zac's blog has really inspired me to think about how i could make my blog cooler. should i provide links to funny things? should i come up with some sort of theme? how can i make my blog better without making a lot of effort and/or appealing to anyone other than my friends? (at first i really debated making my blog private and using it only to keep tabs on my own goofy thoughts, but then thought better of it).
maybe i should provide a link to a monkey photo every day.
maybe i should find out if the "fruit of the day" newsletter is still in existence and then comment every day on the fruit of the day. of course, there are endless variations on this one: i could do cocktail of the day, tom cruise joke of the day, tasteless joke of the day... you get the picture. it's much more likely that it would be "of the week" of course, but that probably goes without saying.
i am going to decide something sometime soon to somehow make my blog cooler. dammit. and if that doesn't sound committal in a non-committal way, well then i'm not being clear!!!
in the meantime, can i put a plea out there for any female readers to let me know if there's a facial moisturizer out there that has changed their life? the air at my office is so dry that every time i look in the mirror it looks like i've got leprosy because the skin around my nose is peeling off. ew. i've put some cheap moisturizer from the CVS downstairs on my desk and try to remember to re-apply it, but i really think i shouldn't have to do that several times a day. there's got to be some magic potion that has changed a girlfriend's life that i just haven't heard her rave about yet. and dammit, it's time!
i guess i could rant about the products that have changed my life. there are
1. certain dri. love the stuff! i was a sweaty girl (ew!) but i am sweaty no longer! this stuff may be weird (you put it on at night before you go to bed) but it works.
2. kiehl's after shave shaverettes lotion. i used to have such a reaction to shaving that i couldn't wear a skirt or shorts right after shaving because my legs would be all red and bumpy, and lotion would just make it worse. well, what's the point in shaving if you can't show it off, baby! and now i can.
okay, so now that i've alienated the guys that read this, i'll stop. and i'll go eat the brownies i was baking and watch the end of the hockey game and figure out how in the heck i'm going to upgrade to sepasky.blogspot.com 2.0
Monday, May 31, 2004
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
i am exhausted tonight. i thought i was doing okay, but after dinner i completely and totally crashed. i fell asleep on the bed around 7:15 and steve had to wake me up and let me know that the pistons were on and that i should probably not go to bed so early since it'll mess my sleep schedule up. but i want to! i am like a walking zombie!!!
here's why: i had to leave the safety and comfort of my little home on sunday at 10 am (criminal!) and head to the airport so that i could go to a two-and-a-half day internet media conference. it amazed me, because we're still debating (arguing) over the same points that we were three years ago when i left this space! nuts! but that's not really the only reason we were there: we were provided with big name keynote speakers that (i guess) were supposed to inspire us (interesting, but not very relevant) and we were supposed to schmooze (which i did). lots of other people apparently thought that the last point meant that we also were supposed to drink lots of alcohol, but since my stomach is still acting funky (over a week now where i've had digestive problems -- maybe i should see someone about that...), i wisely kept my socializing to one or two drinks (which really were as much of an accessory drink as anything else). anyhow, the reason i am so tired tonight is that this event was at a resort on the chesapeake bay in maryland. in the past they've been in ultra-glamorous hotels in scottsdale and beaver creek. i suppose this was supposed to be nice too, but...
1. it was over an hour and a half from the nearest major airport (baltimore), which SUCKED since i had to leave before 7 to return my rental car and get on my 10 am flight (since there are only a couple of direct flights each day from baltimore and i had a client meeting this afternoon).
2. there was DIAL-UP internet access only in our hotel rooms -- a HUGE snafu for an internet conference (the weird thing is that the resort is only about a year old and that the organizers kept saying that when they booked this a year ago they were told that the hotel would be wired with high-speed access by now. i think that must have been a line of hooey since you don't usually build a brand-new hotel and then wire it later)
3. it was hot and humid and when the sun went down (and our evening cocktail parties were outside) there were tons of bugs. i wore skirts in the evenings since it was so hot, but now my legs have bug bites on them. ew.
so yeah, i went to that and then had superfun getting up early to head back today so that i could go and sit an listen to big announcements/internal meetings about next year's marketing plans. woohoo! initially the meeting was supposed to be at 2 and so getting into the airport around noon was perfect. it gave me time to reclaim my bags, get all of the way to long-term parking, find some food somewhere, change into something nice and then go to my client's office. well, two days ago they moved the meeting to 4 pm. so i ended up done at the airport at 12:30, with a 15 minute drive to my client's office. i debated driving into town to go to the office for awhile, but since it can be up to an hour each way with traffic, that would have been dumb. so i went to the mall across the street from my client's office. i very wisely decided to take out the "client meeting" clothes that i had very carefully ROLLED (not folded) and put at the top of my suitcase. it's a darn good thing, too: i hadn't noticed that the TSA had looked in my bag, and in the process they had wedged my skirt and sweater set. it looked really bad. i was able to salvage a sweater, but decided that it'd be easier to find some sort of skirt or pants at the mall than to somehow try to un-wrinkle the skirt. i must have looked like a zombie at the mall, but it worked and i found a skirt and then got the call that the meeting had been moved up to 3 pm. and then i changed and finally everything came together and went as planned. hoooray!!!
so now i'm home and half-watching the pistons, hoping they can keep their lead. i'm glad they're more awake than i am!
-
-
-
happy thought of the day: as i drove home from the client meeting i drove through grant park to columbus avenue and noticed that, for the first time since i moved, buckingham fountain was turned on and the water was shooting up majestically, welcoming me back to what's starting (finally!) to feel like home.
http://www.zone.ee/usapage/pics/Chicago/Buckingham%20Fountain%202.jpg
here's why: i had to leave the safety and comfort of my little home on sunday at 10 am (criminal!) and head to the airport so that i could go to a two-and-a-half day internet media conference. it amazed me, because we're still debating (arguing) over the same points that we were three years ago when i left this space! nuts! but that's not really the only reason we were there: we were provided with big name keynote speakers that (i guess) were supposed to inspire us (interesting, but not very relevant) and we were supposed to schmooze (which i did). lots of other people apparently thought that the last point meant that we also were supposed to drink lots of alcohol, but since my stomach is still acting funky (over a week now where i've had digestive problems -- maybe i should see someone about that...), i wisely kept my socializing to one or two drinks (which really were as much of an accessory drink as anything else). anyhow, the reason i am so tired tonight is that this event was at a resort on the chesapeake bay in maryland. in the past they've been in ultra-glamorous hotels in scottsdale and beaver creek. i suppose this was supposed to be nice too, but...
1. it was over an hour and a half from the nearest major airport (baltimore), which SUCKED since i had to leave before 7 to return my rental car and get on my 10 am flight (since there are only a couple of direct flights each day from baltimore and i had a client meeting this afternoon).
2. there was DIAL-UP internet access only in our hotel rooms -- a HUGE snafu for an internet conference (the weird thing is that the resort is only about a year old and that the organizers kept saying that when they booked this a year ago they were told that the hotel would be wired with high-speed access by now. i think that must have been a line of hooey since you don't usually build a brand-new hotel and then wire it later)
3. it was hot and humid and when the sun went down (and our evening cocktail parties were outside) there were tons of bugs. i wore skirts in the evenings since it was so hot, but now my legs have bug bites on them. ew.
so yeah, i went to that and then had superfun getting up early to head back today so that i could go and sit an listen to big announcements/internal meetings about next year's marketing plans. woohoo! initially the meeting was supposed to be at 2 and so getting into the airport around noon was perfect. it gave me time to reclaim my bags, get all of the way to long-term parking, find some food somewhere, change into something nice and then go to my client's office. well, two days ago they moved the meeting to 4 pm. so i ended up done at the airport at 12:30, with a 15 minute drive to my client's office. i debated driving into town to go to the office for awhile, but since it can be up to an hour each way with traffic, that would have been dumb. so i went to the mall across the street from my client's office. i very wisely decided to take out the "client meeting" clothes that i had very carefully ROLLED (not folded) and put at the top of my suitcase. it's a darn good thing, too: i hadn't noticed that the TSA had looked in my bag, and in the process they had wedged my skirt and sweater set. it looked really bad. i was able to salvage a sweater, but decided that it'd be easier to find some sort of skirt or pants at the mall than to somehow try to un-wrinkle the skirt. i must have looked like a zombie at the mall, but it worked and i found a skirt and then got the call that the meeting had been moved up to 3 pm. and then i changed and finally everything came together and went as planned. hoooray!!!
so now i'm home and half-watching the pistons, hoping they can keep their lead. i'm glad they're more awake than i am!
-
-
-
happy thought of the day: as i drove home from the client meeting i drove through grant park to columbus avenue and noticed that, for the first time since i moved, buckingham fountain was turned on and the water was shooting up majestically, welcoming me back to what's starting (finally!) to feel like home.
http://www.zone.ee/usapage/pics/Chicago/Buckingham%20Fountain%202.jpg
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Sunday, May 16, 2004
whew! we just got home a little while ago from being in michigan this weekend. it's bittersweet to come back here after seeing friends and family. this weekend i felt especially close to my family -- i don't know if it was because of my grandfather's recent diagnosis with myelofibrosis (!), or the pleasant discovery that even though they have kids i still have lots in common with my cousins, but i felt truly happy to see everyone. usually there's some sort of feeling of family duty that seems to almost overshadow the pleasant experience of being together, but i didn't get that very much this time. who knows: maybe it's because steve is more and more comfortable with everyone, so i can be more relaxed. ??? whatever it is, it was great. i was glad that i was there.
today was equally nice: i went to my friend sarah's shower. i am not usually a fan of the bridal shower. i think opening piles of gifts is cool, but it's weird to do it in front of a bunch of people. and showers (whether they're bridal or baby) usually have such an odd blend of older aunts and friends-of-the-celebrant, that it's sometimes hard to feel comfortable in such mixed company. however, we can't attend our good friends' wedding in july, so i was really honest-to-god glad that i could be at their shower today. i definitely "owed" it to them in terms of how much they mean to me, and the event was pretty dang nice, to boot. i got to see a couple of other friends and it was all sunny and nice out. not bad at all...
maybe i'm just getting older and all of this "i was soooo happy to just see so-and-so" is an outward sign of some sort of maturity i had been missing. maybe it's related to my having finally gotten my day-job under control, and now i'm trying to find some sort of balance and appreciate the people that mean a lot to me. or maybe somehow my hormones and the weather conspired to just put me in a good mood all weekend. whatever it was, i'm grateful, and it was awesome to see all of the people i love so much.
which brings me back to where i am now. it's still hard to come back to chicago and feel like it's home when all of the people we love are concentrated in a place four hours away. i think we'll have to start recruiting them a bit more energetically. and maybe even getting out of the apartment here a bit more often to make friends locally!
as we drove back tonight, we were listening to the CD we had made for our wedding reception. and we were singing at the top of our lungs. we spend plenty of hours together when we're tired or feeling anti-social, and there aren't nearly enough of them when we're singing at the top of our lungs. granted, it would have been even more awesome if we weren't driving through gary indiana in the dark, but i'll take it anyhow. quality time can be hard to come by.
so here i am, getting cheesy on a sunday night about the value of my friends (who really are the only people reading my dorky little blog anyhow)... i was going to write about how indignant i am over rush limbaugh comments about the abu ghraib prison scandal. steve then pointed out that everyone had heard his comments weeks ago and that i really need to get more up-to-date on my newspaper/New Yorker magazine subscriptions. i guess i'm just not cut out to write a blog of any sort of significance. so maybe it's good that i was feeling cheesy about how great my friends are anyhow, since that gave me alternate writing fodder. man, i am thinking so many random thoughts about everyone tonight. i am so fucking blessed with good friends.
zac: i absolutely love the loretta lynn album. she rocks, and so do you.
(tell penny to come to chicago for spa weekend!)
alex + sarah: you two rock. i hope you enjoy your noritake colorwave and the accent plates. i almost bought you those instead, but i figured i would buy you something less breakable. :)
erin: you are a great girlfriend. you are also the uber-bridesmaid and i wish i knew you way-back-when so i could have honored you with some such role in our big day. and of course, it would have been great to see ben there all dressed up in a monkey butler suit since he was so dang handsome for your wedding!
tom: you'll never see this (although alex probably will and may relay this to you) but i was excited to hear about your new company today, and i'll be doing my worried "becoming my mom" thing while thinking about you and ben
christy + brian: i can't believe our schedules overlapped in such a crappy way. i am excited to hear what in the heck you did while you were in chicago!
rebekah + minh: dammit i am dying to know where you are moving! rebekah, please write and tell me what you've decided!
tiffany: i haven't heard from you and with your birthday coming up, you are on my mind! did you get my email about how i saw 'giddyup' activity books in every airport i've been in lately?
keenan: please move here. it is fun here and your residency will ROCK if you move here. i swear!!! and you'd better bring that awesome wife of yours!
becky: i hope you had an awesome birthday! please upload more photos of our buddy liam. :)
tasha + john: i can't believe we missed you guys this weekend. we have the most rotten luck. maybe the next time that you're coming here while we're in michigan we can make plans to meet up in kalamazoo or something!
wendy: i hope your pregnancy is going well. i really want to see you with a big fun round belly! i bet you are a super sexy mom-to-be!!! i wish you could bring lucie here so we could have a fun girly day on the town!
barbara + bob: man, i can't wait to visit you in vermont. have i told you yet that vermont is one of the favorite places that my family went to while i was growing up? and i word that in such a weird way because it wasn't just one of MY favorite places, it was one of OURS. and your new place looks so awesome up-northy in the photo!
barbara + bill: i know you're never online (and therefore not reading this) but i think of you lots and definitely owe you a phone call!
chuck + sharon: i am so dang excited that you're working at the library! i hope you let sharon go watch your ultimate frisbee games! and i hope she's not too busy with "my gal friday" to make it to cheer you on.
bruce + vanessa: we went to Culver's Butterburger for dinner tonight (yum!) and i thought 'bruce would really dig this place" and steve agreed. seriously, for some reason, i thought of you. and i somehow during the shower today i got into a random conversation about childrens' theatre and how awesome vanessa is for her prison work.
man, my friends rock. so now all we have to do is get some of them to move here.
or add to them, i guess. i mean, we like the people we know here so far. not enough for me to be thinking specific sorts of "shout-out" things about them, but i'm optimistic that will happen some day.
i guess until then i'll just have to write my little love note shout-outs to my peeps back in A2. you guys really are the best...
with love from chicago...
today was equally nice: i went to my friend sarah's shower. i am not usually a fan of the bridal shower. i think opening piles of gifts is cool, but it's weird to do it in front of a bunch of people. and showers (whether they're bridal or baby) usually have such an odd blend of older aunts and friends-of-the-celebrant, that it's sometimes hard to feel comfortable in such mixed company. however, we can't attend our good friends' wedding in july, so i was really honest-to-god glad that i could be at their shower today. i definitely "owed" it to them in terms of how much they mean to me, and the event was pretty dang nice, to boot. i got to see a couple of other friends and it was all sunny and nice out. not bad at all...
maybe i'm just getting older and all of this "i was soooo happy to just see so-and-so" is an outward sign of some sort of maturity i had been missing. maybe it's related to my having finally gotten my day-job under control, and now i'm trying to find some sort of balance and appreciate the people that mean a lot to me. or maybe somehow my hormones and the weather conspired to just put me in a good mood all weekend. whatever it was, i'm grateful, and it was awesome to see all of the people i love so much.
which brings me back to where i am now. it's still hard to come back to chicago and feel like it's home when all of the people we love are concentrated in a place four hours away. i think we'll have to start recruiting them a bit more energetically. and maybe even getting out of the apartment here a bit more often to make friends locally!
as we drove back tonight, we were listening to the CD we had made for our wedding reception. and we were singing at the top of our lungs. we spend plenty of hours together when we're tired or feeling anti-social, and there aren't nearly enough of them when we're singing at the top of our lungs. granted, it would have been even more awesome if we weren't driving through gary indiana in the dark, but i'll take it anyhow. quality time can be hard to come by.
so here i am, getting cheesy on a sunday night about the value of my friends (who really are the only people reading my dorky little blog anyhow)... i was going to write about how indignant i am over rush limbaugh comments about the abu ghraib prison scandal. steve then pointed out that everyone had heard his comments weeks ago and that i really need to get more up-to-date on my newspaper/New Yorker magazine subscriptions. i guess i'm just not cut out to write a blog of any sort of significance. so maybe it's good that i was feeling cheesy about how great my friends are anyhow, since that gave me alternate writing fodder. man, i am thinking so many random thoughts about everyone tonight. i am so fucking blessed with good friends.
zac: i absolutely love the loretta lynn album. she rocks, and so do you.
(tell penny to come to chicago for spa weekend!)
alex + sarah: you two rock. i hope you enjoy your noritake colorwave and the accent plates. i almost bought you those instead, but i figured i would buy you something less breakable. :)
erin: you are a great girlfriend. you are also the uber-bridesmaid and i wish i knew you way-back-when so i could have honored you with some such role in our big day. and of course, it would have been great to see ben there all dressed up in a monkey butler suit since he was so dang handsome for your wedding!
tom: you'll never see this (although alex probably will and may relay this to you) but i was excited to hear about your new company today, and i'll be doing my worried "becoming my mom" thing while thinking about you and ben
christy + brian: i can't believe our schedules overlapped in such a crappy way. i am excited to hear what in the heck you did while you were in chicago!
rebekah + minh: dammit i am dying to know where you are moving! rebekah, please write and tell me what you've decided!
tiffany: i haven't heard from you and with your birthday coming up, you are on my mind! did you get my email about how i saw 'giddyup' activity books in every airport i've been in lately?
keenan: please move here. it is fun here and your residency will ROCK if you move here. i swear!!! and you'd better bring that awesome wife of yours!
becky: i hope you had an awesome birthday! please upload more photos of our buddy liam. :)
tasha + john: i can't believe we missed you guys this weekend. we have the most rotten luck. maybe the next time that you're coming here while we're in michigan we can make plans to meet up in kalamazoo or something!
wendy: i hope your pregnancy is going well. i really want to see you with a big fun round belly! i bet you are a super sexy mom-to-be!!! i wish you could bring lucie here so we could have a fun girly day on the town!
barbara + bob: man, i can't wait to visit you in vermont. have i told you yet that vermont is one of the favorite places that my family went to while i was growing up? and i word that in such a weird way because it wasn't just one of MY favorite places, it was one of OURS. and your new place looks so awesome up-northy in the photo!
barbara + bill: i know you're never online (and therefore not reading this) but i think of you lots and definitely owe you a phone call!
chuck + sharon: i am so dang excited that you're working at the library! i hope you let sharon go watch your ultimate frisbee games! and i hope she's not too busy with "my gal friday" to make it to cheer you on.
bruce + vanessa: we went to Culver's Butterburger for dinner tonight (yum!) and i thought 'bruce would really dig this place" and steve agreed. seriously, for some reason, i thought of you. and i somehow during the shower today i got into a random conversation about childrens' theatre and how awesome vanessa is for her prison work.
man, my friends rock. so now all we have to do is get some of them to move here.
or add to them, i guess. i mean, we like the people we know here so far. not enough for me to be thinking specific sorts of "shout-out" things about them, but i'm optimistic that will happen some day.
i guess until then i'll just have to write my little love note shout-outs to my peeps back in A2. you guys really are the best...
with love from chicago...
Friday, May 14, 2004
This is a bit old, I know, but I'm just catching up on my foodservice industry news, and I still think it's worth sharing...
A policeman from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin did nothing to dispel the stereotype about cops and doughnuts last month when he won the first Dunkin' Donuts World Copy Donut Eating Championship here. In the contest, staged during the INternational Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association conference, Terry O'Brien ate nine and a half doughnuts in three minutes to outdo 39 other competitors.
http://www.ileeta.org/Donut_contest.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Midwest/04/16/cops.doughnuts.ap/
A policeman from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin did nothing to dispel the stereotype about cops and doughnuts last month when he won the first Dunkin' Donuts World Copy Donut Eating Championship here. In the contest, staged during the INternational Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association conference, Terry O'Brien ate nine and a half doughnuts in three minutes to outdo 39 other competitors.
http://www.ileeta.org/Donut_contest.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Midwest/04/16/cops.doughnuts.ap/
Sunday, May 09, 2004
Something I was going to blog about earlier, but it had me too upset: I think we were burglarized. And while I know that's a bit of a dramatic way to begin a post, here's the scoop. About a month ago I brought back a bunch of stuff from Michigan, including some summer clothes. I decided to reorganize my closet, pack up winter sweaters, etc. I had my jewelry box on a shelf in my closet and took it out while reorganizing. The reorganizing took several days, and I haven't seen my jewelry box since. Steve was convinced that I must have just set it somewhere odd and forgotten where I put it, but I was really feeling weird about it -- our apartment isn't all that big, and I've looked in all kinds of odd places.
Then, the initial news came: there was a flyer under our door the other day that there had been a couple of break-ins lately. I didn't really put two-and-two together, though. There are a lot of young, college age students in our building and the letter reminded people to lock their doors and use their deadbolts, so I guess I thought that maybe these young kids were leaving their doors unlocked while going to the gym.
When I got into the elevator on Friday morning, my neighbor asked me if I'd seen the news the night before. Apparently NBC5 did a segment on the burglaries, saying that police suspect it's an inside job. Nice.
Check out the story...
http://www.nbc5.com/news/3278237/detail.html
I am pretty sure the last time I saw my jewelry box it was on the dining room table. And I thought I had just done something weird with it, like stick it in the freezer. However, I've looked everywhere this weekend and now I think I need to file a police report. Ugh.
Then, the initial news came: there was a flyer under our door the other day that there had been a couple of break-ins lately. I didn't really put two-and-two together, though. There are a lot of young, college age students in our building and the letter reminded people to lock their doors and use their deadbolts, so I guess I thought that maybe these young kids were leaving their doors unlocked while going to the gym.
When I got into the elevator on Friday morning, my neighbor asked me if I'd seen the news the night before. Apparently NBC5 did a segment on the burglaries, saying that police suspect it's an inside job. Nice.
Check out the story...
http://www.nbc5.com/news/3278237/detail.html
I am pretty sure the last time I saw my jewelry box it was on the dining room table. And I thought I had just done something weird with it, like stick it in the freezer. However, I've looked everywhere this weekend and now I think I need to file a police report. Ugh.
ohmygosh it's so beautiful here today! it's 85 and sunny! the lake is filled with boats, the park is filled with people, and there's some weird sort of electronic band playing for some sort of social change outside our local jamba juice, so even the wait there is more pleasant than usual.
in a not-so-traditional method of honoring mother's day today, my mom and i got into a heated discussion about something i did wrong two christmases ago. woohoo! go, mom! way to celebrate your day your way!
on a very different note, steve and i have really gotten into watching the series of drawbridges go up. we can see two from our apartment, and we can watch as a group of boats queues between them while waiting. we'll have to take some photos and put them up. i wonder if there's a schedule for the drawbridges, so that sailboats know when they might want to aim for lake michigan (or for coming in again). hmmm...
in a not-so-traditional method of honoring mother's day today, my mom and i got into a heated discussion about something i did wrong two christmases ago. woohoo! go, mom! way to celebrate your day your way!
on a very different note, steve and i have really gotten into watching the series of drawbridges go up. we can see two from our apartment, and we can watch as a group of boats queues between them while waiting. we'll have to take some photos and put them up. i wonder if there's a schedule for the drawbridges, so that sailboats know when they might want to aim for lake michigan (or for coming in again). hmmm...
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
i just KNEW chicago had a lot going for it -- apparently our Lincoln Park Zoo has a reputation as a major gorilla breeding facility. they just opened a new ape house today:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0405050177may05,1,6115273.story?coll=chi-news-hed
and for more fun monkey news today:
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/Midwest/05/04/monkey.waste.accident.ap/
ewwwwwwwwwwwww!
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0405050177may05,1,6115273.story?coll=chi-news-hed
and for more fun monkey news today:
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/Midwest/05/04/monkey.waste.accident.ap/
ewwwwwwwwwwwww!
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