Birthday Month Comes to an End

As all good things must end, so does my Birthday Month. I really couldn't ask for a better one so I have no complaints. The Surprise Concert, a couple of great weekends out of town, trips to the beach, my sailing class... everything's been really fun.

Last night we had a great time with a friend's art book release, the purchase of a new sink for our planned bathroom redesign, a visit to my new favorite restaurant, Bite (I had the Lamb Salisbury Steak, M had a Philly Cheese Fake) and finished it off with a visit to Chicago's most amazing ice-ery, Miko's. The ice-ista at Miko's gave us as fine a consultation as you would get in any five-star restaurant as he leaned out his window in Logan's Square and advised us on the best flavors (Hot Tip: Peach is coming next week!)

In other news, I happened to find myself in a batting cage a few days ago and I was unexpectedly KILLING. Since I was doing so well, I decided to leave the "slow" pitch and progress to a faster ball. The Guy warned me that it was "much" faster, but I was not worried. I actually went from completely confident to crapping my pants terrified in about .2 seconds, which is how fast that ball came flying at me! When I stopped screaming I fought my way out as fast as I could. And that's why I don't play sports, people.

Here's a great picture of M and G inspecting limes for cocktail-worthiness. We took 90 limes to the lake house. That's how we do it.

Birthday weekend

This weekend we went to our friend's lakeside "cottage" along with the whole crew - it was the most fun I could possibly have had on my birthday weekend! Now I have a (un)healthy tan, am well-swum, and pleasantly full of delicious food. We saw a couple of amazing storms and went night swimming! It's heavenly out there!

Camping weekend

Last weekend we went camping up in Wisconsin - actually, not far at all from us - at Lake Geneva. Beautiful lake up there and a lovely little camp ground. It was fun sleeping outside and having a big fire at night. Here's a pic of M and a typical book he takes on vacation.

and here's our campsite - it was under a marvelous tree - we really liked that tree:

When we came home again we couldn't wait to pet Kaya and also to go see Harry Potter! I'll post my thoughts on the movie soon.

dark and hot

Well, it's been an utter shit storm of a past few days because we had this wee giant storm which lasted about 15 minutes and tore up a bunch of trees and left us without power for just over 24 hours (along with 868,000 other people). Power was off at work and at home and one was obliged to spend a lot of time at both places sitting around in the sweltering darkness.

Our power finally came on around noon today, but only after we had thrown away all the food in the fridge. ComED owes us a variety of fine cheeses, I'll tell you that.

Here's a crazy ass video of the storm.

It's very sad about the trees, especially on the campus where I work. It's really weird because the wind just knocked them right out of the ground. Some of those trees were my friends. I knew them from nut and acorn.

The Secret Event!

Well, I know you're all dying to know what the Secret Event was (assuming anyone still reads my blog?)! It was very exciting. We drove down to Uptown, to the Aragon Theatre, and I couldn't tell from the marque even what it was - in fact, I didn't find out until we were inside and I had been (gently) frisked - The Flaming Lips concert! What a fun surprise! I don't go to a lot of concerts and don't know if this is normal, but they had all kinds of balloons that got bounced around, and the lead singer got in a giant bubble and road all over the tops of the crowd and they shot out a bunch of confetti and there were lasers... it was pretty cool.

Otherwise, we spent most of the weekend in our backyard, which is nothing short of a suburban wonderland:

(I got new shoes.)

birthday month update

Ooo boy, you would not believe how excited I am because M has written "Secret Event" on the calendar for tomorrow and all I know is it's part of my birthday month celebrations. SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

So far it's been a lovely birthday month and looks to get even better and better. The garden is in full bloom and really gorgeous. This weekend we will undoubtably spend as much time as we can lingering there with the odd cocktail, the hammock and our precious little angel, Kaya!

These are tiger lilies and my new favorite: Rose Champion - pretty, rite? Also some crazy curly grass.

Lamebook is my favorite...

poaching

We tried this delicious recipe for poached egg and asparagus from a terrific local food blog (and friend of a friend) Lottie and Doof.

It was pretty fancy because we used our own chive flowers (alas, we didn't use that many and now chive-flower-season is over - I need to find a LOT more recipes for them). I love using something from our garden, even if it's a tiny little bit of mint or parsley.

I haven't quite nailed poaching eggs yet - I have a tendency to over-cook them - but, I think I'll perfect the method shortly.


Oh, speaking of food, there's a very funny controversy which just got stirred up by the Reader's Best of Chicago. One category was "Best Restaurant for Kids" and someone wrote in "To be locked in a cold, dark, soundproof room." (ha!) and a bunch of humorless people wrote some comments. Gaper's Block sums it up and also refers to the great Andersonville Taste of Heaven Controversy of Aught Five in which a bunch of humorless people got all upset when a bakery down the road from our old apartment suggested that children should be well-behaved on the premises. Hilarious stuff.

Parental visit

My mom and dad came up for the weekend and we had a really great visit. We ran around town and had a couple of great meals and also worked and hung out in the garden quite a bit. I also convinced them to go kayaking in Lake Michigan!
Oh, look - behind us you can see someone riding one of those newfangled paddle boards or whatever they're called.

22nd!

OMG, so, it's exactly one month to my birthday (!!!!!!!!) but only about a week until my Birthday Month (which is kinda more important). And so, without further ado, I give you my birthday wishlist, which will be, I imagine, greatly appreciated by certain husbands and certain parents. People "claim" that I am hard to shop for, but I maintain that I am extremely EASY to shop for. IE, I love jewelry like crazy. And make-up. Done.

ahem:

• digital egg timer
• Japanese cotton fabric
• Kitchenaid 6 Quart Stand Mixer in Empire Red

Duh. Easy!

item!

We had a big storm tonight. We thought we might have to go in the basement. But, it wasn't that bad, in the end. (For us, anyway.)

Today at work I won a major award.

Did you see these disgusting cigarette warning labels? I hate to get all libertarian, but, come on, those are stupid.

I really liked the Murakami Google thing today:

This is hilarious. But they left out a LOT.

After

I was finally able to finish my chair this weekend, which I so cruelly teased you all with a week ago.

I'm not quite sure where I found this chair but I'm pretty sure I found it in the alley, which has provided more than a few treasures since we moved here.It was hideous, but I saw the potential to look like...
Isn't that great? I really love it. I looooove that fabric. It looks tres Jonathan Adler, although it only cost about $12 instead of like, a thousand. I think the chair is fairly old based on the fact that the original upholstery was attached with tacks rather than staples. There was a date stamped on the fabric but no year - but! Look at that date!

Do you know what that is? My birthday! This chair and I were meant to be together! And! What a lovely reminder that my birthday month is coming up!

w00t Pwn: Portal 2

This time I bring you w00t pwn with first hand knowledge! M & I played Portal 2... together! For a little while. Did you know when you're playing a video game, what feels like 10 minutes is actually 2 hours? It's very disturbing.

Anyhow, Portal 2 is pretty fun. You can play it with a partner, who is your wife, and you and she are like, two robots? And you're in this kind of facility? And, you walk around and try to solve puzzles and stuff. And your husband gazes at you lovingly, as if you are doing something marvelous and not staring slack-jawed at the television trying to remember what button to push.

I quite enjoyed Portal 2, and trying to solve puzzles and whatnot even though it takes a little while to figure out and time slips through your fingers like sands through the hourglass. It's got a voice-over which is truly, truly funny. We smiled at each other and remarked about how it was actually funny, and not completely lame, like most things that try to be funny actually are.

At first I just made my robot follow M's robot around, dutiably adorable, or desperately initiating high-fives (you can do that), or accidentally falling into toxic sludge and getting regenerated while he figured out how to solve the puzzle.

Sample conversation:
Me: What do we do in this one?
Me: Maybe it's that thing.
Me: Look at that thing.
Me: Hey, wait for me.
Me: Oops! I fell in the sludge again.
Me: Where are you?
Me: Ha! That was funny.
Me: It's really funny, right?
Husband: Yeah.
Me: It's weird how it's actually funny.
Me: Right?
Husband: Yeah.
Me: Do you know what to do?
Me: Oops. Hold on. Sludge.
Me: Ok, here I am.
Husband: Oooooo! *I* know what to do!

He concentrates pretty hard. Eventually I figured out how to solve puzzles too. It was satisfying.

He likes the single-player too. I had to quit for a while because I really did get quite disturbed about the alarmingly rapid passage of time. Nevertheless, I rate it Downright Bearable.

Just Before

This weekend we had a lovely, delicious dinner at Bite Cafe in The City. I must encourage you to go there - it was absolutely wonderful (and surprisingly inexpensive - byob!) I had a roast chicken... I'm not kidding you... best chicken I ever ate in my LIFE. I can't wait to go back.

I started a project to recover a couple of chairs I pulled out of the alley, both of which ended up being more complicated than I'd anticipated. Each of them had like 4,000 tacks in them, and I plier-ed so much I kinda hurt my hand (and it's still hurting!) Anyway, I just have a "before" to tantalize you with...


but I can assure you the "after" is going to be totes gorg. Here's a hint: Jonathan Adler!

Food, Glorious Food!

So, did you all know the The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a new food pyramid, only it's not a pyramid? It's a plate, that's like, Hey Dummy, eat this why don't you?

I find it hard to believe we should really drink that much milk. Can you IMAGINE, drinking a WHOLE glass of MILK? Gag.

I am endlessly amused by food propaganda. There was a great show on NPR this morning about "Uncle Sam's" role in what and how we eat. You should give it a listen.

They posted a couple of terrific images on their site. I love this one:

which is just like, "Eat whatever the hell you want!" (Get a load of the "butter and margarine" category!)

The beloved food pyramids of our youth created the carb monsters that we all are today:

(Mmmm...May I have some more pasta, please?)

This one I love, which is less a food pyramid and more of a "Why don't you get some exercise, you fat lazy slob?"

Natalie Dee always gets right to the heart of the matter:


And this one is my favorite!

Midnight in Paris

We saw Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris on Friday and I'm pleased to report it was really fun and a great movie. Sure, it doesn't have the gravitas of some of his more brilliant older work, but it doesn't have the suckitas of much of his recent work.

It's about this movie-writer and his fiance (Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams) who go to Paris and, after midnight, alone, he is transported to his favorite period in time and space: Paris in the 1920s (neatly supporting my theory that our culture is obsessed with Quantum Physics). In his midnight adventures, he finds himself hobnobbing with the likes of the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. If you are not vaguely familiar with the expatriots of Paris 1920s you might be bored out of your mind, not to mentioned annoyed by pretentious a-holes like myself who are like, "Ha! Ha! Ha! Adrien Brody's performance as Salvador Dali was simply divine!" I happen to think half the fun of Woody Allen movies is sitting around with like-minded literary folk who "get" all the Strindberg references.

Shots of Paris are, naturally, absolutely gorgeous. I thought it was fun watching Rachel McAdams play a kind of rotten character for once instead of "America's Sweetheart". Carla Bruni (Sarkozy) is an art guide and unbelievably beautiful. I always like Owen Wilson, I think he's such a charming actor.

I'm only mildly miffed by the poster for the movie which features Starry Night as a backdrop to the Siene, which, as everyone knows, van Gogh painted it while in Arles.

W00t PWN: KillZone 3

KillZone 3 reminds me a lot of Call of Duty, or possibly KillZone 2, anyway, I swear I've seen this snowy, industrial landscape before. Maybe it's that dopey scene from Inception, I dunno. Snowy, industrial landscapes are so XMen 3, amirite?

This is exactly the kind of game I don't like because M's guy just shoots the whole time and there are constantly guns going off, and then he'll get shot, and his guy will moan and stuff, and it's very noisy. It makes one regret one's excellent sound system.

I guess approximately half of these people are M's guy's co-workers, but I don't know HOW he can tell who's who, I honestly don't. It's really violent and gives me a headache. *frowny face*

When people die, they go like this: AAAAAARRRRRG! OOOOOGH! AAAARRRRGGGHhhh! Ah! Ah! OoooOOoOOOOOO! Ah, uh... uh.

It's funny, but also sad. Kind of like this.image via

It is Completely Unbearable.

My friends are really smart

Everyone knows my friends are like, really smart and stuff, and two of them are honest-to-god rocket scientists.

I. has been working on a J-2X rocket for NASA - he worked on the nozzle. Pretty cool, huh? I. says, "Our J-2X engine was part of the recently canceled Constellation return-to-the-moon program. So, for now, our engine is its own separate NASA R&D program until the higher-ups at NASA decide what's next."
image via

Well, I think it's great, aside from the whole fate-lying-in-the-balance-thing. It's a terrible shame that NASA's budget has been cut so drastically, which is rather small compared to, say, those three wars we're currently waging.

Anyway, that's a really nice nozzle, if it is what I think it is.

Kiki Smith

Last week I saw the artist Kiki Smith speak at the Block Museum. It was pretty exciting experience for me because I got to the museum early to meet a friend, and it turns out Kiki Smith was there early to see the show too (for the first time.) So, for a while it was just me and her walking around the MFA exhibit and then my friend got there, and we all went up and looked at Smith's exhibit (with our ears perked up to hear what the artist and print folks were saying). Then there was a "conversation" which was quite good - Smith is a bit unusual because she's not your typical academic artist and she doesn't pretend to have the answers to everything and she's not afraid to say she's never thought about certain things or that she doesn't understand things (like color).

I think she's a brilliant printmaker and from my days in the Prints and Drawings room at the AIC I remember how people used to just go out of their minds when her prints came out. I was not nuts about her photographs, which this show is ostensibly about, although there were a fair number of sculptures and a handful of prints.

I did like the more narrative of the photos - there was one series where she is dressed as a witch with apples - she called the woman a "dumb witch" who eats her own poisoned apples and ends up dead on the forest floor. But, the apple/woman image, despite the humor of the "dumb witch", really does recall a lot of apple/woman mythology, like Eve, Sleeping Beauty, etc.

My favorite piece from the show was an Etching, aquatint, and drypoint with watercolor additions called "Pool of Tears 2 (after Lewis Carroll)". This image doesn't really do it justice... I love etchings.


This piece wasn't in the show but I think it's absolutely incredible... it's called "Born".

How much would you bid?

I forgot to go on and on about the Royal Wedding, but I did watch it and I did love it, especially Kate's dress AND her sister's dress


and ALL THOSE HATS! Of course, this hat...


was the most outrageous, and, according to the internets, it will be available on ebay soon. What would you bid? I think it looks, as my dad might say, like, "Stupidity-ness", but, I think I might like it in navy...