Friday random thoughts...

Must not post cat pictures today... do not want to turn into Crazy Cat Lady. (Actually, I'm fairly certain I passed the "crazy" part of that equation about ten years ago... are the cats inevitable now?? Perhaps I should get another dog sometime soon to even things out...)

So the last two or three nights in a row, we've had pop-up thunderstorms that roll into the city and stick around for half the night. Rick has been LOVING this, by the way, because we've seen some pretty serious lightning strikes from our condo living room. Never mind the fact that I've been cowering in fear in a little ball of nerves on the couch... okay, that's probably an exaggeration. I've only gathered myself up into a little ball of nerves two or three times over the last few days. I actually find the storms here less threatening than the storms in Texas, maybe because I know there are so many tall buildings around to act as lightning rods. In Texas, the tallest thing around is usually your house... or possibly the trees next to your house. And don't get me started on hail and tornadoes... I wish we could send some of our rain to Texas, because they need it so badly...

Some contractors came to sand and paint our balcony today -- so now it looks like we have a brand new balcony on our who-knows-how-old-it-is condo. (How old IS this building?? I'm not even sure...)

How is it already almost August? I'm just now starting to get used to the summery weather here. We're planning a trip to Austin at the end of August, so fortunately (UNfortunately??) we'll get an extra dose of crazy-hot summer weather before September comes along. This year is going by too quickly... (I probably say that EVERY year. :))

Apparently I am extremely lacking in creativity today, because that's about all I've got... hope everyone has a great weekend!

NOT a cat... totally random Istanbul picture...

Because there aren't enough cat pictures on this blog...

Here are a few more:

Hey, in my defense, there's also a butterfly in these pictures -- it landed on the windowsill this morning...

Riff then spent the next half hour attempting to devise a way to reach the butterfly through the magical, unfairly transparent-yet-impenetrable force field...

(I thought his head was going to spin around like that girl in the Exorcist...)

And a bonus random picture from this morning, when a storm passed by us (although never quite made it into the city...):

Yes, I DO have a great view of the Office Depot... jealous?? :)

Around the world in one post...

My blogging efforts were thwarted yesterday by a failed laptop power source. For some reason, every power cord I've had for this laptop ends up fraying over time, until little wires are poking out, threatening to shock me. Rick wrapped my latest frayed cord in electrical tape, which at least prevented an inadvertent shock... but it did not prevent the power source from ultimately failing, prompting my laptop to yell at me about not having the right cord. (I HAD the right cord -- it just looked like invisible mice had been gnawing on it. And apparently once your power cord reaches the "gnawed by invisible mice" stage, it no longer works...) Fortunately, Rick has random power cords lying all over the place, and he managed to find a suitable temporary replacement. But hopefully I can order a new power source for this computer (and try to keep it away from the invisible mice...).

Anyway... not that I'm trying to turn this into a food blog, but I think I'll talk about food again. (Sure, why not? Invisible mice eat power cords... some people eat cat brains... I eat other stuff... :)) So we met Faisal for dinner Saturday night at a Japanese place near his building... Faisal and I thought it was really good. (Rick, on the other hand... well... let's just say we must never again speak of Rick and the Japanese restaurant...) It was one of those places that makes the assumption that its diners are comfortable using chopsticks -- personally, I love such an assumption. But again, let's not talk about Rick... (He is SO gonna get mad at me for this post... :)) I was trying to remember when I first learned how to use chopsticks... I think it may have been at Omei's, which was the BEST Chinese restaurant in New Jersey when I was a teenager. (Granted, I didn't try ALL the Chinese restaurants in New Jersey... but of the ones I did try, Omei's was far superior...) I used to love their stir-fried chicken with mushrooms, and I would use their pre-packaged, disposable wooden chopsticks just for the fun of it. (Wooden chopsticks always worry me slightly -- I wonder how many people get tongue splinters??)

And yesterday, since we weren't finished with our culinary tour of the world, Rick and I ate lunch at Reza's, which is right down the block from us. It's a Middle Eastern/Persian/Mediterranean place, and when we sat down, I was encouraged by the fact that there were so many Middle Eastern/Persian/Mediterranean people eating there. Although I'll admit this was an assumption based on appearances and an observation of languages other than English -- I know I should never assume... :) (It was kind of like the time we went to a little Italian place on Grand, and it was full of Italian people speaking Italian... I figure if the ITALIAN people are eating at the Italian restaurant, it must be good, right??)

However, unlike Indian food (which is like awesomeness on a plate), I've decided that Persian food is just so-so... It's not BAD, it's just not... awesomeness on a plate. There's not enough spice... and occasionally there are some strange flavor combinations. But I did pretty much eat my weight in falafel... (Which, in retrospect, may not have been the best idea. I wasn't hungry AT ALL for the rest of the day. Apparently it takes falafel about 24 hours to completely digest...) I do always enjoy trying new foods (as long as there's no cat brain on my plate, of course), even if it ends up not being a favorite...

At the Japanese place the other night (where I, Fish-Hater, avoided sushi like the plague), Rick wondered why I, as a descendent of a "name-that-ends-in-strom" from Sweden, did not inherit Scandinavian taste buds. In fact, I find most Scandinavian food rather unappetizing. It's not just the copious amounts of fish -- it's the strange, random side dishes that go along with entrees. Piles of onions and capers and pickles and weird herbs... what the heck goes on in Swedish kitchens??? And then there's this:

Really, Sweden?? Even your CHOCOLATE is weird? You expect me to eat something with the unfortunate, onomatopoeic moniker "Plopp"? That's just unappetizing in any language...

But I suppose I shouldn't be so hard on Sweden -- after all, in some roundabout way, I appeared on this planet thanks in part to the existence of Sweden. But I didn't inherit Swedish taste buds... and I certainly didn't inherit tall, blond, Swedish bikini model genes, either (okay, now I'm mad at Sweden again... :)). Maybe you have to eat a lot of fish to be a tall blond bikini model???

And, because I haven't quite gone around the entire world in this post, we bought some Costa Rican coffee on our way back from lunch. There. I think that pretty much covers everything. :)

To myself, on my 73rd birthday... *

* Eric wished me a happy 73rd birthday this morning... and while I'm inclined to believe his assessment of my age was an exaggeration, there is the remote possibility that I'm too old to remember my exact age...

It's been a quiet birthday here in Chicago... I was HOPING to maybe head out and see the new Harry Potter movie tonight, but my fellow Chicago-based Potter fans had other plans tonight (they probably didn't want to hang out with a 73-year-old anyway). Ah well, on to plan b -- Rick and I had been wanting to try a restaurant not too far from here called Vermilion, which is billed as an "Indian-Latin fusion" establishment. And I'm a sucker for anything Indian, so I figured my birthday was a great excuse to give the place a try. (Side note: Never walk a half mile in heels you've never worn before, no matter how "surprisingly comfortable" they feel when you first put them on...)

So I did my best to make myself look presentable, and we headed out in the 98-degree heat to walk to the restaurant. Seriously, you'd think those of us who lived in Texas for years would think nothing of 98-degree heat, but it is BRUTAL out there this week. And by the time we got to the restaurant, I'm fairly certain all my work to look decent was tossed by the wayside... I probably needed another shower... (such is the price of a July birthday... :))

The restaurant was really good -- I'd say it was about 85 percent Indian with about 15 percent "Latin" thrown in. We started with some artichoke pakoras, which were like battered, fried, slightly spicy artichoke hearts with some kind of dipping sauce. My horrible phone picture probably doesn't do it justice:

For dinner, I perused the menu and decided to go with something from the "dhaba fare" section. (I guess a dhaba is an Indian truck stop -- because when I think about good food, I inevitably think about truck stops in India. Or really, truck stops ANYwhere.) I got the pindi butter chicken, which was REALLY good (another bad camera phone picture):

The only thing that would've made it better was if it had been all white meat, since I'm not big on dark meat chicken, but it tasted great... I may have considered bringing home the leftover sauce just so I could pour it over rice or something, but I refrained from asking... Rick had the lamb shank gassi, which I tried and can honestly say was the BEST lamb I've ever tasted. Lamb isn't usually my favorite meat, but this stuff is apparently cooked for six hours until it just falls apart like short ribs. It was, however, more spicy than anything on the face of the planet. At least that's the idea I got from the way Rick was reacting to it... our server even brought over some kind of cucumber-yogurt sauce to help cut down on the heat, but by the end of dinner, Rick's stomach had eroded away... and then he said he'd probably order it again if we ever came back. (So either it was really good, or Rick is really reckless...) We also tried their chocolate cake for dessert, and even the DESSERT was spicy -- it came with a little scoop of blueberry sorbet on the side, which was useful for tempering the heat of the chili-chocolate sauce on the cake... yuuuuuum.

So all-in-all, a very good birthday dinner... although I just realized that even though I had that chocolate cake for dessert, I didn't get a big birthday cake that will last me the rest of the week... I should've made one for myself. But it's probably best that I didn't... we 73-year-olds needs to watch what we eat... :)

Not TOO bad for a septuagenarian, right?? 

Walk on...

Yesterday was one of those bright, sunny, blue-skied, seemingly perfect summer days. So, since it appeared so nice and perfect, we thought we'd take advantage of our newly acquired opportunity to walk everywhere. After a lifetime of living in the suburbs, where a car is a requirement for just about everything from a cup of coffee to a trip to a movie theater, I am loving my ability to walk to so many different locations...

And yesterday started innocently enough -- we decided we'd walk toward mom and dad's place and try a deli down the block for lunch. Halfway there, I remarked on the heat -- the temperatures were climbing toward the mid-90s, and the heat index was somewhere near 100. I hadn't realized this when we started walking... but c'mon, I thought to myself. I'm from Texas! 95 degrees? Ha! I laugh at your 95 degrees and raise you another 10! Rick and I used to walk around our neighborhood in Austin in the middle of summer in 90-degree temperatures all the time. No problem.

But apparently 95 degrees in Chicago (after months of acclimating to cooler temperatures) isn't quite the same as 95 degrees in Texas. "We've become wusses," I said at one point, as we frantically searched for a shady street to shield us from the unrelenting rays of the sun. But once we reached our lunch destination, and the reprieve of sustenance and air conditioning, I forgot all about my comment...

So after lunch, we decided to walk to Argo Tea -- and for some reason, we decided to take "the long way" instead of the more direct route. Where are all the shady streets?? Why is there so much sun??? But again, once I was inside the air conditioned building and had a cold, fruity, blended tea drink in my hand, I felt totally revived and ready to keep walking...

And instead of simply heading back home, we decided to walk out toward the lake. This, at least, provided a nice breeze and plenty of trees, as well as some awesome views of the city toward Michigan Avenue. And then, as long as we'd made it that far, we figured we'd just take a short jaunt over to Faisal's building. It was so close -- mirage-like, shimmering in the hot sun, taunting us with its proximity to the cool water of the lake... at least it SEEMED so close. The more we walked, the more I realized the heat was messing with my mind... perhaps it really WAS a mirage, that tower on the lake... why else would it be out there on the pier, all alone??

Fortunately, my heat-addled mind was able to realize that walking around Navy Pier would be a bit TOO much, and once we'd circled Faisal's building (which I'm still not convinced actually exists...), we headed back toward home. This was the point that I realized my choice of footwear had been a big mistake. While my shoes were fine for a bit of walking -- even a couple miles wouldn't have fazed me -- by the time we were closing in on FIVE miles, my feet were vehemently protesting. Because of this, the walk from that point on seemed longer than the rest of the walk combined...

But we finally made it (and I immediately took what can only be described as the best. shower. ever.), and probably burned off breakfast, lunch AND dinner... plus today's breakfast and at least my morning cup of coffee. My feet are still slightly annoyed by the fact that I took them on such a long journey, but I'm sure they'll forgive me eventually. In the meantime, I'll just sit here in the air conditioning and pretend I'm back in nice, cool Texas... :)

Regarding food, etc...

One of the things I've missed about having my "own" kitchen is the ability to experiment with food to create new meals. When we were in the rental condo, I stuck to a pretty boring repertoire, not only because that kitchen was tiny, but because I never really felt quite "settled" into that place. My new kitchen is still pretty tiny (at least compared to what I got used to in Austin), but at least I feel like I can settle in for a while. Tonight I made some honey-glazed chicken and a summer vegetable pasta salad, both of which could be described as "winging it" (i.e. I just started throwing stuff together and hoped it tasted good). And yes, it DID end up tasting good...

Somehow, the other night, Rick and Faisal got into a discussion about "strange food," and Faisal mentioned that his grandmother doesn't mind eating brain now and then -- goat brain, mostly (and a quick Google search will bring up recipes that include such)... but he also mentioned that it's not unheard of for people to eat cat brain in Pakistan. This, of course, elicits an immediate American response along the lines of, "What?!? Cats?? Adorable little kitties?? Cute, cuddly kitties?!? Partaking of such cuteness must not be tolerated!!"

And yet a more thoughtful reflection on the topic makes me wonder -- why? Why do we not bat an eyelash at the idea of eating a cow or a chicken, but a cat or a dog as "food" is like culinary blasphemy? Yes, cats and dogs are generally "cuter" than most of the animals we eat... but it has to be more than that. I mean, I think rabbits are pretty darned adorable -- all fluffy and cute with their big ears and little twitchy noses. But even I managed to eat rabbit once -- it wasn't bad. Tasted like chicken. So perhaps it's the fact that cats and dogs are such a huge part of our pet population -- we bring them into our homes, and buy them toys, and feed them treats, and teach them tricks -- maybe our culture of "American pet owner" causes a visceral aversion to the idea of eating these animals. In fact, when Faisal first mentioned the "cats as food" fact, the first thing I asked was whether cats are a common pet in Pakistan -- and it turns out, no one keeps them as pets. It's much harder to eat something that you raise to be a part of your family -- if you've never had a cat as a pet or even KNOWN anyone who's had a cat as a pet, it's probably not as difficult to think of them as a food source... And I know some people keep rabbits as pets, but I've never had one myself... maybe if I had, I wouldn't have been able to try that rabbit stew...

Of course, that doesn't explain why we (and by "we" I mean Americans in general -- not ME, as I have a serious fish aversion) have no problem eating salmon, while at the same time we'll keep tanks full of goldfish in our living rooms. Are fish just really difficult to bond with, even as pets? (Honestly, I can't imagine ever bonding with a fish... and yet I can't imagine eating one, either... :))

It's just strange how we always jump to conclusions about what's "wrong" or "disgusting," based only upon our OWN experiences. If someone half a world away grows up thinking that their mom's goat brain roast is the best dinner ever, who's to say they wouldn't think WE were weird for eating twinkies or nachos or hot dogs?? (Honestly, at least you KNOW what's in a goat brain -- it's a goat brain. A hot dog could be goat brain, hyena lung, armadillo tail, lead paint chips and rat droppings all rolled into one...)

This is not to say that I, personally, would ever eat a cat brain... actually, I wouldn't eat ANY kind of brain. But that's more because I have weird food issues, not because I find fault with anyone's idea of a delicacy... or even anyone's idea of a plain old Saturday night dinner. Tonight, mine just happened to be chicken and pasta salad... :)

Riff under the sheet when I was attempting to make the bed this afternoon. I've titled this picture, "Please don't eat me, Faisal..." Hahahaha! Kidding... just kidding... Faisal is highly allergic to cats -- if he ever ate one, he'd probably blow up like that blueberry girl in the Willy Wonka movie...

Middle of the week randomness...

Lest I keep anyone in suspense (as I know you've all been waiting with bated breath for the conclusion of this story), I DID finally find my white-noise machine. It was in the very last place I looked -- and yes, I know it's ALWAYS in the last place you look, because once you find something you stop looking... but in this case, it was literally the LAST place I COULD look. I had rummaged through every other box, bag, crate, suitcase and storage container in the condo. And then I spotted my laptop bag sitting on the floor near the fireplace. I hadn't bothered to search through it, since I removed my laptop from the bag the day I brought it over... I had assumed it was empty. Never assume. Because apparently, the same day I brought over my laptop, I also brought over the white-noise machine, which was nestled into a front pocket. I can now once again pretend I'm falling asleep on the beach in Hawaii...

Speaking of the beach in Hawaii... I wish I was on a beach in Hawaii. Just sayin'...

Does anyone ever watch that show Ghost Hunters? It's like the dumbest show ever... these people take night-vision cameras into creepy locations like abandoned prisons and dilapidated psychiatric hospitals, and then film with all the lights off while they act really scared. And then the cameraman will drop a pen, or someone stumbles over an unnoticed chair (because all the lights are off, so how can these people really see where they're going??), and everyone freaks out and starts asking, "what was that? Did you hear that??" Like it's not obvious that someone just tripped over a chair. They never actually FIND any ghosts in their "hunt." How does that show even stay on the air (she asked, even as she realized that "Jersey Shore" is still on the air...)??

I never thought I'd say, "I'm so glad that I get to do laundry whenever I want," but I really AM glad that I can do laundry whenever I want in my new condo. (That is so sad... :))

FYI, everyone needs to watch The First 48: Missing Persons this Thursday night on A&E -- in fact, you should all set it up to Tivo. Do it now. I'll wait. (This show follows Chicago detectives on missing persons cases in the city... and Thursday is going to be Eric's big television debut. I suspect it will be the most riveting two or three minutes of television that has aired on any channel anywhere ever. And Eric has promised me explosions and shootouts and possibly ninja babies with grenades. I'm actually not sure about any of that, but I would definitely record the show, just in case...)

I can't believe the National League won the All-Star game last night... but I CAN believe the U.S. women's team beat France in the World Cup finals... that's kinda cool, and it makes me wish I liked soccer more...

Okay, that's all I've got today, and I'm starving so I should go find something to eat...   

There's always something...

I'm waiting for my lunch to finish roasting -- lately, my go-to lunch when Rick's not around is chickpeas roasted with olive oil, salt, pepper, cayenne and curry powder. The chickpeas dry up in the oven until they're almost crunchy... they turn into yummy, addictive little legumes. I may or may not have eaten an entire can of chickpeas in this manner in the past. (That's only 400 calories -- I checked... :))

I've spent the morning attempting to clean parts of the condo and unpack a few more boxes. My efforts were temporarily side-tracked when I decided to move a tool case that's been sitting on the couch for the last week -- unbeknownst to me, the case (which is filled with 137 wrenches, ratchets, sockets and screwdriver bits) was open. This resulted in 137 wrenches, ratchets, sockets and screwdriver bits scattered on the couch and throughout the case. I then spent the next 45 minutes painstakingly replacing every piece in its respective home within the case. I was tempted to just dump the whole mess into an empty cardboard box, but finally took a deep breath and dove into the metal carnage. I should obviously stay away from tools. I should stick with girly things like... uh... what are girls supposed to do? Cook? And, like, make curtains or something?? Yeah... fewer tools, more curtains... (That's a total joke, by the way -- I would screw up curtains, too... :))

The reason for today's unpacking venture (I mean, besides the fact that it needs to be done anyway) is that I'm searching for a much-needed item: the white-noise machine my mom gave me for Christmas several years ago, which becomes my best friend when Rick is away overnight. Since we started the moving process, Rick put much of his travel on-hold... but he has an upcoming trip to some podunk town in Kansas... I actually think it's called Podunk, Kansas. (My apologies to anyone who lives in or is from Kansas... I'm sure you have a lovely -- albeit remotely situated -- state.) Which means I'll soon have to spend a night by myself, and I'd much prefer to listen to the calming sound of crashing waves or falling rain when I'm trying to sleep...

(Side note: Have I mentioned that I'm fairly certain our new condo is haunted?? Okay, not really -- however, when the bedroom fan is turned on (and I'm one of those people who likes a fan when I'm sleeping), the bedroom light has the very disconcerting habit of turning itself on at random times. Which means that several times, I've woken up in the middle of the night to a room flooded with light. It's a little bit creepy, but my dad has assured me that the culprit is more likely electrical than poltergeist-related.)

But after all of today's searching, I have been UNABLE to find my white-noise machine. Even though I have a finite number of boxes here, most of which we moved over from the old condo (where I did, in fact, have the white-noise machine on my dresser). You'd think it would be simple to figure out where I stashed that thing when I moved it over here. Where did I put it???

I'm just hoping it's hiding here somewhere in a place I haven't looked yet. Because I don't want this to become another New Jersey Cutting Board Incident. (To recap: I had a great Williams-Sonoma wooden cutting board when I lived in New Jersey, which I vividly remember packing into a box when we were getting ready to move back to Texas. But when we got to Texas, I never found the cutting board. I STILL haven't found the cutting board. I KNOW I packed it, but it apparently disappeared into thin air...) But doesn't it seem like there's always something that disappears in a move? Hopefully this time it'll just be a pair of socks or a tupperware container and NOT my white-noise machine...

And FYI, this is what Riff has been doing while I've been cleaning and unpacking all day:

It is SO hard to be a cat...

Independently random...

As I previously mentioned, I forgot to take a camera with me on July 4th and I was unable to document the fireworks display. But dad gave me a CD with all of the pictures from his camera and mom's camera, so now I have proof that we saw fireworks. Well, I have proof that mom and dad saw fireworks, at least. So in lieu of a "Derek Jeter is awesome" post (which I'll have to work on for next time), here are a few pictures:

This is the horrible view that mom and dad have from their place when you're sitting on the balcony. (Obviously dad took this picture -- hence the Starbucks coffee cup)...

Faisal's building, the site of our fireworks-watching vantage point...

And Faisal has THIS horrible view to contend with outside his window... honestly, I would just move. Maybe to a place with a nice view of an alley or a subway station...

When the fireworks started, we noticed that this blimp, wrapped in a Farmer's Insurance logo, was hanging out in the "fireworks display" area. And it STAYED there even with flammable things exploding around it. I realize blimps no longer use hydrogen, but we were still pretty sure we were seeing Hindenburg 2 in the making... (And, strangely, we all switched over to Farmer's Insurance on July 5th...)

And since this post is much too theme-oriented and not nearly random enough, here's a picture of me reflected in the cabinet where all our TV equipment is:

Plus, an extra-special bonus random picture:

Uhhh... yeah... I have no idea either...

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

The new view...

And of course, more of this:

Bow to me, human peons. (He's so demanding...)

I wonder what he does when we're not home...

The unpacking continues, slowly but steadily. I managed to empty about four boxes yesterday -- a couple of them were stacked in the guest bathroom, and were rather in the way of anyone who may have been in there. So now that I've emptied the boxes, broken them down, and readied them for the recycling bin, I have at least ONE room that is completely organized, neat and clean. Everyone is invited to my place to use the bathroom...

One of the fun things about a loft is that everything is open -- even though we have two bedrooms, they're divided from the rest of the space by walls that stop several feet from the ceiling. Apparently, these walls make a great cat perch:

It took us a while to figure out how he got up there -- that bookcase (that cursed IKEA bookcase with the innumerable wooden dowels... :)), is too high for him to jump on top of it. But Rick's study is on the OTHER side of that open wall, where a short cabinet is standing next to a higher set of shelves... and that set of shelves is situated right next to the wall. So a jump up to the cabinet, followed by a jump up to the top shelf, followed by a jump up on the wall, and you've got a smug, much-too-pleased-with-himself cat:

I am fairly certain he is looking down upon us as if we were his lowly subjects... his minions, perhaps.

Anyway... I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. We were invited to Faisal's place to watch the fireworks at Navy Pier... and stupid me forgot my camera. I'm so used to seeing those Navy Pier fireworks from my own living room -- I usually just grab the camera off the shelf and start shooting. No more fireworks from my living room... sigh... :) (Although I did notice, after Saturday's fireworks, that the residual firework smoke eventually made its way down Grand Ave. to our place. So I can't see the fireworks anymore, but I CAN see the smoke. Wait... that's nowhere near as cool... :))

Well, I suppose I should stop blogging and start unpacking again, lest I live in a cardboard-box fort for the next two years. (Hey, cardboard box forts were super cool when I was a kid! :))

Goodbye, skyline...

I took these the morning the movers showed up -- which was, of course, a perfect, sunny, cloudless day, so I was quite aware of the great view I was leaving behind. :)

But hey, now I'm much closer to the Hancock Building:

Unfortunately, I lose my view of the Sears Tower and Trump Tower. Oh well -- if I REALLY want to see them, I'll just head over to mom and dad's place...

We are officially 100 percent out of our rental condo. (I won't say we're 100 percent moved in here, because we still have things in storage that we might bring over... and I don't FEEL like I'm totally moved in, since half our stuff is still in boxes and a lot of it is just strewn randomly all over the living room...)

Funny story -- the realtor for the family who's renting the old condo asked if we would mind if they moved a few of their things over on the 28th (even though their lease didn't start until today), which was the day the movers showed up to move our furniture out of the condo. And we said sure, that would be fine. But the movers ONLY moved our heavy furniture -- we moved our clothes, dishes, etc. ourselves. So even though the condo was about 95 percent empty after the movers left on Tuesday, we still planned to use Wednesday and Thursday to finish the rest of our move. We went over Wednesday morning to pack some things up, and were surprised by how much the new tenants had already moved into the condo.

At dinner Wednesday night, Rick got a strange call from the realtor, who said something like, "the new renters say they're uncomfortable spending the night at the condo, because some of your things are still there." To which he responded, "um, yeah, that's because it's still OUR condo -- they should NOT be 'spending the night' when we still have two days left on our lease." We assumed the matter was cleared up, and then after dinner we headed back to the old condo to pack up a few more things.

So imagine our surprise when we turned the key, opened the door, and an entire family was sitting in the living room eating dinner. Uhhhh... ooooookay. After we all awkwardly introduced ourselves, they claimed that the realtor told them they could MOVE IN on the 28th. Even though we clearly told the realtor that we needed the next two days to finish moving out, and all we said was that it was fine if they moved some of their possessions into the condo. Somewhere, somehow, the wires got crossed. Needless to say, we packed our stuff up as quickly as we could (much of it piled freely in a precarious mountain of "stuff," simply because we only had two boxes with us...), trying to avoid the occasional stares of the strangers who were now occupying the condo (still rightfully ours). And the worst part? They had the blinds DOWN -- completely cutting off the great view AND the Wednesday night fireworks at Navy Pier... (who WERE those people??? :))

But at least the moving part is over, and the unpacking part can begin. (Because that's the fun part, right? Right???) No pictures of the condo yet, because it's a complete disaster area at the moment. But here's a picture of some creepy, ominous storm clouds that were outside this morning:

And Rick wanted me to mention that this blog was brought to you today by the failure of the hard drive that was powering our Windows television -- he bought a new hard drive this afternoon to get everything up and running again, but at the moment, we have no TV. If we did, it's possible I would be watching something right now, instead of writing a blog post... but I really WAS planning to post something today anyway... honestly! :)

This and that... (aka "random")...

In case anyone is wondering, yes, I'm still around... I've just been crazy busy with moving plans. The movers arrive tomorrow morning to move all the heavy furniture, but in the meantime, we've been packing up boxes of clothes, dishes, pictures, books, etc., and moving them all over to the new place. As with every move, I am amazed by the amount of "stuff" I have... especially this time, seeing as we've been living in downsized square footage. How foolish of me to assume that we could move our entire condo in a day or two...

So, random thoughts, in no particular order:

I think I've only managed to squeeze in one workout on my treadmill in the last week. But moving boxes counts as exercise, right? And assembling giant IKEA bookshelves?? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that counts...

I'm worried about moving the cats tomorrow... I always feel guilty about forcing them into confinement in their little cat carriers. And taking them to a new, confusing place just adds insult to injury. Although once they get used to it, I think they'll be much happier in the new condo -- lots more room to run around.

We tried the Indian place down the block from the new condo -- Faisal and I somehow convinced Rick to try it. And, wonder of wonders, Rick actually LIKED it. In fact, I think Rick actually liked it a lot. Who could've seen THAT coming?? I had a much longer blog post planned to talk about our Indian food outing, but it'll have to wait a few more days until I have more time to write...

I need to go pack boxes, but here's one last reminder of what I'm leaving behind:

 

Mmmmm... lingonberries...

It was a busy (not to mention coughy, sneezy and achy) weekend here in Chicago. I spent much of Friday on the couch, fighting off the virus that took hold last week -- leaving me NO doubt whatsoever that I was in the middle of a bad cold (and definitely not allergies). Rick, meanwhile, spent most of the day at the new condo, overseeing the final Operation Update Condo projects. We've now had the hardwood floors refinished, new carpet installed in the master bedroom, carpet removed from the study and replaced with wood floors, and new paint in the entryway, study and bedroom.

Refinished floors (I know it's hard to tell from the pictures, but the floors look SO much better now than they did at first...).

New wood floor and red paint in the study...

This was the OLD bedroom carpet and paint (it looked even worse in person... the carpet was just... ick...)

And here's the NEW carpet and paint. And, from another corner of the room, you can see --

My purple accent wall!! Yeah, that's right -- I have a purple wall in my bedroom. Finally. (I don't even KNOW how I convinced Rick to allow a purple wall in the bedroom... I'm not gonna ask... I'm just going with it... :))

Anyway... these really aren't very good pictures -- I need to take some with my good camera, instead of my little point-and-shoot (which doesn't have a very wide-angle lens). But the good camera is still here at the rental condo, for last-minute skyline pictures...

Saturday brought more couch time, and then I drank my weight in Dayquil and forced myself to join Rick at the new condo to wait for a furniture delivery -- we got a new bed and a smaller kitchen table (we're going to keep the table we have now in storage, because it really is a nice piece of furniture... but for now, we're trying to downsize...). We paid for the delivery guys to assemble the bed, but we were told the table was easy to assemble, so we should save the money on the assembly and do it ourselves. Which brings us to...

Sunday, I woke up feeling MUCH better. (I am no longer convinced that this cold virus is determined to multiply to the point that it becomes an entity unto itself and can achieve world domination. No, on the contrary -- it shall be destroyed.) And since I was feeling better, we decided to take a little field trip out to the suburbs and visit IKEA. If you've never been to an IKEA, it is quite the experience. And this particular IKEA is even bigger than the IKEA we had back in Austin. It's like a giant home improvement warehouse maze, with Swedish meatballs in the middle. (Since I am part Swedish, I feel that I should appreciate Swedish food... yet in reality I find most of it rather unappealing... Although I DID think the bottles of sparkling lingonberry-apple juice they had at the register sounded pretty good...) We browsed through the kitchen remodel displays to get ideas for sometime down the road (we want to eventually redo the kitchen in the condo, but for now we'll make do with what we have...), and then we found the reason for our trip -- we bought two big bookcases to place along one wall of the living room. And like most of the items at IKEA, the bookcases were sold unassembled, and each bookcase was contained in FOUR separate boxes. Since we bought two bookcases, this meant eight big, cumbersome boxes that we had to wrangle into our SUV, drive back to our building, and then transport to the elevator and up to our condo. That was fun. Let's just say that we got in a good workout after that experience...

Fortunately, we had the presence of mind to NOT attempt to assemble the bookcases right away. But we did assemble the kitchen table. And it WAS pretty simple to put together... or at least it WOULD have been, had we not discovered that one of the table legs was defective. (Doesn't it always seem to work that way??) But I have to give credit to West Elm (where we bought the bed and table) -- Rick called them as soon as we discovered the defective table leg. And even though they were about to close, they told us to bring the table leg to the back entrance of the store and they'd exchange it for us, no problem. It made what could've been a really annoying issue much less annoying... plus we took a break to get dinner next-door at Epic Burger (where I always get the chicken... which, according to Rick, is much better than their burgers... so perhaps they should be Epic Chicken??) -- so everything worked out okay.

And now that I'm writing all of this, I realize I should've taken a picture of the finished kitchen table... but I guess I'll wait until the kitchen CHAIRS come in (they're backordered). And now that I've babbled on aimlessly for a while, I guess I should go find some stuff to pack up -- we have one more week of moving ourselves until the movers arrive!     

Various thoughts of a random nature...

Well, the verdict is in: it's a cold. Definitely a cold. Apparently my usually strong immune system spent about a week and a half fighting off this thing, leading me to believe that what I was dealing with was allergies. But some time last night, my tiny little white blood cells finally threw up their tiny little hands and said, "FINE. Go ahead and take over, cold virus." (So you are vindicated, Chicago -- I guess you have NOT been attacking me with allergens. Yet.) Should I be worried that this is the second cold I've had since moving to Chicago, and I normally go YEARS without getting a cold? Should I also be worried that RICK is usually the one who picks up the cold viruses -- not me -- and yet here I am with cold number two?? Oh well... (sniff sniff... sneeze sneeze... cough cough...)

We found out today that there were FOUR offers on this condo, and the people who will be renting it offered $50 more per month than what we're paying. They also have two kids, and they're going to be living in this little bitty condo. Obviously they are insane. Rick and I have been running into each other, and stepping on cats, and bumping into furniture the entire time we've been here. Of course, that could be partly due to the fact that we have huge furniture -- a king-sized bed, a big dining room table, and a giant sectional couch that pretty much takes up the entire living room (it was perfect in our media room back in the big house in Texas... not so great in a tiny urban condo living room...).

Speaking of condos -- they're working on replacing the bedroom/study floors in the new condo today. They're putting Pergo (or something similar) wood floors in the study, and new berber carpet in the master bedroom to replace the ratty, icky, dog-approved-but-human-rejected carpet that's in there now. And then tomorrow morning, the painter is coming to paint the bedroom, study, and entryway. Once everything is finished, I'll take some pictures of our new-and-improved abode...

Does anyone else think it's sad that you have to show ID to buy cold medicine now? I was even presented with a receipt that said, "stop teenage abuse of cold medicine." Is that the thing to do now? Drink a bunch of Nyquil just for the fun of it? Teenagers are so stupid... (I can say that because I used to be one. And even when I WAS a teenager I thought teenagers were stupid... :))

Well, my cold-addled brain is having trouble thinking of anything beyond, "where did I put my tissues??" So I'm off to drink a bunch of Nyquil just for the fun of it... kidding... just kidding. :)

Out with the old, in with the new...

So for the last week, my morning routine has gone something like this: get up, get dressed, get ready to leave the house; feed cats, make sure litter box is clean; Swiffer the floors if necessary (and it's necessary much too often); clean and dust counters and tables; make the bed; clean bathroom counter and mirror (which are inevitably splashed with water when Riff drinks from the faucet) -- all of this to make sure the condo is presentable for the parade of prospective renters we've had tromping through every day.

Well, this afternoon we got word that the condo has been RENTED! Perhaps partly thanks to my efforts to keep it clean... or partly thanks to the fact that we asked Riff to act extra cute when people were looking at the condo (at which point he promptly climbed into a laundry bag and took a nap):

But CERTAINLY thanks in no small part to this:

Ah, my view... I am going to miss you... Will the new renters appreciate you enough to photograph you every other day?? I think not...

But we're definitely getting excited about the new place. As I mentioned before, the guy we bought the condo from had two big dogs... they not only tore up the bedroom carpet (which should be replaced tomorrow), but they also scratched up the hardwood floors in the living/dining/kitchen area. They weren't so bad that we couldn't live with them, but we decided to ask our floor guy to refinish the wood -- which is much cheaper than replacing the floors. They sanded them down yesterday, and then applied a coat of stain today... Rick and I went by after lunch to check out the progress -- we couldn't walk on the floors yet, so we just opened the door and looked inside. The floors look AWESOME -- I can't believe how much of a difference just refinishing them has already made! It's got me very anxious to see the new carpet and paint that should all be finished by this weekend. So while I may not have the same view anymore, I think the condo itself is going to have much more personality than this place has. There are always pros and cons, right?

Anyway, I'm extremely glad this condo has been rented, since all plans have been up in the air lately and I haven't been able to stick to a routine. I haven't even been on my treadmill all week -- although we've been getting in plenty of walking every time we leave the condo for showings... plus, I seem to be coughing up whatever is left of my lungs, so perhaps I should go easy on the workouts right now...

In fact, maybe I should just take this time to enjoy the view, while I still have the chance... :)