Crazy busy

07.30.06 8:26pm(0 comments)

I am NOT a soccer mom nor a newscaster…

Then, it was time for the haircut. Having had such a great experience with my earlier three services, and after hearing so many positive reviews about the place, I thought my hair cut would be phenomenal, just like everything else. I asked for something that would flip out, not be in my face, easy to care for, and very funky. I made sure to repeat these a few times so as to not create and confusion.

I now have helmet head, and I'm absolutely crushed.

Now I admit, I'm a fat nerd. I don't dote over fashion magazines or my hair, makeup and general beauty. I don't have time for the the self-esteem depriciation that usually comes with that sort of of behavior. But, I did want a funky haircut that would suit me well and make me look like I didn't just climb out of a fucking SUV or minivan full of screaming kids.

AND SINCE WHEN DOES FUNKY, FLIPPED OUT, AND ONLY AN INCH OFF TRANSLATE TO JENNIFER ANISTON, SOCCER MOM, NEWSCASTER, FUCKING HELMET HEAD HAIR? HUH?

Now, I'm going to give it a night and try to style it tomorrow. If I still feel the way I do now, I'm going back for someone to fix this horrible mop and a refund.

It's a damn shame too, because my highlights are *so* awesome. I mean really. What a waste of beautiful, funky highlights on fucking helmet head.

07.20.06 5:52pm(4 comments)

bleargh

Saturday we saw a scanner darkly (go see this movie) and went to a ninja, pirate, superhero, birthday / going away party at a friend's house. OF course I was a ninja and Tom was a pirate. Actually, I tried to go for this 'femininja' deal and wore a floor length black skirt with some zori sandals, a black tank top, a black and silver feather boa, and a ninja head covering thing that made me look like I was wearing a burka. Meh - at least Tom's costume was successful with an eyepatch, pirate hat, and a shirt that says "ninja's and pirates agree, cowboys suck." It was a dry party, something I hadn't been to in a llloooooooong time, but tons of fun and we got to meet a lot of folks. Not that we aren't already awkward in social situations, but I think we managed to survive without completely weirding out or offending everyone. At least not completely anyway. One of the couple's that we met there saw us waiting for the bus after the party and offered to give us a ride home, which was really nice.

Sunday, while our respective boyfriends were slaving away over the laundry, my friend Lura and I used the free pass I got from the Old town school of music for living in the area to the Folk and Roots festival in the park and took advantage of a Bhangra / Bollywood dance lesson. We had a really good time, picked up the moves pretty quickly, and now we're ready for the movies - keep your eyes on bollywood cinema for Lura and I, not like we would stick out like sore thumbs or anything. After cooling off and getting something to drink, we headed to tank for half price maki - wooh! Following half price maki, we hauled it up the stairs so Lura could go through some of my skinny clothes to see if she wanted anything.

Tom got home not too long after Lura and I won the fight against a feisty evening gown with a stuck zipper that really didn't want to leave Lura. Tom, a little frazzled from all of the 'hippy dressed imposters taking up his parking spaces with their $60,000 saab and lexus suv's, RAWR', hauled all of the laundry up the stairs and parked a hojillion blocks away. Lura invited us over for dinner and also let us bring the puppies :) Good times.

This week has sucked. Much to my absolute shock and disbelief, our 11 year old voicemail server froze and wouldn't boot up over 3 weeks ago. After dealing with an ancient server, DOA servers, a lying vendor, and various other hijinx, I'm on my 3rd server, which is almost working, and why I'm blogging as I wait for drives to initialize. Anyway, this is the project from hell with a black cloud looming over it all. I'd tell you the whole story, but I really don't want to talk about it. The moral of the story? Make sure to get on cyclical replacement plan and don't hang on to anything older than 5 years that you plan to rely heavily upon.

07.12.06 6:23pm(5 comments)

The move part III - return of the jedi

So after the insane day on friday, Tom and I zonked out, but due to this internal alarm clock issue that I have, I woke up the following morning shortly after 6am. WTF is up with that? I work my ass off and my body won't even let me sleep in? Taking advantage of the cool morning, I fed and saddled up the girls and took them for a walk in the park. Even though Welles park isn't as big as Winnemac park, Welles still holds much charm and has some really nice ammenities like a community center, a pool, a beautiful victorian gazebo, a horseshoe court, tennis courts, requisite baseball diamonds and general pretty park goodness. The puppies and I headed along the path in the park and back to the apartment. We enjoyed ourselves and I once again relish in the superb location of our new dwelling.

Tom and I have fallen into this routine where I make a pot of coffee, feed and take out the dogs in the morning (he after work) by myself and then bring them back in so that they can run up the doggie steps and wake him up. This gives me time in the morning to de-crankyfi and Tom the much needed extra few minutes of sleep (also for de-crankification). We're trying to avoid a great deal of puppy accidents, especially since I've taken my awesome rug to be cleaned, so we're crating the dogs a lot and being really dilligent about getting them out first thing in the morning. So far, it's worked out really well. The girls seem to be adjusting fairly well, and even more so as the days go by. Ruby really likes the new place and is ever-wagging while Sybil does a lot of hanging out in the crate. Carrying them up and down the stairs hasn't been that bad, and it seems to get easier every time I do it.

After we get up and get around, we head to the local corner grill type joint, Jeri's Grill. Now, don't get me wrong the corner grill holds a special place in my heart, but this place fixed everything that was wrong with the corner grill and then added a heaping helping of old school Chicago with a small side of Italian Mafia, served hot, fresh, and cheap. We get in there, find a booth near the back and have a look at the menu. Since one of the specialties is ham on the bone, I figure they know their swine and order up two eggs over easy, rye toast, and ham at $4.25, including homemade hashbrowns. Tom got the corned beef hash, eggs, etc. The coffee is hot and frequently refilled. The waitstaff is friendly and welcoming in that Chicago way - you know, you come in, they greet you warmly from the grill and ask if you want any coffee in a thick Chicago accent.

While we chat about our day, I notice that either one of the owners, or some well establish regulars is holding court in the booth behind us. They're talking about a cafe in the south loop, called Orange, that Tom and I have been to and this cool new thing called a "pancake flight." Now, Orange is the exact opposite of Jeri's grill, yuppified, frushi (fruit sushi) nouvelle cuisine type place, so I don't know if they're going to start a pancake flight at Jeri's or the people of Jeri's are involved in some other business venture where such a thing would be appropriate. So that was the conversation that caught my attention, but then it moves on to the different "families" and members of in Chicago. Oh man, I was grinning from ear to ear - it was like the movies! Then our food came and it was incredible. The total bill was a little over $11.00, but I felt that wasn't nearly enough. Do you ever get that feeling where you know you're not paying enough, but you've enjoyed yourself so much that you just can't help but to leave a huge tip? Yeah, I don't get that too often either, but I did saturday morning at Jeri's. What a great start to the day!

Tom and I head back to the apartment and do more unpacking. Fortunately, he has set up my mini stereo and hooked up his ipod so that we can listen to some music, making the arduous task of unpacking much more enjoyable. Feeling a little cabin fevered, Tom and I ventured out to pay the rent, check out some grooming options at the nearest pet store (we do a majority of our pet supply related business at Off the leash, but we feel really, really bad asking them to clip the girls toenails, which is really difficult to do since they loathe toenail clippings with every fiber of their little puppy beings), grab some italian sodas at the local coffee shop, and head to the library for our cards and some books. I think I'm really going to like having a library this close. I never did get to the library too often throughout my years for various reasons, but this library is so close, so huge, and has a great website where I can reserve dvd's, books, and all kinds of other stuff. During the school year I'm going to take advantage of the free wifi and large, open, but quiet spaces. A little study retreat if you will. Plus it was air conditioned, and saturday afternoon was HOT.

Now, at this point, we only have one a/c in the apartment that's in bedroom so when afternoon rolled around, unpacking was nearly impossible. Retreating to the bedroom with the puppies, Tom took a nap while I ordered from peapod. Peapod! Brilliant! What would we do without you? Let me tell you, the delivery price (although you can always find a promotion or coupon where you get it for free) is totally worth them having to haul all of your groceries, cases of pop, beer, etc. up three flights of stairs. Even though there's a Jewel (yeah, a jewel, like in the blues brothers) three blocks from here, I imagine that most of our large grocery shopping trip needs will come from peapods. Don't worry, peapod delivery people, we tip well. We understand, but better you than us, kay?

Sunday was also pretty productive, and the apartment is starting to come together. Tom worked on the office and closet (our new main closet is even bigger than the old place's closet, which was huge) and I worked on unpacking the kitchen, the room that had the majority of boxes associated with it. We ventured out later in the afternoon to Costco, Target, and home depot. Originally, we were going to buy two more air conditioners, placing one in the kitchen, one in the bedroom and move the one we have now to the living room, but we decided against it. Both Tom and I agree that it would be better for us to get some fans and go without a fully air conditioned apartment. Now, I know you're thinking we're crazy, but to both of us, something seemed so right about getting used to the heat and not relying on A/C. Something seems so unnatural about it. I know, it's July and it's going to be hot as hell. We can figure out the allure, but we're going to try it out. If we can't handle the heat, we'll get out of the kitchen and get some a/c's, but for now, it's fans for the lot of us. So we got two box fans and one of those big circle fans along with a new coffee pot and a clock radio that I had my eye on at Target to which we can hook up our ipods. Although, Chicago has a few really great radio stations, so I've been listening to those mostly. No more blasting the stereo from the living room. Since peapod doesn't deliver beer on sunday, we also stopped at the jewel down the street and hauled it up the stairs ourselves (worth it).

This morning, my body let me sleep in until 7:20, so I'm feeling pretty good. I made a pot of coffee in the new pot and it turned out pretty good. Tom and I are heading to the suburbs this morning (wish us luck) to the world market, ikea, and to someplace where Tom can buy a decent pair of shoes. I'll let you know how all that turns out in my next installment of "The Move!"

07.03.06 9:31am(1 comment)