Lunch break.

I sometimes take my lunch break at my desk. I take advantage of those 30 minutes in my day when I don't have to sit in front of a computer screen looking at numbers and letters, and I sit in front of a computer screen and look at photos and numbers and letters.

Tim has officially told me I cannot buy anything for our apartment because it is full. And he is right. But I still like to take 10 or 15 minutes to search Craiglist for "logan square," just to see what our neighbors are selling.

And look at this gem: elephant!!!

I like that the seller included photos of the elephant on public transit and bus stop benches, just so we can get a clear picture of all the lovely things you can do with an elephant. Thanks, logan square seller 1447546415!

Vocals.

Sometimes we take our talent for granted. Sometimes we think, I'm not a good cook! I can only make macaroni and cheese from the box! My rice always turns out crunchy. I screwed up instant pudding once! etc.

Sometimes we need to focus on the courage it takes to make those boxes of macaroni and just be happy that we're trying. Cue Shane:



Please sing loud in your car, your kitchen, your hallway, and your shower. Sing and know it's best to do it and not think about it. Write silly songs and don't worry about the neighbors hearing you. Dance in public spaces where you aren't supposed to dance (grocery stores, chain restaurants, train stations). Really, it's for your enjoyment and no one else's.

Thanks, Shane.

Fright Night.

What a night! We invited friends over for a halloween party that included several photo shoots reminiscent of America's Next Top Model, so the photos were pretty good, right? Along with the help of Madison Friends (Liz, Catherine, Katie, James, and Conley), the house was decked out in paper streamers and jack-o-lanterns, and Dana and I managed to make pumpkin seeds, vegan chocolate/coffee/coconut cupcakes, 500 popcorn balls (DON'T try to double the syrup. It messes up some sort of sugar PH and we ended up with very sticky kettle korn), and a giant patch of Witches Brew.



If you can't tell, I'm a fish. It was supposed to be a cute couples costumer, with Tim being a bear and all. But Tim's bear costume ended up consisting of a brown bag on his head and a brown corderoy suit jacket (thanks, John). So yes, don't judge me, I sidled up to my friend Megan, also conveniently dressed as a bear.

We ended the night by watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, starring Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Luke Perry and Paul Reubens. It was 84 minutes of pure delight.



Here is the popcorn ball recipe we used. It is my Grandma Mische's recipe, and when I called my mom to get it yesterday, she said "I'm just about to make some, too!" Ma had much more impressive ingredients for hers though---black popcorn, M&Ms, and soy nuts. Stupid neighbor kids getting my mother's delicious treats while I being a grown up far away, unable to trick or treat like I really, really want to. Stupid neighbor kids.

We used yellow dye in stead of red, so they looked like glowing buttery balls of goodness. The next time I do this I'd make maybe 1 1/2 cups of popcorn, salt it, and then pop more if I needed more for the syrup. We had a little bit too mcuh popcorn and we thought we could just make another quick batch of syrup. Then Dana added twice the water, and THIS IS WHERE I SHOULD HAVE SAID "WAIT. Let's just start over again." But the ingredients weren't expensive so we went in, popcorn balls to the wall, and made twice as much popcorn. We ended up with two giant towers of popcorn smushed together. I don't know what we were thinking making five times the amounts of stuff, but I'm not complaining, either. In the end, we have sugary delicious popcorn galore. It's more of a glass half full type of situation.

Grandma Mische's Pink Popcorn Balls

2 cups unpopped corn
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup water
2/3 cup light syrup
¼ cup butter
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp vinegar

Cook to 245 on thermometer. Remove from heat and add tsp of vanilla and ½ tsp almond flavoring and any food coloring. Pour over the popcorn and form into balls.


Thanks for the recipe, Ma!

Overheard from downstairs neighbors.

G_____! Ah! Come here!

Come HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE! Come here right now!

G_____G_____G_____, Come here come here come here!

(Charlie Brown trombone)

It's a bug! A giant bug!

(longer Charlie Brown trombone inquiry)

YOU come here and kill it! It's BIG! I hate it!

(short Charlie Brown trombone response)

UGHHHH. I hope it comes out and BITES YOU!


(silence)



UGH.


(more silence)


I DON'T EVEN HAVE SHOES!






(I love my building.)

Adventures in Uptown.

It started out as a simple idea. Let's go out on Friday night! Just the ladies! Yayyyyyy!

And then I suggested that we see a show at Annoyance Theatre. I'm not even going to re-type the title of the musical, because if I did, most would say "well, what did you expect?" Which is why I have this unsettled feeling of bewilderment. I EXPECTED it to be a horrible, offensive, one-penny production with bad actors. I just didn't expect to be so right.

Thoughts that myself, Kaye, Christina, Rita, and Stephanie all had at one point during the first half of the show:

He's going to hurt his voice if he keeps talking like that.
Oh, no. She's not going to say...oh. She said it.
Don't drink that...oh. He drank it.
The Dame is actually pretty good.
Yelling in key is not singing.
Ugh, maggots.
I need another drink.
Why do his jeans fit so weird?
He's not going to take off...oh. He took it off.
He's not going to use his belt on his...Oh.
Thank god there's an intermission so we can leave.

Thought that another audience member said out loud:

What IS this?



Heh. It was actually really funny to look over and see all the ladies exchanging the same WHAT THE WHAT?! looks. Everyone was too nice to say they wanted to leave at intermission, so I pointed that no one said they actually wanted to stay. Did I mention that before we went to THE THEATRE we had an amazing dinner at De Mera? The manager was annoying ("hey, have you guys heard of Facebook?" WHAT?) but the food was delicious, and I love eating without a knife and fork (or spoon).

We decided to find a place for a drink, and tried out about five different bars before settling on Max's bar. We wanted to find a hole in the wall that wasn't too loud or crowded, and this was certainly the place. Since there was no place to go but up from our previous entertainment, we enjoyed the many unique characteristics this bar had to offer with smiles on our faces: a "unique" smell, a bartender that was maybe six months pregnant and the only other woman in the bar, lots of leering men, and a one-eyed man that kept creeping towards our table until the bartender would yell "Larry! Come over here!" and then he'd retreat to a bar stool for about 10 seconds before slowly standing up and sidling over to our table again. Again, on the up side, everyone said goodbye to us when we left. Very sad, leering goodbyes.

To top off the night, I swore at a cab driver. What a night! Uptown...you are a strange minx of a neighborhood. I'm glad I got to experience it with a group of fun-loving and forgiving females. Sorry ladies.

Triathlon.

Training for a sprint triathlon was one thing I wanted to do this year. What were the others?

2009 New Years Resolutions
1. Get a steady volunteer gig with a theatre.
I just started my first project with the Arts and Business Council Business Volunteers for the Arts program. I felt like a bit of a spy, as I seem to know way more about the arts than other volunteers. However, my first partner is a on-line project manager and a lighting designer on the side, so I think I'm okay. Not as cool as a lighting designer, but okay.

2. See a play at least once a month.
I have not kept up with this one. I'm working on it! Summer proved harder than I thought, and the tickets proved a bit more expensive than I thought.

3. Keep credit card debt at zero.
Let's keep moving.

4. Run another marathon triathlon.
Substitute triathlon for marathon, and we're in good shape! I completed the Danskin Women's Triathlon last weekend with the following times:



I made it through the triathlon, but man, it would have been a lot easier if I had trained 100%. In reality, I probably trained about 60%. I did the triathlon alongside a relay team lead by friend Kaye. We woke up at 4:15 a.m. last Sunday and both had panic attacks. It was about 45 degrees outside. And we would be swimming in a lake in about 3 hours. We bundled up, headed over to Kaye's the home of Kaye's running teammate, Leslie, a couple blocks over, and snoozed in the car all the way up to Pleasant Prairie (Leslie's fiance drove. They just got engaged, and were canoodling the entire time, it was the cutest thing in the world). Getting there took longer than we thought, and there was also a hiccup at the drop off. Thankfully, Kaye's team member Maria took our bikes up the day prior, so we had very little to do to prepare. Kaye and I found the bikes, jumped up and down a couple times, and realized that about 75% of the women there were stretching into wet suits. After helping a woman get into hers, I turned to three other girls our age in swim suits.

"Hey, are you guys using a wet suit?" I asked.
"No! Are you?!" they asked. We could see our fear mirrored in each others faces---were we crazy? Was the water freezing? Would we sink without them? ARE WE COMPLETELY UNPREPARED?

HA! Jokes on all those old ladies with money for wet suits. The lake was a balmy 72 degrees. A wet suit would have helped with buoyancy, for sure, but Kaye and I both pulled through the lake with no major problems. Kaye killed it, coming in at about 15 minutes for 800 meters. I had a mid-level moment of panic and decided to backstroke the whole thing at the last minute. A wise decision.

Maria and Leslie were waiting at the bikes and I didn't have to pour water on my feet cause the jaunt across the parking lot from the swimming area cleaned my feet adequately. I popped on my shorts, socks, shoes, helmet, and shirt, and jogged my bike over to the start line. And, friends, this is where I KILLED IT. My sweet, sweet bike was one of the few road bikes being used that day, so I passed about 150 people in the 12 mile ride. Woot woot! I was so happy the swim was over I was cheering on other participants and yelling hello to all the geese flying south. Hello, Geese! Hi, Goose! Goose, goose, goose! Happy to be out of the water like me, Goose?

And did I mention I looked THIS GOOD?



When I got off the bike, I found I couldn't quite feel a couple of my toes, and my calves felt like bricks. I dropped the bike and kept running for the last leg of the race, the 5k. I felt like I was running on wooden stumps because my legs were so tight, but I knew that 3.1 miles was nothing, so I pushed through and passed a bunch of people again. I should note that every participant had their age written on the back of their right calf. So while I passed ladies with 35 or 45 on their leg, I didn't feel too great. But, when I picked out a 23-year-old in the line and ran past her, I was cheering in my head: YEAH, 23! TAKE THAT! YOU CAN STILL DRINK AND CAROUSE ALL NIGHT AND FUNCTION THE NEXT DAY? Take THAT! MY 27 PITIES YOUR STRIDE WITH ALL THIS WISDOM AND JUNK I HAVE OVER YOU.

By the end of the race, I felt just as bad as I did after the marathon last year, but I recuperated much more quickly. Would I do it again? Definitely. But I'll prepare much more and try swimming in the lake before the race day.


5. Learn to play racquetball
Done and done, and I still have the YMCA membership to prove it.

6. Record more songs.
Tim and I recorded a song for our friend Sara and Joe's wedding gift. It was pretty great.

7. Back up the laptop.
I think I did that on January 2. So we're good.

Sickness.

Today is my second sick day of the week, and third sick day of my career. Not only did I start off the week with a sick day, I then went to work and gave my sickness to at least one other employee. Now she is home sick, too, and we are both continuing to do work because it is simply not possible for the world to keep spinning without us continually sending e-mails and hosting conference calls. COMMUNICATION is basically all I do at work, with a dash of research and computer knowledge thrown in.

Today I work up at 6:30 a.m. for a conference call and then went back to bed at 7:15. I woke up at 11:30, just in time to see Chicago lose the Olympic bid. Then back to work, roll of toilet paper on one side, flowers from my sister Liz on the other, listening to Tim practice in the other room. It feels like graduate school, where Fridays were spent at home catching up with work, sitting at the back table while Tim practiced down the hall.

Our heat also just got turned in, so it feels like winter in here. It's my friend Kaye's last day at her job, and she'll be starting her new job on Monday. Appropriately, the Oriental Institute has called on the gods of Overcast and Blustery to show their discontent with her departure. We're going to go and see a play at her new place of employment tomorrow night, and then I might be going to a small production on Sunday night as well.

Friends and family---I hope you can stay away from me, lest I give you my plague of annoying nose blowing and coughing.