oooooh thank you OSU!

never count your chickens before they hatch... well thankfully, they've hatched and we've closed on one of the assets in harper hotels which was my granddad's company that we took back control of as a result of our suing a certain hobag. i know my parents are thrilled to have this one sold as no one in our family is qualified to take over and all of my gdad's employees have been around for at least 35 years. literally. some longer. and so they are all ready to retire... and my parents are in a little better position. and for this i say thank you God, for everything you have given us. this is truly a bright spot in an otherwise crappy economy.

and quit making jokes of holiday inn! back in the 50s it was a motorist's only option on the new highway system. so it's aging a bit, but it was a pioneer in the interstate hotel sector and my gdad led the way with his properties - i think he was the 6th franchisee for the corporation. so jeez... every time someone wants to make a joke about staying in a crappy hotel, they use holiday inn. how about motel 6 or super 8... can't people make fun of those?! i hear it all the time... of course not many people know how insulting it is, but still!

http://www.nbc4i.com/cmh/news/local/article/holiday_inn_on_lane_to_close_monday/14251/

http://www.fox8.com/news/sns-ap-oh--ohiost-holidayinn,0,7803513.story

http://www.10tv.com/live/content/local/stories/2009/03/30/story_inn.html?sid=102

the limoges boxes

Like the opera glasses, these little boxes are also on display in my case in the bedroom. One of the things my nana collected was limoges boxes. I remember them well from the house in fl where most of them were kept. I always loved looking at them. One of my favorites was a pink ice cream cone so I was thrilled when we were sent some of her collection. The hobag sent some, but decided we couldn’t possibly have all of them. There is also a little kitty box that is another standout from when I was a kid. When my nana was alive, I was allowed anywhere in the house and she often let me play and look at her limoges boxes. Once she was gone and hobag had moved in and then bought the new place, they were put in ‘their wing’ of the house and we weren’t supposed to go anywhere near there. Seriously. During the picking of things, my aunt picked several of the boxes and I got several of them as well. i don’t have the complete collection or even that many, but I love the ones I do have and it’s something else that was a part of who my nana was.

the case of the opera glasses

Ok, so there really isn’t any case to speak of… I just liked the way it sounded as a subject. One summer I was being nosy and rifling through some drawers in the maine house. In one of the drawers in the hallway to my parents room, I found some beautiful opera glasses that had belonged to my great-grandmother. They were house in a gorgeous delicate blue beaded bag and inscribed with ‘kate miller 1868’ and the glasses themselves still worked and had mother of pearl inlayed. I showed my parents my excellent finding and made the stupid mistake of asking if I could accidentally pack them in my suitcase. I mean come on: like the hobag wanted them or even knew they were there and my granddad I’m sure was oblivious that they even existed. They were never going to go looking for them and they would never know they were missing. Besides – they had my namesake on them so they were clearly meant to be mine at some point. But, being the good girl I am I relunctantly put them back in the drawer. Then, in dec of 2007 when my granddad died my dad who was already in Portland for work went to the maine house with hobag to retrieve some photos from the house for use as a slideshow picture memorial of my granddad at his service. Being the well raised, good mannered boy my dad is, he actually asked the hobag if he could have them to give to me. Which sounds nice, but he already knew what the will said and how he and his sibs had been effectively cut out of it and you’ve read about hobag and how vindictive she is! She let him have it, but my uncle (who has tons of conspiracy theories about hobag) was convinced that she’d try and use that against us – as in what else could you ungrateful horrible miserable shitty children want?! So now these beautiful opera glasses are in a display case where they ought to be hanging in my room.

st patty's day shenanagans!

Saturday morning started with a 7 mile run and then a whole lotta afternoon drinking to celebrate st patty’s day! I got started at 12:15ish when trish, megan, and trish’s bf (john) all met up to go to the lucky lady where we met his brother whose name I don’t remember. I don’t remember his gf’s name either. We got there and had a beer, a shot, another shot, and another beer. Around 1ish, alex came and met up with us and then one of john’s friends met up – I can’t remember his name either, but I do know he manages manor which is a super upscale club here. From that bar, we went to john’s friend’s brother’s house party where there was a keg and beer pong and some food. There was one very drunk girl (see pic) absently flipping thru a hilary Clinton book on the couch wearing a snuggie. Yes, a snuggie! From there, we went over to southport to bar hop. I was also texting devs and adam to see where their groups were but sadly we were never all able to meet up. We went to two bars on southport – neither of which name I am pulling up. At the first bar, there was a huge line, but john’s buddy doesn’t wait in lines and he flashed his business card and got us all right on in. people in line were pissed! Ask me if I’d care one bit… ummmm, nope! We were there for quite a while and then went to another even more packed bar. around 7 I’d had enough drinking and was starving! So alex and I departed and went to get dinner. I’d wanted pizza at this yummy place on southport however when we heard the line was 2 hours long at least we said forget it. We ended up going for thai right near my house. We were passed out good and early for a sat night which was fine b/c we had to get up at a relatively early hour in the morning so that he could drive me to the airport.

atop the hancock...

and while i'm posting alex stories... here's another just in case his confusion leads to whatever...

As part of a bet that I lost, alex and I went to the hancock building for cocktails at sunset. We got up to the top (the 96th floor) and were seated at the bar, but the view wasn’t good. Alex said this wouldn’t do and asked the host if we could get a better table. He said it would be a slight wait, but we were definitely willing to wait. At 13 or 14 bucks a cocktail, danggit we wanted a view! We saw a couple getting ready to leave and we’re ecstatic b/c it was a great table right in front of the window on the west side of the building. Perfect! We enjoyed a couple martinis and some cheese and marveled at the view and everything that you could see. After the sun set, we left and went to dinner at mia francesca’s over on clark street near my house. Since it was a random Tuesday or wed, the place was not very crowded and we were asked if we’d like to sit in the carriage room. Having no idea what that was, we said ‘sure!’ and we were lead to the back of the restaurant, through some doors, out through the patio, and in to the converted carriage house where there was a small bar and maybe 8 or 10 tables max. it was terribly romantic and quiet and the food was delicious. It was such a fun evening!

february 14th. & current thoughts

well, i found this post that i never posted (well ok, cause i just wrote it last week, whatever) anyways, thought i'd post it today and add a brief intro to it. i thought it rather timely. so as of wed night/thurs morn, i have no idea where alex and i stand and it really really hurts. just when i've really started falling for a boy, he throws out: my life isn't stabile and i'm confused. so what does that mean exactly. he has no idea and therefore has no idea what to tell me. he i'm sure is scared and his manhood is probably being tested. it sucks being unemployed and i think it's a big blow to his ego as it was to mine though i must say it was probably easier for me to digest since my entire division was being laid off too. i don't know - this is my armchair psychology here. but he says he doesn't want to end things and that he doesn't know if he wants to keep things the same or slow down. i might add here that everything has been at his pace. i've let him ask me out, i've let him call us being exclusive, and i let him call me his gf before i did any of those things. so it's all been at his pace... anyways, him being confused makes me even more confused b/c i have no explanation. i kinda feel in limbo while he decides to screw his head on tighter and i don't know what to do about that.... along the lines of the job, he worries about what if in 2, 3, 5, 6, etc months down the road he takes a job in ny or london or some other city. then what? he knows it would be unfair to ask me to move too, but he's afraid of long distance too i think. but why can't we figure that out IF it even happens?!?! right now he's living on savings and as he said, he can't live in chicago without a job forever and live the lifestyle he wants and keep his place over looking the river and all that. ok, well, let's worry about that in the future. the what if game will drive you insane. i know this b/c i play it ALL the time in my head and i've been trying really hard to push it out of my mind when they start popping up. i've gotten pretty good at pushing away those stupid "what ifs". so in any case, a couple of wks ago he asked me to go to dinner with his friends and their gfs and wives. that dinner is supposed to be tomorrow. he says he still wants me to come, but i don't know. i want to spend time with him, but would going to dinner after this talk be awkward? i have no idea. i have til tomorrow to decide i guess. i've also told him he has to initiate contact with me. i'll respond, but i won't contact him. i know what i want. the ball is in his court if he wants to talk or see me which he says he does. he says if i don't go to dinner, he wants to do something else this weekend. adding to the confusion is he's always mentioning future events. as in: this summer we'll bbq on my balcony, or i can't wait for the billy/elton concert at wrigley (which is in july), or let's make a bet on amazing race and the loser gets to take the other for a nice dinner. so how can you be so back and forth?! it's like a seesaw that he is standing exactly in the middle and can't move either direction. he can't even tell me which way he is leaning for gods sake. so, long story short, i'm left confused, hurt, wounded, sad, and more confused. so there it is... and here is the story of feb 14th....


Valentine’s day… that fun fun day that a lot of people dread. I wouldn’t say I dread it exactly, but for the past ohhhh 6 or 7 years I haven’t had one. Over the years I’ve always done something fun with the girlfriends. It’s been coined S.A.D. – single awareness day. I presumed that this year would be like any other – the girls getting together for drinks either at a bar or in front of some bad tv show and possibly some deliciously terrible for you food too.

Alex and I had been dating, but not for very long and I certainly was not going to be the one to broach the subject! I was content in ignoring the whole day… but he actually brought it up. I think I’ve mentioned how we are big texters and not big talkers… so one day after I’d seen him the night before (I think) I got a text saying “I meant to ask you what you are doing for valentine’s day” and when I read that, I thought “holy crap! A guy actually asking about v-day?!” so I wrote back that I wasn’t planning on anything and he asked if I would like to cook dinner and have a night in with him. So it took me all of about 3 seconds to respond with a ‘that sounds great!’. Now, you all know I am definitely not a chef…not even close. And neither is he. And we both knew this prior to him deciding he wanted to cook together – he had mentioned something along the lines of it would be something fun to do sometime. So, here was that sometime. I thought about some of the easier yummy meals my dad does and came up with chicken Mexican meal – it’s a chicken marinated in stuff and then grilled with beans and rice. Well, instead of beans and rice, we went with baked potatoes.

Alex came over and when I opened the door, he surprised me with a dozen red roses! I was definitely not expecting that! So thoughtful!! He had also brought a couple bottles of wine as I had done the grocery shopping. We got started making the marinade. That wasn’t too hard! Then we put the chicken and the marinade in a plastic Ziploc baggie and let it soak for 30 mins. So far so good… I think! Since I don’t own a grill, my dad said we could substitute by putting the oven on broil. Once the chicken was good and marinated, we heated the oven to broil and cut up potato wedges. Here’s where we fall apart… it took a million years to heat to broil and when it finally did, we stuck in the chicken and the potatoes. Not long after we put it in, the smoke alarm went off. Great! We’re going to burn down my condo. We managed to get the smoke detector to stop and since the whole place was smoky, we opened up the doors and windows which in feb in Chicago is rather cold! So we tried again…and it kept going off. Deciding that 3+ hours later we were starving, our food looked terrible, my house was filled with smoke, and we were completely clueless… we ordered pizza. And polished off the wine!

My mom was laughing when I told her and she said “I think to broil, you have leave the oven door open a bit”. Well how the heck am I supposed to know that?! She said she knew b/c her mom used to broil stuff when she was little and being blind she would know when the food was done b/c the smoke detector would go off! So even my mom who is just as bad of a cook as I am knew that. Sheesh! Maybe I’ll try a cooking class….

bleacher girl here...

Bleacher girl here… fyi I’ve done a lot of updating and picture posting… check back on a frequent basis to see what all I’ve been doing. There are new posts written, but not displayed as I’ll only be putting one up at a time… too much reading all at once is no fun. but make sure you scroll down... i've added pictures to the disney story, pictures and story of the actual half marathon, and some other goodies!

Xoxo bleacher girl

the fans

while sorting through the boxes of the things the hobag was willing to send, i found some handheld fans that heidi (my friend whose grandparents lived across the street from mine) and i used to play with when we were younger. i had always kept them in my bedside drawer and would take them out to look at probably every summer and reminisce. there are 5 fans and some look african while others look more asian and i know they were picked up somewhere during the various travels my grandparents did. in looking at them, i realized they would make beautiful artwork and i decided i wanted to have them framed.

it took awhile, but i headed to michael's (50% off coupon!) and worked with the custom framer there. since they are not completely flat, i'd need to do shadow boxes which greatly limited the frame choices, but i think i ended up finding the perfect ones. it took me forever to decide on the mats and the background colors, but when i picked them up i knew immediately that they were perfect and exactly how i'd envisioned.

i got them home and set about hanging them up. what a process! i'd done 3 different frames - 2 frames with 2 each hanging vertical and 1 frame with 1 fan hanging horizontal and i wanted them on the wall above my dresser in the bedroom. since i am terrible at hanging things, i seriously thought about waiting for my dad's next visit as he's my pro-hanger upper. but, i didn't want to wait and so i set about it myself. out came the hooks, hammer, measuring tape, and step stool... it took several attempts to get them hanging where i wanted and evenly spaced (and even now it's probably not perfect, but close enough!). there are many holes behind those frames, but hey - you can't see them!





i'd also bought a ready made frame for a watercolor i'd found in the boxes as well. my nana liked to paint and sculpt as i've mentioned many times before and this is just one of hers that she'd done. so i hung that up too. it was a little easier since it didn't have to line up with anything else, but still... you'll find a bunch of holes behind that picture too!



it's a little funny... i wrote this awhile ago, but i wrote several other posts today that i'll publish over the next several days/weeks - but they were all about my nana and some of her things that i'm lucky enough to have or have done with her. i was telling my mom about something i'd written in an email and she replied with 'you know this would have been her 84th birthday'. funny how i just happened to be thinking of her and writing about her on her birthday...

the disney princess half marathon!

on sunday morning, alice, nancy, hilary, chip and i all woke up at the wonderful hour of 4:15am which b/c of day light savings - we had sprung forward an hour and so it was really 3:15am and since chicago is a time zone behind, technically alice and i were getting up at 2:15am body time. yikes, it was early! we all got ready: me by eating my customary carbs and peanut butter (usually a bagel, today toast since that is what they had on hand), pulling on the sports bra and all other running gear, pinned on my number, applied body glide and was ready to head out and start the race. we piled in to the car (sans chip - he was coming later) and drove to disney which took about 30 mins or so. then we walked to the start line via the port o potties for one last stop. however, the lines for said potties was ridiculously long and i mean ridiculously long and since there was a nice wooded area and other ladies were taking advantage of the trees we decided we would too. who needs to wait?! not these princesses!! the walk to the start was freezing and long. i just had on a shirt and shorts in anticipation of a hot day, but b/c it was still dark out it was so cold. i think we walked like a mile to the start - not kidding! - longest walk to a start line ever. in any case, we all went in the same corral so we could wait together and start together.


the fairy godmother kicked off the race with some 'punny' jokes that i found pretty dumb, yet really funny. and then, we were off! all 6000+ women and 200+ men. some people were dressed up as their favorite princess. i saw many tutus which were fun, a lot of tiaras, a few mermaids, and a lot of other weird things like the lady wearing crocs. yes crocs. for a half marathon! what?!!? i still don't understand how people wore costumes or tiaras for all 13 miles, but they did... that would have been hot and the tiara would have given me a headache i'm sure. i also spotted several groups of ladies dressed up together and some were quite creative. there was even someone dressed as ariel wearing, no joke, a total mermaid outfit complete with a tail hanging off her ass bouncing up and down with every step she took. i wish i had brought a camera and i knew that it would be a good idea, but i just didn't know how to carry it. and i don't like doing new things on race days. so i'll have to practice running with a camera for future races b/c this was definitely the one to have a camera at! not only could i have caught pics for all of you for the fun costumes, but every other mile or so there were disney princesses and princes along the way. they also played the disney themes for us and other music. the mile marker signs were not the boring old white plain markers either. oh no, disney did it right: they had elegantly illustrated with fairy tales each mile marker and each sign had a hidden mickey in it. i didn't remember this until around mile 7 where i started to look for them as i ran by. there was also disney trivia along the course which was pretty fun although i really do need to brush up on my disney princess trivia as i pretty much sucked at that game, but it served as a nice distraction.

about 6 miles in, we entered the magic kingdom (we'd been running on back roads) and we got to run through tomorrow land, frontier land, some other land, and cinderella's castle which was definitely a highlight! as we approached the castle, there were trumpeters to welcome us and some disney characters as well. just on the other side of the castle we could stop to take our picture. the line wasn't very long and even if it had been, i would have waited... i was feeling great still and keeping on pace at this point. i hadn't done more than 6 miles since the marathon so i was a bit worried about how it would all go. i knew i'd be able to do it but i was really hoping for a 2hr 30 min race or somewhere in there. around mile 7, my calves were burning. my cardio was great, my calves were screaming. along the way, they had biofreeze (a sponsor of the race) which is this stuff that cools your legs and makes them a little numb (think icy hot). so i applied that to my calves at a couple of stops and i think it helped.



i didn't end up making my goal of 2:30, but i did finish in 2:46!! and i was thrilled with that. such an improvement, though i could hardly do any worse - it took me 4hrs 15 mins to finish my first half last august - but i had to walk that whole thing b/c of my stress fracture so i don't really count that. in any case, my overall pace was 12:44 which i think is good. i run with a group on saturdays that is a 12:30 pace. i was a little slower than that, but i was covering more than twice the distance we've done on sat. this week we'll do 8 miles and i know i'll do fine.




sorry for the little pics - i stole (ahem, borrowed) them from the official photo site.

magic kingdom!

alice and i were lucky enough to stay with her friends, chip and nancy while we were in orlando. alice used to live in orlando which is how she knows them. they have a super pretty home and we each had our own bedroom and a shared bathroom. it was beautifully decorated! nancy did it all herself and she has great taste! i need her to come to my house...

we flew in super late on thursday night so friday was our first chance to do anything.
nancy had to work all day and chip had a meeting in the morning. alice and i were tired and slept in for a bit. once chip came home, we all went to the magic kingdom. i hadn't been there since i was 6 or 7 so it was a lot of fun to see it through big kid eyes. chip works for disney in their project management/it area and so b/c he is a 'cast member' as they call all of their employees, we got to go through a special line to get in. it was so fun going with chip since he's worked there for 10 years he told us a lot about the parks - did you know they have 52 sq miles of land!? and that disneyland fits in the parking lot of ONE of the magic kingdom lots. crazy... anyways, we had a nice lunch in tomorrowland and then headed to space mountain. we got a fast pass there and then went to some more rides - i can't remember the one that is like a car that takes you around up above tomorrowland, but it gave a great view. then we went to the haunted mansion and pirates of the caribbean and following that we grabbed some ice cream. bad idea as space mountain was next. i hadn't ridden a roller coaster in forever!! and wow, it sure is different when you are a kid. i used to be able to ride those things all day long. i loved roller coasters! it was fun... but it was a little more sickening and scary than i remember as a kid!

me and alice with cinderella's castle


alice and chip on space mountain - i love chip's face!


chip and alice in tomorrowland


me and alice outside the front gate entrance


me and alice and a floral mickey!


after our disney afternoon, we headed over to the sports complex for the expo and packet pickup. it was a fairly small expo but very nicely done. we roamed around for awhile, collected our numbers and t-shirts, and did a little shopping. then we got to meet sleeping beauty and prince philip. i declared that since this was my princess of choice (you got to pick your princess and your bib color denoted your favorite princess - mine was pink) i should get to stand next to prince phillip. however, alice beat me to him and stubbornly refused to let me take that position. she didn't want to be on the end. the end makes every look larger. so i was mad. he's my prince! and she looks tiny in the pic and i look huge. oh well, whatever... after that all of us were exhausted and we headed home.

the expo floor below us and behind


me and alice at the expo!


all of us with prince charming and princess aurora... notice how alice stole my prince!!


it was then dinner time and we all went to macaroni grill for dinner - we needed to carb load after all! and that we did. we were starving and so plenty of bread was eaten while waiting for our pastas. once we got home we tried to watch a movie - beverly hills chihuahua but we all got tired in the middle. i must admit i thought that would be the dumbest movie ever - and it was - but in a seriously and ridiculously funny way. now, i'm not sure if it was b/c chip has probably the greatest laugh ever or if it was b/c we were so exhausted, but we all found it dumb funny. and then it was bed time... what a great day it was!

trish's birthday

a couple of weeks ago it was trish's birthday and we celebrated with a delicious dinner and a night out on the town at northside in bucktown. during dinner we were talking about various thing...not the least of which was of course boys. megan mentioned that after dinner her new boy would be meeting us at northside and so we could all meet him then. her new boy is ricky and he's 23 - which means he was born in 1985! go megan!! in any case, they then all wanted to know if alex was going to meet up with us and i said i hadn't asked. i wasn't sure how that would go over as it was going to be a big group and a load of people to meet all at once... and i didn't want to scare him by asking him to meet the friends too soon. but, they convinced me to (not hard after some wine) and so i asked him (via text of course) if he was up for meeting us out. and he said he was - he was having dinner with some friends and was supposed to go to a bday party with them later, but he didn't know the person's whose bday it was so he blew them off and came to meet up with us.

at northside, we had a drunken blast! so many people came out! nicole and her husband (chris), alice (who was a trooper cause she was sick), becca (who hasn't been going out lately), john (trish's bf), ellen, sonny, megan, and ricky (mr. 1985), adam and his soon to be wife kristin, other megan, and kyle, kristen among others.


birthday girl trish, megan, and ellen


sonny sandwich! with kyle and second megan


alex and me


me, megan, ricky, and kristen

tuesday fun day!

when you are unemployed, you've got a lot of free time to fill up. i try to be good: do cheap and/or free things. i count the gym in that category as i pay a monthly fee so the more i use it, the more i get out of my investment plus it's good for the body. i must admit, i'm in great shape between 3 pilates classes a week, running on sat mornings and during the week, and misc classes or gym equipment i use. but, the week before last i had told alex i wanted to go ice skating. i forget how it came up, but he suggested we go on that tuesday afternoon and so we did. we went down to millenium park and skated (poorly) around the rink. we weren't the worst out there! but i did wander how many people were unemployed and how many were tourists... afterwards we stopped by starbucks to get warm drinks. then we headed back to my house where we relaxed until dinner time. i had been talking about my favorite argentinean steak place, tango sur, and so we decided to go there. it's a byob, serves more food than you can possibly eat, and is delicious while being super reasonably priced. yum! i had leftovers for days. it was such a fun day!

otis & the groomer

last week i took otis to get groomed at a very nice place near my house. the vet even said how wonderful they were so since otis had not been groomed since newport, i thought it might be good seeing as though it's that time of year when he gets tons of knots in his fur. the groomer and i discussed that i hated lion cuts and i thought we had an understanding of what i wanted. well, when i got home, his fur was just a little bit more than groomed. it was practically gone! and he had a poof at the end of his tail! and he looked so ridiculous i started to laugh and then i kinda wanted to cry. my handsome furry man had a lion's cut! or at least what i call a lion cut. so of course i called and they said they would fix it as best they could but of course they can't glue his fur back on...but they did get rid of the horrible poof and smooth out a patch. the groomer explained to me that many places/groomers won't do cats because they are so difficult and their skin is so easy to cut and b/c of the size and width of various blades, that is the way cats are groomed.

and in all honesty, it took me a few days but i actually really like it. he has been so snuggly and likes to be right there with me and i love that. plus he's playing more. he's found his tail and he thinks it is great fun to try and get it. he's also super soft and he looks so small! with all his fur he looks like he weighs 20 pounds. without all his fur he looks like he weighs maybe 10. according to the vet where he also got to go last week, he is actually 14 pounds. his new do is quite slimming! my mom says he's being so cuddly because he's cold. whatever... maybe he's cold, but i'm enjoying my snuggle bunny. see the pics below for before and afters of his furry self, his poof on the tail, and what he looks like now.


the 'before'


otis' new do



he embarrased by the poof so he gave me his bum and i caught the one and only time he'll ever have a poof. thankfully it was gone the next day!

hustling up the hancock

last november, i read about an event that i just had to sign up for. i had never done a stair climbing event nor am i a stairclimber at all, but for some reason - perhaps it was the high of finishing the marathon - i decided i needed to hustle up the hancock. and last sunday (feb 22) i completed my first hustle up all 94 floors of the hancock building!

this is a highly popular event and it always sells out. not in days, but literally in minutes. i tried to sign up for the full 94 flight climb, but it was already sold out when i tried 20 or so minutes after registration opened! so i went with the easier half climb and took the option to be on the waiting list for the full climb. a few weeks later, i got a call and i was off the waiting list. yay!

since there is only so much room in the stairwell to climb, the event organizers were quite organized and we had staggered starting times. there were various group times ranging from 7ish in the morning all the way until 145ish i believe. i was in the 12:30 group. there are 2 stairwells in the hancock - one was reserved for half climbers and one was for the full climb. within your group, each person starts 8 seconds after the other and off you go... i decided to take my climb nice and easy and slow. the goal was to finish and not worry about my time. i literally had a 70+ year old pass me and a 10 year old pass me. great... whatever. i finally made it to the top in 40 minutes. the winner did it in 9 but he's a boy. the fastest girl was 11 minutes. i think the average is about 20ish minutes. but that's ok... again, i just wanted to finish seeing as though i neglected to train for it and it is rather different (and harder!) than running!

i got to the top and we were rewarded with amazing views, bananas, water, and a certificate. we were all supposed to get medals, but somehow they managed to run out of them and i didn't get it! i was so mad!! let's be honest the real reason i did the climb was for the cool medal... oh well. but the best treat was alex was at the top waiting for me and showing his support....


the view towards the north


94 floors of pure fun!

the christmas kitty.

this story is highly out of date and i'd have put it under it's true date, but then no one would see it. this is the story of the christmas kitty.

when i was 7, we had a cat named pounce. she was a pretty calico kitty that went in and out of the house as she pleased. my parents let her out on christmas eve in 1986 and on christmas morning went to let her in, but she wasn't there. we made all kinds of lost signs and scoured the neighborhood, but we never found her. it was not a good christmas present.

fast forward to christmas day 2008. my parents and i were at the lake house and decided to go for a canoe ride. my mom had promised another lake friend that they'd come say hi and so we took the canoe over to their place. we docked our canoe and got out. there was a very pretty little kitty outside and my mom asked if that was their cat. not only was it not their cat, but she said they were not feeding it and yet it was still hanging around. so of course, i decided that if it was just going to hang out, it should at least hang out with us at our house! my mom said no no no. she was very much against another cat. but this little kitty was so friendly. she clearly knew who the sucker of the group was. i promised not to feed her, but i just wanted to play with her... at our house. anne (the neighbor) said take her! and she even said we could use her big parrot's cage to transport the kitty. we thought the canoe would terrify the cat and be a bad idea so we canoed back to the house and took the golf cart over to her house on the premise that anne needed some celery and well i was just going to hijack the cat. i easily picked up the cat and put her in the cage where she got very very upset and scared, but we golf carted back to our house and then had an outdoor kitty to play with. my parents have two burmese cats that are fine, but they don't like me and i find them kind of boring. so i hang out with kitty and she was so sweet. she was so cuddly and such a pretty girl.

when it was dinner time, the kitty stayed outside (couldn't risk bringing her in - if she had some disease we didn't want the other cats to get it). well, the dining table is situated such that you can see right on outside... and there was the christmas kitty just sitting on the porch staring at us. i made my mom sit in the chair facing the windows so i didn't have to feel bad. after dinner, my mom's heart got the best of her and she came outside with some food. the kitty readily ate it and it was gone in about two seconds. poor little thing was starving.

when i woke up the next morning, my mom said that she'd put the christmas kitty in the screened in porch to 'keep her safe'. i knew she was hooked then! she kept bringing out food and in 24 hours that cat had eaten 5 cans of cat food! my mom agreed to bring her back and take her to the vet to see if she had a chip with an owner's info or if she had any diseases. at one point, my mom got worried that maybe she was pregnant b/c her belly was poofing out a bit. i told her no way... that she'd just fed that cat who hadn't eaten in who knows how long a ton of food. of course she has a bit of a belly pouch.

when we left the lake house, we brought the little christmas kitty with us and then took her to the vet. the vet confirmed that she was disease free, not preggers, and did not have a chip. she was ours! so we took her home and got her set up in my bedroom so she wouldn't be scared in such a big house. over dinner, we thought of some names for her. we all thought something chrstmassy was in order but it was hard to come up with girl christmas kitty names. since my dad is a little weird sometimes he came up with myrrh. hunh?! we all liked it b/c she is a big purrer and kind of has a soft murrish meow. but i think we will be forever explaining how to spell her name and where it came from. since she was a christmas present and the three wisemen brought frankincense, gold, and myrrh.... we thought myrrh was quite fitting. and yes, we had to look it up in a dictionary to figure out how to properly spell it. so myrrh it is and she has become a fantastic member of the harper household as she is super sweet, very pretty, very playful and cuddly!


myrrh relaxing by the fireplace in her new home


myrrh climbs the cat tree my mom put in the lakehouse...neither of the other two cats will climb it, but myrrh has fun!

pizza party!

saturday was pizza party night at megan's house. it was so much fun! a bunch of us got together to make pizzas, play some wii, and drink some wine and beer. we were all in charge of bringing toppings and megan provided the dough. which btw, did you guys know you can buy premade dough at trader joe's in white, wheat, and herb?? it is so yummy! anyways, we made 6 pizzas and put different toppings on all of them. megan, sonny, ricky (megan's 23 year old bf), kristen, ellen, me, alex, alice, trish and john. i must admit, i did great at directing what type of pizza to make, but i was not involved in the actual making of it.


kristin tries her hand at tossing the pizza

megan was our diligent pizza maker

me and alex

me, alice, trish, ellen

starbucks...during the day

in order to get out of the house and to do something cheap since i still have no job nor any prospect of a good opportunity... i like to go to starbucks. i have plenty of starbucks cards that i've gotten from my parents and friends and also some still from when i was at gemini and gave them away as tchotkes at a booth and happened to come home with quite a few... anyways, i bring my computer, get a nonfat chai latte, sit at a table and use the two hours of free internet that starbucks lets you have if you register your card with them.

i am, in fact, sitting here in starbucks as i write this and thus part of the reason for this post. some older gentleman just sat down at the table next to mine and asked me if i was doing my homework. ha! um, no. not even doing any real work either. just catching up on my much neglected blogging. and then i told him it'd been a long time since i'd had any homework to do and he said oh, it's just that you look so young. god bless this man. i don't care if he was completely bs'ing me or not... i love hearing how young i look. especially when i haven't showered and i threw on a tshirt and jeans that i had on yesterday b/c it was easy to grab. maybe that's why i look like a college student: no shower, messy hair, not much make up...

but, let me also note that there are a ton of people here in starbucks during the day. i got here around 330 i think (it's 410 now) and it has been packed! every table and bar seat taken. it isn't a huge starbucks, but it certainly isn't small either. there's a wide range of people here, but i'm thinking the majority of them are people just like me: out of work. there is a college nearby but there is a closer starbucks to there. several of them. and it is snowing out. it kind of looks like i am sitting in a snowglobe and observing life from the inside. lauren wildberger was at a starbucks this morning and she overheard a couple breaking up (so said her facebook update). i haven't overheard anything nearly as interesting. in fact, i haven't overheard anything at all. people are talking but i'm not paying attention or i can't hear them. my table is not conducive to eavesdropping, but then again i'm lucky just to have a table. it was packed when i got here and luckily the one right by the pick up bar emptied just as i was getting my drink so i could quickly claim it as mine. and that is where i am as of right now.

ready, set, match!

about the time i got laid off, i was bored and tired of waiting for mr right to find me. so, i decided 'what the hell' i'll sign up for match. just to see. if i can find anything and everything else on the internet, why not a guy too?? i'd also just gotten a dose of courage from one of my oldest friends, cherry, who grew up across the street from me until her family moved to a different neighborhood when we were 8 or 9. i won't digress here, but i'll tell you all about the fun we used to have in another blog. in any case, she'd been telling me to try match and that that was how she had met timmy to whom she is getting married to this summer. i also thought about my friend, nicole, who had married her match a year or so ago and had met him 4 or 5 years ago. so i thought, wow, ok, i guess there really is something that could maybe come from all this and since i have the time...

so online i got. i created my profile, uploaded some pictures, and decided to see what i would find. i had a lot of guys email me or wink which was quite flattering. however, the number of those that were actually ones that i would write back to were fairly slim. i had set a lot of 'requirements' for my dates: height, how much they exercise, smoke (absolutely not), no kids, no divorce, age range, etc. a lot of the emails/winks i didn't return were b/c they didn't read what i wanted in a guy. divorced, 2 kids, living in the suburbs is just not my kind of guy. i did make a few exceptions and returned some emails to guys who were shorter than my required height (6'1 or taller) and eventually met up with two of them. i decided that maybe i was being too narrow and that maybe i should give a shorter (to me) guy a chance.

the first guy i met up with had some good potential, but he was only 5'11: he liked to run and had done some marathons, had a black lab, lived nearby, and i don't really remember what else. but we met at a bar for some beers. it wasn't a bad meet up, it just wasn't there for me. did it have something to do with his height?! i don't know, but i don't think so.

the second guy i met up with again had some potential as they all did - they had written a nice description of themselves or we'd had some good emails back and forth. i can't quite remember the order, but i think it was another 5'11 guy that i met up with to test the height thing again. we had several things in common but just not more than that. nice guy, not for me.

the third guy was pretty cool in emails and he was taller...can't remember how tall, but over 6'1. in his picture he was cute. so we met up and he just wasn't as cute in person and it was hard to talk to him. i had an easier time talking to a group of girls who wanted our table when we were leaving. i almost wanted to stay and have some drinks with them! (almost kidding).

the fourth guy: now this is where it gets interesting. i actually emailed HIM! woah. and he wrote back! woah! i broke out of my shell and decided to actually email someone instead of waiting for someone to email me. he's a little bit younger - 28 (bday in may), tall (6'4), from westchester county, ny (and lived in the city for a few years), is/was a trader, and went to duke. i liked his profile. it wasn't very long and it didn't say much, but that he was shy at first until you got to know him and i liked how he didn't feel the need to brag like so many of the guys' profiles that i read. and so we decided to meet up at a bar (which i picked) and it ended up being the coldest day in december. literally. as in below zero cold. and the bar's heat was broken! and while freezing, we still sat there and talked for a couple hours i think. i'm really not sure why we just didn't go somewhere else, but we didn't... until he asked if i wanted to go get some food. so we went to sushi. this was right before we were both leaving for christmas.

the fifth guy: and this was the last of the ones i met. it was the night before i left for cancun. he was totally small world: we were talking about something and i mentioned i went to culver and he asked if i knew a certain guy that he'd gone to college with... and i did... i swear everyone knows this guy. so then i knew where he'd gone to college (princeton) and that he also knew my friend, kelley's cousin, and some of his friends that i've met over the years. weird. but nice convo. but that was it and so...

the only one to be lucky enough to see me again was the fourth guy, alex. and in all honesty, i wasn't sure i'd get to see him again. since we were both leaving to head to our respective homes for christmas - me, houston and him, ny - and he wasn't coming back until after nye's. i was coming back, but for less than a week and then i was off to cancun for a week so that meant there was at least 3 weeks until we could possibly get together again. and let's be honest, that's a long time and my luck with guys, well i figured he'd probably forget about me and we'd never get to meet up again.

but alex surprised me... he texted me over the holidays and kept at it until we were both in town and could meet up again. ok, i know i said 'texted' and some of you think that is poor form. for me, it's perfect. as you ladies know, i'm not very good at the phone... i'm much better at texts than i am at the phone. so he hadn't forgotten! yay!

once we were both back in chicago, we made plans for dinner at a place in logan square called lula's. dinner was great. we went to a bar to continue hanging out afterwards.

pretty soon my birthday was coming up and he asked if he could take me out for my birthday. i had plans for pretty much every night: dinner with friends, hanging out with friends for a party at my house, then my aunt and uncle took me out. so we went out on that wed (my bday was mon) and we went to sushi in bucktown. the name of which escapes me at the moment. dinner was great and afterwards we found our way to the violet hour (which devon has blogged about in the past) and we found our way in the unmarked door. what a cool place that was! the cocktails to choose from were fun and creative and the design of the whole place was cozy and cool and i loved it immediately. he asked me if i'd like to go back to his place and that he'd be a complete gentleman if i wanted. so with semi fears of being hacked in to little pieces and stuffed in a closet (now one of our favorite jokes), i went. and true to his word he was a perfect gentleman.

after that i don't really remember the order of things, but we continued to go out...and texting... and still are... in fact i'll be seeing him in a few hours for some mexican food and 24.