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... :)

Okay, Chicago...

Veeeeery funny.

You knew that one of the reasons I was looking forward to living here was because I could escape the myriad of allergies Austin threw at me every year. Finally, I would be free of the scourge that is "Cedar Fever," knowing that my winter would not be spent in frustrating annoyance; my itchy throat, scratchy eyes, and endless sneezes alleviated only by copious amounts of Benadryl. No, no -- cedar is practically non-existent here in Chicago, and is found only in the places it SHOULD be found: closets and hope chests.

But then you -- tricky, sneaky Chicago -- decided to blindside me with your OWN (and completely unnecessary, I might add) allergens. Grass? Molds? Random dust (as it DOES seem like my condo accumulates dust far more quickly than my house in Austin ever did)?? What are you aiming at me, Chicago??? And what did I ever do to you?

So now, as I sneeze and cough my way through spring, I'm wondering which is worse -- Cedar Fever, or Mysterious Chicago Allergen Malady...

Then again, this COULD be a cold. If that's the case, Chicago, you may disregard this message. But I'm suspicious. Highly suspicious...

And, by the way, random comment: Has anyone noticed that I've now surpassed both my 2009 and 2010 posting totals -- and we're not even halfway through the year?? (Nevermind the fact that half of those posts have been pictures of the Chicago skyline... they still count... right? :))

Please stop calling...

So remember the other day when I said that if this place doesn't rent, it's not MY problem, so I don't really care if everything looks perfect? Yeah, I take it all back... I care... I really, really care...

Our condo was officially listed for rent Tuesday night. Yesterday afternoon, the phone must've rung every half hour, with a realtor asking to book a showing. So far, we've had two showings yesterday afternoon (we took the opportunity to take some stuff over to the new condo) and one this morning (we went out to Caribou for coffee -- not a bad way to start the morning). We have two more this afternoon (so we'll be heading back to the new condo with more boxes), three (or four?) tomorrow (which means we have to be out from 10 until 4), and at least two on Saturday. I can't even keep them all straight. I also cringe every time the phone rings, because I'm certain it will be ANOTHER realtor who wants to bring a client by to see the condo.

Now, unlike our big house back in Texas, I don't mind this from a "constantly keeping things clean" perspective -- it's actually not difficult to keep 1100 square feet relatively clean most of the time. However, the seemingly unending disruptions are going to wear on my patience pretty quickly. Apparently there's a really hot condo rental market here in Chicago... back in Austin, we were lucky to average a few showings a week... but here, I can't even keep up with all of them... I keep forgetting when we need to be out of here. We did manage to put our foot down about one detail -- one of the showings yesterday was at 6:15... which meant we either had to eat dinner out, or have a really late dinner (we chose the dinner out -- there are just too many great places to eat in this city... :)). But we requested that a note be placed on the listing that says we will NOT accept any more showings after 5:00. Not to mention the fact that since Rick works from home, it's hard for him to just pick up and leave at any random time.

And this is all why, when the phone started its incessant ringing yesterday, I began to clean this condo as I've never cleaned it before. Because I'm just not sure how long I can stand vacating the premises four times a day when I have boxes to pack and laundry to clean and blog posts to write. So I take it back -- I DO care if this condo rents... in fact, I'd like it to rent IMMEDIATELY. Please.

And how could it not rent right away with a view like this???

And this morning's cloudy, slightly spooky non-existent skyline:

C'mon, skyline... THAT is not going to convince renters... :)

Progress...

Not MUCH progress, but we have managed to move a bunch of random stuff into the new condo. So far, we've been stacking everything in piles in the living room, because we have painters and floor people coming to paint the bedrooms and replace the carpeting, so we don't want a lot of things in the bedrooms just yet. The guy who lived in the condo before us had a couple dogs, who apparently scratched at the carpet quite a bit... not to mention the fact that there are several suspect stains in the carpeting. There's also a weird, textured paint on one wall of the master bedroom -- it looks like someone tried to be creative and paint willy-nilly splotches... but the effect is a little more "elementary school finger painting" than "designer paint scheme."

But even with our limited stacking space, we've been quite busy this weekend, packing up the car with as much as we can fit -- from this condo AND from our storage unit -- and hauling it down to the new condo. Since we don't have to be out of here until the end of the month, we're just moving in small increments at the moment... in a couple weeks, we'll have movers come to move out the heavy furniture.

I remembered to take my camera yesterday, so I got a few slightly better pictures of the new place.

This one is kinda dark... sorry about that... :)

Rick said the last "view" picture I look wasn't so great... but I'm not sure this one is much better... :)

We DO have a balcony, however, which is pretty cool...

Weird textured paint and ratty carpet in the master bedroom that needs to be replaced... (I only took this so I can have a "before" picture... so when everything is finished, I'll post an "after"...)

Living room area again -- Rick disassembled that TV stand in the corner today. When we first saw it, we thought it was made of metal and it looked pretty sturdy. But on closer inspection, we discovered that it was cheap plywood that had been painted silver. So it had to go...

And this afternoon, I discovered an Indian restaurant about a block away from our new place, right next door to a Starbucks -- double score!! Now all I need is a chocolate shop...

Sneak preview...

In case anyone hasn't heard -- we are officially condo owners! The closing yesterday took a little while -- it already takes long enough to plod through the two-foot stack of papers you're required to sign at a closing... but then once we'd signed everything, we waited more than an hour for the lenders to get back to us to say that everything was approved. Even though they supposedly ALREADY approved everything last week. Apparently they were concerned that we'd secretly run out over the weekend and bought another condo... or a couple cars... or a small private island in the Caribbean...

But eventually, everything was approved, we got our keys, and we drove to our new place with a few boxes of summer clothing from storage. Later, we took over some winter clothing from our rental condo, plus the very first piece of furniture to occupy our new space -- a coffee table that Faisal has been kind enough to keep at his place for the last few months (since our storage unit was completely full and the furniture in our rental condo is about to overflow into the street sixteen stories below...). We've decided that we might need a smaller car eventually -- our new garage is TINY... or, rather, the garage itself is quite big, but the driving/parking areas are very narrow. In fact, in order to maneuver our MDX through the garage, we have to make a three-point turn at one location. And in order to pull into our space, we have to drive uncomfortably close to the cement wall and then hope the mirrors clear the huge columns on either side of the space. Every time we park the car, I'll be holding my breath... Still, it's hard to justify buying a smaller car just for the parking garage... especially since our present car is paid off... and besides -- we hardly drive anywhere anymore.

So I've spent much of the day doing laundry, packing a couple random boxes, and cleaning our rented condo so they can start showing it soon for new tenants. I'm not sure why I'm spending so much time cleaning this place, seeing as we don't own it. To put it bluntly -- if no one rents it, it's not OUR problem. (I am a cold, callous person... :)) I have a feeling it has something to do with my recollection of when I first walked into this place back in December, when the obviously under-the-influence-of-something previous renter opened his door for us and then threw himself back on his couch to watch a game, while we wandered around the cluttered apartment attempting to avoid clothes on the floor and food on the counter. I've never viewed a condo for sale or rent that was left so unprepared for a showing. He hadn't even bothered to toss away his leftover pizza in the kitchen. Of course, as soon as I got a glimpse of the skyline view outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, I was able to overlook the mess... :) But, since I don't want people walking in and thinking that the Worst Housekeeper in the World lives here, I've been busy cleaning up today...

I probably won't have any decent pictures of the new place until we're mostly settled, so in the meantime, here are a few poor-quality camera phone pictures:

Standing in the living room looking toward the kitchen...

Looking into the living room from the kitchen -- the guy who just moved out built his own corner TV stand thing. It was screwed into the floor, which means if we take it out the floor will be damaged -- but we really don't want to keep it there. Although the red sconce lights are kinda cool...

My new view... sigh... :) At least I still have part of the Hancock Building. One thing we quickly realized when we were searching for a condo was that it was very unlikely we'd find EVERYthing we wanted. We'd have to compromise on something. And this place fulfilled most of our wish list -- large square footage, open floorplan, tons of light, washer/dryer in unit... it even has a gas stove, which I prefer over electric. But we had to give up the awesome view. But don't worry -- I'll be sure to continue snapping pictures of the skyline for the next few weeks, so I'll have plenty of photos to browse through when I'm feeling nostalgic... :)

Sir Reginald, Meerkat Sentinel...

Tireless and ever-watchful... fearless and wise... There can be no entry to Meerkatdom without Reginald's gracious permission...

(Okay, so maybe meerkat life isn't quite so dramatic... and I don't know why I think he looks like a Reginald. Although I can definitely see him as a Reggie...)

Hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day yesterday. The weather here has finally taken a turn toward "summer," and yesterday was probably the warmest, sunniest day we've had in Chicago so far. That, coupled with the fact that it was a holiday, meant that the sidewalks here in Lincoln Park were crowded with people heading toward the lake -- or, like us, heading toward the Lincoln Park Zoo. Don't ask me why we decided, after six months of living a couple blocks away, to finally walk over there on Memorial Day in the hot sun. But walk to the zoo we did -- along with about five million other people... most of them with kids in strollers.

Needless to say, we didn't stay long... pretty much just long enough for me to find the meerkats. I love the meerkats:

 This one is yawning, not yelling at me...

This one wanted to come home with me and meet the cats... I almost said yes...

Many of the "outside" animals (the meerkats are housed in an indoor exhibit) were hiding in shady places and sleeping because of the heat... but we still managed to catch a glimpse of a few other animals:

I felt bad for the polar bear -- I'm sure he was quite happy during the winter, but at the moment he's very much out of his element... At least the water looked nice and cold...

Usually, I like to get some pictures of the lions, but they were being quite lazy yesterday -- not unlike my little cats, who also tend to pass out when it gets hot and sunny...

And in non-zoo news -- unless something unforeseen happens, we SHOULD be Chicago condo owners by this time tomorrow. It's been a looooooong journey to get to this point, so it's hard to believe that it's finally happening. Once we've signed the papers and get slightly settled, I'll post some pictures of our new place! For now, we're off to buy moving boxes so we can start packing...

I've never actually played Pong...

While I was on the treadmill yesterday, I watched Airport '77, which happened to be on one of my movie channels. And even though it's been around since 1977 (what a coincidence!) I had never seen it before. It was, at times, unintentionally hilarious -- as many movies from the 70s tend to be. At least I think they can be hilarious sometimes... I mean, let's face it, clothing in the 70s was just crazy funny -- why on earth did people wear some of that stuff??

Airport '77, in case you've never seen it, is about a group of art thieves who hijack a big, private 747 -- so it's outfitted with couches and various rooms and a bar with a piano... and a super cool, state-of-the-art computerized tabletop where kids can play Pong. This resulted in Hilarious Moment #1, when the two kids on board the plane were playing Pong and acting like it was the most action-packed game ever invented. (Although maybe in 1977 Pong WAS the most action-packed game ever invented??)

As I watched, I realized that many of the actors were younger versions of actors I've seen many times before. (Hey, it's Saruman from Lord of the Rings! Hey, it's the dad from A Christmas Story! Hey, it's that guy from the Naked Gun movies who ISN'T Leslie Nielsen! And is that Jimmy Stewart??) Which was part of Hilarious Moment #2 -- a very young Kathleen Quinlan made an appearance, but it took me a while to realize who she was. I had a hard time tearing my eyes away from her huge, fuzzy eyebrows, which looked like two caterpillars resting above her eyes. These days, a stylist or makeup artist would enthusiastically attack those things with a pair of tweezers... but again -- it was the 70s...

Once the plane hijacking begins, the art thieves subdue the passengers by hooking up a canister of some sort of gas to the ventilation system... meanwhile, the co-pilot, who is in on the hijacking (and, apparently, the worst pilot in the history of flying), flies the plane low toward the water (in the Bermuda Triangle, no less). But he fails to notice the huge oil rig out in the middle of the water until it's too late -- he clips the rig with a wing, and then is forced to crash land in the ocean. And of course at this point, all the passengers begin to wake from their gas-induced stupor, and realize the plane is crashing. This resulted in Hilarious Moment #3 (and I will mention that I literally laughed out loud at this scene) -- this was before all the various special effects we've come to know and love... so as the plane was "crashing," I have to imagine the director told the actors something along the lines of, "just start throwing yourselves onto the furniture." Because that's exactly what it looked like. Someone jumped over the bar onto the piano... another person jumped onto the couch... another person threw themselves against a wall, as another person off screen threw a chair at them... that was pretty much the extent of it...

Basically, the movie was "The Poseidon Adventure" but with a plane instead of a boat. The plane is trapped under 100 feet of water, chaos ensues, a small group is brave enough to attempt to swim to the surface to find help, the navy comes and rescues them... But I have to admit I was interested enough to watch the whole thing...

And now I'm off to the airport to fly back to Buffalo... I probably shouldn't have watched a movie yesterday about a plane trapped underwater when I'm about to fly over two great lakes, but oh well... :)

Ups and downs...

The last few days have been full of good and bad. We started our weekend with a flight to Buffalo, where we met up with family to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa's 70th anniversary.

Aww... how cute are my grandparents?? The rest of the family dressed in white shirts and dark pants for a big family portrait... which sort of made us look like we were in a weird cult (but will probably result in a good picture :))... And actually, on our way to the party, we passed an Olive Garden that was about to open for the day -- the entire staff was dressed in white shirts and dark pants. I thought about inviting them over for the family portrait as "extras" -- just so we could look like we had a HUGE family -- but decided against it. I did, however, stop by the Olive Garden later on in the day and made about 200 bucks in tips... (okay, maybe not... :))

The party was held in the banquet hall of an Indian restaurant, but sadly, we didn't have any Indian food. That's just wrong. I was literally steps away from all manner of Indian food, but could not partake. (If I had stealthily crept into the kitchen, would anyone have noticed? I should've tried...) But we DID have an extremely yummy cake at our party, complete with purple flowers (I should have also stealthily stolen some extra cake :)):

Afterwards, everyone went to my cousin Kevin's house and hung out for a while. But Eric, Rachel, Rick and I had to leave pretty early to head back to the airport for an 8:15 flight. When we got to the airport, everything seemed fine, and the departures board said our flight was "on time," so we settled in at the gate to await boarding. But we were soon informed that our plane (which was also flying in FROM Chicago) was delayed due to storms in Chicago. Our departure time was pushed to around 9:15... and then 9:30... and then 10:10... and then 10:30.

A little after 9, an announcement was made that the plane from Chicago was finally on its way to Buffalo, so at least we knew that we WOULD have a plane eventually. When it landed, around 10:20 or so, the guy behind the desk at the gate said that once everyone was off the plane, we'd have to board as quickly as possible, because we HAD to be in the air by 10:46 to beat the next round of storms in Chicago. The idea that we HAD to get into the air to beat gigantic storms was already stressing me out... but when there were STILL people walking off the plane at 10:35, I lamented to Rick, "there's no way we're getting on that plane by 10:46..." It takes people fifteen million years to board planes... I don't know why... it seems like a simple process. But there are ALWAYS people who stand in the aisles for twenty minutes, trying to shove huge, over-sized bags into bins the size of a mailbox. (Can you not SEE that your bag is bigger than a mailbox???) Nevertheless, we all gathered our bags and stood up, ready to run for the plane as soon as they made a boarding announcement...

And then, with about five minutes to that 10:46 cutoff, the guy behind the counter announced that the flight was canceled and rescheduled for 7 the next morning. (I should mention at this point that the "departures" board at the airport continued to say that our 8:15 flight was "on time"... it never changed... we thought that was funny...) So after a call to my parents (who, fortunately, were still staying at a hotel across from the airport), and after my dad made a few calls to hotels (because their own hotel was completely booked), my dad picked us up and dropped us off at a Holiday Inn Express. We ran into a fellow Chicago-bound traveler in the lobby, who warned us to be at the airport NO LATER than 5 am for our 7 o'clock flight. He was quite adamant. He insisted that the security lines at the Buffalo airport were of Biblical proportions on Monday mornings... wending through mountains and valleys and treacherous volcanoes... slipping underwater and shooting to outer space... security lines that ripped families apart... battles won and lost... travelers disappearing forever into a vortex of TSA pat-downs and three-ounce bottles of liquids...

And after a (nearly sleepless) night, we arrived at the airport at 5 in the morning and checked in for our flight (again). We then worriedly made our way to the infamous, epic Monday-morning security line and ended up waiting... oh, about five minutes. It was quite anti-climatic. Apparently that guy doesn't travel much...

And of course at the time, the whole thing seemed like such a big deal and such an inconvenience. And then we heard about the massive tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri... and suddenly, our canceled flight not only seemed like less of a big deal, but also a SMART decision on the part of the airline, which decided not to take any chances. We made it back to Chicago safe and sound on Monday, so who are we to complain?

And then yesterday afternoon, we got word that my uncle, who had been very ill with leukemia, passed away. And once again, little things like flight delays and sleepless nights were put into perspective. In the grand scheme of things, a canceled flight now and then is no big deal. Sometimes we need reminders about what's truly important in life.

Uncle Charley, of "jump off the garage into the pool" fame...

Land of warmth and sunshine...

We're in Buffalo for the weekend -- the gateway to Canada... or something like that. I've always found it interesting that the Canadian flag is often flown right alongside the American flag here in Buffalo. And I'm not sure if it's still like this, but when I was a kid, if you happened to have a few Canadian coins mixed in with your American money, merchants wouldn't give a second glance. Of course, I think it also resulted in some slight confusion in my child-mind, as I don't remember ever thinking of Canada as another COUNTRY -- in fact, I think, perhaps, I may have thought it was the 51st state... At the very least, I thought it was just that place we went to now and then with the really big waterfall and the yummy maple candy...

But this weekend, we'll be remaining here on American soil just outside of Buffalo, in the area where my mom grew up. My grandparents are celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary, and the whole family has gathered for a party in their honor. My grandparents are so cute -- even now, at 89 and 95 years old, they joke with each other and hold hands everywhere they go. They have the kind of marriage we should all hope to have... and it's lasted for 70 years, so they've obviously done something right. :)

As our plane landed at the Buffalo airport, I remarked to Rick how nice it was to be here in May... instead of, say, January. Buffalo can be a bit miserable in the middle of winter, but at the moment, it's quite warm and pleasant and everything is green. We spent much of the day sitting outside behind Grandma and Grandpa's log cabin (which, by the way, they built themselves...) underneath the cherry tree that used to provide many a pie and jar of jelly, and watched woodpeckers and cardinals and bluejays flitting from tree to tree. It's funny, because most of my childhood memories of Buffalo are of the WARM weather, not the cold weather... although Eric did reminisce about how the patch of land near the beginning of the long driveway back to the cabin used to be filled with evergreen trees -- Grandpa sold them every Christmas, and that was always where we cut down our own Christmas tree...

But this weekend, there's no snow... just warmth and sunshine. And even though I've heard it's supposed to rain tomorrow, at least I can be content in knowing that there WILL be cake. Sun = not guaranteed. Cake = guaranteed. Sounds good enough to me... :)

What I'm pondering today...

After listening to Rick's distressed, confused outbursts coming from the study this afternoon, I'm wondering if we'll ever actually close on this new condo. We are, apparently, up to our knees in various forms and paperwork... we've already signed and faxed so many documents, and we don't even close for another two weeks. It's encouraging that we've managed to come farther than we have with any of the other condos we attempted to buy... yet it still seems rather far away. Which makes it hard to get into "start packing up to move" mode...

I wonder why my neighborhood grocery store marks all the prices on items in cents. For instance, the sticker on the box of tea I bought a couple weeks ago proclaimed that I owed 359 cents. Not $3.59, but rather 359¢. For some reason, this makes me feel like I'm paying more... I mean, three dollars is just THREE dollars... but three hundred cents is three HUNDRED cents. (Yes, I do realize they're the exact same amount...)

Can someone tell me why television networks keep cancelling perfectly good shows?? Three of the shows I'd started watching and enjoying this past season have already been cancelled... metaphorically and unceremoniously dumped into a vast empty lot under an interstate overpass. (Probably somewhere in New Jersey.) They got rid of The Chicago Code, which we'd really been liking -- especially since we got to see so many familiar landmarks, and the show had worked with the Chicago Police Department to ensure accuracy. They'd even used some officers as extras... Eric was planning his big television debut for next season, but THAT'S not gonna happen now. They also cancelled Mr. Sunshine, which was probably suffering from low ratings -- I really liked it, and I could never even remember exactly when it was on. A victim of bad scheduling on a boring network. But the one I'm REALLY upset about is Outsourced -- I did NOT expect that one to get cancelled. Sure, it was occasionally a bit insulting to Indians AND Americans, but it was the only show on TV where I could get a Bollywood fix... and it had one of the best characters on a sitcom -- a quiet, shy girl who blended into the woodwork and was often forgotten... but who had hidden talents and important things to say to anyone who might listen... I affectionately nicknamed her Indian Lisa. I wanted the show to continue at least until Indian Lisa became a CEO or the prime minister of India or something... I'm so disappointed...

I'm wondering when Chicago went from the Windy City to the Foggy City. We've had some crazy fog here over the last few weeks. Like scary, mysterious, impervious mist -- the kind that no doubt holds all kinds of secrets and monsters. (I think perhaps Faisal thought I was a bit strange when I suggested in a text message this afternoon that there may have been brain-eating zombies hiding within the soupy mix... but honestly, if brain-eating zombies WERE to plan an attack, the fog we've had in this city the last couple days would be the perfect hiding place...) I'm assuming the fog is just a "spring" thing around here. But I'm not a big fan, since it means my skyline has been temporarily eradicated...

Rick just returned from a dinner with a colleague, and he brought me chocolate cake, so I am now pondering whether or not I should go eat it... wait, what am I saying? It's cake! Of COURSE I should! Hope everyone is having a good week... :)

 

"This one's going on the blog, isn't it?"

Is what Rick said when he saw this picture:

Yes. Yes it IS going on the blog. I mean, c'mon -- the skyline AND my cat? It's two of my favorite blog photography subjects in the same picture! Nevermind the fact that I have nothing interesting to say and this is pretty much going to be the extent of today's post -- it's a cute cat! And the Chicago skyline! All rolled into one! What more could you ask for?? (And don't ask for a more substantial blog post, because it's just not gonna happen today... possibly tomorrow... but not today.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have Very Important Things to do...

The ocean is scary...

I just finished watching the documentary "Oceans" on one of my movie channels. I think they may have shown this movie in the IMAX theater at the Bob Bullock Museum in downtown Austin a couple years ago (and maybe mom and dad and Rick's mom and dad saw it?), but I never saw it. And while I'm completely terrified of large bodies of water and hate boats unless they're big enough to have restaurants and shops and casinos, I'm also absolutely fascinated by what goes on underneath all those mysterious waves...

And the movie was quite interesting, with some amazing, beautiful underwater cinematography. But as with most documentaries about the natural world, it showcased not only the "good," but also the "bad." Baby sea turtles that hatched on land were frantically scuttling toward the ocean and then plucked from the sand by hungry sea birds... fish with unusual camouflage talents snapped up smaller, unsuspecting fish for dinner... one strange-looking lobster/shrimp-type thing proved to be extremely territorial when it attacked a crab that dared to venture too close to its den -- Lobster-Shrimp ripped the crab's leg right off, then head-butted it into submission and tossed it on its back to die... it was like the Little Mermaid ordered a mob hit...

So you can imagine how I may have burst out laughing when the credits rolled and I saw the usual, "no animals were harmed in the filming of this motion picture." What?? Um, am I the only one who saw those baby turtles get eaten??? I'm not even sure I'll be able to go to a seafood restaurant with a lobster tank again -- those lobsters can get MEAN... I think the better wording may have been, "no animals were harmed BY HUMANS in the filming of this motion picture." I would've believed that...

Anyway... the Blogger site was down for a while yesterday and this morning, so even though I took these fabulous, stunning, one-of-a-kind skyline pictures last night, I wasn't able to post them until now:

I took these as a storm was rolling in last night, and I was hoping to maybe catch some lightning -- as you can see by the last picture, I was using a setting that kept the shutter open for 15 seconds. But all I managed to catch was some swirly street lights (apparently I moved the camera just as the 15 seconds was up... :))

Okay, I'm off to check under my bed for scary lobster hit-men...

Pros and cons...

We're discovering that one of the bad things about living in a high rise (or at least an older high rise -- this place was built in the 60s, I believe) is that you have to wait for the maintenance people to switch the heat over to air conditioning. And they won't do it until it's already BEEN warm for a certain amount of time, because once The Switch has been flipped, there's no going back until cooler temperatures return and heat is needed again. At the moment, the heat seems to be off... but the air conditioning still isn't ON. And the last few days have been quite warm... and even though I've been keeping the window open when we sleep, I inevitably wake up feeling much too hot and sweaty. Last night was particularly bad, as it was not only warm, but humid as well... When I got up this morning, I immediately stripped the sheets off the bed and headed downstairs to the laundry room to wash them. I don't like feeling gross and sweaty when I wake up in the morning... ick... (What? Nobody wanted to hear about that? Too bad... :))

Actually, when it's not humid and the temperature is just right, I rather enjoy sleeping with the window open. That would be one of the PROS of living here -- I never would've kept a window open all night in my house back in Texas... I'd be much too paranoid that someone would climb in through the open window. Not that we lived in a bad neighborhood -- on the contrary... but if someone WAS creeping around at night looking for a house to rob, they'd be awfully happy to see a house with an open window, wouldn't they? Yeah, they would. But I don't imagine anyone would be so desperate as to scale sixteen stories to get to my open bedroom window here (maybe Spiderman's evil twin?).

So at the moment, I have the "air" on -- which means the fans are just blowing around room-temperature air -- and two windows open in the living room. And since the sun seems to have retreated behind hazy clouds, it's finally feeling a bit cooler in this condo right now. We're supposed to get some rain later today, which should cool things off even more. Who would've thought that I'd have more of a problem cooling off in CHICAGO than I ever had in TEXAS???

But air conditioning woes aside, Rick and I are pretty psyched about the warmer weather. Over the weekend, we walked all over the place -- around Lincoln Park on Saturday, to run errands and buy coffee and tea at Argo... and then downtown on Sunday for dinner at Q (where I was presented with homemade peanut brittle and a "happy mother's day!" It's easier to just politely say thank you and accept the good wishes than to tell a complete stranger that my only "kids" are of the feline variety :)). The walk to and from downtown is really quite pleasant when the weather is nice -- I didn't mind it much during the winter, either, but it took a few minutes to get to a point where my teeth would stop chattering... and after about a mile, my feet and legs would start to go numb. It's much nicer to walk a couple miles with all feeling intact...

And now I'm off to be crazy and work out in my non-air-conditioned condo. But what does it matter? I'd end up getting all sweaty anyway... :) 

Happy Mom's Day!!!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!

My mom and Rick's mom...

Mom with her favorite child... and Eric...

Mom covering up the extraneous portion of this sign in Hawaii...

Mom, if you were here, I'd make fajitas and bake you a key lime pie! We'll definitely have to plan that for the next time you're in town! :)

Friday night random thoughts...

It doesn't feel like Friday for some reason... maybe because we were in Austin last weekend, and came back with mom and dad on Monday, and then Rick's schedule was weird this week, and mom and dad left this morning, so everything has been off-kilter this week and my mind doesn't know what day it is. (It's FRIDAY, Mind... it's Friday...)

We walked about a half mile to dinner tonight. The weather is starting to get really nice -- I wore a jacket, and about halfway to the restaurant I had to take it off and carry it. It was only about 64 degrees, which, when I lived in Texas, would have seemed freezing cold -- in fact, I used to classify anything below 70 as "freezing" in Texas. You really get used to the weather wherever you live... which, by the way, is here:
 

Seriously, I have a problem. Someone take my camera away from me...

Okay, this may be the shortest list of random thoughts ever, but we're about to watch a movie, so I'm off to make popcorn... have a good weekend, everyone!

Guess where I am?

Oh, I suppose I made that too easy. :) As usual, I could not resist the call of the skyline... the Sears Tower seems to be pink tonight? I'm not sure why that is... but I do like the ever-changing colors of the skyline. (Needs more purple... :))

We flew home this afternoon -- Rick and I had seats in an exit row, which not only provides more leg room, but also apparently results in super powers. At least that's what we concluded from this sign over the emergency exit door:

We interpreted it to mean, "Do not listen to an iPod when using your laser-vision eyes to start fires outside the window." You don't even get laser-vision in first class...

When we got home, I was greeted with this:

That would be nearly an entire roll of toilet paper in a giant pile on the floor. I'm pretty sure THIS guy was the culprit:

Yeah, he TRIES to look all sweet and innocent, but I know better. And he never unrolls toilet paper like that when we're at home -- so he probably thinks we'd never suspect him. And then he goes into Operation Distract Owner With Extra Cuteness mode and rubs my feet:

See how adorable I am? I could never be suspected of such a crime. I'm sure the paper simply fell off into a pile by itself. These things happen. Tuna???

Okay, I'm about to fall asleep, so I'm off to bed... Do you suppose my laser-vision will still work in the morning?? :)

Happy weekend!

We're hanging out here in Austin, where the temperature has seemed stiflingly warm the past couple days... apparently I've really gotten used to the cool weather in Chicago. :) But as a type, a cold front is moving into the Austin area, and Rick is hoping for some thunderstorms tonight. And while I don't necessarily share Rick's affinity for bad weather, I won't mind a few storms... as long as they move out of the way before we board our plane back to Chicago tomorrow.

We've had a good weekend -- had a great family dinner Friday night, where we ate far too much food... just like our Friday nights always used to be. :) It never seemed like the weekend had started unless I came home from a Friday night family dinner feeling way too full and vowing to never eat again. (And then, of course, I'd wake up starving on Saturday morning... I don't know how that happens...)

Last night we met our friends Nick and Cindy for dinner at North, which is one of my favorite Austin restaurants. Chicago is such a great foodie city, but North is one of those restaurants I'll HAVE to visit any time I'm back here. I got the strozzapreti pasta, which has spinach and mushrooms and pine nuts and parmesan cheese... it's one of my favorite dishes at the restaurant, but Rick got the short ribs and they were awesome. I've been on a strange short rib run the last few months -- I'm not usually a red meat kind of person. I'm about a hundred times more likely to order chicken or a vegetarian dish at a restaurant. But a few months ago, I took a chance on the short ribs at the Roy's restaurant that was in the lobby of the first apartment we stayed at in Chicago. They were SO good that I started trying short ribs at other restaurants -- sometimes with not-so-good results (they HAVE to be cooked until the meat is super tender and starts falling apart, otherwise I end up on the other end of the appreciation spectrum and think they're gross... it's a fine line for me with red meat...). But the short ribs Rick had last night actually made me rethink my vegetarian dish and wonder if I should've changed my order. At one point, Rick and Cindy ended up in a heated theological discussion (as they are often wont to do) and I was able to sneak several bites of Rick's meal without him even noticing...

Nick and I, on the other hand, are the types who like to avoid conflict... so we stayed out of the discussion and instead spent our time praising the incomparable beauty of the classic gray Yankee away uniforms. ;) (Nick's actual feeling on the subject is that the Yankee away uniforms are the ugliest uniforms in the major leagues. Although I think perhaps he just says that because he's not a Yankee fan... I mean, c'mon -- do you really think the Oakland yellow/green combo is attractive? Is the Tampa Bay sky blue REALLY a color grown men should be wearing to play baseball?? :))

And in non-Austin news: our offer for the new condo was accepted this weekend, so perhaps third time's the charm?? We have an inspection on Tuesday (the same guy who did the LAST two inspections... we should be getting some kind of group discount on these things...), and hopefully -- HOPEFULLY -- we can close by the end of May. I will stay cautiously optimistic about this, but I don't want to make TOO many plans until we finally know for sure that THIS is the one. At least, unlike the last two places, this condo needs very little in the way of rehab. The only thing I'd want to do before we move in is replace the carpet in the master bedroom. Any other improvements can wait, because it's in pretty good shape...

We head for the airport tomorrow morning and then it's back to Chi-town, where, hopefully the trees will be slightly greener and the weather will be slightly warmer and a new condo will soon be in the future... that's the sign of spring, right? Green trees, warm weather and closing on condos?? Yeah, I think that's the way it goes... :)