up all night...

for those of you that i've already talked/complained to this vacation, i'm sorry to do it again.
for those of you that are wondering what's going on since i haven't posted, here's the latest:

steve and i are trying to figure out how and when we'll be moving to san francisco when we've both got huge amounts of work the next three weeks, and then we are scheduled to go to japan around january 20-ish (he would be leaving before me for work meetings, and i'd join him on the 26th).

anyway, i've been unable to sleep.

we're already freaking out that we're going to lose money selling our condo in chicago (there are 16 units just like it for sale in the building, and the building is offering two years without condo assessments -- ugh). and then i spent today trying to pin down the details of our japan trip, constantly running into problems with incomplete train schedules (eg: i found them for one direction, but not the other direction) and fully booked towns (no room in sapporo prior to the snow festival!). then steve told me about some crazy new projects he's going to have to do right after the japan trip that are already stressing him out.

steve and i decided tonight that both financially and stress-wise, we're going to do two things:

1. not go to japan for fun. steve will go for work, and sara will just concentrate on moving. that means we'll save a bunch of money that we'll need for the move, and that we can move in late january/early february (a timeframe that was previously available due to the trip). and that means steve can be focused on work stuff after the japan trip.

2. we are going to hire a realtor. we really wanted to sell our place 'fsbo' but even with me staying in the US we can't figure out how we'd be around to show our place since steve will still need to go to japan and i will still need to be working in san fran.

ugh.

i don't like these two decisions one bit.
i realize that they are probably for the best, and that we will be able to get out to san fran a bit sooner, but i'm sad about it.

i'm trying to comfort myself with the knowledge that there are cheap tickets to asia a heck of a lot more often from california than there are from the midwest, so hopefully we can reschedule our trip for sometime when we're not moving and i'm not supposed to be training a new employee (did i mention that i have a new employee who starts in SF on 1/17???). and that would probably be more fun anyway, since japan is pretty cold with not-a-whole-lot going on in late january.

(sigh)

this has not been a relaxing holiday break.
i am excited about the move, but i've been so stressed about it that i'm sleeping too little and drinking too much coffee. and then to add to the stress i've had to go through all of my childhood mementos at my dad's place (aka my childhood home) since he is now pretty much living full time at his girlfriend's. don't get me wrong: i am really happy for him and it is the best possible reason to put a house up for sale. i cried a ton when we went through my grandma's house, cleaning it out to put it up for sale. that was really sad because she's not well and wasn't with us. but saying goodbye to your childhood home isn't easy if you're a sentimental sap like me.
i save everything.
i cry at every movie.
and i lived there until i moved out for college.
...so i bucked up and went through lots of boxes and cabinets of old stuff: yearbooks, love letters, cross-country medals...
i didn't even cry until we drove away.

i'm just not good at dealing with this many things at once. i'm generally a pretty good multi-tasker, so i don't think it's just me -- i think it's probably a lot. it hasn't helped that it's been rainy and gloomy every day (although it is what i expect -- it's michigan in winter, after all).

i am really happy with life in general, but i can't wait until march, when hopefully this is all said and done and we're living in sunny california. i could really use some sun.

now here's something i *could* help with, but it's a little bit odd: toilet flushers are needed in louisiana.

holy crap, when will it end? according to ad age, gillette will launch a new razor, the six-bladed 'fusion' system, during the super bowl. wasn't it just recently that men only needed one blade to shave? when did this whole multi-blade thing start, and can we get shick and gilette to stop escalating it? i am petrified at the thought of having steve use something with 32 blades on his face!

this is the first time i've really wanted a video ipod. i don't have a commute (well, not for another month or so) and i'm not a big TV person, so i haven't really seen anything that's made me want one. however, this download really strikes a chord with me. i have always loved that WPIX airs this on christmas in nyc, and i remember really enjoying the fact that my dad's friend had a videotape of a fireplace playing on his tv when we went over there for christmas.
happy holidays, everyone. i hope one of you out there reading this is able to download and enjoy this.

whoa! thundersnow!!! sweet!

this site is going to make my life much, much better (regardless of where we live). on the downside, i will really have to get back into going to the gym!

i'm in california for a conference...

things i love about the midwest:
- autumn leaves
- cider mills (with cider mill donuts)
- daffodils and crocuses in spring


things i love about california:
- fruit trees full of beautiful citrus in the wintertime
- the ocean
- walking barefood through the grass in december (as i did today)

today we received our first holiday card for 2005. thanks, cousin robin!
in honor of that, i hereby determine today the beginning of the holiday season in the hall household!

the move is looking pretty solid. the details have to be straightened out, but my boss is pretty committed to making it work.
i am saddened by the prospect of having to navigate the political and personal waters of a whole new office (i *love* my coworkers) but i'm excited about the opportunity to move to a fabulous new city. i never would have thought i'd have the opportunity to move out to san fran with a secure job -- it's almost too good to be true.
since my boss is convinced it's happening and since the san francisco office all knows that i'm considering it (and coming out to meet them all) it's pretty much public knowledge. i could always turn it down if it doesn't go well next week, or if steve decides he doesn't want to go. however, i can't imagine my first impressions of the folks out there being completely wrong, and steve is really excited.
my head is spinning. thank goodness i was completely swamped at work today (i counted and at one point today had 12 different things going on concurrently -- all of which i did piss-poor at!).
i have to leave home at 5:45 am tomorrow for a trip, so i am going to bed RIGHT NOW.

g'night.

this site seems too good to be true (so somebody should let me know if they can poke some holes in it). some guy started this search engine that's powered by yahoo! search and gives part of their profits to charity. you can select which charity, too.
they even have a convienient "Add GoodSearch to Your Firefox/Netscape Search Bar" link, which means they're thinking of us non-IE folks (NICE!).
can anyone poke a hole in this? anyone?

wow, what a crazy week it's been.
it looks like we may be moving, folks.
my company is really interested in moving me out to san francisco, and since it sounds like they're going to make things work out in terms of salary/support staff/etc. i still don't know all of the details, but my boss has been insistent that he can make it work and that the rest of the details (relocation, etc.) are just en route from HR in NY. meanwhile, he has me going out there for a day next week to meet with everyone in the office and has steve meeting me out there to go apartment shopping.
this whole thing has happened so fast.
i am really excited about the opportunity, to say the least. sf is such a great town, and i love the idea of building a group from scratch for OMD. i've done it before at companies that i didn't like as well, and i know that i'll be well supported here. i also love everyone that i've met in that office, which is a good sign.
more to come. stay tuned...

sorry i've been so bad about writing. there's been lots going on, especially in regards to work.
i can't say much since i don't know who all is reading this, but i'll update ya'll as soon as possible (maybe even tomorrow).

thanksgiving was lovely and mellow. my dad was in florida and i still haven't heard from my mom (not a peep from her on my birthday), so we spent a couple of days with steve's family. it was nice not to have to rush around, and we finally caught up on sleep. we've both been fighting off colds, so we really needed it.

we had a really nice time visiting with some friends in A2 yesterday. things were kinda thrown together at the last minute, but i did get to have my favorite dish ever, chicken hyderabadi, at shalimar. mmmm... travis is now a convert, as he even wrapped up the leftover "crack" sauce to take home. mmmm...

we flew to michigan on thursday and back on saturday, and i'd highly recommend doing your turkey-day travel then, if you are able to. there weren't really any lines at o'hare, which was great (to be fair, we were at the northwest/continental terminal, which is usually pretty mellow compared to the united and american ones).

i'm catching up on all kinds of random stuff today, and getting all of our lists ("to do" list, holiday card list, shopping list, wish lists, etc) organized.
i am a big list maker, so this isn't such a bad thing.

i was going to run out to the verizon store to get my phone fixed (for the second time this week -- for some reason it can't hold a charge and they already tried replacing the battery), but it's nastynastynasty out. ick.

i have a lot of things on my wish list for christmas. even though i don't need it, i so totally want an ipod nano. it's just so dang cute. and i don't use my ipod all that much, but i'm sure if it was smaller (oh say, nano-sized) i would take it everywhere.
anyhow, i think the ipod accessory craze may have finally gone too far. check out this crazy ipod shuffle accessory. eek.

check out this slideshow on the nytimes site from a guy who skiied the king's trail in sweden, and saw some amazing northern lights.

i forget if i had it on my list of 'things to do in life' or not, but i definitely want to ride a dogsled someday.

my fave podcast that i can't download to this here computer ('cause it's owned by my company): bruce springsteen's six-part "born to run 30th anniversary podcast."
and yes, i'm a dork.

steve had taken advantage of this awesome deal where hilton hotels in japan were $4 a night on expedia. can you believe they're not honoring it?!? sheesh. at least we got a $250 credit out of it, which will help when we pay for oh-so-expensive hotels in japan during our stay next january.

did i already link to this awesome commercial from sony? it's received so much attention in the ad industry lately, i have no idea if non-ad people have heard as much about it as i have. i guess it doesn't really matter to me -- i love the ad, and just hope you do too.

once again, keenan is right: this sounds like the only reality show i'd watch (well, other than 'dancing with the stars')

speaking of 'dancing with the stars', have you seen this video of yoda getting down? classic.

i was in ohio this weekend, seeing family.
since my cousin had to run an errand at a nearby mall, we stopped in at abercrombie + fitch to see what all of the hullabaloo surrounding their new tshirts is about.
i think this is my favorite photo ever of us.

my wish for all of you (five) dear readers, of course, is that your love never goes sour. however, if it does, i hope that you'll be badass enough to consider doing this to your wedding band. yowza.

apparently we're not the only fans:
Comedy Central has extended The Colbert Report to air through 2006 (originally only ordered for 8 weeks). on average, there are 1.2 million total viewers per show.
so apparently we're not the only fans (and we're not nearly as hardcore as this dude. sheesh. i hope he doesn't break into stephen's house!
is it just me, or is allstate a bit of an odd sponsor for the official online site?

this is my favorite spam ever. i keep getting it, and i'm so tempted to call and order.

steve said "let's go flip some cars!"
i pointed out "it's raining"
and he said "oh yeah, nevermind"

still, ROCK ON WHITE SOX!!! nobody here in town doubted you today! i heard there was even a big crazy line of sox fans at harry caray's. :)

there are fireworks going off here. chicago loves pyrotechnics!

omg, steve just started freebasing lunesta due to their heavy advertising within the world series.
damn you, advertisers!

i can't believe what this poor guy went through. wow!

and i can't believe what we went through last night watching 14 innings! sheesh. and then for the game to be run-less at this point, i mean, geez, it's way frustrating...

i have been passing the time sending stupid IMs (with steve's permission) to a cute boy whose company is throwing an event on "thursday, 11/8", which doesn't exist. he's shirked all responsibility and now i'm sure he's never coming back to this town again (i can imagine him going "that girl from x company keeps bugging me even when i'm not the contact person. i wish she'd quit stalking me!")

baseballbaseballbaseball -- i'm just not used to the pace of it. i mean, c'mon -- i'm from detroit and we haven't been into baseball since the 80s.

this is my favorite 'opinion' column ever.

holy crap that was a long baseball game. go sox!

check out this lovely video. trust me.

...

steve wanted to find an indoor soccer league to play on this fall/winter. i'm trying to convince him to join a cornhole league instead. he thinks it sounds gay. he's right.

...

we so totally want these ice skates but they don't come in our sizes. drat!

sorry to tell you guys this, but bernie mac sucks.

omg this has to be the stupidest thing i've ever read. well, at least today. anheuser-busch is discontinuing it's 'beer pong' promotion because people are using beer when they're playing. i love that they're claiming that people were supposed to use water for this.
sheesh.

on the other hand, this hard hitting news blurb about hot dog sales during the sox games this weekend is exactly the sort of news bite i needed at the end of a long monday. thanks, chicagobusiness.com!

thanks, kdogg, for bringing this hot-off-the-presses news story to my attention.

GO SOX! (man, am i glad that i went last night instead of tonight -- it's nastyrainycold tonight)

it makes me an even bigger loser to admit it than it does that i found the article, but i'm not going to hide my nerdiness from the three of you that read this, no way! i completely understand how this guy feels about sudoku. there, i said it.

omg these little emergency kits are so funny. i wish they had an "i'm at work but feeling hungover" version. that never happens to me, of course, i'm just sayin'.
i think it would be awesome if they had one and a media vendor sent them out to ad agencies. :)

now this is just plain weird. apparently the government has been working with printer manufacturers to implement some sort of coded tracking system into all printed pages. spooky!
that makes me want to send a whole bunch of money to the electronic frontier foundation.

i've just gotta see this musical when it comes out!

also, i've gotta remind myself to view statler & waldorf's movie reviews when they come out. good stuff!

goooooooooooooo sox!

what a great cap to a really nice weekend!

yesterday we very blissfully did a whole lotta nothing (well, except watch the crazy UM game at home and the gym), then made a big meal for our friends danny + ann and our little homeless eva.

today we walkedwalkedwalked up to lincoln park, where i met some girlfriends for a girly afternoon at the chocolate cafe (a trend that i'm excited to see catching on after going to one with melissa in san francisco last year). mmm... fun truffles like earl grey, ginger and mojito! and (bien sur) fondue. mmm...

we got together not only to talk about expanding our (shrinking) bookclub, but also to talk about what else we want to do in life. i've been on kinda a kick lately, debating this with friends. i guess i am at the stage where i am pretty happy and yet am wondering how i can fit in the things that will really make my life kick ass, when i'm so dang busy doing non-ass-kicking things all of the time. i was pretty inspired by this book and also by this one. so my girlfriends sally, cass and i got together to discuss what sorts of things we want to do, and to help make some plans to start doing them together. we're going to take dance lessons of some sort. and cass and i are going to go glass-blowing. and in the spring we'll go skydiving (sally has said that she'll be right there on the ground with martinis for us afterward).

here are some other things that are on my list:
- go dogsledding
- see the Northern Lights
- take a bullet train
- try surfing
- learn about ikebana
- go to Greenland
- learn Spanish
- stop fearing downhill winter sports (skiing, snowboarding) and give them another try
- learn to flyfish
- start playing piano again

what's on your list?

dude! the daily show has booked the white stripes to be it's first-ever musical guest. sweet!

in other celeb news (yes, i'm pretty much ignoring the tomkat news), looks like martha stewart gets to go to canada. i wanna go and paddle a giant pumpkin too!

during a hearing in the u.s. senate today, army general john abizaid, chief of u. s. central command, said al Qaeda is not a monolith like IBM. rather, it is a franchise operation like mcdonald's. um, okay dude.
eva pointed out that he's probably just trying to use mcdonald's in a positive light, since it's the most well-known franchise organization.
um, okay. still kinda an odd thing to say.

did you know that if americans used public transportation 10 percent of the time, the u.s. would reduce its dependence on imported oil by more than 40 percent?

r.i.p. don adams.
long live get smart.

steve pointed out that we need to pick up some new habits.

and my brother pointed out that i'd probably get a lot more enjoyment out of this 80s slang dictionary than he does. and he's right.

and now, for a news roundup.

i knew the apple nano was too cute to work properly in it's initial version, but i didn't predict that the screens would crack. i'm waiting for the second release, at least.

yet another reason chicago rules (and where we beat new york): we now have two ikeas. splorgen!!!

and the most exciting news story i've seen in awhile: some japanese scientists took the first photos of the giant squid. i like the coverage that the moscow timesgave the story.
i like the infographic here.

damn! i can't believe they are limiting this model search to women 27 and under. i was gonna be the best spokesmodel ever. check out the official site, which has a pretty killah soundtrack.
damn!
i am so bummed.
on the official site, he even explains that the contest is for *all* ladies, black/white/hispanic/whatever. i soooo got back, and i can't believe they don't want to see me strut it.

wow, check out the awesome liner notes from the silly bollywood movie that steve and i watched last night. my friend parul recommended it to me, but i think i'd prefer one with less domestic disputes and more singing and dancing. the description asks some really awesome questions:

Priya & Raj two sides of a coin, different as chalk & cheese. Raj – the impulsive, middle-class, hard-working, emotional fellow allows cupid to play havoc with his heart strings & in comes Priya, the prim & proper, sophisticated & practical girl. Both are smart enough to see their differences because it’s rather visible to the naked eye. They throw caution to the winds & dare to fall in love. And then suddenly the game changes….& so do the rules.

The initial rush in your veins when you see a loved one becomed trying. The joy of canceling an appointment to be with your lover remains, but it just becomes abit impossible. Love sort of goes into the background…..the wound made by cupid’s arrow begins to heal. The need to impress no longer exists. What does all this stand for? Cupid gone stupid or cupid gone tepid?

Is there any chance this relationship can see what destiny has planned for it? Or does destiny really play a role in a man woman alliance? They say relationships are made in heaven…...but are tailored here on earth. Will the gravity of familiarity get them or will love shine through it all?

The problem is eternal. The issues are the same. Men will be from Mars & women come from Venus. Is this story any different…No….we say with full confidence & glee. It is the story of every man & woman, only what remains to be seen is….are they going to walk into the sunset hand in hand? Is what happens to all of us….or has someone just changed the end credits.

from john kerry's speech today at brown university:

"Katrina is a symbol of all this administration does and doesn't do. Michael Brown -- or Brownie as the President so famously thanked him for doing a heck of a job - Brownie is to Katrina what Paul Bremer is to peace in Iraq; what George Tenet is to slam dunk intelligence; what Paul Wolfowitz is to parades paved with flowers in Baghdad; what Dick Cheney is to visionary energy policy; what Donald Rumsfeld is to basic war planning; what Tom Delay is to ethics; and what George Bush is to “Mission Accomplished” and "Wanted Dead or Alive." The bottom line is simple: The "we'll do whatever it takes" administration doesn't have what it takes to get the job done.

ahhh, detroit.
i can't imagine how those knuckleheads could possibly re-elect kwame kirkpatrick, but then again i have no idea how gw got re-elected president.
apparently kwame threw out some wonderful insults at the motor city suburbs during an election debate last week. it resulted in this awesome quote from oakland county executive l. brooks patterson:

"Kwame has largely been a very affable person to work with, but once in a while he makes comments like these that really hurt relations," Patterson said. "I'll continue to work with him because he's the leader of Michigan's largest city, but he's not going to be on my Christmas card list."
...yes, but is he on his kwanzaa card list?

i guess it is time for me to (sigh) make my first retraction/correction. on sept. 8th i gave credit (where credit is not due) to keenan, for a box of wiggles fruit snacks that mysteriously appeared in our kitchen cabinet while we were out of town. while it is completely in character for keenan to leave such a surprise for us, it was actually danny who left the wonderful present for us.

um, thanks, danny. and, um, sorry k-bob.

again, i'm going to have to say that i think everyone should speak about the recent tragedy as hurricane katrina. i saw both a sign and a red cross ad today that talked about helping victims of katrina and i think it's definitely gotta suck right about now to be one of the almost 78,000 women in the u.s. named katrina.

on a somewhat unrelated note on this day of national disaster remembrance, remember when everyone in the south was worried about attacks of killer bees? i didn't really find a good answer while searching around on the web, but i did find a weird christian site with a killer bees game. this is supposed to be fun for kids? sheesh! creepy! and to make things even more super fun, i followed the links (you should too) and read about what things will be like in the biblical millennium. um, okay guys, whatever you say.

i don't know why i'm so smitten with the idea of the egg and muffin toaster, but i am. i don't eat breakfast sandwiches often at all, but i love the idea that a toaster can have this added function so that we can all make egg mcmuffins at home. of course, from a work perspective, i hope nobody buys the damn thing.

keenan: i am sorry that i keep forgetting to 'thank' you for the wiggles fruit snacks. i am sure that they are probably really delicious, but i have not yet overcome my fear. on a positive note, each time i open my kitchen cupboard and see them i think of you. :)

congrats, porchsleeper, on having the
third-best-selling cd on the web's biggest indie music retailermilesofmusic.com. you guys rock. of course, i think you rocked harder when you had supercute drummer steve #1, but then again let's all just be glad i feel that way, okay? (no hard feelings, steve 2.0, right?)

finally! some mainstream criticism of the disastrous hurricane katrina rescues/recovery efforts and the even more disastrous "let's not criticize the rescue/recovery effort" stance that the retards in the republican party were originally taking.

thank you colleen patrick and eric boehlert.

-------

in other news, here's more proof that yahoo is evil. funny how it took a search to unearth this article on yahoo! news, when it was easy to find in the technology news listings of all other sites.

i'm not usually all that excited by the j. crew catalogs that still come, inexpicably, in the mail each month. however, they do have some awful purty shoes this time...

these are pretty fun. i have no idea where i'd be able to wear them...


these are also hella fun, and isn't it true that you can wear fur with everything?


ooooh...

still, i think my leading favorite wantthemnow shoes for fall are these absurdly colorful ones from fornarina:



if only i had a shoe budget for fall! (drat!)

home alone: day 2
steve would be so proud of me: not only did i make myself dinner two nights in a row (and it was healthy!), but i also made myself breakfast smoothies both days, worked out both days, and packed my lunch today.
i had no idea i could function domestically this smoothly without him!

and now on to random thoughts:
i was sooooo down with that 'dancing with the stars' thing this summer. well, i was at least down enough that when i was at the gym during the rebroadcast of the penultimate episode i ran home and tivoed -- then watched immediately -- the final episode. however, i think i'm going to even more into the follow-up trend, scheduled for next winter, since they've got much better stars participating: "(ice) skating with celebrities" which will be 'starring' deborah (a.k.a. debbie) gibson, dave coulier, bruce jenner and todd bridges. nancy kerrigan (!) will be one of the skaters participating.

on a more positive pop-culture note: i know there are people out there (myself included) who think people magazine is trash. well, it's trash that i find amusing now and then even though i know it's a waste of my time and brainpower. however, it turns out that when they feature 'regular' people instead of vapid celebrities (like their disgusting coverage of britney's baby shower) it can have a really positive effect: they recently ran two articles that resulted in outpourings of donations by readers:
- story #1: jeannette murphy, who volunteered in an institution housing mentally disabled children and then grew up to adopt (with her husband, john) 23 children, most with special needs.
- story #2: terrell pough, age 18, of philadelphia, became a single parent and is responsibly raising his daughter, diamond, while working and going to school.
readers offered money, clothing and a house (!) to the murphys, and sent pough enough moolah for him to rent a two bedroom apartment and pay his bills for a year so that he can save up to give his daughter a better life.

of course, there have been all kinds of wonderful stories (once you get past the FEMA f**kups) this week about people helping in the wake of hurricane katrina. isn't it nice to see other examples too? :)

when steve's out of town i tend to stay up late, puttering around. i guess it's just not that exciting to go to bed when there's nobody there to hang out with.
and then, when i finally give up on being up-and-about, i can't fall asleep 'cause there's nobody there, lying still next to me, calming me down.
i am such a spaz.

okay, so i decided to cheer myself up. therefore, here is a list of things i'm really into right now:

* sudoku puzzles
* the sights
* this random cd of 60s peruvian surf music that i bought yesterday
* smucker's natural peanut butter on apple slices
* blue diamond flavored almonds (especially the wasabi & soy sauce ones)
* better made bbq chips -- an old favorite of mine, and my brother just brought me some from michigan. yum!
* the idea of these crazy bars called larabars (i've only tried one, so i can't say that i love them all): there are only 2-6 ingredients total, and they're totally natural
* the scent in love again, by yves saint laurent (my favorite summer perfume, which fortunately for our budget only comes in perfume and not all of the other add-ons (bath gel, soap, lotion, etc) or i'd have to have them all
* hanging out on our deck, where this weekend it has been party central

i can't understand how anybody -- even a die-hard republican -- can be a fan of this administration after the f**kup in the wake of hurricane katrina (which i refuse to abbreviate to "katrina" since i've decided i'm against naming natural disasters real 'people names').
check out this interview with the mayor of new orleans. sad, sad stuff, but i love that he's taking the federal government's inaction to task.
i also get really worked up reading michael moore's open letter to w.. say what you will about michael moore's tactics (which i don't always agree with) -- but he is spot-on this time, in my opinion.
what i find particularly horrifying is that this disaster is something that has been predicted for the last few years. the times-picayune (a great newspaper name, in my humble opinion) wrote a great series of articles in 2002 about the subject. of course, this didn't prevent federal funds for much-needed repairs and upgrades to the crazy levee system from being cut in the past few years.
and then there are the awesome features of the nytimes's interactive graphic, so that you can overlay household income and non-white population statistics over the map of the new orleans area.
do you think they're related?
i do.
argh.
sooooo angry.
i have a wonderful colleague/co-worker/employee/friend (i hope she considers me a friend! she works for me, but is really a great partner in running things in my group at work) whose family is from the city of new orleans, and who lost everything this week. she has 11 people arriving to stay with her short-term, and then after some of them head out to stay with other family members across the country she will probably have four people living with her long term. i just hope i can help get her what she needs to help them all, since i can't really do anything about the pain and stress she's felt this past week as she struggled (and continues to struggle) to get ahold of family and friends (there are still some she hasn't heard from) and to help them get to safety.
we've had beautiful weather here this week, and it feels so unfair (note: i wanted to write something like "it feels ironic" but i knew that wasn't the right word. i went to wikipedia, hoping they would suggest somewhat similar words, and found that the definition of irony on wikipedia includes an awesome star wars reference. enjoy.)

i was in nyc on sunday night, staying with my friend andy (whose g.f., my b.f., was out of town). we couldn't get enough of hurricane coverage. we both had work to do, but we kept CNN on. and then once he went to bed (and i kept working) i couldn't stop hitting 'refresh' on my browser window to see if something else had happened in hurricane katrina's path.
was it just me (and steve, who mentioned it when i got back to chicago), or did the band 'katrina and the waves' come to anyone else's mind during this whole thing? horrible i know, but true.
at one point on sunday night, as the world waited for the storm to move slowly north to make its next landfall, there wasn't anything to show on t.v., so the newscaster actually showed the covers of sunday newspapers, sharing their ridiculous headlines. my favorite headline was published on monday, and i believe it was by the new york post (figures); 'the big queasy'.

...

tonight, i went with some friends from work to ravinia, which is an amazing outdoor concert venue here. strangely enough, you can't see the stage from the majority of the 'lawn' seating area, but it doesn't really matter since everyone is having too much fun picnicing. :) we saw the gypsy kings tonight, which was fun, and downright relaxingly therapeutic.

g'night.

so i downloaded the new google talk when it 'beta' launched this week (side note: i find google's habit of releasing things to the wide-open public and calling them 'beta' products for months and months completely ridiculous). i am completely torn on my opinion. it's super basic, so it doesn't have any of the frills/toys of the other 'big three' messenger services (AIM, MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger). while i know i don't need those frills, i have to admit that i find the cutesy yahoo messenger avatars kinda fun, and that i update mine on a semi-regular basis. and i really like being able to listen to streaming radio every now and then via messenger.
and then conversely, i like what some guy named christopher hall said about google talk:

"The program is efficient, streamlined, and down-to-Earth in its execution.
I won't deny that it's extremely Spartan in its appearance, but the presentation is textbook Google elegance. I'm not interested in emoticons, skins, and file transfer. I need this to communicate, not fancy up like a 12-year-old girl's Trapper Keeper.
If this is what I have to endure to avoid being assaulted by ads (*cough, AIM, cough*), I'm in."

...or maybe i just like his mention of trapper keepers, and i miss spending time customizing one for back-to-school.

come to think of it, what's stopping me? maybe i need a bitchin' trapper keeper for post-labor-day work fun.

i found this article about northwest airlines and their mechanics union strike contingency plans really interesting. i would love to see the airline industry figure out a way to keep the legacy carriers operating so that there's plenty of competition. and i was surprised to find that northwest only has 79% market share at metro airport (it seems like 90% at least) and that it's less than their share in minneapolis (80%).

aug. 9

can you believe i'm still updating this with entries from my vacation? sheesh!

well, folks, this is the day when it all started falling apart. we had booked ourselves on a one day tour to get out of town and into the countryside a bit. steve had picked the tour because he was excited to see the nature-y stuff like europe's oldest tree, and a waterfall. i was excited to visit scotland's oldest working distillery.

the tour was actually quite lovely, despite my fear of guided tours being utterly schlocky. our tourguide had lived in the area that we were touring for his entire life (he was definitely grandparent-age) and told us quite a few personal anecdotes. our tour bus was only a little bigger than a van, which helped too. we saw plenty of bit tour buses, and i kept feeling like we were somehow cooler.

the first stop, the distillery, was a bit campy. not only do they take you around the distillery (cool!) but they have a big 'experience center' for their popular blend of scotch, the famous grouse. it was kinda fun to have scotch for breakfast (since we hadn't eaten that morning), and i have to admit that the ads for the famous grouse are cute and the music is really damn catchy (in fact, i'd definitely download the jingle as my mobile ring if i had a nokia -- but that might be saying more about my dissatisfaction with all of the pre-loaded rings in my new phone).

a good portion of the rest of the day was spent driving around the countryside, which is *beautiful*. we stopped in several small villages to see sights like churches and the oldest tree, which is actually not all that much to look at (the sequoias in cali are much, much more impressive, as are the virgin white pines at hartwick pines in michigan. the lakes were amazingly pristine and shimmery, but the waterfall, unfortunately, was pretty much nonexistent because they'd had such a dry year (damn global warning!). it made me remember my family's big 'trip out west' when i was in jr. high, because we'd been at yosemite during a dry year and most of their extremely popular, beautiful waterfalls were nonexistent that summer. (sigh). to make matters slightly sadder, it started to rain while we were out hiking to the dried-up waterfall. fortunately we did see one salmon, trying to make his way upstream despite it being very early in the season. that made the lackluster waterfall a bit more unusual and scotland-y.

salmon-y waterfalls or no, steve wasn't really able to enjoy this day much at all. as the day progressed he felt worse and worse, and when we stopped in kenmore, a cute little town where i bought the yummiest homemade shortbread, steve decided he just wanted to lay down in the grass in the little village park. i had felt little pangs of carsickness during the day, since scotland is extremely hilly and our guide drove like a madman, but apparently steve wasn't just carsick.

by the time we got back to town, steve needed to rest. however, we had tickets that night to the famous edinburgh military tattoo. it had started to rain, but we decided to purchase ponchos and brave it out, since the tattoo took place rain or shine. in addition, we had spent way too much on tickets, so we weren't about to let a little rain dampen our spirits.

this was probably all fine and good for brad and i, but definitely was not wise for steve. he was out like a light the minute that we got back to the hotel. brad and i had a couple of drinks at the hotel bar, and then called it a night.

aug. 10

steve needed to sleep, so brad and i went without him to the scotch whiskey heritage center, where we learned a bit more than we had at the distillery, and had our second liquid breakfast in a row.

by the time we got back to the hotel, they'd kicked steve out (despite us requesting a late checkout) so we headed for the train station, and on to glasgow.

steve was pretty much the living dead at this point, so we checked into the nasty hotel he'd found us there, and unfortunately that was all he was going to see of glasgow. we did get him out for japanese noodles (although all he had was miso soup) that night, hoping it would help, but it didn't seem to. however, while we were at the noodle shop the craziest thing happened. the noodle shop was on the second floor, and apparently a pigeon flew up the stairs and then got trapped in the noodle shop (since all of the windows were closed). it kept flying around and trying to go out the windows, but while we all scrambled to open more windows, it unluckily kept aiming for ones that were still closed. after it had knocked itself silly for the third time one of the cooks came out and grabbed the pigeon and placed it outside one of the windows with his bare hands (i can only assume he washed up thoroughly afterward). it was surreal.

there didn't seem to be a ton to do in glasgow, but we lucked out because we were there during 'piping live!', which was the second annual bagpiping festival and competition. there were bagpipers all over the place, and we were staying along one of the busy pedestrian-only shopping streets, so there was crazy bagpipe music outside our hotel most of the daylight hours (not such a good thing for poor steve). however, the lucky part was that, for brad and i, there was an awesome concert by the st. laurence o'toole pipe band which was attended by a ton of pipers that were competing that week (the emcee asked for a show of hands and we were totally surrounded in the audience!). it was very unusual for a concert, since the attendees were very openly allowed to take photos (we even took some video, which i'm not sure was allowed). i would link to my photos here (and would have throughout this narrative) but we took so many during the trip that i ended up downloading them from my memory cards onto brad's laptop, and he still hasn't sent them to me).

anyhow, that concert ruled. and then at the end of it brad and i went to a 24 hour kebob place where we had a late night feast. :) good brother/sister bonding, i'd say!

aug. 11

brad had booked us another countryside tour this day, and unfortunately steve was too sick to join us. not only did we feel horrible that he couldn't go, but we felt sorry for him since the hotel was such a dump. i had the breakfast room manager make up some toast and tea for him, but he couldn't even eat that. :( apparently he was able to go across the street to the pharmacy (which wasn't open until after we left for our tour) but otherwise he didn't get to leave the room all day, and boy! did he hear a lot of bagpipe music (and apparently some random cover bands as well).

brad and i had a pretty fun day. the tour we went on really focused on two big attractions (as opposed to a lot of little ones like the previous tour). unfortunately the bus was a bigger one, with a pre-recorded tour tape. brad and i guessed that it was somehow synched by GPS, but we forgot to ask.

the first big attraction we went to was stirling castle, which really is spectacular. like edinburgh castle, it's way up on a hill and the views of the surrounding countryside are awesome. we did the whole self-guided tour, but my favorite part was when we were eating at the castle cafe and shared a table with an elderly fellow. i asked him if he was enjoying the castle and he said "all of these castles are basically the same -- old falling-down buildings." and he basically said that after having traveled all over the world, he'd learned that the view is usually the best thing. that definitely helped me calm down my 'see it all' instinct and relax. :) i was really proud of myself, and realized that i hadn't thought about work much at all and (other than worrying about steve) was having a pretty damn good vacation.

the next major stop was loch lomond, which is the largest freshwater lake in the uk, and has castles and huge mansions along the lake's edges. we took a boat tour, and despite it being a bit chilly in the wind outside on the boat, we had to keep going outside to take pictures of the scenery as we went along. (man, i wish i could link to those photos!)

last, we went to the neighboring loch lomond and the trossachs national park, which was stunningly beautiful with crazy windy roads. there were several places to stay in the park (mostly timeshares, with a few b&bs) and i kept thinking that i'd have to bring steve back to stay there.

we were exhausted by the time we got back to town, and it was all we could do to drag ourselves out to dinner. brad and i did our usual 'drink in the hotel bar' but only really chatted for a few minutes and read our books together for most of the time. i guess we were really beat!

aug. 12

we have come to the end of the story, friends. all that is left is a painfully delayed flight to o'hare out of glasgow airport, and sending steve home to our new condo while i continued on to detroit (on another painfully delayed flight) so that i could attend my cousin's wedding the next night (steve's brother kevin was my wonderful date).

i wish things had gone smoother, that's for sure, and steve didn't even really get well for another week. it took him 4 days before he went to the doctor, who couldn't really figure out what was wrong with him, but ran tests and gave him antibiotics anyhow. it turns out he lost 10 pounds in one week (which he didn't need, and i did!), but that he's finally back to normal, from an eating and sleeping perspective.

this weekend we had a great time hosting his uncle brian and cousing barrett, but it's already way past my bedtime, so i guess i'll have to give you the scoop on that tomorrow.

g'night, folks.

dateline, aug. 7

we got up and headed to heathrow. they were doing maintenance on the tube (not because of the bombings) and so we took the lovely heathrow express.

our flight up to edinburgh was wonderfully uneventful, and we made it to our hotel without any hassle, and met up with brad (steve's youngest brother). he had just finished a month long program at cambridge and was therefore done with his undergrad career.

the fringe festival was going on, and edinburgh was crazy. there were street performers almost everywhere, and where there weren't performers there were people promoting their shows by passing out flyers, harassing passerby or otherwise trying to garner attention. my favorite was the guy who ran up to steve and started beat-boxing in steve's face. he was actually really good, but when we told him so he said there was another guy that he works with who's even better. :)

that evening we took a guided tour of mary king's close which is a narrow medieval street that ran from the main drag through town (high street) down the steep hill of the city to the lake at the bottom of the hill (north loch). it was basically covered over to build a large municipal building in the 18th century, and has been a series of creepy underground chambers since. we really *loved* the tour and the history. definitely take a look around on the web. there's a pretty comprehensive site here and a review here.


aug. 8: edinburgh

we got off to a late start, and i was a bit grumpy. i got up and used the bathroom first and then went to the hotel's breakfast room to wait for steve and brad. neither of them came. i finally confirmed with both of them that they weren't going to meet in the morning as planned and decided to sleep in instead. sooo... i went to the mall across the street from our hotel. it was a fun place to kill a couple of hours, but the exchange rate kept me from buying anything except a couple of pairs of socks (i didn't pack enough) and some sunblock (there's some sort of newfangled thing called meroxyl that is used in sunblock in europe now but is still being tested by the fda here, so i decided to load up).

anyhow, once we got going we went to to the castle. the views alone were amazing, and the sense of history in a place like that puts our country's puny past to shame. i mean, they haven't even really used the place since before we were even fighting for our independence.

that evening brad and i went out to a bar and spent some good ol' quality time over pints. unfortunately steve wasn't feeling all that well. :(

i've got to run now, but stay tuned as brad and i drink more, and steve gets even less well...

soooo... on to a recap of our trip.

aug. 3-4
we flew out on the evening of august 3rd, and actually had a lovely, on-time and smooth flight into heathrow. since steve is really bad at dealing with jetlag, we both attempted to put ourselves into drug-induced sleep. i used ambien, and steve tried sonata. he claims he didn't sleep at all, but i *swear* he was breathing really evenly and seemed really still in his little makeshift tent under the airline blanket.

anyhow, we were still pretty beat once we found our way into london and dropped off our stuff at the hotel, so we didn't do a heck of a lot on august 4. it was my mom's birthday that day, so i thought a lot about her and about our relationship. steve and i wandered around knightsbridge, and spent time browsing around the more ridiculous shops at harrod's. we didn't really look in any of the clothing areas, but spent time exploring the famous looking in the weird boutiques, like the antique map store, and the crazy little boutique in the basement that sells really unusual liquors and decants them into bottles in front of you (sara's booze purchase #1).

even though we downed several starbuck coffees (which, i realized, were probably the first 'dine-in' starbucks coffees i'd consumed in the last 9 months, at least), we were still extremely tired. we decided that we wouldn't be able to stay up much past dinner, so we found a really cool sushi place where we sat at the counter and ate sushi from the selection on their sushi bar conveyor belt. that amused us for quite some time, and then it was back to our hotel, where we slept super soundly.

aug. 5
this was our hard-core london tourist day. we hadn't really planned it as such, and we didn't even really get going until quite late, but we ended up seeing pretty much everything that was on our (mental) to-see lists (no, we didn't really have lists).

i had been to london before, but pretty much only when traveling by myself. i've found that going to all of the touristy things is easiest alone since then you can pace yourself however you want. luckily, we were pretty much up for the same pace of touristy-ness that day. i only got annoyed with steve's tiredness once. :)

we started out slow and by the time we were done with our leisurely first meal (breakfast food for me/lunch for him) we passed by buckingham palace. well, it just so happened that it was only 15 minutes before the 'changing of the guard' so there were tons of tourists waiting around. for some reason there was a big sign that said "the next changing of the guard is at 11:30 tomorrow" we didn't hang around. we walked around in the parks nearby and then noticed a group of guards practicing some sort of event over at the parade grounds. i asked one of the policemen what was going on and he told me that it was not actually a practice, but the pretty boring manner in which they change guards at the nearby buildings. he then instructed me that i shouldn't miss the changing of the guards over at buckingham palace -- which is much more interesting -- and is happening in 10 minutes.

steve and i cursed the inaccurate sign and ran back to the palace. we happened to run right past the gate to the guards' barracks when they were heading out, so we walked alongside the parade for awhile, which was awesome. by the time we got back to the palace, there were too many people lining the route and blocking the gates, so we didn't actually see the changing of the guards. however, i think steve probably preferred watching them march and play their festive patriotic marches more than he would have enjoyed the changing ceremony.

after that, we headed to westminster abbey. i had never been there, and it really impressed us both. steve was so enamored with the ornate carvings and dedications that he spent over 15 minutes right in the entryway reading the first few that we saw. i had to point out to him that there were hundreds, and that if he wanted to read and study them all, it would be all we'd see that day (and we'd be pretty hungry by the end of it!). we then walked through the self-guided tour and saw all of the 'sights', but i think the regular plaques extolling the virtues of various exalted dead were steve's favorites. he loved the tributes, which often stated things like "this is in remembrance of X, a steadfast and noble gentlemen who loved his country above all things and served his majesty with honour and dignity..." (you get the picture).

we spent several hours there, and by the time we were done we were hungry again.

there's not much in that area, so we wandered for awhile, amusing ourselves by constantly repeating "look kids, big ben, parliament!" (from lampoon's european vacation) many, many times. we finally found a pub and had a pretty dang traditional meal of fish-n-chips (me) and shepherd's pie (him). i also realized then that i don't like tetley's beer. ah, well.

the only way we were going to make it to the tower of london in time to see it before closing was if we took the tube, so we played our own little part in 'not letting the terrorists win' and headed east on the district line.

steve has been reading these obscenely large and heavy hardcover books by neal stephenson and a good deal of them is set in london back in the 1700s. he was therefore really psyched by the tower of london, especially since some of his novels' characters spent time there. we did the traditional 'beefeater guard' tour, and then had just enough time to see the crown jewels and run through the torture and arms exhibits before closing. it was really great to see steve enjoying himself so much. :)

we bought ice cream cones and walked across the tower bridge and over to the tate modern, which is one of my favorite places in london.

unfortunately steve doesn't really share my interest in modern art, and our legs were pretty much collapsing at this point, so we only walked through a few galleries before we decided that we needed a bit of a break. we went upstairs to the bar, and had a couple of drinks while watching boats on the thames. it was pretty crowded, so we were only able to score one barstool up against the windows, but it turned out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise. we started talking to the chap next to us, who was supposed to be meeting some family friends who were in from out of town so that he could show them around. he told us about all kinds of fun things we could (and should) do on our next trip, including a crazy through-the-city rollerblade ride that happens monthly (i'll have to train first) and a beautiful horsetrack just outside of town that doesn't have computerized betting systems and instead has bookies with chalkboards (!). we bought us a round and we chatted awhile before he gave up on waiting for his family friends and surrendered his barstool to steve.

after watching the river awhile more, we headed out for dinner. i convinced steve to let us get indian food :) and that was it for the night. we went back to the hotel and passed out.

aug. 6: are you bored of my blog yet?
having seen pretty much all of london, we had no idea what idea what we wanted to do on saturday. we knew that we weren't really interested in being inside very much of the day, since it was beautiful out (and friday had started out quite rainy).

we headed over to the british institute of architects, where we thought we'd see the winning design for a new arctic research station. according to the time out magazine that we had, it was the last weekend of the exhibition. unfortunately the magazine was wrong, because the exhibition had closed the day before, and the new exhibit, which was on low-income housing, wasn't all that exciting. :(

a nearby park was hosting fruitstock, which sounded right up our alley, since it meant smoothies, healthy food and free music. we happened to arrive in the downtime between bands, but we still had a really awesome time people watching and then caught one band's set. they did an awesome cover of the white stripes's "seven nation army" with a female vocalist and an electric fiddle. it made my day!

we didn't do a whole lot else that day. we tried to get standby tickets to see guys and dolls, starring ewan mcgregor (who i have a huge crush on), but we didn't have any luck. we waited in line for about 40 minutes and a few people ahead of us did get in, but we had to comfort ourselves with the fact that we saved a ton of money by not getting tickets. steve also helped further comfort me by buying me indian food for dinner (which was amazing, considering we had it for lunch that day as well).

steve went to bed relatively early, and i wasn't quite ready yet, so i hung out in our semi-posh hotel lobby, drinking gin-n-tonics and reading my fluffy but fun bookclub book.

---

okay, i'm guessing that you're really bored by now. i'm also really interested in going to join steve to watch the news and see how the crazy pull-out in the gaza strip is going, so i'll sign off for now...

xoxo

well, amigos, the three of you that read this have been wondering about me, and wrote to ask how i'm doing. thank you.. i really appreciate it.

here's what happened: i was working, working, working. then we moved to a new place (a different unit in the same building, although now we are owners instead of renters). then we had a bunch of houseguests. and then we went on vacation.

so now i'm back. and i'm really enjoying our new place more than i thought i would. it's pretty much a mirror image of our old place, but we were concerned that the view (although from a higher floor) wasn't as good. we used to face the lake, but decided that it wasn't worth the $40k premium, so now we face the city. the north-facing windows in the living/dining room are somewhat blocked by the ugly back of the hyatt, but then we can see the top of the hancock building over it.
the view from the study, where i'm writing, is amazing at night. not only do you get a nice view of some of the bridges over the river, but you can see some really amazing buildings.
at the end of the river-bend is the riverbend condos building, which has a few fun lines of bright blue lights across the front of the building at night, but you have a view of my favorite building in town, the carbon and carbide building, which is the home of the hard rock hotel nowadays, and the awesome building at 35 e. wacker, which i guess is known as the north american life building.

since we're now on the 34th floor (we were on 20 before) there are a few little upgrades to this unit over the last one. we still have crappy quality rental carpet, but now we have tile in the entryway. we have the same sink (we miss our old bart-installed sink in ann arbor sooooo much!) but at least now there is a pull-out faucet. the bathrooms are the same, but the subtle upgrade in this unit is that we get much, much larger medicine cabinets. i have hogged them with my crap, and i love it. we also have a cooktop range stove, which slightly scares me because steve's mom keeps telling me all about how it has to be cleaned with the special cleaner and we can only use certain pots on it. i guess it's an upgrade, though, and since i don't really cook anyway, i guess i shouldn't worry about it too much.

the condo purchase and move went pretty smoothly, although there was a big fat bump. we only had the freight elevator reserved for a two hour block, from 5-7 pm. unfortunately the building wasn't exactly being generous with the elevator, since we only have one and there were about 150 moves taking place this month. so steve hired some movers to help us, and we had them scheduled from 4:30-7:30. he figured that we could have them move everything down the hallway and ready to go from 4:30-5, move things up and down from 5-7, and then probably end up with some things that needed lugging again from 7-7:30.
well, by a little after 5 the movers hadn't come, and i had been sneaking boxes and hanging stuff up in the regular elevator for a couple of hours. we were anxious to get going on the big stuff and were wondering where in the heck they were.
it turns out they had our reservation down for a friday, when the day of our move fell on a tuesday.
sooooo... after some begging and pleading steve convinced the moving company to find a couple of guys (i can only imagine the conversation their manager had to have to get some guys to come out in the pouring rain immediately that evening -- thank goodness it was an indoor move!). the two movers arrived around 6 and moved us for an hour, although steve and i had already done much more than we should have without the wheeled carts that the movers brought. i had packed my books (and other crap) much too heavy, and boy! were we sore the next day. :(

so that's our moving story. i hope you enjoyed it. and i hope that sometime soon you can visit to enjoy the view. we've already had alex & sarah and keenan & carrie visit, and we hosted a little shindig for some of our chicago friends on venetian night, when we started with cocktails at home (which has been christened Super Sky Hut, or Sky Hut II: Electric Boogaloo>, then had a pretty elaborate picnic at grant park while watching the boat parade and fireworks. venetian night is definitely my favorite chicago event (steve loves the upcoming air & water show).

anyhow, i'm rambling.
and i'm tired.
and i'm sorry that i have been a piss-poor correspondent.

tomorrow night i shall update you all on our trip to the UK. i have a work event (focus groups -- oooh!) that may last as late as 10 pm, so i may not get to blog the entire trip memoir, so i appreciate your continued patience and loving thoughts. :)

happy moon day. be sure to not only click on that link, but to zoom in all of the way.

i've always thought that jude law was waaaaaaaaaaay overrated. of all of the press surrounding his skanky actions cheating on sienna miller, this article sums up the whole thing with my favorite headline.

mcgregor can kick jude's butt anytime, and he can out-sing and out-dance him too.

i try not to be too jealous of the ultra-rich, but i have to say that it sounds like it would be awful nice not only to have an aston martin, but also to therefore get access to club aston.
i have to say, i also really wish i had an amex black card.

boy, oh boy, steve sure is excited!

My little cousin Jordan is so dang cute!

Jordan:
"Daddy, how come there isn't a burger day, or a drink day?"

Her dad:
"What???"

Jordan:
"Well, how come there is just a Fries Day?"

-------------------------

man, it's that sort of utter cuteness that makes me want to have kids. sheesh.

i need this!!! seriously though, that goes so dang well with our polar bedroom theme that i am superexcited. :)

hooray for kobayashi!

...

sorry i haven't written much lately. going into the holiday weekend, when we just stayed in chicago, i thought maybe i'd catch up on stuff like updating my blog. however, i ended up feeling so crappy (fighting off a cold) that i knew i'd be cranky if i posted anything.
and really, there's nothing going on with us that's worth being cranky about. yeah, we've both been working lots (steve's been working more than me for once), but it's been good stuff at least. and i got a promotion at work, so that made my hard work feel appreciated. my friend john bought me flowers. :)

on sunday we walked down to grant park (a lovely 5 minute walk) to see the fireworks. i love that we left our house after 9 pm for the 9:30 show and we were back right around 10. so very, very efficient! and so very, very different from what most people have to do: fight the crowds and traffic to get downtown early, stake out a spot, sit around forever waiting, and then get home really late and tired after fighting the crowds to get out of the downtown area. in those sorts of situations, living downtown RULES!

we found out yesterday that some friends of ours are planning to move away. they don't have it all figured out yet, but they know they want to move 'back home' and so they're starting to look into it. people ask us a lot if we're planning to move 'back home' someday, and i really don't know what to say. i guess that means we aren't at this point. if there is one thing that i've learned about my life, it's that the longer i have been alive, the harder it is to see the future.

- when i was a little girl, i could see many years into the future: i knew i was going to grow up and be married and have a family and a beautiful house and all of the other things little girls dream of. i was soooo dang confident.

- by the time i was in high school, i wasn't as sure of what i wanted. i could see myself getting a graduate degree of some sort, about 10 years down the road, but i had no idea what it would be in or what would come next.

- in college, i finally figured out my major (psychology) but had no idea what sort of graduate degree i wanted to get (PhD? PsyD? maybe Social Work?). i realized that i needed some time off, and figured that maybe 5 years down the road i'd get my life back on track again.

- so then after college somehow i found myself moving to new york to work at a dot-com company. looking back, it was a wonderful move, and i'm so glad i did it. however, at the time i had no idea where it could possibly lead. however, i knew enough to tell my first boyfriend in new york that i would only be in new york a couple of years. granted, i didn't know where i'd go next (i was tentatively thinking the west coast) but i really couldn't see that far out that clearly.

- and then i moved back to michigan. time got a little delayed here, but i thought i'd be there a year or so and then move on. so now i'm only thinking about a year out, and i figured maybe i would follow the dotcom boom out to silicon valley, where the streets were paved with um, sand. things got a little crazy during my years in michigan, when i kept being recruited and moving jobs before i could really think about where i was (long-term) headed and what i was going to be doing a few years down the road. all i know is that i loved the whirlwind of it all, and i was lucky enough to ride that wave with steve, and get wonderfully, happily married at the same time. i somehow started to think long-term again, and at one point, in about 2002, i thought "well, i guess i'm staying in michigan. i really like my pizza company job, and it's the sort of position i guess you could just stay in for your whole dang career." i loved my house. i had a wonderful circle of great friends. and then i started to wonder if i would ever get out west, or life anywhere outside of washtenaw county again.

some people can see way out into their own futures and know what it will hold because they know what they want it to hold and they're resolute about getting there. i have learned that when i think i'm seeing something of certainty down the dusty, summery road of my future, it's probably mirage. i can't even see a year out ahead of me at this point. today/this week/this month, i hope that in a year i'm still working at the same place, and living in this silly Sky Hut with every convienience. i hope i have more friends here in town and that we can somehow convince some michigan friends (alex & sarah, maybe?) to move here. but honestly, i have no idea what i want to be doing in 18 months, or 2 years. is that okay?

happy birthday, america
i always liked this song, by john mellencamp (or was it john 'cougar' mellencamp at the time?)

There’s a black man with a black cat
Living in a black neighborhood
He’s got an interstate runnin’ through his front yard
You know, he think, that he’s got it so good
And there’s a woman in the kitchen cleanin’ up the evening slop
And he looks at her and says: hey darling, I can remember when you could stop a clock

Oh but ain’t that America for you and me
Ain’t that America we’re someting to see, baby
Ain’t that America, home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me

Well there’s a young man in a t-shirt
Listening to a rockin’ rollin’ station
He’s got greasy hair, a greasy smile
He says: Lord, this must be my destination
’cuz they told me, when I was younger
Boy, you’re gonna be President
But just like everything else, those old crazy dreams
Just kinda came and went...

Oh but ain’t that America for you and me
Ain’t that America we’re someting to see, baby
Ain’t that America, home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me

Well there’s people and more people
What do they know know know
Go to work in some high rise
And vacation down at the gulf of mexico

And there’s winners, and there’s losers
But they ain’t no big deal
’cuz the simple man, baby, pays for the thrills,
The bills and the pills that kill

Oh but ain’t that America for you and me
Ain’t that America we’re someting to see, baby
Ain’t that America, home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me

it was an exciting weekend here, since steve and i got to spend quality time together doing geeky things.

on friday we went to the crosstown classic cubs v. sox game at comiskey (or whatever they're calling it now). man, was it hot. it was like a zillion degrees. and the funny thing is that we went with a group from weather.com. i mean, you'd think they would have worked that whole weather control thing out by now. sheesh.

...

another sheesh: on saturday, we went to wired's second annual 'nextfest', which is like a world's fair of geeky futuristic stuff. the highlight was a demonstration of a korean robot named hubo, who was really amazingly lifelike with his arm movements and gestures, but who fell over once he started walking. doh!
the chicago tribune had a blog about the event, which i will now excerpt here:

Straight from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology comes a
robot that can recognize and respond to speech and is envisoned to be a helper
for humans some day. During a demonstration the smooth-walking wonder fell to
the stage with a thump.
"Medic!" an audience member yelled to a few chuckles. "Man down!"
"Robot down," someone corrected.
Almost immediately, people ringing the stage five deep began peeling away,
disappointed they didn't get to see the MTV-like syncronized dancing of Hubo
robots as depicted on the two large plasma screens.

a friend told me that hubo was no longer on display on sunday. doh!

...

on saturday night, steve and i finally saw revenge of the sith, which i truly loved. thank god my bladder held out through the whole thing, 'cause it pretty much kicked butt.

...

sunday i was extremely lucky and was able to not only get caught up on the boatloads of crap i had to get done since i've been traveling so much, but i also got to hang out on our lovely little landscaped deck, mellow out, and catch up with my two best buds, ann and keenan. ann just got back from a crazy spa-touring trip to japan, and keenan just moved (with his lovely wife carrie) back to michigan to start his residency. man, i felt really lame only having my dorky life to report on. still, i felt loved. and to those of you who have emailed me and admitted that you actually read this lame blog, THANK YOU, because it really does make my day to know that you're thinking of me. steve and i miss you all so much...

feck.

wow. for as crazy as this week has been, at least we don't live in north dakota.

i just LOVE this quote (which i'm probably mangling a bit) by the pistons' rasheed wallace: "a lot of people thought we'd be out tonight -- they had their crystale ready and all that stuff -- but hey, we're gonna pop it thursday."

i hope they're right. go pistons!!!!

thoughts from my trip to montreal:

- i have apparently forgotten how to understand any spoken french. :( i comforted myself with the thought that maybe i'd be able to understand french that is spoken with a parisian accent, which is apparently what we were all taught in college. on the plus side, i could read pretty much everything that i saw (granted, signs and menus aren't usually that difficult)
- i can see why my dad thought he might want to go to mcgill university in montreal. it's a damn beautiful campus.
- apparently they have a new fish sandwich titled MEGAPOISSON at burger king. i didn't get one, but i was tempted to, just because it's fun to say.
- i flew air canada on my return trip, which was my first time on one of their flights. the aircraft's rows jumped from row 3 to row 12, so even though i was in row 14, i was only six rows from the cockpit. that was weird. but then again, maybe they explained it in the french announcement prior to take-off.
- the next time i'm there, i'm visiting both the biosphere and the biodome. despite the hipness of the sphere, i think i'm actually more into the idea of the biodome. what do you think?
- i can't figure out who buys cigarettes at duty free. is there anyone out there that can explain this to me?

i'm in montreal this evening. i am one of the program committee members for an advertising conference on audience measurement. the conference starts on monday, but i have rehersal tomorrow, and i thought i'd come into town early.

when my grandpa passed away, i debated whether or not i should keep my plans to come here early. however, what i realized is that i've become quite adept at traveling to big cities alone, and that it calms me like few other things do.
over the past few years i've been fortunate enough to travel to some pretty great places for work, and i've often stayed an extra day or two and explored by myself. i've explored london several times, been to geneva, and spent time in san francisco, seattle, miami and new york. yes, i know people in the u.s. cities i listed, but for one reason or another i've had plenty of time in them by myself the past few years.
i used to be uncomfortable being alone, and i admit that i still struggle with it. it's fine when i'm walking around, but harder to sit in a restaurant, and i think i've only been to the movies alone once in my life (and it wasn't to a film that was easy to watch by myself!).
well, it turned out perfectly to have today just for myself. after spending a good portion of this past week in michigan with my family due to my grandpa's funeral services, i was feeling a bit down and quite overwhelmed. i always feel swamped when i get back home after a trip (laundry! piles of mail! screens and screens of junkmail in my inbox!), and that particular trip was very emotional. not only was it very difficult to see my family so sad (especially my grandma, who was very strong and only really broke down at the military funeral, when they handed her the flag), but it was hard to know how to deal with my mom during this trip. she still isn't really talking to me, and kept that up even this week, when she only answered "yes" or "no" to my questions. i didn't want to push her to talk with me about our problems while she's mourning the loss of her father, and helping her mother, so i just let it go for now and laid low... (sigh)

so after that, some sort of head-clearing was called for. and today was perfect: i was totally unreachable (i left my cell phone in my hotel room, since it's still quite expensive to use your US-based mobile plan in canada), and i walked around saying as little as possible since i didn't know anyone and didn't want to either attempt to speak french or make quebecois speak english. it was a cold and cloudy, which unintentionally helped my introspective mood, and kept the shops, restaurants and parks less crowded than they would have been otherwise. i spent the whole day leisurely walking around the old city and along the riverfront.
most of you know that i'm a big fan of inuit culture and art, and so i spent a good deal of time today browsing some galleries here, and marvelling at the grace of their unadorned, simple sculptures and graphic prints. if we weren't buying a condo this month, i am sure i would have broken down and bought a sculpture, even though steve wasn't here. i was particularly drawn to sculptures of dancing bears, although they're quite common. i was also really fascinated by this scupture of an eskimo riding a snowmobile and this unusual scupture showing a community playing 'blanket toss'. i know most of you have no idea why i get so into these, overall, but i'd love to hear what you think of these ones in particular. :)

i guess the best part of traveling alone is that i have no need to worry about boring my companions when looking at art, admiring churches (which steve is weirded out by, but the architecture of which fascinates me!), and chilling out in parks -- all things which help ground me, relax me, and inspire me. i probably need to find the time and mental space to do these things more often when i'm at home, since they're all readily available.

well, the buzz from my chai tea (indian food for dinner!) is wearing off (finally!), so i'm off to bed.

my grandpa lived a long and full life. he was married to my grandma for over 60 years, had 13 children, and many, many grandchildren. we're all figuring out how to get back to montrose for the funeral services on tuesday and wednesday.

i haven't properly given a shout-out to my bff, keenan, who just finished med school. i hear the hard work on his new home has really buffed up his cloits and dloits. sweet!

also, per reader request, i have enabled the comment function, so you can now post snarky comments.

man, this sucks. if only this site listing speedtraps had been around when i was 16 in washtenaw county. i got tickets at two of these sites (and to put that in context, i've only received four tickets total. not a stellar record, but hey, i'm fighting inborn leadfoot tendencies.)

man, those pistons didn't look good tonight. we must rally for game two! maybe if steve hadn't been stuck on a plane from detroit to peoria (!) they would have won.
and i think that dave matthews song that they're using to promote the finals sucks. ick.

this is crazy, crazy, but true. apparently, the ohio liquor board actually used a woman's identity (instead of making one up) to have a woman studying law enforcement to go undercover and pose as a stripper. i wouldn't believe it, but i'm actually connected by only a couple of degrees of separation from this poor girl whose identity was stolen.

...

steve and i took a mini-vacation this past week. we went to san francisco for my friend melissa's beautiful wedding (she looked awesome, too! you go, girl!), which not only was really moving and lovely, but which produced the best photo yet of my friend ann and me. there was also a a crazy fun dinner at a chinese banquet hall with all of the out-of-town wedding guests.
steve and i had a little extra time in the city, so we spent a lovely day walking around various neighborhoods (it was 80 degrees and sunny!) and touring alcatraz, which surprised me with how beautiful the vegetation was. we also loved going to the ferry building, which is my fave place in san francisco, and is a haven for foodies. we ate there two days in a row, and i bought a bunch of yummy stuff at the farmers' market, even though i had to shop carefully to buy stuff we could eat there or take home. :)
after our time in the city, we headed up to napa valley. i'd only spent a day there previously, and i have to admit that i was really anxious to get up there on monday morning, but it ended up being perfect that ann + andy weren't as antsy as i was (and of course, steve wasn't either). i think we only stopped at four wineries for tastings, and then we did the obligatory photo opps at hall winery (let me know if you want to see the photo album i've uploaded to snapfish.com).
then came the other (non-wedding) big event. it was the reason that we didn't drink more on monday (and THANK GOD). we had a four hour tasting menu dinner at the french laundry, which is one of the most awarded (and also probably one of the most expensive) restaurants in the country. we had to make our reservations exactly two months in advance, to the day, at 10 am pacific time. and even though we were calling for reservations on a monday night, it took two of us hitting re-dial for 25 minutes before we got through and scored a 6 pm reservation. (!)

soooo... you're probably wondering: was it good?

i couldn't sleep afterward.

i didn't eat until dinner the next day.

and yes, our credit card bill will hurt this month. other than taking out steve's brother when he visits this weekend, we can't eat out for awhile. and i mean that.

however, every single thing was amazing. i wasn't excited when i first read the menu that night. i was actually quite tempted by the vegetarian tasting menu, which ann had, and which also looked (and by her admissing, tasted) completely wonderful. i want to share the craziness with you, so here's the menu we ate, with my comments in italic. we had a few bottles of wine, which we took their full recommendations on. other than remembering that we started with a dry white, moved to a pinot noir, then had dessert wine, i don't have any idea what we had. i think the first two were from sonoma, and the dessert wine was definitely european. i was obviously really entranced by the food!

chef's tasting menu - june 6, 2005

"oysters and pearls": "sabayon" of pearl tapioca with point reyes oysters and russian sevruga caviar
i had no idea what to expect, since i've only had caviar as part of a sushi experience, and think of tapioca as nasty pudding or bubble tea. however, this was so creamy smooth and wonderful. the caviar added a lovely texture to the tapioca and the oysters were amazingly light.

salad of broccolini "florets", marinated gypsy peppers, daikon radish, navel orange "confit" and young ginger "aiger-doux"
i have no idea what "aiger-doux" is, or why they insist on using quotes in the description of each course, but this ruled. i don't really know what makes gypsy peppers any different than other peppers, and the pieces were very artfully carved out of some larger pepper shape, so i wouldn't recognize a gypsy pepper if introduced to one. however, the orange "confit" somehow brought it all together, and the ginger "aiger-doux" (whatever that is) just added a tiny bit of warmth to the sauce/dressing/marinade.

crispy skin fillet of japanese suzuki, grey morel mushrooms, sacramento delta green asparagus and white asparagus "puree"
i had no idea what suzuki tasted like, but it was a pink fleshy fish like salmon, and the skin was amazingly tasty and perfectly crisp. i probably could have eaten a plate of just the skin! the morels were lovely too. asparagus (when it's nice little asparagus and not creepy huge stringly stalks) is always good, and i guess they grow it just fine in sacramento.

"warm spinach and lobster salad"
maine lobster tail "cuite sous vide", wilted arrowleaf spinach, applewood smoked bacon "wafer" and hard boiled hen egg emulsion
mmmm... bacon

"aiguillette" of liberty valley duck, melted belgian endive, grilled field rhubarb and "foie gras"-garden mint "vinaigrette"
i'm not a huge fan of duck. i don't dislike it either, but i don't usually choose it. however, i do like rhubarb. it's best in pie, but it makes a damn tasty duck accompaniment, i've now learned.

snake river farm prime beef "serve en deux facons", heirloom carrots "vichy", marble potato "rissolee" and "sauce perigourdine"
i don't have any recollection of anything other than the beef, which was superb. especially the big "facon" that was served quite rare. because most of the tables were ordering the tasting menu (i have no idea how there could possibly be regulars that order anything else, and there probably aren't a ton of vegetarians willing to pay that much for dinner), we kept wondering what the butcher had done with all of the other jillion cuts of meat after the french laundry chef ordered just this one particular cut to be served that night. things that make you go "hmmmm..."

"brebis des pyrenees"
sweet basil "pain perdu", san marzano tomato "marmelade" and french laundry chorizo-infused extra virgin olive oil
holy crap, i have no recollection of this course. i will have to use a lifeline and get back to you all about this.

hayden mango sorbet, "yuzu scented genoise", goma "nougatine" and black sesame "coulis"
seriously, i am tired of typing these damn quotes, but they are all on the souvenier menu. sheesh. this was actually a really awesome dessert. ann (the aforementioned vegetarian at this feast) got a chocolate dessert delivered to her at the same time, so i was bit worried that we were getting the short end of the stick. however, the mango sorbet was so rich and smooth, and the little black sesame "coulis" were sprinkled all over as a lovely accompaniment. mmmm... i could go for a dish of this right now...

"tentation au chocolat noisette et lait", milk chocolate "cremeux", hazelnut "streusel" with madagascar vanilla ice cream and sweetened salty hazelnuts
wow, i vaguely remember something awesome that was chocolate, but i think i was pretty much in a coma at this time, and was trying to decide if i could fit in more food or dessert wine. i fit in a little of both, and ordered coffee. i decided that the meal had beaten me at this point, and decided to surrender.

"mignardises"
i guess this means petit-fours, because once i had given up and was sipping coffee so that i could walk the measley but difficult two doors down from the restaurant to our b-and-b, they brought out the most charming tray of petit-fours. someone at the table had one, and insisted that i try the shortbread. they were right.




so that's the scoop.

...fin...