continuing in the year-end wrap-up, i tried to think of some more liberated-woman things i learned this year, but since i'm still so excited about the new make-up brushes that my blogmate just got me for christmas, i'm not feeling ready to blog about power tools. i have my very own personal drill that i bought myself before mb ever moved here, but that was a few years ago and i've still never actually used it. so instead, how about this?
things i did NOT learn during 2007.
1. "no, thank you; i'm still full from lunch." this seems appropriate since it's christmas morning and i'm still going full-force at the pile of cookies and ham. to be fair, the ham is has a honey-mustard-bourbon glaze on it, and the cookies, well... you know.
2. how to better assert myself on the household netflix queue: why is it that i have suggested lots of movies, yet the only things that show up are beerfest and historical epics about shooting and bleakness? after some whining, the muppets have finally made their way to the top, but overall the year could have been more movie-successful.
3. how to make it past the beginner level of guitar hero 3: to be fair, we don't have a wii or other game system apart from our awesome atari-flashback. and the only time i played was at my brother's place one weekend on his wii system. but upon hearing that my brother- and sister-in-law are enjoying their christmas gift of gh3 - so much so that bill ended up in the er getting a cortisone shot in his shoulder from his battle with slash - i want in on more of the action.
4. how to use a pressure cooker without explosions: see prior post by my blogmate re: me and my kitchen being covered in turkey stock and parsley. i know that i have to try again, but haven't done so yet.
5. how to regain my ability on a mountain bike: seems that i have gotten older and wussier this year. most mountain bike outings have resulted in whining and fear. what happened? bikemyers has been working on me to try out cyclocross, for its off-road biking without the singletrack and bouncing on rocks and such. we shall see.
i'm sure there are more, but your turn first.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
spring cleaning comes early this year
maybe it's not in the holiday spirit to amuse yourself (and hopefully your loyal blog readership) at someone else's expense... but so it goes.
it's not clear to me why we haven't already told you about this - perhaps because it has smoldered along for so many years it just hasn't occurred to us. but in light of the newest chapter, here we go. please bear with the back-story:
my blogmate and i share our office and its three computers with 5 other people. needless to say, the social benefits of working in such close quarters are thwarted by the impossibility of getting anything done. the sad thing is, we actually have another office that was left in a state of abandon and neglect until a few weeks ago when my blogmate, bikemyers, and i decided to take it back.
for years nobody has wanted to work there because it resides next to the facility that breeds lab mice for the entire medical center. mice breading, as it turns out, is an unbearably smelly business. but the mouse factory will soon move to another location and as operations wind down the horrible smell from across the hall is less and less of an issue.
the problem, however, is that we have a squatter. meet the mystery enshrouded e., a german woman famous for her astonishingly pungent body odor, who, despite having comleted her training her almost 4 years ago continues to roam the dark halls of our department working on some kind of "research." we don't think she's on the payroll, and we're pretty sure she doesn't have a functioning ID. but there she is, every afternoon, acting so creepy that none of us want to go anywhere near the office. she's so creepy, in fact, that we can't seem to get anyone up the hierarchical ladder to help us evict her. even when she used to articulate coherent thoughts she was always such a mumbler that no one could really understand her, and back then we were always distracted by the b.o. and the concern that she actually lived in the hospital. in spite of some reassuring signs that she does, in fact, have an apartment with a working shower, the creepy factor is rising - one of our colleagues found her in the ladies room, in the dark, huddled in the dark. another found her in the elevator, rocking back and forth, muttering to herself.
as we began thinking of ways to take back the office the feeding back we got from the higher ups was less than encouraging. something like, "don't do it. you'll be sorry you ever got involved." perhaps we should have heeded the warning, but instead it only fueled our indignance. you might think it's tragic and sad that we have such an obviously unstable lost soul amongst us, but it's not like people haven't tried to help her. and besides, can't she be crazy in someone else's office?
we went straight for the jugular. we marched into the office shoved her coat and bag off into a corner (even more mysterious than what she does in our office is what she's doing when she's somewhere else in the building), and promptly dumped the entire contents of the office into the dumbster we stole from down the hall. judging from 1999 doc films poster on the wall no one had done any major office purging for a long time, and there was dust enough to prove it. after the purge and wipe down we proudly marged out of the office, leaving mounds of trash outside the door, and didn't say a word the the bewildered e. when we passed her in the hall. we weren't there to see her reaction - if you're teetering on the brink of insanity it can't help any to come back from a coffee break to find your workspace entirely gutted. but again, so it goes.
we're hoping the great office purge of 2007 will send the right signal - said signal reading something like, "don't let the door hit you on your way out." but we won't go down without a fight. our boss may not care that we have a maladjusted, stinky squatter in our office, but we're pretty sure campus security will.
bah humbug.
it's not clear to me why we haven't already told you about this - perhaps because it has smoldered along for so many years it just hasn't occurred to us. but in light of the newest chapter, here we go. please bear with the back-story:
my blogmate and i share our office and its three computers with 5 other people. needless to say, the social benefits of working in such close quarters are thwarted by the impossibility of getting anything done. the sad thing is, we actually have another office that was left in a state of abandon and neglect until a few weeks ago when my blogmate, bikemyers, and i decided to take it back.
for years nobody has wanted to work there because it resides next to the facility that breeds lab mice for the entire medical center. mice breading, as it turns out, is an unbearably smelly business. but the mouse factory will soon move to another location and as operations wind down the horrible smell from across the hall is less and less of an issue.
the problem, however, is that we have a squatter. meet the mystery enshrouded e., a german woman famous for her astonishingly pungent body odor, who, despite having comleted her training her almost 4 years ago continues to roam the dark halls of our department working on some kind of "research." we don't think she's on the payroll, and we're pretty sure she doesn't have a functioning ID. but there she is, every afternoon, acting so creepy that none of us want to go anywhere near the office. she's so creepy, in fact, that we can't seem to get anyone up the hierarchical ladder to help us evict her. even when she used to articulate coherent thoughts she was always such a mumbler that no one could really understand her, and back then we were always distracted by the b.o. and the concern that she actually lived in the hospital. in spite of some reassuring signs that she does, in fact, have an apartment with a working shower, the creepy factor is rising - one of our colleagues found her in the ladies room, in the dark, huddled in the dark. another found her in the elevator, rocking back and forth, muttering to herself.
as we began thinking of ways to take back the office the feeding back we got from the higher ups was less than encouraging. something like, "don't do it. you'll be sorry you ever got involved." perhaps we should have heeded the warning, but instead it only fueled our indignance. you might think it's tragic and sad that we have such an obviously unstable lost soul amongst us, but it's not like people haven't tried to help her. and besides, can't she be crazy in someone else's office?
we went straight for the jugular. we marched into the office shoved her coat and bag off into a corner (even more mysterious than what she does in our office is what she's doing when she's somewhere else in the building), and promptly dumped the entire contents of the office into the dumbster we stole from down the hall. judging from 1999 doc films poster on the wall no one had done any major office purging for a long time, and there was dust enough to prove it. after the purge and wipe down we proudly marged out of the office, leaving mounds of trash outside the door, and didn't say a word the the bewildered e. when we passed her in the hall. we weren't there to see her reaction - if you're teetering on the brink of insanity it can't help any to come back from a coffee break to find your workspace entirely gutted. but again, so it goes.
we're hoping the great office purge of 2007 will send the right signal - said signal reading something like, "don't let the door hit you on your way out." but we won't go down without a fight. our boss may not care that we have a maladjusted, stinky squatter in our office, but we're pretty sure campus security will.
bah humbug.
Friday, December 21, 2007
things that changed my life in 2007
time to start the end-of-the-year wrap-up (crazy, isn't it?) -- another year older, another year wiser... here are some things i've learned about this year:
1. pete's fresh market: this place is awesome. cut my grocery bill in half. avocados for 40 cents apiece all year round = fresh guacamole every week. phenomenal.
2. eyelash curler: i had one in grad school, but post-wedding have learned that a little more open-looking eyes makes everything better. it's kind of an extension to my 2003 discovery that adding a little mascara after being up for 24 hours makes you look more awake and alert.
3. bronzer: several times, when counseling frantic friends trying to drop a few pounds before a winter vacation, i have suggested that they stop worrying about what they can't change in 2 weeks and start focusing on what they *can* change, with the help of a tanning bed. a little color is better. until this year, though, i had no idea that the same help can just be brushed on in the morning! evens out the weird blotchy thing that happens to fair skin in winter.
4. good rum: my blogmate and i brought back lots of this in 2005, but until recently i'd only been using it for rum and cokes. not that i would ever say anything bad about rum and coke; it's delicious! but on vacation in curacao this year, we learned from a german hotel manager that venezuela makes delicious rum that can be sipped like a cognac. wow, is that amazing. to be fair, i might have learned this one earlier, but since mb and his friend nick blew through our entire bottle of admiral rodney's barrel-aged rum from st. lucia in one night and i didn't get to have any, that puts this on my 2007-education list.
5. more stores on roosevelt: i am so excited about the north-and-clybourn-esque transformation of the south loop! bring on progress. there are PARKING LOTS where i can take a CAR to get STUFF. compared to my first days in chicago getting lost every time i tried to leave hyde park, this is phenomenal. target, world market, linens n things, panera, dsw (ahhh, shoes...) home depot. errands no longer take a full day.
hmm, more to be continued. so far this is sounding pretty girly. i'm ok with that, but i'll have to think up some power tools or something that also changed my life this year. what about you? learned anything good?
1. pete's fresh market: this place is awesome. cut my grocery bill in half. avocados for 40 cents apiece all year round = fresh guacamole every week. phenomenal.
2. eyelash curler: i had one in grad school, but post-wedding have learned that a little more open-looking eyes makes everything better. it's kind of an extension to my 2003 discovery that adding a little mascara after being up for 24 hours makes you look more awake and alert.
3. bronzer: several times, when counseling frantic friends trying to drop a few pounds before a winter vacation, i have suggested that they stop worrying about what they can't change in 2 weeks and start focusing on what they *can* change, with the help of a tanning bed. a little color is better. until this year, though, i had no idea that the same help can just be brushed on in the morning! evens out the weird blotchy thing that happens to fair skin in winter.
4. good rum: my blogmate and i brought back lots of this in 2005, but until recently i'd only been using it for rum and cokes. not that i would ever say anything bad about rum and coke; it's delicious! but on vacation in curacao this year, we learned from a german hotel manager that venezuela makes delicious rum that can be sipped like a cognac. wow, is that amazing. to be fair, i might have learned this one earlier, but since mb and his friend nick blew through our entire bottle of admiral rodney's barrel-aged rum from st. lucia in one night and i didn't get to have any, that puts this on my 2007-education list.
5. more stores on roosevelt: i am so excited about the north-and-clybourn-esque transformation of the south loop! bring on progress. there are PARKING LOTS where i can take a CAR to get STUFF. compared to my first days in chicago getting lost every time i tried to leave hyde park, this is phenomenal. target, world market, linens n things, panera, dsw (ahhh, shoes...) home depot. errands no longer take a full day.
hmm, more to be continued. so far this is sounding pretty girly. i'm ok with that, but i'll have to think up some power tools or something that also changed my life this year. what about you? learned anything good?
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
merry bikemas to all, and to all a good night...
the snow is on the ground here in chicago, the radio stations are a month into their all-christmas-tunes all-the-time routine, and stores are packed. despite the fact that mb and i don't have kids and aren't spending the holiday morning around a grandma's tree, i really feel like we're managing to create a pretty festive atmosphere for ourselves this season... just on our own terms. score one for tradition, and score one for, well, something else?
- we have a little fake tree, gifted from my parents a few years ago, but left it in storage this year in favor of our second annual "bikemas tree" - pine garland and lights strung up on the bike rack in the dining room, base covered in a snowflake tablecloth from tj maxx. two dimensional saves space in our not-huge apartment, plus less decorating.
- we're a little late getting into the holiday special-meals department, but trimmed the bikemas tree with the help of whole foods (the yuppie seal is now officially broken -- mb walked in for the first time and looked at me quizzically: "i'm sorry, why do you object to this place? it's beautiful!") in our defense, did you know you can get a smoked beef brisket sandwich at whole foods for $4?
- i was lucky enough to attend a lovely three-dimensional tree-trimming get-together at ck's house, complete with home-baked bread, the best soup EVER, yummy wine and good company (and a beautiful tree). we reminisced fondly about other holidays in the city, such as attending an easter vigil ceremony chosen for its proximity to an irish pub (which turned out to be a good thing: after 1 1/2 hours when the lights were still off and the candle wax was threatening to burn our hands, we snuck out and celebrated some very special easter pints).
- we don't have holiday music on cd, but we do have yahoo music engine with its 15 different holiday stations; cookies last night were baked to the "scrooge christmas" station, with such festive holiday tunes as the classic "grandma got run over by a reindeer" and new favorite "daddy drank all our christmas money again."
hope your holiday season is festive on your own terms.
- we have a little fake tree, gifted from my parents a few years ago, but left it in storage this year in favor of our second annual "bikemas tree" - pine garland and lights strung up on the bike rack in the dining room, base covered in a snowflake tablecloth from tj maxx. two dimensional saves space in our not-huge apartment, plus less decorating.
- we're a little late getting into the holiday special-meals department, but trimmed the bikemas tree with the help of whole foods (the yuppie seal is now officially broken -- mb walked in for the first time and looked at me quizzically: "i'm sorry, why do you object to this place? it's beautiful!") in our defense, did you know you can get a smoked beef brisket sandwich at whole foods for $4?
- i was lucky enough to attend a lovely three-dimensional tree-trimming get-together at ck's house, complete with home-baked bread, the best soup EVER, yummy wine and good company (and a beautiful tree). we reminisced fondly about other holidays in the city, such as attending an easter vigil ceremony chosen for its proximity to an irish pub (which turned out to be a good thing: after 1 1/2 hours when the lights were still off and the candle wax was threatening to burn our hands, we snuck out and celebrated some very special easter pints).
- we don't have holiday music on cd, but we do have yahoo music engine with its 15 different holiday stations; cookies last night were baked to the "scrooge christmas" station, with such festive holiday tunes as the classic "grandma got run over by a reindeer" and new favorite "daddy drank all our christmas money again."
hope your holiday season is festive on your own terms.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
the fall and rise and fall and rise of women's lib
being a girl is really fun.
tuesday morning i finally worked up the nerve to email to gracious hostess of the all-you-can-dreidel party (see previous post) to inquire about the cute non-neurologist and also fess up about the unfiltered foot-in-the mouth moment i had with another boy at the part whom she may or may not be dating (see previous rants about men and their conflicted emotions).
while i maintain that it wasn't entirely appropriate for this person to give me the unsolicited information that he knew the hostess from match.com, i wish i had kept my cool. instead i blurted out a typically unfiltered, "oh, you're that guy," especially since he wasn't that guy. i don't think i gave too much away, and he seemed pretty amused, but boy do i suck as a wingman.
so i apologized to the lovely hostess for my striking lack of tact and asked what she could dish up about the cute non-neurologist. i also emailed another friend who was at the party who seemed to know incriminating things about the brother of the cute-non-neurologist.
the wave of gossipy emails was followed by a frenzied episode of baking, after which i packed up a loaf zucchini bread and headed out for a boot-shopping date with my good blogmate. sadly there was no boot-luck for the big footed - apparently it's too late in the boot-season to get anything bigger than a size 6.5, but the day wasn't a total loss. we may not have sassy boots, but we did embark on the grate office clean-out of 2007 (i'd explain, but i think that story deserves a post of its own), and headed off to the gym for some fairly robust weight-lifting. i admit that benching the bar isn't exactly manly, but it's way tougher than the eliptical machine or assisted pull-ups.
i left the gym feeling pretty tough and liberated... but i got home to a slew of responses to my various emails, one containing a link to the cute non-neurologists j-date page. it's certainly true that i have all sorts of objections to j-date, but it seems that said objections don't stop me from voyeuristically looking at targeted profiles, or forwarding said profiles to my blogmate for further inspection. i also got separate emails from the girl who knows his brother and her husband, divulging the rest of the dish.
i had already had a pretty nice day of gossip, baking, organizing, and weight-lifting and i still had dinner and the lemonheads concert ahead. i'll admit that the pasta dinner and raspberry martini that preceded the show were pretty girly, and that i did my share of girly shrieking upon the site of the still-beautiful evan dando (stay tuned for another future post about reunion lemonheads concerts and the people who attend them), but there was absolutely nothing girly about my concert date and i quickly jump-starting her car before the show without blowing anything up.
so my muscles are sore, my house is full of baked goods, my friend's car starts and the office is clean. now all i need is a pair of boots and a date.
tuesday morning i finally worked up the nerve to email to gracious hostess of the all-you-can-dreidel party (see previous post) to inquire about the cute non-neurologist and also fess up about the unfiltered foot-in-the mouth moment i had with another boy at the part whom she may or may not be dating (see previous rants about men and their conflicted emotions).
while i maintain that it wasn't entirely appropriate for this person to give me the unsolicited information that he knew the hostess from match.com, i wish i had kept my cool. instead i blurted out a typically unfiltered, "oh, you're that guy," especially since he wasn't that guy. i don't think i gave too much away, and he seemed pretty amused, but boy do i suck as a wingman.
so i apologized to the lovely hostess for my striking lack of tact and asked what she could dish up about the cute non-neurologist. i also emailed another friend who was at the party who seemed to know incriminating things about the brother of the cute-non-neurologist.
the wave of gossipy emails was followed by a frenzied episode of baking, after which i packed up a loaf zucchini bread and headed out for a boot-shopping date with my good blogmate. sadly there was no boot-luck for the big footed - apparently it's too late in the boot-season to get anything bigger than a size 6.5, but the day wasn't a total loss. we may not have sassy boots, but we did embark on the grate office clean-out of 2007 (i'd explain, but i think that story deserves a post of its own), and headed off to the gym for some fairly robust weight-lifting. i admit that benching the bar isn't exactly manly, but it's way tougher than the eliptical machine or assisted pull-ups.
i left the gym feeling pretty tough and liberated... but i got home to a slew of responses to my various emails, one containing a link to the cute non-neurologists j-date page. it's certainly true that i have all sorts of objections to j-date, but it seems that said objections don't stop me from voyeuristically looking at targeted profiles, or forwarding said profiles to my blogmate for further inspection. i also got separate emails from the girl who knows his brother and her husband, divulging the rest of the dish.
i had already had a pretty nice day of gossip, baking, organizing, and weight-lifting and i still had dinner and the lemonheads concert ahead. i'll admit that the pasta dinner and raspberry martini that preceded the show were pretty girly, and that i did my share of girly shrieking upon the site of the still-beautiful evan dando (stay tuned for another future post about reunion lemonheads concerts and the people who attend them), but there was absolutely nothing girly about my concert date and i quickly jump-starting her car before the show without blowing anything up.
so my muscles are sore, my house is full of baked goods, my friend's car starts and the office is clean. now all i need is a pair of boots and a date.
Monday, December 10, 2007
it's all about who you know
this may seem like a no-brainer, but it's really nice having lots of friends. it really takes the edge off of things like working-all-the-time or freezing-ass-cold-outside. my partners in crime come in many flavors, but the unifying theme seems to be that they're all social and fun and up for anything - a lovely combination, if you think about it.
you need good wingpeople for events like the museum of contemporary art's first fridays. after years of talking about it, i finally managed to think about it at the right time and rounded a group of people to check it out. i was a little sad to go without my blogmate and mb (who were off gallivanting around the caribbean), as the standing plan had been for the two of them so serve not so much as wingpeople, but as home base, so that when we got tired of prowling there were friendly faces to whom we could report our findings.
friday night at the MCA is exactly what you think it would be. over-priced mediocre wine in plastic cups, DJ spinning house music, lots of beautiful people in fabulous clothes... and as it turns out lots of not-so-beautiful people whose attempts to dress fabulously fell a little short. after a good deal of initial apprehension, i felt much better after i had noticed the striking amount of non-fabulousness. given how many people showed up (alot, especially if you consider how cold it was friday night), i also got a little bit of a boost from being in the smaller cohort of people who managed to put down our drinks to actually inspect some of the art.
the highlight was most definitely tino sehgal's live-action "kiss," featuring 2 dancers engaged in a performance arty PG-13 makeout session. in and of itself it was pretty interesting, and you could station yourself in a corner such that you also got a pretty good view of all the museum visitors trying to figure out if what they were watching art or drunk people. also topping my list of favorites was the giant multi-media oyster-shell on hinges, guarded by some sort of oyster-shell natzi who would only let you climb in and listen to the waves crashing on the inside if you took your shoes off and looked relaxed enough to appreciate the full effect. finally, there was the room full of rock concert bootleg videos, projected in black and white onto weird slanty screens. it's not that it really broadened my horizons to watch silent, slow motion footage of a non-descript 70s punk rocker in leather pants masturbating on stage, but peoples' reactions were quite varied and very funny.
all in all we called our first dabble at first fridays a success and pinky swore to go back when the weather was warmer and we didn't have to battle it out in the coat check line when it was over.
i finished my weekend on sunday night at a very different kind of function, as my friend j.s. graciously hosted all of her jewish friends for brisket, latkes, and all-you-can-dreidel. i'm sure there's a whole circuit of jewish professional singles functions, but as conscientious objector to such functions i have little experience with what is, at least to me, a pretty strange social phenomenon.
i found myself sandwiched at the end of the kitchen island between a rather slimy neurologist who wanted to talk to me much more than i wanted to talk to him, and an attractive and rather slick non-neurologist who wanted to talk to me much less than i wanted to talk to him. the cute one on the right at least absorbed that it was probably his job to save me from the greasy one on the left, but he couldn't quite commit enough to the conversation and as such things just got incrementally more awkward by the minute. i'm not sure how the other people at the party were faring (they at least seem to know each other better than i knew any of them), but when the hostess plopped the piece-de-resistance "better than sex" cake on the table it was like someone had hit the reset button, and suddenly we were all in the same boat of awkwardness together.
when you take a room full of people who are all tipsy and willing to say slightly inappropriate things about "better than sex" cake strange things are bound to happen. there was alot of thoughtful chewing, i think because the consensus was that "better than sex" appears to be a relative thing. trying to be coy with the boy on the right while specifically not encouraging the boy on the left was really really hard, and in the end i gave up and went to play dreidel with the hostess.
i'm thankful for the many social opportunities i am afforded by virtue to knowing the right people. stay tuned for my next installment, in which i report on my rekindled romance with evan dando of the lemonheads, and the always delicious chocolate buffet at the peninsula hotel. thanks for listening.
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