the other night ck and i decided it had been far too long since we'd done something fun together and made a swimming date. we had it all planned - it was a perfect hot morning, and ck was going to call me as work was wrapping up and we'd meet out at the point, hyde park's answer to "what is there to do in hyde park, anyway?" mb got excited at the prospect of company for swimming in lake michigan, and ck recruited msbikemyers to join us, and it would have been a regular swimming party just like we were kids... and we pinky-swore not to tell bikemyers that it was a party, who had agreed unknowingly to stay home in charge of littlebikemyers...
except that the perfect hot day turned into a grey hot day which turned into a grey cold windy day. mb, ck, msbikemyers and i all arrived at the point, and some of us decided we were more interested in sitting along the rocky shore admiring the chicago skyline than in actual exercise. mb, of course, was not in that group of "some of us," and off he went. mb is a good swimmer, but it was so choppy out there that for us on shore it was like dolphin watching: "where is he?" "i don't see him." "wait, there he is! look, he just shot up into the air!" "ooooh! oh, wait.. where is he now?"
as mb got out of the water, we all packed up, grateful to not be caught in a rainstorm, since the sky was almost black by this point... and were promptly deluged not by storm water, but by a throng of pre-teen boys charging toward the water and stomping on our things in that innocently oblivious way that only pre-teen boys can do. behind them was a group of adults, one of whom, carrying a bible, announced to us, "we're having a baptism!"
it is almost sundown, it is windy, the waves are high, the water is deep, and the bottom of the lake is rocky. there is NO amount of adult supervision that would have made me feel comfortable with those kids at that baptism. undeterred, the ringleader was staking out his place on a flat slippery rock not two feet from the lake. the boys, delighted, were rushing out to be near him. msbikemyers, ck, mb and i left. i just didn't want to know.
as i told bikemyers later (who i think was secretly amused that our secret swimming party had been stymied), i believe that jesus saves as much as anyone. but i am not interested in testing salvation with idiocy.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
karma's a bitch
on my way out to run errands yesterday, i stopped at the ups store to deliver a package to jz up in thiensville. as i pulled up to the ups store, an suv blocked the loading zone, leaving me with nowhere to park; i was in a hurry, and the only spot i could see was right in front of the fire hydrant at the end of the block. "i'll only be here 2 minutes," i thought to myself, "and if there's an actual fire while i'm here, i will notice and move the car. i am not a bad citizen."
so i parked in front of the hydrant, delivered my package successfully, strolled back to the car, and was just putting the car in drive, when -- i'm not kidding -- two big fire trucks were barrelling down on me from either side of taylor street.
"%$#@!!!" i thought. "they want my fire hydrant! i'm not a bad citizen! i'm not a bad citizen!" thinking as quickly as i could, i veered around the corner into the side alley near the hydrant to clear the way for the fire rescue team...
...only to discover that what they wanted was actually *not* my hydrant, but the alley that i'd just entered. at the end of the alley was another fire truck. i pulled into a driveway to turn around, and realized that i was now pinned in between two fire trucks, and the fire was in an apartment building on that street. i think the fire truck actually moved out of the way a little so i could sheepishly sneak my car out of the way.
i feel small sitting in a sports coupe in chicago in general, what with being surrounded by suv's all the time... but that's nothing compared to being pinned in by 3 big fire trucks.
so i parked in front of the hydrant, delivered my package successfully, strolled back to the car, and was just putting the car in drive, when -- i'm not kidding -- two big fire trucks were barrelling down on me from either side of taylor street.
"%$#@!!!" i thought. "they want my fire hydrant! i'm not a bad citizen! i'm not a bad citizen!" thinking as quickly as i could, i veered around the corner into the side alley near the hydrant to clear the way for the fire rescue team...
...only to discover that what they wanted was actually *not* my hydrant, but the alley that i'd just entered. at the end of the alley was another fire truck. i pulled into a driveway to turn around, and realized that i was now pinned in between two fire trucks, and the fire was in an apartment building on that street. i think the fire truck actually moved out of the way a little so i could sheepishly sneak my car out of the way.
i feel small sitting in a sports coupe in chicago in general, what with being surrounded by suv's all the time... but that's nothing compared to being pinned in by 3 big fire trucks.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
swim, bike, run, repeat
i spend a lot of time stating the obvious.
for example, over the last couple days i've come to the conclusion that it's really nice having such awesome friends.
i say this after a recent night of boy-chasing during which i was reminded that there's just no substitute for a good wingman, and there's absolutely nothing like having two good wingpeople at once. more on that story later when, um, there's more of a story to tell.
meanwhile, my friends continue to manifest their awesomeness in other ways.
ck continues to drag herself out of bed very early on sunday mornings to join me at ohio street for swimming and pep talk. she's an excellent swim coach, good company, and, like me, has at least one near wipe-out per bike ride because she's distracted by some incredibly hot guy on the lakeshore path.
[as an aside, i feel compelled to confess that i'm having alot of trouble keeping my thoughts to myself on the lakeshore path. as my blogmate has already explained, you can't exactly cuss and holler on your bike at the various idiots in the way that you can when you're in your car with the windows rolled up. people just don't respond so well to "get your *^% ($#C@ head out of your $#% you stupid %$#@^ &*%$#@!!!" i do wonder though, how they'd respond to more positive feedback. there are a lot of really beautiful people on the lakeshore path, and part of me really wants to tell people how fantastic i think they are. i'd like to think that i'd respond really well to comments like, "wow pretty skinny blond girl, you're running really fast!" or, "please don 't think that i'm trying to take you home, sir, but you and your six-pack are smokin' hot and i really respect that." i do know that as one of very few women cyclists out on the path at 6AM, i have absolutely no problem with the amount of staring that happens by a small subset of the very many male cyclists (the women runners couldn't possibly stop and stare or say anything encouraging... because they're running way too fast for that).]
and the collective triathlon coach comprised of my blogmate, mb, ck, and bikemyers have been very nice in their pointing out that it's probably time to start tapering already. they successfully executed a very slick, multi-phase plan of attack. i paraphrase as follows:
ck:"you know you're going to have to start tapering soon, right?"
jo-na: "you don't have to listen to me, but bikemyers is going to tell you that it's time to start tapering and you should probably listen to him."
bikemyers: "you are super-well prepared, and you're going to do great, but please start the taper, it's the right thing to do."
mb: "have you started tapering yet?"
so thank you, lovely friends, for summoning boys to bars for me, for showing up to be emergency wingmen at said bar with 8 minutes of notice, for coaching me to triathlon, even when i have no idea what's good for me, and for listening to my long boring stories about boys and triathlons. it hasn't gone unnoticed. i owe you one.
for example, over the last couple days i've come to the conclusion that it's really nice having such awesome friends.
i say this after a recent night of boy-chasing during which i was reminded that there's just no substitute for a good wingman, and there's absolutely nothing like having two good wingpeople at once. more on that story later when, um, there's more of a story to tell.
meanwhile, my friends continue to manifest their awesomeness in other ways.
ck continues to drag herself out of bed very early on sunday mornings to join me at ohio street for swimming and pep talk. she's an excellent swim coach, good company, and, like me, has at least one near wipe-out per bike ride because she's distracted by some incredibly hot guy on the lakeshore path.
[as an aside, i feel compelled to confess that i'm having alot of trouble keeping my thoughts to myself on the lakeshore path. as my blogmate has already explained, you can't exactly cuss and holler on your bike at the various idiots in the way that you can when you're in your car with the windows rolled up. people just don't respond so well to "get your *^% ($#C@ head out of your $#% you stupid %$#@^ &*%$#@!!!" i do wonder though, how they'd respond to more positive feedback. there are a lot of really beautiful people on the lakeshore path, and part of me really wants to tell people how fantastic i think they are. i'd like to think that i'd respond really well to comments like, "wow pretty skinny blond girl, you're running really fast!" or, "please don 't think that i'm trying to take you home, sir, but you and your six-pack are smokin' hot and i really respect that." i do know that as one of very few women cyclists out on the path at 6AM, i have absolutely no problem with the amount of staring that happens by a small subset of the very many male cyclists (the women runners couldn't possibly stop and stare or say anything encouraging... because they're running way too fast for that).]
and the collective triathlon coach comprised of my blogmate, mb, ck, and bikemyers have been very nice in their pointing out that it's probably time to start tapering already. they successfully executed a very slick, multi-phase plan of attack. i paraphrase as follows:
ck:"you know you're going to have to start tapering soon, right?"
jo-na: "you don't have to listen to me, but bikemyers is going to tell you that it's time to start tapering and you should probably listen to him."
bikemyers: "you are super-well prepared, and you're going to do great, but please start the taper, it's the right thing to do."
mb: "have you started tapering yet?"
so thank you, lovely friends, for summoning boys to bars for me, for showing up to be emergency wingmen at said bar with 8 minutes of notice, for coaching me to triathlon, even when i have no idea what's good for me, and for listening to my long boring stories about boys and triathlons. it hasn't gone unnoticed. i owe you one.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
all's fair in love and war
or is it?
being single isn't without its advantages. life is simple, unhindered by the complex negotiations of cohabitation, and as the token single girl among your circle of friends, your stories make for the best bar talk. no more of those disapproving looks you used to get when you do something slutty - now it's the collective gaze of admiration to the tune of "your life is so much more exciting than mine" (or at least that's what i think would happen if i ever actually did anything slutty). but really, being the last boy-less girl standing means your personal life is actually interesting to your friends... and if it's not they'll find ways to liven things up.
it's not that i don't appreciate the help. clearly i need it. but, my friends, colleagues, and potentials, lets set some ground rules. i 'm sure i speak for girls unspoken for everywhere...
before setting us up with "oh my god he would be perfect for you" guy, try to confirm that he's actually single. we may be tough, but nobody really needs, "i'm sure you're nice but i'm seeing someone." unhelpful, really.
and ladies, a little coaching of "he's totally cute, i really think you'd like him" guy goes a long way, especially if he thinks the right way to make contact is to make us the 145th person on the evite to the $140 rooftop cubs party. it might be blind, but it should still be a date.
and maybe all you're looking for is a nice jewish girl, but a little finesse never hurt anyone. j-date exists for a reason, people. one of those reasons is to obviate the need for unwelcome messages in our myspace mailboxes to the tune of, "hello, i see you are jewish, we should hang out." i suppose that might work for displaced members of very small, homogeneous minority groups ("hello, i see that you are a basque revolutionary and that you enjoy playing raquetball. i too am a basque revolutionary and i am looking for a raquetball partner!"), but especially when everything about us is neatly laid out on our website you might work on finding a better in.
more credit goes out to nm, who managed to remain tactful and discreet as she did my stalking for me, and even laid out a perfectly conceived drinking and flirting opportunity at my feet. i couldn't take her up on it, mostly because i would have had a hard time explaining to my good blogmate that i couldn't rearrange my schedule to go to her wedding shower, but that i could reschedule to chase a boy around ukrainian village. as it is she's being an awfully good sport about my non-commitment to fried ravioli and plastic-cup chianti in little italy this sunday (until i know what's happening with aforementioned boy-chasing).
if you've got a main squeeze hold on tight folks, you don't want to know how the other half lives.
being single isn't without its advantages. life is simple, unhindered by the complex negotiations of cohabitation, and as the token single girl among your circle of friends, your stories make for the best bar talk. no more of those disapproving looks you used to get when you do something slutty - now it's the collective gaze of admiration to the tune of "your life is so much more exciting than mine" (or at least that's what i think would happen if i ever actually did anything slutty). but really, being the last boy-less girl standing means your personal life is actually interesting to your friends... and if it's not they'll find ways to liven things up.
it's not that i don't appreciate the help. clearly i need it. but, my friends, colleagues, and potentials, lets set some ground rules. i 'm sure i speak for girls unspoken for everywhere...
before setting us up with "oh my god he would be perfect for you" guy, try to confirm that he's actually single. we may be tough, but nobody really needs, "i'm sure you're nice but i'm seeing someone." unhelpful, really.
and ladies, a little coaching of "he's totally cute, i really think you'd like him" guy goes a long way, especially if he thinks the right way to make contact is to make us the 145th person on the evite to the $140 rooftop cubs party. it might be blind, but it should still be a date.
and maybe all you're looking for is a nice jewish girl, but a little finesse never hurt anyone. j-date exists for a reason, people. one of those reasons is to obviate the need for unwelcome messages in our myspace mailboxes to the tune of, "hello, i see you are jewish, we should hang out." i suppose that might work for displaced members of very small, homogeneous minority groups ("hello, i see that you are a basque revolutionary and that you enjoy playing raquetball. i too am a basque revolutionary and i am looking for a raquetball partner!"), but especially when everything about us is neatly laid out on our website you might work on finding a better in.
more credit goes out to nm, who managed to remain tactful and discreet as she did my stalking for me, and even laid out a perfectly conceived drinking and flirting opportunity at my feet. i couldn't take her up on it, mostly because i would have had a hard time explaining to my good blogmate that i couldn't rearrange my schedule to go to her wedding shower, but that i could reschedule to chase a boy around ukrainian village. as it is she's being an awfully good sport about my non-commitment to fried ravioli and plastic-cup chianti in little italy this sunday (until i know what's happening with aforementioned boy-chasing).
if you've got a main squeeze hold on tight folks, you don't want to know how the other half lives.
Monday, August 06, 2007
one city block, one million hipsters
as far as i can gather, summer in chicago is about two things: triathlon training and outdoor festivals.
to appease n, my second favorite wicker park hipster (after m, of course), i'll lay off the tri-training-talk for a bit and focus my attention on the many shades of chi-town music fest (sorry n, you make fun of my blog, i make fun of indie rock).
put on your best pair of vans and stretchy black jeans, folks. comb your hair over your eyes, don your best scowl, and head out for the cosmic center of the super-edgy: there's just no better people watching anywhere in town than at the milwaukee/damen/north intersection.
the wicker park festival was everything i'd imagined it would be. even the babies were dressed better than i was. of course, even the hipsters are subject to the occasionally fashion glitch - as n so aptly put it, "what's with all the guys in the weird short pants?" apparently nobody told him about man-capris, once the haute-couture staple of boys town, now plaguing ukrainian village and beyond.
don't get me wrong - i had fun and the music was good, even if kk and i were the only ones spazzing out like freaks at the dirty dozen brass band.
lets move on to lollapalooza. it's hard to follow up my blogmate's clever intro, but i'll do my best.
there was a lot of controversy about lolla this year. at $195 for a 3-day pass the line-up left much to be desired, especially following the previous two years of indie rock heaven. we all pretended like we were above it, but in the end we couldn't stand to let it go on without us.
though i fully backed my good blogmate's description of the alternateens in their festival best, and her prediction of their down-trodden and sunburned demise, the weather skewed the results. don't get me wrong, by friday night there was enough heat stroke and stumbling drunk for everyone to get their fair share, but saturday was so rainy and miserable that on sunday everyone was back out in their finest micro-minis and bikini tops. so much sunburn, such nasty port-o-potties. in case you were wondering, the hipsters all stayed home, having opted for the much more respectable pitchfork, leaving me alone with an army of uber-frat (thanks, nm, for my new favorite adjective).
i don't even know what to say about the music. even weirder than pearl jam as the headliner were throngs of adolescent girls who broke down the doors at 11AM so they could be in the very front row. how people who were still in diapers during the glory days of 10 and the original lolla are the new pearl jam fan base is mysterious to me, but then again, so was the entirety of the teenage cohort (apparently regina spektor is this year's angsty high-school girl icon - think tori amos... or maybe ani difranco).
there were some nice surprises, including paolo nutini and the aforementioned regina spektor both of whom were so charming and adorable that i had quite the internal debate about which one i wanted to take home and stuff in my closet. i was unabashed in my love of snow patrol (they're cooler when you realize they're irish), even though i knew full well i was losing lots of hipster stock by picking them over yeah yeah yeahs. i'd like to think i got some of it back at interpol, where i not only enjoyed the show, but almost managed to keep a straight face. great music, but seriously? so much three-piece suit and scowling. how broody can one band be?
so there it is. n, i hope you're happy, because i've got lots more to say about how much my knees hurt and my evolving close personal relationship with my bottle of ibuprofen.
to appease n, my second favorite wicker park hipster (after m, of course), i'll lay off the tri-training-talk for a bit and focus my attention on the many shades of chi-town music fest (sorry n, you make fun of my blog, i make fun of indie rock).
put on your best pair of vans and stretchy black jeans, folks. comb your hair over your eyes, don your best scowl, and head out for the cosmic center of the super-edgy: there's just no better people watching anywhere in town than at the milwaukee/damen/north intersection.
the wicker park festival was everything i'd imagined it would be. even the babies were dressed better than i was. of course, even the hipsters are subject to the occasionally fashion glitch - as n so aptly put it, "what's with all the guys in the weird short pants?" apparently nobody told him about man-capris, once the haute-couture staple of boys town, now plaguing ukrainian village and beyond.
don't get me wrong - i had fun and the music was good, even if kk and i were the only ones spazzing out like freaks at the dirty dozen brass band.
lets move on to lollapalooza. it's hard to follow up my blogmate's clever intro, but i'll do my best.
there was a lot of controversy about lolla this year. at $195 for a 3-day pass the line-up left much to be desired, especially following the previous two years of indie rock heaven. we all pretended like we were above it, but in the end we couldn't stand to let it go on without us.
though i fully backed my good blogmate's description of the alternateens in their festival best, and her prediction of their down-trodden and sunburned demise, the weather skewed the results. don't get me wrong, by friday night there was enough heat stroke and stumbling drunk for everyone to get their fair share, but saturday was so rainy and miserable that on sunday everyone was back out in their finest micro-minis and bikini tops. so much sunburn, such nasty port-o-potties. in case you were wondering, the hipsters all stayed home, having opted for the much more respectable pitchfork, leaving me alone with an army of uber-frat (thanks, nm, for my new favorite adjective).
i don't even know what to say about the music. even weirder than pearl jam as the headliner were throngs of adolescent girls who broke down the doors at 11AM so they could be in the very front row. how people who were still in diapers during the glory days of 10 and the original lolla are the new pearl jam fan base is mysterious to me, but then again, so was the entirety of the teenage cohort (apparently regina spektor is this year's angsty high-school girl icon - think tori amos... or maybe ani difranco).
there were some nice surprises, including paolo nutini and the aforementioned regina spektor both of whom were so charming and adorable that i had quite the internal debate about which one i wanted to take home and stuff in my closet. i was unabashed in my love of snow patrol (they're cooler when you realize they're irish), even though i knew full well i was losing lots of hipster stock by picking them over yeah yeah yeahs. i'd like to think i got some of it back at interpol, where i not only enjoyed the show, but almost managed to keep a straight face. great music, but seriously? so much three-piece suit and scowling. how broody can one band be?
so there it is. n, i hope you're happy, because i've got lots more to say about how much my knees hurt and my evolving close personal relationship with my bottle of ibuprofen.
Friday, August 03, 2007
the new triathlon: run bike ouch
anyone want to feel a few pounds lighter instantly? try running outside in chicago at noon in august. i got back an hour ago and i still feel down about a gallon of water. but my almost-brother-in-law says planning exercise around off-peak times of day is for sissies, so off i went. in the winter i try to claim that i burn more calories running outside because i have to heat myself up, but now that the city is a great big ez-bake oven, i'm going to claim that i burn more calories running outside because... umm, i don't know, because that was hard? i met my blogmate in her neighborhood for an early breakfast, ran some errands, and then thought it would be smart to run home to conserve fuel and give myself a destination or something. thanks, blogmate, for the phone message ensuring that i was not collapsed somewhere downtown... :)
i might have been collapsed somewhere downtown, but it was only with laughter at the descending alterna-teens in town for lollapalooza this weekend. this pattern is familiar from last year: on friday, everyone's in their alterna-best- little tank tops, short shorts, etc. by sunday, everyone's a sunburned ragged mess. i look forward to the full report from blogmate and friends. for now, i'll content myself with the nice conversation i had with some dreadlocked white guy with an obviously-faked british-sci-fi-accent (seriously, does he think i never watched red dwarf?) we were engaged together in stand-off against one of the charmingly useless corner-traffic police, who had erected a barricade at roosevelt and columbus preventing us from crossing the street. when traffic woman told us we weren't allowed to cross the barricade, despite the total lack of traffic or other pedestrians or concert happenings, we double teamed her: me: "oh, honey, i can't walk that far to cross the bridge. i've been running in this heat for six miles and i still have to get home!" rimmer (making jazz hands) : "looks like SOMEbody has a conTROOOOOOLLL issue!" traffic woman told us that instead of crossing at the nice controlled intersection, because there was a camera where her boss would catch her letting us through and then she'd get in trouble, the right thing for us to do was walk 100 yards north to a gap in the fence, and dart across six lanes of traffic in front of a police car. safety first.
if this is the state of chicago safety for non-motorists, i'm just glad our own bikemyers wasn't any more seriously hurt this past weekend. turns out it's a bad thing when teenage girls on bikes decide to pull their overweight boyfriends behind them on rollerblades, and roll out of control head-on into a pair of very expensive race wheels driven by our friend. ten stitches, one black eye, one fewer pair of eyeglasses, and a pretty hoarse voice later (her helmet got acquainted with his trachea), i guess it could have been worse. hey, if my favorite traffic director were there, she would have sent all three of them straight into lake shore drive to meet an oncoming semi truck. but now bikemyers is... umm, just _myers, until he can replace his totalled ride?
have a safe weekend, friends.
and sm, are you really doing a virtual-san francisco half-marathon? do you get the bag of goodies? that sounds awesome!
i might have been collapsed somewhere downtown, but it was only with laughter at the descending alterna-teens in town for lollapalooza this weekend. this pattern is familiar from last year: on friday, everyone's in their alterna-best- little tank tops, short shorts, etc. by sunday, everyone's a sunburned ragged mess. i look forward to the full report from blogmate and friends. for now, i'll content myself with the nice conversation i had with some dreadlocked white guy with an obviously-faked british-sci-fi-accent (seriously, does he think i never watched red dwarf?) we were engaged together in stand-off against one of the charmingly useless corner-traffic police, who had erected a barricade at roosevelt and columbus preventing us from crossing the street. when traffic woman told us we weren't allowed to cross the barricade, despite the total lack of traffic or other pedestrians or concert happenings, we double teamed her: me: "oh, honey, i can't walk that far to cross the bridge. i've been running in this heat for six miles and i still have to get home!" rimmer (making jazz hands) : "looks like SOMEbody has a conTROOOOOOLLL issue!" traffic woman told us that instead of crossing at the nice controlled intersection, because there was a camera where her boss would catch her letting us through and then she'd get in trouble, the right thing for us to do was walk 100 yards north to a gap in the fence, and dart across six lanes of traffic in front of a police car. safety first.
if this is the state of chicago safety for non-motorists, i'm just glad our own bikemyers wasn't any more seriously hurt this past weekend. turns out it's a bad thing when teenage girls on bikes decide to pull their overweight boyfriends behind them on rollerblades, and roll out of control head-on into a pair of very expensive race wheels driven by our friend. ten stitches, one black eye, one fewer pair of eyeglasses, and a pretty hoarse voice later (her helmet got acquainted with his trachea), i guess it could have been worse. hey, if my favorite traffic director were there, she would have sent all three of them straight into lake shore drive to meet an oncoming semi truck. but now bikemyers is... umm, just _myers, until he can replace his totalled ride?
have a safe weekend, friends.
and sm, are you really doing a virtual-san francisco half-marathon? do you get the bag of goodies? that sounds awesome!
Friday, July 27, 2007
Thursday, July 26, 2007
training day
anyone who knows me well knows that i have a love-hate relationship with exercise (although i suppose one could argue: don't we all?). my ambivalence on this issue manifests itself in a few different ways, but none have been so pronounced in the last few months as my on-again-off-again triathlon debate.
fortunately for me (and my expanding, sagging, 30 year-old backside), fate stepped in quite definitively a few weeks ago... like it or not i'm doing the chicago triathlon because, well, i got off the waitlist and it seems like the right thing to do.
there are, of course, positive and negative aspects of this development and its ongoing impact on my life. they are as follows:
pro: overwhelmingly enthusiastic show of support by my more triathlon-gifted friends (namely my blogmate, ck, and bikemyers)
con: overwhelming guilt at the sad reality that i will most likely have a heart attack on race day (probably before i even get in the water), thus disappointing my awesome fan club
con: overwhelming sense that i'm not a good swimmer, cyclist, or runner
pro: overwhelming sense that it might not actually matter
pro: lots of fun new toys
con: credit card bill for fun new toys
con: ravenously hungry all the time
pro: eating all the time
pro: abundance of cute boys on the lakefront path
con: thinking about how i must look, sweating like a pig on the lakefront path
con: apartment a mess, tons of laundry, bike tire tread marks on the walls, sand and bicycle grease everywhere, entire contents of lake michigan in my bathtub
pro: complete absence of guilt about apartment being a mess, tons of laundry, bike tire tread marks on the walls, sand and bicycle grease everywhere, entire contents of lake michigan in my bathtub
con: drunk after one beer
pro: drunk after one beer
so i guess it all evens out in the end. see you at the finish line.
fortunately for me (and my expanding, sagging, 30 year-old backside), fate stepped in quite definitively a few weeks ago... like it or not i'm doing the chicago triathlon because, well, i got off the waitlist and it seems like the right thing to do.
there are, of course, positive and negative aspects of this development and its ongoing impact on my life. they are as follows:
pro: overwhelmingly enthusiastic show of support by my more triathlon-gifted friends (namely my blogmate, ck, and bikemyers)
con: overwhelming guilt at the sad reality that i will most likely have a heart attack on race day (probably before i even get in the water), thus disappointing my awesome fan club
con: overwhelming sense that i'm not a good swimmer, cyclist, or runner
pro: overwhelming sense that it might not actually matter
pro: lots of fun new toys
con: credit card bill for fun new toys
con: ravenously hungry all the time
pro: eating all the time
pro: abundance of cute boys on the lakefront path
con: thinking about how i must look, sweating like a pig on the lakefront path
con: apartment a mess, tons of laundry, bike tire tread marks on the walls, sand and bicycle grease everywhere, entire contents of lake michigan in my bathtub
pro: complete absence of guilt about apartment being a mess, tons of laundry, bike tire tread marks on the walls, sand and bicycle grease everywhere, entire contents of lake michigan in my bathtub
con: drunk after one beer
pro: drunk after one beer
so i guess it all evens out in the end. see you at the finish line.
Monday, July 23, 2007
race report
mb and i have a fundamentally different take on many things. for example, i showed him a layout for programs for our upcoming wedding which i thought was cute and funny, featuring a different picture of ourselves or our family members as small children on the fronts of them - not only did he dislike them, but he objected to pictures of his small face smeared with cake. (claims it's "objectifying." i claim he's never been objectified, if that's what he thinks. really? women-as-sex-objects is the same as small-children-as-cake-magnets?)
so it should be no surprise that while awaiting the start of a triathlon in racine this weekend, that i look at big pointy sharp-toothed waves in lake michigan and my stomach turns circles, while mb stretches his arms out smiling, and says "this is so relaxing! look at the water; it's beautiful! i'm so glad the swim is a MILLION TIMES LONGER than other races this distance because it'll be so much FUN! this is so relaxing! i'm totally not stressed out." (ok, not a million times longer... but 750m vs 500m matters to slow swimmers when i think the waves could eat small objectified children for breakfast.)
the race itself went fine, actually. i summarize as follows:
1. swim: 750m in lake michigan. mb out of the water 3-4 minutes faster than his nearest competitor. i swallow much of lake michigan making it shallower and much easier for all who come after me.
1.5 transition 1 (swim-bike): run up the beach thru sand, not a short distance. mb RUNS through the foot-washing buckets entering the bike area. i try not to fall just getting up the sand, but am happy because my new watch (thanks, boston!) tells me that i have not, as i had feared, been in the water for over an hour, but more like 22 minutes, and they will not be closing the course before i ever find my bike.
2. bike: 12.4 miles on flat drag-strip suburban racine roads. mb curious about why he's not passing anyone (answer: nobody in front of him). i settle into my usual triathlon bike position, which is neck-and-neck with some 50-some-year-old man doing a relay, and spend the rest of the bike either being passed by him or passing him or trying to avoid or accomplish one of those tasks. this has happened to me before, but last time the 50-year-old was funny and trash-talking: "why would you pass an old man like that?" this guy is not funny, despite my trying to say something friendly... on the bright side, last time the guy was trash talking it egged me on to go faster than i was capable, and i spent the whole run wanting to vomit.
2.5 transition 2 (bike-run): mb - still not passed by anyone. me - uneventful, spending the whole time reciting my inspirational triathlon mantra: "don't vomit don't vomit don't vomit."
3 run: mb passed at very end by one guy, takes 2nd in his age group, 13th overall. me - no vomiting, admiring the scenery as the run path follows a course along a hill overlooking a very peaceful-looking lake michigan, but angry that from that height and distance nobody can tell about the sharp toothed waves that almost ate me earlier.
overall a fun weekend, perfect weather, plus we got to cheer on mb's brother in his repeat performance at the half-ironman the next day (1.2 mile swim, 60 mile bike, 13.1 mile run). although i refuse to concede about the objectifying-baby-picture thing (and in fact, i have been gleefuly exaggerating my response, announcing at regular intervals that mb is an ogre who hates babies, ponies, puppies, butterflies, ice cream cones, and everything good and pure in this world), i concede to mb that lake michigan will not eat me. i might even do it again next year. who's coming with me?
so it should be no surprise that while awaiting the start of a triathlon in racine this weekend, that i look at big pointy sharp-toothed waves in lake michigan and my stomach turns circles, while mb stretches his arms out smiling, and says "this is so relaxing! look at the water; it's beautiful! i'm so glad the swim is a MILLION TIMES LONGER than other races this distance because it'll be so much FUN! this is so relaxing! i'm totally not stressed out." (ok, not a million times longer... but 750m vs 500m matters to slow swimmers when i think the waves could eat small objectified children for breakfast.)
the race itself went fine, actually. i summarize as follows:
1. swim: 750m in lake michigan. mb out of the water 3-4 minutes faster than his nearest competitor. i swallow much of lake michigan making it shallower and much easier for all who come after me.
1.5 transition 1 (swim-bike): run up the beach thru sand, not a short distance. mb RUNS through the foot-washing buckets entering the bike area. i try not to fall just getting up the sand, but am happy because my new watch (thanks, boston!) tells me that i have not, as i had feared, been in the water for over an hour, but more like 22 minutes, and they will not be closing the course before i ever find my bike.
2. bike: 12.4 miles on flat drag-strip suburban racine roads. mb curious about why he's not passing anyone (answer: nobody in front of him). i settle into my usual triathlon bike position, which is neck-and-neck with some 50-some-year-old man doing a relay, and spend the rest of the bike either being passed by him or passing him or trying to avoid or accomplish one of those tasks. this has happened to me before, but last time the 50-year-old was funny and trash-talking: "why would you pass an old man like that?" this guy is not funny, despite my trying to say something friendly... on the bright side, last time the guy was trash talking it egged me on to go faster than i was capable, and i spent the whole run wanting to vomit.
2.5 transition 2 (bike-run): mb - still not passed by anyone. me - uneventful, spending the whole time reciting my inspirational triathlon mantra: "don't vomit don't vomit don't vomit."
3 run: mb passed at very end by one guy, takes 2nd in his age group, 13th overall. me - no vomiting, admiring the scenery as the run path follows a course along a hill overlooking a very peaceful-looking lake michigan, but angry that from that height and distance nobody can tell about the sharp toothed waves that almost ate me earlier.
overall a fun weekend, perfect weather, plus we got to cheer on mb's brother in his repeat performance at the half-ironman the next day (1.2 mile swim, 60 mile bike, 13.1 mile run). although i refuse to concede about the objectifying-baby-picture thing (and in fact, i have been gleefuly exaggerating my response, announcing at regular intervals that mb is an ogre who hates babies, ponies, puppies, butterflies, ice cream cones, and everything good and pure in this world), i concede to mb that lake michigan will not eat me. i might even do it again next year. who's coming with me?
Thursday, July 12, 2007
the empire strikes back
i'm going to have to abandon the notion that nothing ever happens to me.
it all started a couple of weeks ago on a fine tuesday afternoon during which things at work were unusually quiet and i got to leave work early.
"awesome," i thought to myself, "time to run an errand in hyde park before heading home."
the errand was, unsurprisingly, unsuccessful, as tati cycles turned out to be closed for the entire month of june so that the owner could recover from the physical and emotional burden of too many back-ordered bikes. [to her credit, my good blogmate tried to warn me that i should probably call ahead, but did i listen? of course not.]
you might wonder why this part of the story is relevant (i suppose it's not), but had it not been for the fateful deviation to the bike shop i probably would have made it safely back to lakeview sans the ensuing chaos.
as i drove out of hyde park the sky grew darker, the thunder louder, and the lightening brighter, and pretty soon i found myself working my way up lakeshore drive under torrential downpour. by the time i made it to the s-curve conditions were downright apocalyptic and LSD was unequivocally flooded. as i proceeded north it quickly became clear that all the west-bound exits that ran under LSD were impassable, as evidenced by the stalled out cars, roof-deep in rainwater.
just as i was beginning to wonder if i was going all the way to milwaukee, i found what looked like a reasonable off-ramp, several exits further than i wanted to go... which, in fact, was also flooded. so i turned the car onto what i thought was the on-ramp back to LSD, resulting in the following frantic cell phone call to my good blogmate:
jo-na (reading the caller ID): "hi jo-na, what's up?"
jo-na (panic in her voice): "um, i seem to be driving my car up the lakeshore bike path."
jo-na: "the what?"
jo-na: "the bikepath! what do i do?"
jo-na: "let me get on google earth and figure it out"
with some moral and web-based support i found my way off the bike path, under LSD, and finally to clark and foster from which i was able to get home... i didn't have a new bike, but i was home safe and dry.
fast forward to a few weekends later when i finally managed to procure said bicycle with the gracious assistance of the bikemyers family. the bike purchase happened in a frenzy of retail therapy during which i also acquired a new TV, a big CD storage shelving unit, and the misplaced urge to engage in some limited home improvement.
to my surprise i was able to assemble the new bike storage rack without incident... if only the rest of it had gone as smoothly.
i got the CD storage solution up and running (with some help from ss) and had it all loaded up with CDs before i realized that i'd gone about the organization scheme all wrong, so i sat down at the foot of it and got to work. it turned out that i had the whole thing sitting a little too close to the wall, such that it was precariously balanced on the lip of the baseboard. i looked up just in time to see quite clearly that my newly erected media empire was inevitably going to come toppling down on my head, and managed to stick my arm up in such a way that while all the CDs came crashing i didn't actually get completely whacked in the face by storage solution. i also managed to contort my neck in a funny way such by the next morning i couldn't really rotate my head or drink diet coke out a of can without a straw.
the next day, with the CDs and bikes all in proper position i moved on to some minor electrical work. the bathroom light switch was getting a little testy and i had one of those ill-fated, "how hard can it be?" moments where i decided that surely i could unscrew the broken part and take it to the home depot for replacing. i don't know if was feeling invincible after my adventures in the rain, or if i sustained a minor concussion when the media empire fell on my head, but it didn't occur to me that perhaps it might be a good idea shut of the power to the light switch before sticking a screw driver into it. the minor electrocution transiently made my neck feel better, but when my teeth stopped chattering i looked up to realize that i'd blown out the electricity in the whole apartment, thus deprogramming all my electronic gadgets, including my new TV.
what's that they say about idle hands?
from these events i conclude:
1) my life isn't nearly as boring as i think it is
and
2) i am an idiot
it all started a couple of weeks ago on a fine tuesday afternoon during which things at work were unusually quiet and i got to leave work early.
"awesome," i thought to myself, "time to run an errand in hyde park before heading home."
the errand was, unsurprisingly, unsuccessful, as tati cycles turned out to be closed for the entire month of june so that the owner could recover from the physical and emotional burden of too many back-ordered bikes. [to her credit, my good blogmate tried to warn me that i should probably call ahead, but did i listen? of course not.]
you might wonder why this part of the story is relevant (i suppose it's not), but had it not been for the fateful deviation to the bike shop i probably would have made it safely back to lakeview sans the ensuing chaos.
as i drove out of hyde park the sky grew darker, the thunder louder, and the lightening brighter, and pretty soon i found myself working my way up lakeshore drive under torrential downpour. by the time i made it to the s-curve conditions were downright apocalyptic and LSD was unequivocally flooded. as i proceeded north it quickly became clear that all the west-bound exits that ran under LSD were impassable, as evidenced by the stalled out cars, roof-deep in rainwater.
just as i was beginning to wonder if i was going all the way to milwaukee, i found what looked like a reasonable off-ramp, several exits further than i wanted to go... which, in fact, was also flooded. so i turned the car onto what i thought was the on-ramp back to LSD, resulting in the following frantic cell phone call to my good blogmate:
jo-na (reading the caller ID): "hi jo-na, what's up?"
jo-na (panic in her voice): "um, i seem to be driving my car up the lakeshore bike path."
jo-na: "the what?"
jo-na: "the bikepath! what do i do?"
jo-na: "let me get on google earth and figure it out"
with some moral and web-based support i found my way off the bike path, under LSD, and finally to clark and foster from which i was able to get home... i didn't have a new bike, but i was home safe and dry.
fast forward to a few weekends later when i finally managed to procure said bicycle with the gracious assistance of the bikemyers family. the bike purchase happened in a frenzy of retail therapy during which i also acquired a new TV, a big CD storage shelving unit, and the misplaced urge to engage in some limited home improvement.
to my surprise i was able to assemble the new bike storage rack without incident... if only the rest of it had gone as smoothly.
i got the CD storage solution up and running (with some help from ss) and had it all loaded up with CDs before i realized that i'd gone about the organization scheme all wrong, so i sat down at the foot of it and got to work. it turned out that i had the whole thing sitting a little too close to the wall, such that it was precariously balanced on the lip of the baseboard. i looked up just in time to see quite clearly that my newly erected media empire was inevitably going to come toppling down on my head, and managed to stick my arm up in such a way that while all the CDs came crashing i didn't actually get completely whacked in the face by storage solution. i also managed to contort my neck in a funny way such by the next morning i couldn't really rotate my head or drink diet coke out a of can without a straw.
the next day, with the CDs and bikes all in proper position i moved on to some minor electrical work. the bathroom light switch was getting a little testy and i had one of those ill-fated, "how hard can it be?" moments where i decided that surely i could unscrew the broken part and take it to the home depot for replacing. i don't know if was feeling invincible after my adventures in the rain, or if i sustained a minor concussion when the media empire fell on my head, but it didn't occur to me that perhaps it might be a good idea shut of the power to the light switch before sticking a screw driver into it. the minor electrocution transiently made my neck feel better, but when my teeth stopped chattering i looked up to realize that i'd blown out the electricity in the whole apartment, thus deprogramming all my electronic gadgets, including my new TV.
what's that they say about idle hands?
from these events i conclude:
1) my life isn't nearly as boring as i think it is
and
2) i am an idiot
Thursday, June 21, 2007
reckoning
while my blogmate continues to put the best stuff in my arsenal to shame with her witty, insightful banter, i remain stuck in a cycle of blog indecision, perseverating about transient, meaningless events that, though entertaining to me as an amalgam, fail to come together in even an amusing, if not interesting way.
i hang my head in shame...
but continue to laugh on the inside (and sometimes even out loud) about the weird series of things i've heard, seen, done, and said in the last month.
while in france i learned that my seventeen year old french skater punk cousin - along with his entourage of french skater punk friends - actually poured a concrete skate park in the barn, much to the delight of his parents who basque in the transferred glow of youthful spontaneity while also enjoying the peace of mind that accompanies knowing the exact whereabouts of their youngest child.
from french b.f.e. we moved on to italian b.f.e. for a few days of raucous wedding partying and outright euro summer camp. there was lots of drinking and eating and driving around looking for the slovenian border, and of course a story that started, "let me tell you about the most famous transvestite in trieste," and ended, "but then he moved to london... and became a baker... and i don't think he's a transvestite anymore."
i got back from my european adventure and rolled right into my highly anticipated 30th birthday weekend. it's hard to pick what goes on the highlight real, but up there on the list are:
1) zillions of disney princess cupcakes, thoughtfully provided by my blog mate
2) zillions of friends at the village tap on roscoe, along with a decent handful of stragglers and 3 anorexic crashers who stole cupcakes and ran
3) zillions of beers
and of course,
4) the great 30th birthday festival crawl, orchestrated by my blogmate, dh, and kl (in absentia) - you'd think seven festivals in seven hours was too much... but you'd be wrong.
then i went on to new orleans to vist my allegedly convalescing mother who, even with half a lung missing, had the stamina for the zydeco/seafood festival (where i wondered why i had never before tried char-grilled oysters, easily the best food on the planet), the creole tomato festival (where we ate fried-green-tomatoes, easily the second best food on the planet), and a matinee showing of "waitress" (featuring nathan fillion, easily one of the hotest guys on the plant). once i'd finally managed to wear out my mother i went out drinking with my good friend lr, drank a mint julep (i'm sorry, one more time: hands down the best drink on the planet) and found myself happily being driven around new orleans in her convertible, giggling in the passenger seat as she muttered expletives under her breath and made grave announcements along the lines of, "i can't talk to you right now, i'm concentrating on not peeing."
from there i'll skip past the tragic tales of my soul-sucking professional life and move on to the next weekend of binge drinking, this time in honor of my good blogmates upcoming nuptuals... and of course drag queens. so there was a bridal brunch complete with an omelet station (for which i take no credit) and a pretty well stocked bar (for which i take all the credit), and then there was my second annual pride parade party... both welcome excuses for pre-noon drinking, for the acquisition of pressure cookers, and for hanging out with my most awesome friends.
so none of this really comes together very well, except to remind me that while i may not be beating men off with a stick, winning the lottery, or fitting into my skinny jeans, i do have a pretty interesting life... which i am apparently too busy to blog about.
i hang my head in shame...
but continue to laugh on the inside (and sometimes even out loud) about the weird series of things i've heard, seen, done, and said in the last month.
while in france i learned that my seventeen year old french skater punk cousin - along with his entourage of french skater punk friends - actually poured a concrete skate park in the barn, much to the delight of his parents who basque in the transferred glow of youthful spontaneity while also enjoying the peace of mind that accompanies knowing the exact whereabouts of their youngest child.
from french b.f.e. we moved on to italian b.f.e. for a few days of raucous wedding partying and outright euro summer camp. there was lots of drinking and eating and driving around looking for the slovenian border, and of course a story that started, "let me tell you about the most famous transvestite in trieste," and ended, "but then he moved to london... and became a baker... and i don't think he's a transvestite anymore."
i got back from my european adventure and rolled right into my highly anticipated 30th birthday weekend. it's hard to pick what goes on the highlight real, but up there on the list are:
1) zillions of disney princess cupcakes, thoughtfully provided by my blog mate
2) zillions of friends at the village tap on roscoe, along with a decent handful of stragglers and 3 anorexic crashers who stole cupcakes and ran
3) zillions of beers
and of course,
4) the great 30th birthday festival crawl, orchestrated by my blogmate, dh, and kl (in absentia) - you'd think seven festivals in seven hours was too much... but you'd be wrong.
then i went on to new orleans to vist my allegedly convalescing mother who, even with half a lung missing, had the stamina for the zydeco/seafood festival (where i wondered why i had never before tried char-grilled oysters, easily the best food on the planet), the creole tomato festival (where we ate fried-green-tomatoes, easily the second best food on the planet), and a matinee showing of "waitress" (featuring nathan fillion, easily one of the hotest guys on the plant). once i'd finally managed to wear out my mother i went out drinking with my good friend lr, drank a mint julep (i'm sorry, one more time: hands down the best drink on the planet) and found myself happily being driven around new orleans in her convertible, giggling in the passenger seat as she muttered expletives under her breath and made grave announcements along the lines of, "i can't talk to you right now, i'm concentrating on not peeing."
from there i'll skip past the tragic tales of my soul-sucking professional life and move on to the next weekend of binge drinking, this time in honor of my good blogmates upcoming nuptuals... and of course drag queens. so there was a bridal brunch complete with an omelet station (for which i take no credit) and a pretty well stocked bar (for which i take all the credit), and then there was my second annual pride parade party... both welcome excuses for pre-noon drinking, for the acquisition of pressure cookers, and for hanging out with my most awesome friends.
so none of this really comes together very well, except to remind me that while i may not be beating men off with a stick, winning the lottery, or fitting into my skinny jeans, i do have a pretty interesting life... which i am apparently too busy to blog about.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
squish the grapes slowly
keanu reeves i am not. and i hated "a walk in the clouds." but LOVED my adventure with friend jannine to beverly's wine- and beer-making store for a beginners' wine-making class!
picture a talkative william h. macy (not quite the minnesotan accent from fargo, but close) with one hand in a sling pouring glass after glass of homemade brew for 6 of us to sample as we learned about the different kinds of yeast that make different flavors, why you can't make a cabernet with 18% alcohol (apparently you have to start with twice the sugar as desired alcohol content, but if you have 36% sugar, the yeasties sometimes get tired of eating and conk out early like thanksgiving day in front of the big game, leaving you with syrup), that they bottle something called bourbon-honey mead (!!!) but can't sell it at the store because their half of western ave. is actually dry, so they have to sell actual alcohol at the store across the street. we started a batch of pinot grigio - i love red wine but we preferred the immediate drinkability of whites for a first attempt; wouldn't your heart break if you spent weeks waiting patiently to bottle your wine, then 3-6 months for it to age properly, and then it was yucky?
the process has been pretty easy so far. we mixed yeast with grape juice, bobbed a little sugar-and-alcohol-0-meter in the mixture to test the concentration, giggled a lot at the instructor telling us we had to be "sterile," but that our sterile working area was the top of the bucket that the grape juice gets put in (enter much jannine whispering "oops, i breathed into our sterile field. wait, was that your hair entering the air over our sterile field?" we medical types aren't funny, i realize, but there was a lot of wine and we found ourselves quite clever), and sealed up the bucket. next week we get to go back to see if our yeast are eating the sugar or not and switch buckets.
in 6-10 weeks we get to bottle, label and serve. suggestions for names? anyone lining up to be willing to taste? (if it helps, no, my hair did not end up in the wine.)
picture a talkative william h. macy (not quite the minnesotan accent from fargo, but close) with one hand in a sling pouring glass after glass of homemade brew for 6 of us to sample as we learned about the different kinds of yeast that make different flavors, why you can't make a cabernet with 18% alcohol (apparently you have to start with twice the sugar as desired alcohol content, but if you have 36% sugar, the yeasties sometimes get tired of eating and conk out early like thanksgiving day in front of the big game, leaving you with syrup), that they bottle something called bourbon-honey mead (!!!) but can't sell it at the store because their half of western ave. is actually dry, so they have to sell actual alcohol at the store across the street. we started a batch of pinot grigio - i love red wine but we preferred the immediate drinkability of whites for a first attempt; wouldn't your heart break if you spent weeks waiting patiently to bottle your wine, then 3-6 months for it to age properly, and then it was yucky?
the process has been pretty easy so far. we mixed yeast with grape juice, bobbed a little sugar-and-alcohol-0-meter in the mixture to test the concentration, giggled a lot at the instructor telling us we had to be "sterile," but that our sterile working area was the top of the bucket that the grape juice gets put in (enter much jannine whispering "oops, i breathed into our sterile field. wait, was that your hair entering the air over our sterile field?" we medical types aren't funny, i realize, but there was a lot of wine and we found ourselves quite clever), and sealed up the bucket. next week we get to go back to see if our yeast are eating the sugar or not and switch buckets.
in 6-10 weeks we get to bottle, label and serve. suggestions for names? anyone lining up to be willing to taste? (if it helps, no, my hair did not end up in the wine.)
Friday, June 15, 2007
senor bendice mi camino
saw this written as the bug shield of a truck this morning and loved it.
i'm glad someone's blessing someone's automotive journey. i wish we'd had that bug shield last weekend when mb and i drove out to the palos forest preserve to do a little hiking and see the cicadas. perhaps senor could have made me a little more observant, which would have prevented the following exchange:
mb: "i can't wait to see the cicadas!"
me: "me either. where are they? what's that buzzing sound? how come we haven't seen them yet? what's that buzzing sound?"
*relative silence, except for deafening buzzing sound*
mb: "do you think those are the cicadas?"
me: "oh. right. the buzzing."
me: "so if they're so loud, why can't we see them? on a totally unrelated note, what are those weird bugs nose-diving the windshield? anyway, where are the cicadas?"
senor might have been bendiciendo our caminos, but certainly not the caminos of our little friends who arrive in northern illinois every 17 years, who were meeting a rather abrupt end on mike's car.
my stellar observational powers did not end there; i also failed to immediately notice the pock-marked ground in the woods where the young cicadas exited for the sky, the millions of molted skins left by the nymphs as they grew, or the older mother-bugs on the surfaces of all the tree trunks, laying eggs that would eventually hatch into the next cycle of larvae to bury underground and meet us again in 2024 for a new cycle of getting it on.
once i stopped to pay attention, they were everywhere. but once i stopped to pay attention, it was creepy and i wanted to leave. good thing a loud park ranger with a bullhorn was there kicking out all the nature- and fitness-lovers gathered for stair climbing by the toboggan run (apparently closed for remodeling). relieved, i told mb "great, let's skip any more hiking or stair climbing, go for a little run down that nice flat trail over there, and call it an afternoon." and off we went, blissfully unaware that we were running straight into what mb later referred to as "spring break daytona beach for cicadas." flying posses, piled-up threesomes on each branch, loving couples on the ground, loners on our arms.
ew. but fascinating. but ew.
i'm glad someone's blessing someone's automotive journey. i wish we'd had that bug shield last weekend when mb and i drove out to the palos forest preserve to do a little hiking and see the cicadas. perhaps senor could have made me a little more observant, which would have prevented the following exchange:
mb: "i can't wait to see the cicadas!"
me: "me either. where are they? what's that buzzing sound? how come we haven't seen them yet? what's that buzzing sound?"
*relative silence, except for deafening buzzing sound*
mb: "do you think those are the cicadas?"
me: "oh. right. the buzzing."
me: "so if they're so loud, why can't we see them? on a totally unrelated note, what are those weird bugs nose-diving the windshield? anyway, where are the cicadas?"
senor might have been bendiciendo our caminos, but certainly not the caminos of our little friends who arrive in northern illinois every 17 years, who were meeting a rather abrupt end on mike's car.
my stellar observational powers did not end there; i also failed to immediately notice the pock-marked ground in the woods where the young cicadas exited for the sky, the millions of molted skins left by the nymphs as they grew, or the older mother-bugs on the surfaces of all the tree trunks, laying eggs that would eventually hatch into the next cycle of larvae to bury underground and meet us again in 2024 for a new cycle of getting it on.
once i stopped to pay attention, they were everywhere. but once i stopped to pay attention, it was creepy and i wanted to leave. good thing a loud park ranger with a bullhorn was there kicking out all the nature- and fitness-lovers gathered for stair climbing by the toboggan run (apparently closed for remodeling). relieved, i told mb "great, let's skip any more hiking or stair climbing, go for a little run down that nice flat trail over there, and call it an afternoon." and off we went, blissfully unaware that we were running straight into what mb later referred to as "spring break daytona beach for cicadas." flying posses, piled-up threesomes on each branch, loving couples on the ground, loners on our arms.
ew. but fascinating. but ew.
Monday, May 28, 2007
i saw the future, and...
with my friends off playing in europe, and mb off to west virginia for a week of mountain biking with the guys, i am having an uneventful memorial day weekend. it's been very relaxing - shopping with my former roommate for shoes/jewelry/etc for her wedding, biking on the lakeshore path, making plans to grill out with a couple of friends and neighbors. three cheers to my upstairs neighbors for seeing me waddling back from the store, arms loaded with groceries (why were my arms so loaded with groceries when i am by myself this week? this is what happens going to the store hungry), and promptly call out "hey jo-na, can we get you a beer? kids, move the sprinkler for a minute so she can get inside." and four cheers (is that a term?) for said same neighbor, for not waiting for me to finish unloading groceries, but instead knocking on the door to see if i needed my beer *before* coming outside to socialize.
so yes, there are nice neighbors in the city. and yes, these are the same neighbors whose major hobby on first moving to the neighborhood was sitting on their deck watching drug deals. but these blocks have changed a lot in the last few years - many of the nearby projects have been torn down, and plans are underway for a mixed single-family/rental apartment/section 8/townhouse kind of development. in the meantime, we mostly live in the center of empty lots surrounded by security fences. although technically we live in little italy, mb and i have dubbed the neighborhood "Swath Of Destruction." our directions to friends driving in from out of town go like this:
"west on roosevelt thru x lights... when you get to a totally empty stretch with a boarded up check-cashing place and liquor store, with some teenagers loitering on the corner, look for the lonely little condos in the center of a Swath Of Destruction and that's us."
as we await the inevitable progress of housing developments (meanwhile taking advantage of the cheaper rent), in the center of Swath Of Destruction sits 1950. i spent yesterday afternoon drinking beer with the neighbors, watching the kids run through the sprinkler in the front yard. one of the girls is clearly the alpha; she decides when we are playing little mermaid, and when we are playing beauty parlor, and when we are too cold for the sprinkler, and when we are tired and curling up like burritos in our towels on the sidewalk. the other kids mostly accept these instructions. the parents, clearly more used to this than i am, seem completely at peace ignoring the repeated insistence that they please stop the yard work and give back the sprinkler.
it occurs to me that once Swath Of Destruction is re-built, there will be more strangers, more traffic, more coming and going in our admittedly-rented section of urban renewal. it won't be as easy to know all of the neighbors with more dynamic moving in and out. so i'm a little sad to know that Progress is coming. but i'm even more sad to realize that kids' personalities take after their parents -- i commented to alpha's mom that i was that kid growing up. she told me that when grandma picks up the kids from preschool, she looks in the room and gets deja vu because she sees so much of her mother's personality in little alpha.
mb and i are not planning on having children any time immediately, but i am having visions of an imaginative but talkative bossy little girl whose hobbies are the words "why?" and "let's do it my way!" i don't think penance will help, but to my brother, i'm sorry for all the times i made you play house instead of war with your robots. i'll get mine in due time. progress is inevitable.
so yes, there are nice neighbors in the city. and yes, these are the same neighbors whose major hobby on first moving to the neighborhood was sitting on their deck watching drug deals. but these blocks have changed a lot in the last few years - many of the nearby projects have been torn down, and plans are underway for a mixed single-family/rental apartment/section 8/townhouse kind of development. in the meantime, we mostly live in the center of empty lots surrounded by security fences. although technically we live in little italy, mb and i have dubbed the neighborhood "Swath Of Destruction." our directions to friends driving in from out of town go like this:
"west on roosevelt thru x lights... when you get to a totally empty stretch with a boarded up check-cashing place and liquor store, with some teenagers loitering on the corner, look for the lonely little condos in the center of a Swath Of Destruction and that's us."
as we await the inevitable progress of housing developments (meanwhile taking advantage of the cheaper rent), in the center of Swath Of Destruction sits 1950. i spent yesterday afternoon drinking beer with the neighbors, watching the kids run through the sprinkler in the front yard. one of the girls is clearly the alpha; she decides when we are playing little mermaid, and when we are playing beauty parlor, and when we are too cold for the sprinkler, and when we are tired and curling up like burritos in our towels on the sidewalk. the other kids mostly accept these instructions. the parents, clearly more used to this than i am, seem completely at peace ignoring the repeated insistence that they please stop the yard work and give back the sprinkler.
it occurs to me that once Swath Of Destruction is re-built, there will be more strangers, more traffic, more coming and going in our admittedly-rented section of urban renewal. it won't be as easy to know all of the neighbors with more dynamic moving in and out. so i'm a little sad to know that Progress is coming. but i'm even more sad to realize that kids' personalities take after their parents -- i commented to alpha's mom that i was that kid growing up. she told me that when grandma picks up the kids from preschool, she looks in the room and gets deja vu because she sees so much of her mother's personality in little alpha.
mb and i are not planning on having children any time immediately, but i am having visions of an imaginative but talkative bossy little girl whose hobbies are the words "why?" and "let's do it my way!" i don't think penance will help, but to my brother, i'm sorry for all the times i made you play house instead of war with your robots. i'll get mine in due time. progress is inevitable.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
i should have been watching american idol
while my friends are off eating cheese and intestines and mocking gendarmes in france, i am minding the store back here in sunny chicago. things are not super exciting here. thankfully, nobody is stopping me alongside the road to ask about my knowledge of local criminals, although my neighbors do have some funny stories about sitting on their rooftop porch at night watching drug deals go down in the blocks south of us. i thought i would mix things up a bit the other night by driving up to the north side to do a good deed by watering my blogmate's plants, which would conveniently have happened right around 7pm in time for american idol watching, thus fixing my problem of loving that tv show but having no tv with which to watch it. unfortunately, my conscience got the better of me, and i decided that if my choices were get exercise and see mb or drive across town for one tv show, the right thing to do was exercise. but by the time i got ready to embark on any actual exercise, it was getting late and instead of run outside or go to the gym, i put in a new dvd lent to me by mb's sister: "yoga booty ballet." i thought, this seems perfect! yoga sounds relaxing, i've been working a lot lately, i won't have to come up with my own poses or anything and just get to follow along.
let me just say this: when the video starts with two women asking you to start with your hands folded together, they do NOT get to say "namaste" (which i was taught meant something like "the divine in me greets the divine in you") while the cameraman is zooming right in for gratuitous boob shots. the rest of the video was impossible to follow, because the camera work focused exclusively on the leaders' chests and pelvises (pelves?), occasionally panning over to the south-asian hippie on the bongos, and the only instructions were "now you can get a little funky." namaste? is there a yoga word for "the perv in me greets the d-cup in you"?
from this i conclude the following things:
1. it is sometimes the morally acceptable thing to skip exercise in favor of reality tv.
2. maybe this was for the best. had i gone for a run or watched jordyn sparks win this year's title, i would not have nearly this much good work story.
3. blogmate, ck and ss, when are you getting back? i'm bored.
let me just say this: when the video starts with two women asking you to start with your hands folded together, they do NOT get to say "namaste" (which i was taught meant something like "the divine in me greets the divine in you") while the cameraman is zooming right in for gratuitous boob shots. the rest of the video was impossible to follow, because the camera work focused exclusively on the leaders' chests and pelvises (pelves?), occasionally panning over to the south-asian hippie on the bongos, and the only instructions were "now you can get a little funky." namaste? is there a yoga word for "the perv in me greets the d-cup in you"?
from this i conclude the following things:
1. it is sometimes the morally acceptable thing to skip exercise in favor of reality tv.
2. maybe this was for the best. had i gone for a run or watched jordyn sparks win this year's title, i would not have nearly this much good work story.
3. blogmate, ck and ss, when are you getting back? i'm bored.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
lust and despair: contextually correct but outside of my vocabulary (le blog volume 2)
it's not every day you watch a dear friend get served a plate of grilled intestines. and it's not every friend who would manage to keep it together the way ss did when she was served said intestines. after wandering all over town looking for a restaurant that the guide book described as cheap ("pas cher") and friendly ("gentille") which turned out to be more like expensive and smokey we found ourselves at some kind of no-nonsense brasserie along the side of the road which was actually kind of nice except but for the fact that everyone was starring at us... and except of course for the intestines.
aside: is there an obviously american way of parking? how did they figure out that we were foreign before we even got out of the car?
anyway, our choices for lunch (handwritten onto slips of paper in the menu) were chicken, pork, and andouillete, and the exchange between us went something like:
ck: what kind of pork?
jo-na: i don't know. some kind of pork.
ck: but what does this other word mean?
jo-na: i don't know. something about how the pork is prepared.
ck: and the chicken?
jo-na: chicken... prepared in some fashion.
ck: (sigh) i guess i'll have the chicken.
ss: what's an-douil-lete?
jo-na: i don't know, but i think it might be gross.
ss: what does this word mean?
jo-na: grilled. you know, i'm not sure it's gross. isn't that what's in andouille sausage? maybe it isn't so bad. it's some kind of grilled meat that may or may not be gross.
ss: what do you think?
jo-na: go for it.
i can only imagine the laugh the kitchen guys had, but they brought us our plates of chicken, french fries, and what looked like a giant brat with straight faces. ss kept her game face on as she cut into her andouillete, releasing a smell so awful that ck discreetely inched herself down the table and i asked myself without internal sarcasm if there were toxic fumes coming from some nearby industrial facility.
it wasn't only that ss didn't cry, or sulk, or vomit. she dissected it a bit further, looked up, and announced: "i think this is intestines." she picked at it a little more and then tried a little bite. she made a funny face and was quiet for a little while. then she looked up at us again: "it tastes piggy in a way you wouldn't expect."
so ck and i ate our chicken and eventually the waiter came and took everything away and the cheese tray came and everything was back to normal. we had exacted our revenge on the most obvious table of starring people by sitting right down next to them so that they were forced to stop starring (apparently it's possible to silently call out small town europeans when their behavior is so eggregiously poor).
we spent the rest of they day examining various towns and churches, entertaining everyone with our adventures in french cuisine. apparently ss was right on the money, as the quality of andouillete is assessed by its degree of pigginess (as it gets better and more expensive it's less piggy). we continued to learn the lexicon of roman religious architecture, inspecting tympana, crypts, cloisters, and of course the famous capitals depicting important religious themes ("lust and despair", for example).
so i'm very proud of my friends for being such good frenchies, even if they do shriek with delight every time we pass a flock of sheep or someone says "merde."
aside: is there an obviously american way of parking? how did they figure out that we were foreign before we even got out of the car?
anyway, our choices for lunch (handwritten onto slips of paper in the menu) were chicken, pork, and andouillete, and the exchange between us went something like:
ck: what kind of pork?
jo-na: i don't know. some kind of pork.
ck: but what does this other word mean?
jo-na: i don't know. something about how the pork is prepared.
ck: and the chicken?
jo-na: chicken... prepared in some fashion.
ck: (sigh) i guess i'll have the chicken.
ss: what's an-douil-lete?
jo-na: i don't know, but i think it might be gross.
ss: what does this word mean?
jo-na: grilled. you know, i'm not sure it's gross. isn't that what's in andouille sausage? maybe it isn't so bad. it's some kind of grilled meat that may or may not be gross.
ss: what do you think?
jo-na: go for it.
i can only imagine the laugh the kitchen guys had, but they brought us our plates of chicken, french fries, and what looked like a giant brat with straight faces. ss kept her game face on as she cut into her andouillete, releasing a smell so awful that ck discreetely inched herself down the table and i asked myself without internal sarcasm if there were toxic fumes coming from some nearby industrial facility.
it wasn't only that ss didn't cry, or sulk, or vomit. she dissected it a bit further, looked up, and announced: "i think this is intestines." she picked at it a little more and then tried a little bite. she made a funny face and was quiet for a little while. then she looked up at us again: "it tastes piggy in a way you wouldn't expect."
so ck and i ate our chicken and eventually the waiter came and took everything away and the cheese tray came and everything was back to normal. we had exacted our revenge on the most obvious table of starring people by sitting right down next to them so that they were forced to stop starring (apparently it's possible to silently call out small town europeans when their behavior is so eggregiously poor).
we spent the rest of they day examining various towns and churches, entertaining everyone with our adventures in french cuisine. apparently ss was right on the money, as the quality of andouillete is assessed by its degree of pigginess (as it gets better and more expensive it's less piggy). we continued to learn the lexicon of roman religious architecture, inspecting tympana, crypts, cloisters, and of course the famous capitals depicting important religious themes ("lust and despair", for example).
so i'm very proud of my friends for being such good frenchies, even if they do shriek with delight every time we pass a flock of sheep or someone says "merde."
Sunday, May 20, 2007
le blog
even though i've become quite the blog-slacker over the last few months, i find myself overcome, once again, by the urge to blog from afar, this time from le very small town in france.
the advent of cheap, reliable technology continues to make the world smaller - looking out the window from where i'm sitting you might think you're mere inches (or maybe centimeters) from
falling off the planet, but you're just never that isolated in the presence of high speed internet... especially when your american cell phone is completely functional.
that said, there was no way we were going to wander into town without calling attention to ourselves. i am here with s "i love goat cheese" s and c "six seconds to sunburn" k who were gracious enough to join me on my sojourn in bfe, so i'm doing my best to show them the local sights. i thought we should start in the nearby town of la machine, most famous for it's fall from greatness after the coal mines closed. it's only about 4 kilometers from where we're staying, but the uncharacteristic blazing heat resulted in three loud, sweaty americans appearing out of nowhere, banging down the doors of the mining museum. sore thumb doesn't begin to cover it.
it turns out that the mining museum is open only between 2 and 6 pm, only on sundays and bank holidays. not surprising, really, in a town where the grocery store closes for lunch and the church is open for mass every 4th sunday. but a drag nonetheless, since it meant that i couldn,t come through on my promise of hard hats, head lamps, and a guided tour of a mock coal mine.
not that the day was without excitement. there was a brief moment of panic when we thought we'd come across a naked man on the side of the road, fishing in the nearby creek (it turned out he actually did have pants on), and there was our chance to help out with local law inforcement. as we were walking home on the small road (there isn't so much sidewalk as there is ditch) we got, pulled over by a very little car carrying two very attractive policemen (gendarmes, if you will). while i was still trying to figure out how it was possibly illegal to be walking along the side of the road, they pulled out a flyer with a picture of a man and a separate picture of his motorcycle, with a "excuse me but have you seen him?"
even more surprising than being asked to help out with a french rural man hunt was that we were actually helpful, as we had actually seen him going in the opposite direction about a half hour before. we supplied all the details we could (we're not sure they believed us) and watched as a small legion of law enforcement paraded into town. if there was a newspaper it would be on the front page.
maybe it's the jet-lag talking, but i don't think it gets any better than this.
the advent of cheap, reliable technology continues to make the world smaller - looking out the window from where i'm sitting you might think you're mere inches (or maybe centimeters) from
falling off the planet, but you're just never that isolated in the presence of high speed internet... especially when your american cell phone is completely functional.
that said, there was no way we were going to wander into town without calling attention to ourselves. i am here with s "i love goat cheese" s and c "six seconds to sunburn" k who were gracious enough to join me on my sojourn in bfe, so i'm doing my best to show them the local sights. i thought we should start in the nearby town of la machine, most famous for it's fall from greatness after the coal mines closed. it's only about 4 kilometers from where we're staying, but the uncharacteristic blazing heat resulted in three loud, sweaty americans appearing out of nowhere, banging down the doors of the mining museum. sore thumb doesn't begin to cover it.
it turns out that the mining museum is open only between 2 and 6 pm, only on sundays and bank holidays. not surprising, really, in a town where the grocery store closes for lunch and the church is open for mass every 4th sunday. but a drag nonetheless, since it meant that i couldn,t come through on my promise of hard hats, head lamps, and a guided tour of a mock coal mine.
not that the day was without excitement. there was a brief moment of panic when we thought we'd come across a naked man on the side of the road, fishing in the nearby creek (it turned out he actually did have pants on), and there was our chance to help out with local law inforcement. as we were walking home on the small road (there isn't so much sidewalk as there is ditch) we got, pulled over by a very little car carrying two very attractive policemen (gendarmes, if you will). while i was still trying to figure out how it was possibly illegal to be walking along the side of the road, they pulled out a flyer with a picture of a man and a separate picture of his motorcycle, with a "excuse me but have you seen him?"
even more surprising than being asked to help out with a french rural man hunt was that we were actually helpful, as we had actually seen him going in the opposite direction about a half hour before. we supplied all the details we could (we're not sure they believed us) and watched as a small legion of law enforcement paraded into town. if there was a newspaper it would be on the front page.
maybe it's the jet-lag talking, but i don't think it gets any better than this.
Friday, April 27, 2007
sour grapes
go figure: there's a downside to shoddy construction.
since i've been in chicago i've lived in the same 1960's 4+1 in lakeview. well located? yes. off-street parking? yes. thick walls and ceilings? no. and even though my beautiful hard-wood floors had to be covered up with wall-to-wall carpets lest i disturb the "very good tenant" who lived downstairs, no such courtesy was bestowed upon me and i've had to endure a series of loud, inconsiderate, elephant-like upstairs neighbors.
the thing about loud neighbors is that they are often enshrouded in mystery. my building is so big and anonymous that i'm not sure i've even seen these people. given the episodic quiet periods i'm assuming that the turnover for the apartment in question has been pretty high, and i've never really been able to conjure up a good mental image to go with my rage and indignation.
sometimes the offenses are quite obvious in their origin, although that doesn't usually make them less irritating - i mean really, who vacuums at midnight? more often than not, i have absolutely no idea what these people could possibly be doing to generate such a disruptive racket. the booms and clangs and thuds just don't seem to correlate with any routine human activity that i can readily identify.
until i get woken up at 2:30 AM on wednesday to a particularly offensive brand of rhythmic banging that can only be the result of one thing.
for a moment there's confusion. what time is it? why am i awake? dear god, what is that noise? what could they possibly be... oh... eeeew! i find lying in bed alone when you'd like to be sleeping having to listen to strangers have sex a mere eight feet from me to be a pretty distasteful experience. but i fall back asleep, briefly, before being awoken AGAIN, this time to a chorus of such stereotypical moans and "OHMYGOD"s, so ridiculous that i have to ask myself, "who on earth has such raucous circus sex at 2:30 AM on wednesday?" i was tempted to get out the broom and wack it on the ceiling to see if i could at least break the concentration required to fake such a melodramatic orgasm, but was afraid of effecting encourgagement, rather than the mortification and buzz-kill i intended.
as i barrel towards my 30th birthday with alarming speed, i have to ask myself if i've become such a curmudgeon as to actually resent people who have drunken, late-night, weekday sex, or if i'm enough of a prude to be shocked by such behavior... but seriously, have you seen the people who live in my building? i have, and believe me, they just don't look like they have it in them. and besides, given how empty the parking lot is during the day i know they all have day jobs. i just don't believe that anyone who can afford the lakeview rent mark-up and tolerate living in a neighborhood so lacking in edge has any inclincation to be awake at that hour.
so instead of going out and finding my own ways to shock and offend my neighbors with a life of sin and debauchery, i daydream about the job i could have taken in north carolina where the same rent check would get me a house with its very own roof and ceiling, and about the snide notes i'd like to slide under the door of my new arch-nemeses... something along the lines of, "if i wanted porn i'd rent some."
i'm open to suggestions.
since i've been in chicago i've lived in the same 1960's 4+1 in lakeview. well located? yes. off-street parking? yes. thick walls and ceilings? no. and even though my beautiful hard-wood floors had to be covered up with wall-to-wall carpets lest i disturb the "very good tenant" who lived downstairs, no such courtesy was bestowed upon me and i've had to endure a series of loud, inconsiderate, elephant-like upstairs neighbors.
the thing about loud neighbors is that they are often enshrouded in mystery. my building is so big and anonymous that i'm not sure i've even seen these people. given the episodic quiet periods i'm assuming that the turnover for the apartment in question has been pretty high, and i've never really been able to conjure up a good mental image to go with my rage and indignation.
sometimes the offenses are quite obvious in their origin, although that doesn't usually make them less irritating - i mean really, who vacuums at midnight? more often than not, i have absolutely no idea what these people could possibly be doing to generate such a disruptive racket. the booms and clangs and thuds just don't seem to correlate with any routine human activity that i can readily identify.
until i get woken up at 2:30 AM on wednesday to a particularly offensive brand of rhythmic banging that can only be the result of one thing.
for a moment there's confusion. what time is it? why am i awake? dear god, what is that noise? what could they possibly be... oh... eeeew! i find lying in bed alone when you'd like to be sleeping having to listen to strangers have sex a mere eight feet from me to be a pretty distasteful experience. but i fall back asleep, briefly, before being awoken AGAIN, this time to a chorus of such stereotypical moans and "OHMYGOD"s, so ridiculous that i have to ask myself, "who on earth has such raucous circus sex at 2:30 AM on wednesday?" i was tempted to get out the broom and wack it on the ceiling to see if i could at least break the concentration required to fake such a melodramatic orgasm, but was afraid of effecting encourgagement, rather than the mortification and buzz-kill i intended.
as i barrel towards my 30th birthday with alarming speed, i have to ask myself if i've become such a curmudgeon as to actually resent people who have drunken, late-night, weekday sex, or if i'm enough of a prude to be shocked by such behavior... but seriously, have you seen the people who live in my building? i have, and believe me, they just don't look like they have it in them. and besides, given how empty the parking lot is during the day i know they all have day jobs. i just don't believe that anyone who can afford the lakeview rent mark-up and tolerate living in a neighborhood so lacking in edge has any inclincation to be awake at that hour.
so instead of going out and finding my own ways to shock and offend my neighbors with a life of sin and debauchery, i daydream about the job i could have taken in north carolina where the same rent check would get me a house with its very own roof and ceiling, and about the snide notes i'd like to slide under the door of my new arch-nemeses... something along the lines of, "if i wanted porn i'd rent some."
i'm open to suggestions.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
warm fuzzy holiday greetings
not all of us celebrate spring holidays with baskets of pastel eggs and chocolate bunnies. in an effort to integrate the holiday season, and having recently attended both an amazing yummy seder at my blogmate's place and a quirky easter get-together with 98-year-old grandpa, i would like to present the following reasons why it doesn't really matter which holiday you celebrate this season:
seder: matzo ball soup - chicken stock with mysteriously delicious balls of flavored dough.
easter: italian holiday soup - turkey stock with mysteriously delicious balls of flavored beef.
seder: extra table setting and cup of wine for elijah's coming.
easter: extra 1/2 hour of conversation about my father, and why he isn't coming.
seder: while sitting around the table, learn the story of exodus, wait to find out who starts snickering first at the word "bondage."
easter: while sitting around the table, learn that uncle and partner recently attended the international men of leather festival in chicago.
seder: reminisce about last seder's grilled turkey, which tasted suspiciously (deliciously but sacrilegiously?) like the sausage that had been recently cooked on the same grill.
easter: delight to discover that grandpa now makes turkey by stuffing the whole thing with bacon.
seder: drink 4 glasses of wine, become unable to see straight to drive home.
easter: drink 4 cups of coffee, become unable to sit still to drive home.
seder: friend comes in with surprise gift of manischewitz-flavored chocolates for our gracious hostess.
easter: grandpa starts telling stories about friends back in the old country coming to him with surprise gift of 40 chickens.
seder: learn fun facts about your friends, like their new condos and love of existential literature.
easter: learn that grandma's relatives used to be in the mafia. (sorry, but what parallel can you draw for that one?)
seder: wake the next morning a little hungover, vow not to drink so much for a little while.
easter: immediately afterward, buy several 6-packs of beer and vow to not open them at least until getting home.
seder: matzo ball soup - chicken stock with mysteriously delicious balls of flavored dough.
easter: italian holiday soup - turkey stock with mysteriously delicious balls of flavored beef.
seder: extra table setting and cup of wine for elijah's coming.
easter: extra 1/2 hour of conversation about my father, and why he isn't coming.
seder: while sitting around the table, learn the story of exodus, wait to find out who starts snickering first at the word "bondage."
easter: while sitting around the table, learn that uncle and partner recently attended the international men of leather festival in chicago.
seder: reminisce about last seder's grilled turkey, which tasted suspiciously (deliciously but sacrilegiously?) like the sausage that had been recently cooked on the same grill.
easter: delight to discover that grandpa now makes turkey by stuffing the whole thing with bacon.
seder: drink 4 glasses of wine, become unable to see straight to drive home.
easter: drink 4 cups of coffee, become unable to sit still to drive home.
seder: friend comes in with surprise gift of manischewitz-flavored chocolates for our gracious hostess.
easter: grandpa starts telling stories about friends back in the old country coming to him with surprise gift of 40 chickens.
seder: learn fun facts about your friends, like their new condos and love of existential literature.
easter: learn that grandma's relatives used to be in the mafia. (sorry, but what parallel can you draw for that one?)
seder: wake the next morning a little hungover, vow not to drink so much for a little while.
easter: immediately afterward, buy several 6-packs of beer and vow to not open them at least until getting home.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
p.s.
my good blogmate has already told you about our adventures in new york. now that we're back in what suddenly feels like quaint little chicago, i just wanted to reassure our readership that we did more than just drink and shop. we learned things about one of this nation's great cities...
1. in bars on wall street, the line to the mens' room is longer than the womens' - but ladies' night somehow seems creepier in that context.
2. tequila in hot chocolate is delicious.
3. if you do not speak english as your native language, it is apparently acceptable to sing along to bryan adams in the airport.
4. if you are a do-gooder vegan undergraduate at columbia, it is totally acceptable to go on in long strident tones over ethiopian food with your girlfriend and your tragically-new-jersey-accented aunt about what a do-gooder you are, and how much your expensive columbia education will go to bat for you in the lucrative and competitive field of designing programs for disabled adults.
5. if you are the tragically-new-jersey-accented aunt at said ethiopian restaurant, yes, we want to hear you speaking so loudly, and of course we are interested in that time in the 70s when you went on some macrobiotic diet without actually knowing what that meant.
6. if you are riding the m60 bus from la guardia to harlem, not only is it standard for the bus driver to holler at you over the loudspeaker, but it is required that you shout back, in kind of a warped tent revival fashion: "is there room in the back?" "NO!!!" "i SAID, can you give me some roomintheback, people?" "NO!" there might have been dancing and speaking in tongues but it seemed dangerous given the amount of slamming on the brakes.
7. if you are a featured artist at moma, you need to wear high-watered bad pants. incidentally, you know that usual museum commentary on the wall about how the artist develops his work by "listening" to what the inanimate subjects are telling him? not so mystical and artistic, once you know that said artist is schizophrenic.
so a special set of thank-yous to our gracious hosts who showed us around new york!
-sm, for uncomplainingly ushering us around the city, even on a sunday morning after her saturday evening of mainlining wine.
-js, for getting us successfully from point a to point b every time, and for boiling down complicated concepts like arbitrage to little words that us non-business types can understand (when she described someone's business plan as a "bank of a bank of a bank," we knew we'd found the right friend.)
-sm's roommate k, for showing off her new alcoholic popsicles, and insisting that it's really ok to want fries and ice cream right after breakfast. also for agreeing that no, falafel cannot be involved in arbitrage, because it's a low-risk commodity.
-mk, for navigating us through dim sum: "you just sit there until you're full, or until you're peckish, and then you eat some more!" for finding us lots of yummy food and drink, and appreciating my long rambling stories about people she's never met.
and of course, to my blogmate, for one-liners like "sometimes we pass zantac wordlessly back and forth like a bong," for completely forgetting that it was my idea to embark on the crazy let's-give-up-our-plane-seats-for-$400 adventure in the first place and not holding it against me, and for being willing to laugh about this and still tolerate my presence after it's over.
1. in bars on wall street, the line to the mens' room is longer than the womens' - but ladies' night somehow seems creepier in that context.
2. tequila in hot chocolate is delicious.
3. if you do not speak english as your native language, it is apparently acceptable to sing along to bryan adams in the airport.
4. if you are a do-gooder vegan undergraduate at columbia, it is totally acceptable to go on in long strident tones over ethiopian food with your girlfriend and your tragically-new-jersey-accented aunt about what a do-gooder you are, and how much your expensive columbia education will go to bat for you in the lucrative and competitive field of designing programs for disabled adults.
5. if you are the tragically-new-jersey-accented aunt at said ethiopian restaurant, yes, we want to hear you speaking so loudly, and of course we are interested in that time in the 70s when you went on some macrobiotic diet without actually knowing what that meant.
6. if you are riding the m60 bus from la guardia to harlem, not only is it standard for the bus driver to holler at you over the loudspeaker, but it is required that you shout back, in kind of a warped tent revival fashion: "is there room in the back?" "NO!!!" "i SAID, can you give me some roomintheback, people?" "NO!" there might have been dancing and speaking in tongues but it seemed dangerous given the amount of slamming on the brakes.
7. if you are a featured artist at moma, you need to wear high-watered bad pants. incidentally, you know that usual museum commentary on the wall about how the artist develops his work by "listening" to what the inanimate subjects are telling him? not so mystical and artistic, once you know that said artist is schizophrenic.
so a special set of thank-yous to our gracious hosts who showed us around new york!
-sm, for uncomplainingly ushering us around the city, even on a sunday morning after her saturday evening of mainlining wine.
-js, for getting us successfully from point a to point b every time, and for boiling down complicated concepts like arbitrage to little words that us non-business types can understand (when she described someone's business plan as a "bank of a bank of a bank," we knew we'd found the right friend.)
-sm's roommate k, for showing off her new alcoholic popsicles, and insisting that it's really ok to want fries and ice cream right after breakfast. also for agreeing that no, falafel cannot be involved in arbitrage, because it's a low-risk commodity.
-mk, for navigating us through dim sum: "you just sit there until you're full, or until you're peckish, and then you eat some more!" for finding us lots of yummy food and drink, and appreciating my long rambling stories about people she's never met.
and of course, to my blogmate, for one-liners like "sometimes we pass zantac wordlessly back and forth like a bong," for completely forgetting that it was my idea to embark on the crazy let's-give-up-our-plane-seats-for-$400 adventure in the first place and not holding it against me, and for being willing to laugh about this and still tolerate my presence after it's over.
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