you notice how I’m doing everything around here… production, this, answering the phone. Team members are supposed to be cross trained but the rest of these people don’t know how to do nothing.” While I appreciated her position, I did think your business’s lack of professionally trained staff probably wasn’t the best thing to openly confess to your customer base. She then notarized my document and told me to fill out the document details on my own at home… which is, I’m sure, breaking the notary public code of honor or something.

…BOO!!!!

Anyway, WTF? This economy sucks and unemployment is soaring. You’d think the result of businesses on the verge of bankruptcy combined with fewer jobs available would be an immediate increase in customer service so people would choose to spend their paltry expendable income at *your* store. But, nope.

Because of my awesome experience with Random House, I did contemplate sending complaint letters to the headquarters of both Walgreen’s and Fedex. Then I thought, “My time is better spent writing to the millions of people who read my blog daily so they can hate and begin to boycott Walgreen’s and Fedex Office, too.”

Down with the man…

Why Philip Roth?

I got my first negative response to my blog today! At least I think it is negative. It’s sort of vague and displayed a general lack of mental effort. Anyway, it gives me a warm fuzzy to think that some stranger out there who was wasting away his work day reading my blog got irritated that my missives aren’t witty or intellectual or substantial enough to justify the 40 minutes he just spent reading them.

Not to discourage that person from collecting a paycheck in exchange for reading about me, but I think even Martin Luther would agree that: In regards to which blogs you spend half your day reading, you actually do possess the free will to decide. So, and this is just a tip, if you think my blog sucks, stop reading it. And then go back to filing your TPS reports.

So… someone out there asked me why I am reading Philip Roth.

I guess what he meant to ask is why I’m wasting my time reading a book written by someone he thinks is so low and base that it’s simply not worth his time reading. (As opposed to, you know, my blog.) The answer should be obvious. Did he not note that I was *making a selection from the bookstall at Midway airport*? Has anyone ever done that? It’s a triumph of perseverance to find anything intelligible. At all. If you have a college degree you’ve most likely read the three decent books they stock and since college requires -at minimum- a GED, you’ve at least read the cliff notes for the all the classics. Hence, you’re left with a selection that goes something like this:

Are You There Vodka, It’s Me Chelsea: Episodic anecdotes that cover a range of topics from sex to sibling rivalry to parental humiliation…. Sounds fascinating, no?

The Appeal by John Grisham. Um, no thank you.

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. “Teen science fiction.” Two out of those three words give me the chills. You guess which ones.

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama. So so so so so important and probably genuinely inspirational and written by Mr. Wonderful himself, but… honestly… and I’m sorry about this, but: …yawn.

Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell. Mystery. Thriller. Detective. Bleh.

Philip Roth is starting to look awfully good about now, isn’t he? How about this… if Mr. Blog-Surfer out there would like to criticize my airplane reading, I invite him to suggest some of his own favorite airport book kiosk reading. Please hold off on the obvious classics such as Hemingway or Steinbeck and any books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Milan Kundera, Margaret Atwood, and/or Ann Tyler as I’ve 1) gone to college + 2) taken enough airplanes —> I’ve already read them.

I’m really not writing this to anonymously humiliate this person as he toils away in his cube. I’m writing this as a comment on the unacceptable level of adult literacy in our country and the paltry occurrence of true intellectual pursuits in our modern world, a combination which results in a deplorable representation of good literature in airport bookstores.

And, to be honest, he did have the balls to submit his email address with his comment, which I could’ve posted here, sparking hate mail from my millions of readers. Yes, I’ll give him that. And if he does submit a book list, I’ll publish it!

And, by the way, Philip Roth isn’t that bad. He’s won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the National Book Foundation’s Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Oh, and a Pulitzer. Yes. obviously, he sucks.

Thank you. The end.

Oymyakon makes Chicago look like Palm Beach.

I used to think freezing was the definition of really cold. Hmm… Not so much. I’ve recently learned that negative two is the new freezing. In fact, it’s more like freezing my butt off. It’s what we had Sunday. All day.

I once skied in the Alps. It was 2 degrees. Celsius! (That’s 35 F, ding dong.)

Yesterday I spoke with a woman on the telephone who is in Connecticut. She complained of the cold. I figure those who hail from the Northeastern are brethren to those who hail from the Midwest. I asked how cold it is there. Twenty, she said, shivering. Twenty. What a wimp. These days, I don’t zip up my jacket unless it’s under 15.

Yet, compared to folks in Oymyakon, I’m living in the tropics. It’s the coldest permanently inhabited town on Earth. The kids don’t get a day off from school unless it’s negative 52. Don’t know if they mean fahrenheit or celsius but does it matter? How do they reproduce? Who would take their clothes off long enough? Yikes!

Click here to see the Coldest Town on Earth: Oymyakon

Some really good quotes from the above clip:

“Birds freeze to death in mid-flight.” -Commentator

“I’m not scared of the cold. I’m only afraid of dogs. The cold can’t bite.” -Eight year old

“Until it gets to minus 40, it’s absolutely fine.” -School teacher

“Life’s difficult for everyone. Especially pensioners.” -Pensioner

The cold *can* bite - it's called frostbite. Ouch.

ps – Oymyakon is Siberian slang for, “Oy, my chilly ass is aching’!”

Octopus Necklace

It seems like all my girl friends these days are getting a little more artsy-craftsy than usual. Maybe it’s the economy. Maybe it’s just the cool thing to do these days. Maybe it’s because we’re all getting old and weird. In any case, you know I made some candles and then some wreaths at Christmas. My girl Megan made bath salts and some candles of her own. I met a gal the other night who said she’s making all sorts of craftsy things, too. And everyone knits now.

Well, my newest venture is the Octopus Necklace. My future sister-in-law (FSIL) and I were shopping in a fancy department store a few weeks back and glimpsed a $2,000 lacquered necklace shaped like a great big crazy octopus. We were fascinated. “Excuse me.. have you seen my sister-in-law? She’s wearing an octopus…”

Two grand is a lot of money. So, for Christmas, I made her one. I loved it so much I might just make more.

Please notice the painstakingly and individually applied beadwork. Notice the careful balance of color. Notice the eyes that follow you around the room. I didn’t deliver him a personal name because I thought that would prevent me from being able to give him away.

Yeah, definitely. I’m going to make more.

Yay for this guy…

Whenever I see this, I always think the world isn’t so bad after all…

The Signature Room at the John Hancock Building

An old college friend of mine came in from Kansas, where he’s living now, to visit with his girlfriend. We took them to the Signature Room at the John Hancock building for a drink just before the sun set. For those of you east coasters, the John Hancock building is the one with the criss-crossing girders along the sides.

The Signature Room is on the 95th floor, as in the NINETY-FIFTH floor. You can see ALL of chicago.

You’re sitting there, looking out at the lake, which looks like an ocean, and then as the sun begins to set you can peer out at the miles of lake shore with all its twinkly lights and sprawling darkening parks and glimmering ponds.

And then, after the sun has gone, out at the long straight lines of lights that proceed in regimented fashion across the concrete covered prairies and into the distant horizons on three sides of you.

And it’s completely breath taking and you think how odd it is for a human to have such a view, the way the gods or the birds might see the world. The way it is when you’re in an airplane but more real somehow or more permanent at least, because you can just sit there and gaze for as long as you want to.

And then you stand up and look down, straight down, at the tops of 50 story buildings and it is like magic, or like your brain is confused.

And you drink a glass of expensive but mediocre wine and look out again once more before taking the elevator ride back down ninety-five swift stories to become, once again, a Michigan Avenue pedestrian.

Is that a gun in your pocket or are ya just glad to see me?

You must watch this with sound. Honestly, if you’re at work and can’t turn on the sound, wait till you get home. It’s worth it

Today in Illinois

It snowed, I’d guess, about three or four inches last night and this morning. The path between the back door and the garage door was an unmarred palate of clean, white snow.

If this happened in Baltimore, we’d be freaking out, throwing snowballs, running in circles to make patterns in the snow with our footprints, telling stories about how brutal it was to push the snow off the windshield. Schools may not close, but they would definitely have a late delay. Salt trucks would be thundering around like hummers at war. We’d declare that, with this one snow shower, winter had come and gone and we’d start looking forward to spring.

Here in Chicago… no big deal. Just some snow. It’ll happen again – maybe tomorrow, maybe on Sunday. At some point it will warm up enough for some rain and we’ll all be curious about being able to see the sidewalks again. Then, a day or two later more snow will come and turn our little white wonderland back into a little white wonderland.

Oh, and today our governor got impeached.

Just another day in Illinois. It snowed and the governor got impeached.

Loan-A-Friend

I have an idea for a new business. Well, a new service. A service business. It’s called Loan-A-Friend.

In my experience, most of the people walking around out there really are either retarded, an idiot, or simply a jerk. So, let’s say that takes up 90% of your local population (which, if you’re honest with yourself, you’d agree is true). You’ve got about ten out of a hundred people who fit the category of “this person doesn’t make me want to punch him, scream at him, or become a hermit just to escape.”

That’s horrible!

And, out of those ten people, one is probably a housewife with 2 kids, one is in grad school and too busy to hang out with you, one is a frat boy, two are into extreme sports that would kill you, one works the nightshift so only has free time while you’re at work, two you haven’t met nor will ever have the chance to meet, and one is dating your best friend and, therefor, untouchable, even as a buddy (unless you want to say so long to your BFF pact).

You’re left with one person with whom you could actually get along with, understand, relate to, appreciate, get drinks with, open up to, depend on, etc.

The math works out that, over ten years of meeting a hundred or so people a year, you might have met ten of the golden ones. If you’re lucky, over that ten year period, you managed to retain two or three of them. The rest fell to the wayside through various and typical reasons… drunken misunderstandings… fraternal jealousies… maybe you hooked up with his/her significant other and ruined it (and of course *that* friendship didn’t last, either)… maybe at some point you were too busy for too long or they were and the friendship just dissolved over time… Whatever. After ten years of meeting, gauging, judging, trusting, hoping, trying, drinking… you have two or three really, really good friends.

Then you up and move to a new city. Well, who has another ten years to go through all that again? That’s why I propose, “Loan-A-Friend.” It’s sort of like six degrees of kevin bacon except with an actual point and a worthwhile reward. You tell me where you are and, if I know a cool friend there, I’ll call them up and say, “Hey, CoolFriend. I know this other CoolFriend and he/she is stuck in your lamo city with no one to hang out with.” And CoolFriend will call you. And, you can do the same for me.

In fact, my good friend Roddell from charm city did that just recently, and called up a girl he knows who lives in Chicago. I sent her an email, she replied, we chatted a bit, and now we’re having drinks tonight.

I’m really excited.

She seems nice.

So, is that weird, or does Loan -A-Friend make perfect sense to you, too?

The results are in…

Loan-A-Friend is a success!

Not only was Roddell’s friend a completely lovely girl, she is smart, friendly, laid back, and brought friends along. To top it off, she took us north to Andersonville to a bar called Simon’s that did not (brace yourself) have a single television in the joint. Granted, it’s a total dive with various surfaces you prefer not to touch, but at its core it’s a perfectly fine dive bar filled with all sorts of scientist/engineer/anthopology PhD postdocs and the like. I even met a foreigner… which, for me, is a fundamental element of a good place to be. It felt almost like the Brewer’s Art – but with the grime of Club Charles thrown in for good measure.

I loved it. And she is great. She’s a PhD student herself and her fiance is a nonfiction writing student. It was so good to get out and I learned what part of my Chicago Problem is. I live in Lincoln Park. Evidently, I was informed, it’s full of doctors, lawyers, and bankers instead of places like Andersonville, which is filled with scientists, students, and coffee shop workers.

Since I mentioned that Simon’s in Andersonville contains not a nary a television, I thought I’d show you some (albeit) blurry pictures of:

1) a tapas bar in Lincoln Park that has all the ambiance one would hope for… except for its televisions

Cafe Babareeba

Nothing says Spain like meat hanging from the ceiling and a couple flat screens.

and 2) Pint, a two level bar in Bucktown that not only has a plethora of flat screens on every wall, but *was playing Will and Grace on a Saturday night*! Obviously, for those of us who HATE going out on Saturday nights because we miss our favorite reruns…

Pint on Milwaukee

Did not mean to take a pic of a dude picking his nose... he was just in the way.

Nobody really watches this show, do they? They do at Pint!

The Early Morning in Winter

It was 6:25 am when we stepped onto the back porch this morning. It was still dark and it was seventeen below.

Seventeen Below.

The car’s dashboard sensor featured a bright orange caution signal, which Guyago said meant that the tires could be low from the cold. Pulling out of the garage, onto the hard, packed snow of the alley, the car groaned in ways I’ve never heard.

We had to race to the train this morning… we weren’t fully prepared when we went to bed last night and ended up wasting precious moments running to and fro looking for the extra fleece, his laptop, scarves.

I tend to wear the same thing every morning for these quick and icy round trips since I jump out of bed and throw on the warmest items I own. Always: long sleeved tee, fleece, jeans, Smart-Wool socks, fleece vest, scarf wrapped perfectly to block wind form the back of my neck. Hat. Coat. Gloves. Boots. The scarf usually covers the lower portion of my face. Honestly, who puts a bra on under a shirt covered by a fleece covered by a vest covered by a coat for a 15 minute round trip? Not me.

I skidded into the train station at 6:35 – giving Guyago two minutes to get out of the car with all his stuff, run across the street dodging traffic, across a parking lot, through a tunnel, and up some stairs to the platform before the train arrives at 6:37. It departs at 6:38.

When I got back home, I stood in the coziness of the kitchen, looking out through the back door. Here are some observations I made of what things look like when the sun is breaking and it’s in double digits below zero.

The smoke coming out of chimneys is purple against the pale grayish blue sky.

Snow covers everything: angled roof tops, window ledges, fence posts, railings, tree branches, bushes, gardens… everything but a few salted pathways.

Steam rises off the snow-covered roofs in a periwinkle mist.

The wind blows sparkling gusts of snow off the rooftops and low across the sky.

Things are very quiet, as if the snow is a sound insulator covering the entire city.

Odd things happen when it’s this cold. The *inside* of the car windows freeze over with thin sheets of ice from the heat of your body. The sound of the tires on the packed snow is eerie… the snow cracks and creaks, breaking apart and shifting into itself.

When you step from the warmth of indoors into the cold and inhale for the first time, your breath catches in your throat in protest and the moisture inside your nose freezes, so that you are suddenly very conscious of the existence of that part of your body.

The lock and knob on the inside of the garage’s back door become frozen, with small piles of dry ice building up on top of the lock’s casing and the door’s handle.

Walking across the path, back to the house, the only sound I hear is the sound my boots make as they crack the salt sprinkled across the path. By tomorrow, the path will be snow-covered again.

Galena ILL

Guyago and I went out to Galena, Illinois for a week. He had to take a furlough and it just seems unintuitive to take an expensive vacation when you’re not being paid. Luckily, his mom and stepdad have a house out on a golf course in the middle of nowhere. Well, in the middle of a hilly, pastoral, beautiful nowhere.

Packing was so typical of us: I spent the majority of my preparations searching through unpacked boxes for my snowboarding gear and then threw half my wardrobe into my suitcase. We then quickly emptied the fridge into a cooler, filled our wine tote with bottles of wine, grabbed some books, remembered to lock the doors, and – not as early as we had planned – left on Monday morning for a week in the snowy wonderland of western Illinois.

We never skied.

Instead, we read books, played Scrabble, did crosswords, hunkered down in the club house to use the internet for a few hours of work, walked through a deserted downtown, drank wine, grilled steaks. We did read a brochure about local skiing, but we were too busy doing nothing.

When we first arrived, we hit up the local tavern for Monday Taco Night. Three tacos for $2.50. Not bad. The rest of the time we put things on the grill. It was awesome because cooking meant me cutting things up and then reading a book while Guyago darted in and out of the cold monitoring meat temperatures.

We completed two crossword puzzles. However, we used the sporadic and spotty internet connection through our wireless card to look up a lot of the answers. We had to hold the laptop up in front of the window and wait for long stretches of moments while the connection churned… but eventually we learned that the governor of NY’s name is David Paterson and that the nickname of Beethoven’s 3rd symphony is Eroica. Despite the fact that we cheated, we still felt triumphant. Honestly. It was a lot of work to look all that stuff up.

We also took time to stand in the freezing night air and look at the stars. There were many.

We walked through downtown Galena, which is quaint and filled with shops filled with trinkets. Most shops were not open during the weekdays and the ones that were had shopkeepers who seemed genuinely happy to hear the bell over the door tinkle. I really felt that they viewed us less as potential customers and more as welcome visitors. They were just happy to see someone. We didn’t buy much. No one seems to need tchotchkas in a recession. We bought some fancy olive oil at one place and, in a book store, a drawing manual.

We spent that evening listening to music and drawing pictures. I drew pictures of faces. Guyago drew me drawing faces.

I finished a book. The Beautiful and Damned. Not a great book to read when the country is spiraling, but a great book.

We wondered what animals left various tracks in the snow.

We slept late every day and worked out once.

I won at Scrabble despite coming out of the gate with a 3 pointer. Maybe he lets me win because I would sulk so pathetically afterwards if I didn’t. Anyway, I won.

We headed back into town on Saturday morning, with enough time to unpack the cooler, relax a little, and take showers before heading off to a party at the Chicago Yacht Club. Even though we were thoroughly rested from our week away, we were still home in bed by 10:30. It takes time to transition back to the excitement of the big city…

The rolling hills of Galena remind me of a Grandma Moses painting.

The Joy of Spam

I have the same yahoo email address I created when I was 24. Eons ago. Enough time for multitudes of marketing professionals to surreptitiously, for one seemingly appealing reason or another, obtain my address and then sell it to multitudes of other marketing professionals.

I wish there was some sort of internet applet called Six Degrees of MarketingProfessionalsThatSuckeredYouInAndThenSoldYourEmailAddressTo ThousandsOfOtherMarketingProfessionals so you could trace the trail of spam back to its roots. Just for fun. Just to observe the insanity that is web based marketing.

Anyway, in the current economy (one of my favorite phrases now… ITCE), no one wants to spend money and every business is freaking out, resulting in slashed prices, massive promos, and quantities of spam like you’ve never seen before.

But, instead of driving me crazy, it has had an unexpected effect. I like it. I get a sensation of unabashed and unrelenting willpower every time I click ‘delete’ on one of those emails. It’s as if I’m saying, “No, no you bastard, despite your saavy promotional speak, I am not falling victim to you! I am not squandering my money on your cheap wares! Despite the amazing deal you are offering me, I am not going to be a slave to materialism ITCE!”

I especially like it if the email’s subject line is just appealing enough that I open the email before I delete it, because I know that’s sending subtle web optimization statistics to their marketing department and I imagine a team of pasty marketing schmos scrambling around in vain at the ‘ding’ of my click onto their website. Ha!

Just this morning I joyfully deleted email promotions from the following companies:

The New Yorker – Win a Delicious Valentine’s Day Treat!

REI – Winter Sale!

Bath and Body Works – Free Body Lotion Offer!

United Airways – Spring Savings!

Gevalia – Gevalia’s Coffee Lover’s Kit!

Airtran, Williams Sonoma, Southwest, Victoria’s Secret, Aerosols, Zappo’s… the list goes on and on. And I click, delete, click, delete to my heart’s content!

Floridaaahhhh…

The best part about dating a sailor is that they take you to beautiful places and then go away all day.

At the Yacht Club... on the terrace.

Guyago sailed in the St Petersburg regatta this past weekend and I, of course, went along. Before we left, it had been sort of warm here… well, it was actually very warm considering the season. Our flight was on Wednesday, so on Tuesday I got a manicure and a pedicure in preparation for the trip. Because the weather was so surprisingly fair, I stopped into a nice bakery down on Wells I’ve been wanting to check out. I sat by the lake shore and wrote down my impressions of the city around me. These notes include:

Large sheets of ice float down the canal between the lake and the city, congregating in clusters when they bump into the docks.

I can hear the sound of the lake’s water lapping at the rough, broken cement shoreline, wooden posts, and cement pylons.

There is a hum of traffic behind me as thousands of people traverse north and south on Lake Shore Drive. A siren. The roar of an airplane.

The sun is setting behind a tree in the park, beyond the traffic, behind the tall buildings.

The air is cold and rustic, the air of a warm day in February. Everyone is out: jogging, walking, biking. Car windows are down.

The wind blows hard. Dead leaves in the park swirl and leap into the lake. The pages of my notebook flutter wildly.

I can count at least 62 silhouettes of sky scrapers on the horizon.

On Wednesday, we flew to Florida, arriving into Tampa at around 8:30pm. The weather was not majestic, but it was close. The temperatures the residents of Chicago glorified the day before would send the residents of St Petersburg under goose down comforters and wool sweaters – if they owned any. We enjoyed a steady 65 to 75 degrees all weekend.

St Petersburg is small, at least the downtown area is. The whole place has 250,000 people. Downtown is quaint, with yellow stucco buildings, nice shops, outdoor tables for cafes, and plenty of palm trees.

Guyago sailed, along with his dad and two other men, while I lounged around with his stepmom and their team mate’s girlfriend. We went to the beach and lounged in the sun. We bought some shoes. I purchased a fine new Timbuk2 bag. We did crossword puzzles. We drank margaritas at the yacht club, near the pool. When the guys came back from sailing, they’d grab a drink, take a shower, and then we’d all go to dinner. I’m sure I gained five pounds over the weekend.

I also found my wedding dress. !! Guyago’s stepmom, who we call Belle Mere, used to live in the area a couple years ago and knows of a very good dress shop. When we were visiting last year for the same regatta, she and I went and looked for wedding dresses for *her* and found the one she eventually decided upon. It is really a beautiful dress and she made a gorgeous bride. Well, this time around, we thought we’d just go say hi to the dress shop owner and look around to get ideas for my upcoming turn. We liked three, but none enough to fall in love. Until we went back the next day.

I had said to Belle Mere: “I like the fabric of one, but the cut of another. If we could mix them, that’s the dress I’d want.” When we told this to the dress shop owner, she seemed to feel there was an absurdly easy solution. As I stood in the one I liked the fabric of, she adjusted it to reflect the cut I like and voila…! I got teary.

I had to decide that day so she could make the major alterations and then sew it later on. So, I did it. Well, I did talk to my mom for an hour first as I stood at the end of a pier squinting into the sunshine and then I talked to Guyago briefly right before I went back to the shop, just to bolster my confidence.

See, I never imagined myself in a wedding gown, even as a little girl. I just never dreamed of it. Flipping through catalogues and magazines, I always thought wedding dresses were pretty but, somehow, not my thing. But, as my mom said the other day, “The closer a person gets to actually getting married, the more they appreciate what a big step in life it is, and the more they want to celebrate and honor it.” So, despite saying my entire life that I never want to walk down an aisle, never want to have a ceremony, never want to wear the white dress… here I am, so in love with a man that I think he gives my existence more meaning, and ready to embrace the white dress. And on Saturday night, I dreamt all night about it.

I’m back in Chicago now, and it’s cold and there’s a light dusting of snow on the ground. It’s seventeen degrees out. And I own a wedding dress. It’s so beautiful, it’s a shame I won’t see it again for a year. I’ll have to go back and have a final fitting, but not till January. And you, poor, dear reader, will have to wait till we tie the knot to see it!

St Petersburg at the beach... I can't wait to go back...

The upside of the downward spiral…

I bought all of these ties the other day. I had to take the car, which we’ve named Henry by the way, in for an oil change. There was a mall next door. There was a sale. Yellow dot sale; 80% off sale price. Like I said, I bought all these ties. For the price of one normally priced tie. Actually, less than one. I spent $35.

It was like shoe shopping in Puerto Rico (I bought 8 pairs of shoes for $140… the only concern being how to fit them all in my suitcase.) When Guyago got home, I gave them to him one by one. It was like Mary Poppins’ handbag… ties just kept appearing, one after the other. I made him try them all on. I made him choose a favorite. (To my surprise, he picked the purple and the brown as a tie for first place… I almost didn’t even buy the purple, but when it’s $4 you take the plunge easily.)

It was a fun day. One of the few pleasures made available by The Current Economy.

Visit to Baltimore, II

It’s certainly been a while since I wrote anything… I’ve been a little busy with other projects. I know, I know – I’ve missed you, too. <hug, air kiss>

We went to Baltimore last weekend and had a really nice time. Saw lots of friends. Unfortunately, missed lots of friends, too. That’s the problem when you have a bazillion friends and only three days to see them all. However, we did manage to at least see most of everyone. I cannot believe I did not make it to the Brewer’s Art *once*, but we did eat a late night dinner at Tapas Teatro, a big dinner at the Helmand, and happy hour small foods at the Wine Market. And they were all fabulous.

A couple things I noticed this time around… Baltimore has great architecture. It is also a wonderful city in which to live, providing you have a lot of money. The weather over the weekend was fantastic; good enough that I was walking around Charles Village and Guilford in a pair of flip flops and a short sleeved shirt.

And, I have to say that while Chicago obviously has more to offer in the way of true city life, I couldn’t help but notice how nice it is to meander through Guilford, walking along streets lined with gardens, trees, spacious lawns, and stately 100-year-old, slate-roofed houses. Birds chirped. Dogs and their owners shuffled by. Flowers were beginning to bloom.

Driving around the areas that are less residential and more commercial, you notice the Federal style architecture that permeates the city. I always took it for granted, especially having been originally from Annapolis, but now it seemed not only more obvious but also more prevalent. Somewhere deep in my imagination, there was a little man in a colonial uniform about to pop out of the symmetrical front of some building.

I went with a good friend to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and listened to a performance of Mozart’s Requiem. It was deeply beautiful. It cost $12 to get a cab there from the other side of the city, about 2 minutes to get into the symphony hall, and a glass of wine at intermission (they did a Stravinsky piece first). The musicians were great and the performance was impressive

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that Baltimore seemed quaint and cosmopolitan all at once.

Last night, we had dinner here in Chicago with some new friends who just moved from Manhattan. It was hard to describe Baltimore because I felt like a dolt defending it. I wanted to say, “right… right, it’s not New York. It’s not Chicago. I realize it’s largely considered in the realm of the Detroits and Clevelands of the world. But, really, it’s not.”

It’s not a perfect place, but I guess it’s simply the fact that it’s mine. I know the good restaurants. I like being able to drive across town in less than 30 minutes, even in *rush hour*. My friends are there. Maybe one day I’ll feel the same about Chicago, but for now I feel the rosy nostalgia of a place missed and loved.

And, by the way, before we returned the rental car and checked in at the airport, we met my family for lunch. Most of us had crab cakes at one of those old-school places that happily trade in fancy decor for enormous crab cakes and a salt-n-pepper shaker full of Old Bay. Yum!

Two things that rock

For those of you who know me well, you’ll totally get why I was tempted to buy this. And then didn’t.