Did my fanny pack give it away?

Prince E and I were waiting for the bus yesterday, when a man came out of the subway exit and said "hey there newlyweds." I thought it was sort of sweet, the way he could tell that we were in love, even though we weren't being smoochy-smoochy or anything. In fact, I am sure pretty sure that I had an unpleasant look on my face, because (1) I hate waiting for the bus; (2) it had just gotten really hot out; (3) the bus stop was really crowded and it should not have been for that time of the day.

After a few moments, the man approached us again and said, "Hey there. Where you newlyweds trying to go?"

Then it hit me. He didn't think we were newlyweds. He thought we were tourists. And lost tourists at that, in need of directions to Water Tower or somewhere in exchange for a few bucks.

Insulted, I snapped, "We aren't newlyweds. We live here!" He apologized and recoiled in horror at my extreme rudeness. I realize that the concepts of "newlyweds" and "tourists" aren't really mutually exclusive, but I was too irritated to make a sensible pronouncement on the matter, so that was how it came out.

I feel bad for the guy, who caught me at a bad time. Although when I am waiting for the CTA, it is always a bad time.

Who has time for exercise?

Even though it is summer, when new television shows decrease, I feel like I am watching more television than I did during the regular season. (I almost said "during the school year." Will I ever grow out of that?)

Here is what I have been watching:

Sunday: Bridezillas, My Fair Brady
Monday: Shalom in the Home, also just started watching Hell’s Kitchen
Tuesday: Kathy Griffin: My life on the D-List, King of Cars
Wednesday: So you think you can dance?, The Hills
Thursday: So you think you can dance?
Friday: Single in the City

It is nice when they shows have new episodes in the summer. It gives me a chance to watch things I might not otherwise.

He's just lucky I had a snack first.

I saw the face of evil in Chicago today. Well, sort of. This morning I headed over to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange after I read this article. I got there just as the end of the motorcade headed down into the underground parking area. I decided to wait until his speech was over, so that I could see him leave. I was hungry so I went to Cereality. I love that place. I came back out and surveyed the scene. Approximately 10 motorcycle cops waited to begin the motorcade again. Cops on foot prevented traffic from walking on the sidewalk in front of the building. I saw local news anchor Darlene Hill, along with several other local news affiliates filming. I watched from across the street. When I saw the motorcycle officers putting their helmets back on, I knew he was coming out again. The motorcade, which contained about 5 or 6 vehicles, emerged from underground. Within the motorcade were two matching dark sedans, so I do not know which vehicle he was actually in. Both had dark tinted back windows so I could not exactly see him. I did not boo or hiss (he would not have heard me anyway), nor did I hurl a shaving cream pie like Prince E feared that I would. I just gave him a REALLY dirty look. If this does not sound like much to you, it is probably because you don’t know me and have never seen my look. It is VERY intimidating. Just ask Prince E. Then he was gone. Rather anti-climactic. There were not even any protest groups. Just me and my look.

Recycled Dream Plot

I had a dream last night that I was running in a 5k with my brother and a little blond boy, about six years old. I think it was my younger nephew, just an older version of him. Somehow I managed to get ahead of them in the race and I was very excited to beat my brother in a race. Then I looked and noticed that I did not have my Garmin on and there was no timing chip on my shoe. I started to think that this was not so much a race, but three people just running down the sidewalk for fun. Yes, we were on a sidewalk in Chicago. And there were slow-moving tourists (which is redundant) that I had to navigate around. I got to the corner and realized that I did not know which way the race went. The course was either poorly marked, or there was no course.*

My brother and the unidentified kid caught up and I pretended that I had slowed down so we could all finish together. I could not admit that I was lost. We turned the corner and there were some balloons, which I guess was the finish line. As I crossed the line, I looked down at my shoe and was relieved that no timing chip had magically appeared, because I knew my time would not have been good.

Do any of you remember your dreams so vividly?

* This is the second "lost on a race course" dream that I have had. I think that it results from feelings of upheaval/change in my life and my mind’s fear that I will not be able to navigate through those changes. Also, my concerns about my inability to complete a specific task manifest themselves in my inability to find "the finish" of the race.

Free show at the grocery store

Yesterday I wore my (fairly) new linen pants. They are so comfy. Then I did the laundry and washed them. When the Prince came home from work, I put them back on to make a quick run to the grocery store. (The level of my Pepsi One stash was at Defcon-1). As I was walking through the aisles, the Prince said, “You have a hole in your pants!” Indeed I did. A small (about an inch) hole. Of course the pants were dark green and my, um, underthings, were light blue. Nice choice. I made the Prince walk behind me the rest of our time in the store, which really put a crimp in my plan to make him always push the cart.

I am hoping beyond hope that the washing and drying of the pants caused the hole and I did not, in fact, walk around all day at work with a hole in my pants. I am sure someone would have told me. Right? I noticed later that the whole backside area of the pants has gotten very thin and it looks like a couple more holes might form. I guess I should not have dried them on high. I did not know this. Either that or my rear has gotten too big for my britches. Let’s go with the dryer as the culprit, okay?

I want treats, please!

Goin to the chapel...*

I hate to make this an "all-wedding" blog, so I am promise to cut down on wedding-related posts. However, I didn't really do much else this weekend, so I will have to mention some wedding tidbits. Prince E picked out and got measured for his tuxedo. He is going to look so good. My little nephew (the ringbearer) is going to match him. He is going to be adorable. We also bought our wedding rings. I just finished talking with my wedding coordinator and she seems very excited about our ideas for menu and decorations. (It sounds so hoity-toity to say wedding coordinator; she is the event planner at the place we are having the wedding, not someone we hired from the outside).

The Tigers swept the Cubs over the weekend. This made for a happy Simba's Mom and a not-so-happy Prince E (although I think he has already given up on the Cubs for this season).

We went to see The Omen. It was a very good movie, although not nearly as scary as I had hoped. A full review to come on the next podcast. We had seven commercials before the previews even started! It reminded me why we always go to the Century Theatres in Evanston: no commercials! They previewed a couple of scary movies. One of the previews made me jump. I think it was for the new version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, although I can't remember. I like scary movies. I do not like it when the preview is scarier than the actually movie. It can be such a let down.

* I had this song in my head all day yesterday and I kept singing it. I am not sure why. I am not even going to a chapel.

Some things are more important than hair.

Last night I had another wedding dream. It has gotten so ridiculous that I was actually laughing in my dream thinking “here we go again.” It is like the dreams I still have where I have to take a college exam in a class I thought I had dropped. I know while I am dreaming that it is a dream so I am not stressed.

In this latest wedding installment, all the bridesmaids went and sat in the first row of the pew (yes it was another wedding-in-a-church dream; not sure why I keep doing that; maybe some residual Catholic guilt or something). I couldn’t figure out why they didn’t stand up by me. Then I realized I still wasn’t dressed and my hair wasn’t done. (I wasn’t naked, I just had regular clothes on). I walked back out of the church to get ready.

Then I woke up. Originally I thought what follows was part of the first dream, but now that I have reflected on it, I realize that I woke up at 5:30am, then went back to sleep for 20 minutes. In those 20 minutes, my dream turned horribly dark.

I ran out of the church to find a bathroom. I said, “I can’t say my vows with a full bladder!” I ran down the street and found a train station. I was able to cut the line by telling people that I was late for my wedding. I got into the bathroom, looked at my watch and saw it was after 6pm, so I ran back down the street.

I met up with actress Sarah Chalke (from Roseanne and Scrubs). She showed me the way to go. We had to maneuver around a parade that was going on to celebrate Jerry Garcia. All the people on the floats had on tie-dyed shirts. Then I heard a ticking sound and looked up in a tree. I told Sarah that I thought it was a bomb and she said “do you smell that? It is butane!”*

Then I saw a big old farm house explode. It was scary. It was the kind of explosion you see in big blockbuster movies. Then I realized that the farm house was where my wedding was taking place! All of my family members were inside! It seemed so real. I just kept saying “they’re all gone! they're all gone!” I cried--in the dream and in real life, evidenced by the tears on my cheeks when I woke up.

Prince E appeared in the dream as I was packing up my stuff at the hotel. Even though I knew he was still in the farmhouse/church when I went to the bathroom, Sarah Chalke told me that he came looking for me when I took to long, so he was saved. He kept chuckling about something, which made me mad.

As I was checking out of my hotel, I yelled at the desk staff for not giving me my room free, despite the fact that my wedding had blown up. Then I had to fight off chickens to make it out of the lobby. They kept jumping on my head. I think this was my brain’s way of making the dream funny again since I was sad.


* The mention of butane comes from the part of Angels and Demons which I read yesterday. My brain is a mysterious thing.

Podcast: Double Feature

Listen online here or download here.

On today's show:

I went running!

Movie Reviews:

An Inconvenient Truth

A Prairie Home Companion

Where did everyone go?

I had another wedding-related dream last night. This time I was at the reception, which was apparently over, and I didn't remember anything about it. I walked around and asked over and over again "Is it over? Is it over?"

I could not remember who was at the wedding, if the photographer had shown up, if my friends were there, or any details at all. My mom was in the dream and she told me the wedding was over and she was furious with the DJ because he charged me an extra $100 because he went into overtime by one second!

I do not know where the Prince was or anyone one else for that matter. The only other person in the dream was my oldest sister, who was drunk. Apparently the Prince's friend had been giving her a lot of alcohol. For some reason I was wearing the bridesmaid dress that I wore to my other sister's wedding.

Maybe I should stop watching wedding shows on television. Although I love them. Especially Bridezillas because it makes me feel better because I am not as psycho as they are. At least not yet.

Gotta start somewhere

I ran/walked a little today. Only about a mile.
Then I went for a little walk along the lakefront, cooling my feet off in Lake Michigan.
I am out of shape a little. (well, more than a little)

Chicago Botanic Garden Videos

Here are a couple of videos from the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Chicago Botanic Garden

On Saturday, Prince E and I went with some friends to the Chicago Botanic Garden. Here are a couple of photos. I uploaded many photos to my flickr account. Check out the sidebar to see all of them!


They have a great garden model train exhibit there right now, which, although it costs an additional fee ($4/adult, $2/kid), was definitely worth it. They had replicas of various U.S. landmarks, like the Hollywood sign, the Space Needle, and Wrigley Field. Our friends' kids really loved the trains, especially the Thomas the Tank Engine.


Unfortunately, the Japanese Garden (my favorite part) was under construction. All the water had been drained out, so they could reinforce the shore wall. It made for not such a pretty sight.


I have a video of a swan, as well as a video of one of the trains that I will upload later. Despite the construction, I definitely recommend this as a fun activity if you are in the Chicago area.

"I'm not a witch, I'm your wife!"

As seen over at APL, which makes me like her even more.




Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

Podcast

New podcast is available here or download here.

My running update.
Mini Movie Review: The Da Vinci Code

Thanks everyone!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! Here is a photo of the cake that Prince E made for me. I had to crop it because he put my real name on it.

Today.

I do not like to post photos of myself on my blog, but today, for my birthday, I will make an exception. Sort of. Head over to Shore Turtle's blog to see a photo of me celebrating my birthday.

Sears Tower Appears!

Turns out that the view from my roofdeck is even better than the view from my apartment.

The day before

Thanks to my brother and sister (and their spouses!) for my early birthday gifts!

The day before the day before

I had a fun time at Cedar Point this weekend with the Prince, my sister, and her hubby. I was really looking forward to playing the "Guess my Age" game. If the person manning the game could not guess my age within two years I won a prize. I thought I would win without any problems. I am often told that I look young and people most commonly think that I am early 20s. And remember that one woman that thought I was 14?? There was NO way I could lose.

I left everyone behind, fearing they might make me look older, went up to the stand, tried not to sound too mature, and forked over my $5. The man guessed I was 27!!!! I am 28 (well, I will be 29 on Wednesday!). I was so disappointed. Do I really look my age? Did he see another gray hair on my head?

I did win a prize on Saturday though. I won this game in the arcade, where you had to push a button and stop the arrow on certain numbers (both negative and positive). You had three chances to get up to 5. I won. Still not sure how. I got a Sirius One satellite radio. I might hook it up when we get the new car. Whenever that is.

My sister and I were going to go running Sunday morning, but it was a little rainy. And I was tired. So we watched three hours of "Whose wedding is it anyway?" It is a show that follows wedding planners through their various tasks. It was pretty entertaining.

On our way back to Chicago yesterday afternoon, Prince E and I decided on the spur of the moment to stop by our wedding location. It was still standing and still looked as pretty as we remembered. We got some Kilwin's ice cream (Prince E's real reason for wanting to stop). I got Superman flavored. I haven't had Superman in years. It was as yummy as I remembered. We had great weather this weekend in Michigan, so we walked along the lake while we ate our ice cream. We were going to go on a dune buggy ride, but I thought we needed to head back because traffic in Chicago was going to be bad (it always in on Sundays when we come home from a trip). I always feel like the weekends are too short and Monday comes too soon.

I had another weird dream over the weekend. I was eating something and realized that my tongue was split it half on one side. (have you ever seen people that have forked tongues? it was like that but on the side). I kept shouting that we needed to go to the hospital, but Prince E wanted to take photos of it! I would like think that he wouldn't do that in real life. Actually, he would probably take me to the hospital, but take photos of me while we are in the waiting room.

Guess I shoulda gone at 4?

I have the day off today (Yay!) and what better way to spend my morning that doing laundry (Boo!). But, I had a plan of attack. No sleeping in. Get up when the Prince leaves for work and head down to the laundry room. I would be done by 7:30 or so and then have plenty of time for a life of leisure (or a life of folding laundry and packing for our mini-vacation this weekend).

So, I get downstairs to the laundry room at 6:00 (that's AM). It was FULL. Only one empty washer and it had an "out of order" sign on it. I understand that the laundry room closes on Sunday for two weeks for repairs, but I never imagined that the whole building would turn out at 5:00AM on a Friday to do their laundry!

I came back upstairs and had some cheerios and some caffeine, grabbed a book and headed downstairs. By then several of the ladies had moved onto the drying phase and I pounced on the empty washers. I better head back down now to stalk the dryers.

I hate doing laundry.

UPDATE: I am sure you are all waiting anxiously to hear whether or not I managed to properly dry our clothes....I did!! Although the level of excitement never really died down, I did manage to time it correctly so that there were enough dryers for me to use. The scene reminds me of a grocery store, just before a snowstorm, when everyone is stocking up on bread, water, and batteries. All anyone was talking about was "BLACK MONDAY," when the laundry room will close for two weeks. I saw the woman down there that thought I was 14. She was with her adult daughter this time and I thought I was in for another exciting round of "guess how old she is!" Luckily they were too busy talking in excited tones about "BLACK MONDAY." This building has not seen this much excitement since I don't know when.

Seismograph

I am watching the live telecast of the National Spelling Bee. I can't believe they are doing play-by-play coverage of it, like it is a sporting event, complete with Robin Roberts. Her co-announcer gives the little facts, like "the last time someone from Illinois won..." Kind of like in baseball when the announcers say "the last time a pitcher struck out four batters in a row named Frank was..."

I can't stop singing songs from the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

I remember when I was in my school spelling bee in sixth grade. I knew how to spell my last word: seismograph, but I got over-confident and spelled it too quickly and forgot the 'm'. Of course I knew it had an 'm,' I just went too fast. Following the rules, I knew that once I started spelling the word, the sequences of letters already spoken may not be changed. So I was done. Fourth place. My arch-nemesis Russ told everyone on the bus the next day that he had fourth, when he really came in fifth. I can't believe I still remember all this in vivid detail, 17 years later. And that is without it being stored in the ABC television archives.