Phone pic catchup

Friday night was the awesome Polkaholics doing a "musical" of the life of Li'l Wally Jagiello, but they did a whole regular set first, and we were tired, so
...B (above, in bad no-light pic) and I had to leave early. We'd been out to delicious dinner beforehand, and got to visit a little more at the bar during the break, too, so that was the main thing anyway. We definitely thought their set time choices were lame - wouldn't you want the people less ridiculously drunk for the thing you've worked on for a year, and have them plastered for your regular stuff?
Saturday morning I was up with the birds to get down to Ohio St. beach for an open water swim. I was a little late, though, and couldn't find my training group among the spandex-and-neoprene crowd that was there. It's amazing how many people are up and out that early as it gets closer to the event!
This is my favorite photo. It doesn't quite capture how high (and super frightening) the waves were. I swam a crazy half-mile in it. I have never had such a treacherous swim in my life! Luckily the triathlon will be in a harbor, and the waves won't be as bad. You can see how few people actually swam once they saw the 4-foot waves. Grueling.
Even more ridiculous than the wetsuit crowd are these incredible herds of runners who are out at 5, 6, 7am on Saturdays on the lakefront in August. I know they are part of running/training groups, but it's sorta scary when you see them coming. Like, there are hundreds and hundreds of them, stampeding along the trail out of nowhere. Hard to bike around, too.
I have to say though, that the triathlon people are all very friendly and super cool. I feel like I've discovered a whole new world I never knew existed! Plus, it is really great to be up and already all worked out before 8am on a gorgeous summer Saturday!
After a coffee and walk with Lois, it was off to my friend S's (with A, above) yard sale, where a bunch of us hung out and kept her and her landlady company while they peddled their wares.
It was a fun group of people. D, A and J (seated on left) brought sausages, hot dogs and buns and D grilled them for us for a lunchtime treat.
But the best part was the amazing lemonade J sold for 50¢ a glass, and the delicious ghirardelli brownies that were 50¢ each, too. His mom made it and he and his brother were splitting the profits with charity. Cute, huh? The kicker was that he poured you your yummy lemonade and then if you wanted, you could add a "splash" of vodka from the cooler. We were all very relaxed that afternoon.
Then I rode home for a bit, and rode back, and S and I rode to A's lovely house for a LOVELY dinner! She made penne with vodka sauce and caesar salad and R grilled sausages and J brought fresh bread from Red Hen Bakery and we all brought wine and a fantastic group of 7 was there and the great conversation, out in the beautifully lit backyard at night, was funny and mellow and fabulous. S and two friends joined us later, after they were out to eat. No one wanted to leave. I didn't get any pictures (besides the spread, above) because really, it was too perfect to spoil. I found out J and I went to the same grade school and middle school! He's 6 years older but still, it was fun to know that. We talked religion, and libido, and future planning, and art - it was a perfect dinner party.
SO, then on the ride home at 2am, a rear spoke on my bike broke as I rode through Logan Square from A's place in Humboldt. I rode on it anyway because it was so late - to the bike shop - and locked and left it there over night. Then I walked home, stopping at about 3 at the Burrito House, above, for horchata and guacamole. I have never seen so many people in line there! (But I've also never been there at Saturday bar closing time.)
And though I've spent like 150 dollars in transport already this month, I rented an iGo on Sunday afternoon (after sleeping until 1pm and the hour-long walk back to the bike shop to bring it in) so I could take Lois to the dog beach for the first time in a long, long time. She had a blast - but there were so many people there (lots of unattended kids that didn't even seem to have dogs with them, annoying), she really didn't play with other dogs and focused on playing ball.
Lois loves swimming, but she's really slow going in and getting to the ball. If another dog goes for her ball, she just lets the dog take it. It's funny.
It was a great weekend. Then I worked yesterday and subbed a couple of art classes and went to the dermatologist and then to awesome bike class where I replaced my brake cables and housing and learned about tire trueing (sp?), which was too late for my spoke problem, but still cool to learn. There was a massive storm while we were in there - we heard that a tornado hit. But we kept going. I love my bike class. Then it stormed again, all night almost, and poor Lois freaked out. Seems calm this morning, but I saw some serious downed trees and pieces of building on our late between-storms walk last night. Also three birds that were hurt badly by the storm on the sidewalk - I didn't realize until Lois sorta chased one that that's what was going on. Sad!

Today I'm up early for no good reason. I have a "big" tri practice tonight - our group is meeting at the race site to go over transitions and get the lay of the land for the event. Maybe I'll take pics. I hope my good bike is finished being fixed and I can pick it up!

Southpaws

Here's a quick update on my injury progress. I got to swim practice Tuesday night and there was a collective sharp intake of breath when my group saw my leg. It's pretty scary-looking, especially since it's been over a week since I fell. One girl actually kind of exclaimed out loud.


What you can't see in this picture is the bruising that now goes all the way down the outside of the leg and into/around my ankle area. A phone nurse said something about dead blood cells moving downward...which seems really creepy.
Now Lois somehow cut her left paw pad, so she's lame, too! (I bet we look funny walking down the street together.) When she leaves the bandage on (erg) and doesn't lick at it, she's OK walking on it. But she bites at me when I clean it with peroxide, though she seems not to mind neosporin.


Aw, the poor little bunny - but still, look how much damn room she takes up on the bed!
In other news, I was up at 4:18AM today to ride to the lakefront for a 5:00 bike training session. I rode intervals for about an hour, and it was gorgeous to be there with no one around and the sun rising! If I hadn't been so worried about making it on time, I would have taken and used my camera. Plus, since only 2 other women showed, with both coaches, I got my own private coaching session! It was excellent.

Now, at 5:19pm, I'm absolutely exhausted. G'night!

Body Slam

Some lovely blue flowers captured on the camera phone this morning - do you know what they're called? If so, please comment (thanks)!
So, I'm sorta on this training kick, right? Although I wouldn't say it's in full swing, I've certainly stepped up my activity. And even though I've missed doing my regular lunchtime swims (5 days til the pool opens!), I have added running and biking everywhere, for longer and longer periods. And yes, we did our heart rate testing on Tuesday and I know I have a lot to work on, runningwise. Still. This is ridiculous.

Lois on our morning walk by the river today.
Tonight I got on the scale for the first time in a few months, figuring that I would be about the same or maybe even a little lighter than the weight I've been hovering around this past year, and lo and behold, I am 15 pounds heavier. FIFTEEN! It's scary! I knew I was having trouble losing my gut, and I knew that my legs appeared more saddlebag-y than last summer, but JEEZ, I had no idea. I mean, I am fitting into my jeans.

Some other flowers I want to learn the name of, with Lois in the background.
I know you're gonna bring up the muscle vs. fat crap but this is ridiculous. I am tempted to find some crazy quick-loss drastic measures to get to a normal weight. But instead, I am gonna cut back on the candy intake (the licorice/haribo thing...I need a 12-step program) and watch when I eat, and I guess just keep trying to run a lot more.

I did skip a workout this week (swapping for tomorrow, my off day), and the strength training sheet is a little hard to follow... But I'm committed and I know I can do it. I just wish my body would cooperate! I want to at least look semi-athletic when I run around publicly in head-to-toe spandex and neoprene!

Weekend...

Lois and friends in Lake Michigan; first dip of 2008.

So I didn't do tons of the organizing I promised myself on my day off, but I did do laundry, work on the yard, and take Lois to the dog beach. That is a lot. I also bought my porch flowers, and they are sort of "in process" now. Til tonight, it's been so lovely, weatherwise, here!

Today I went running with the 8am group (plus M and Lois), and then had my 2nd-to-last swim in the pool before they shut it down. It was unpleasantly hot—about 85°—but I got a half-mile in. Then my friend T and I walked, with Lois, to Shelley's Freeze, one of Chicago's excellent hot dog stands, and I got a dog with everything and a small soft-serve chocolate cone; it was perfect!

THEN, my extremely talented friend E had a play (wrote/directed) in a group/multimedia/short play show at the Steppenwolf garage, and he invited me, so I rode down for that, enjoyed it immensely, and rode home in the rain. They were shooting a film near the old Biograph theatre and it was fun to ride my bike through there with all the film crew and big cranes and stuff. I still wish I could do that for a job someday. Maybe work for Fatih Akin...ah, to dream!

Now I'm home early, missing a big concert to benefit the anti-death penalty crusade in Illinois, and starring many people I'm friends with and fans of, but it's still raining (and the venue's not super close), and I have season 5 disc 2 of MI-5, and a cuddly dog, and a bunch of kids to teach art to tomorrow. So I'm staying home and dry.

Lois - 3 years!

Here is a weird laptop pic of my special pooch, with whom I am celebrating our 3-year anniversary today! Yea! You can also see her fancy new $30 bra (that's a "harness" to most people) and please note how wide it is - I had to special order a size L because she gained 8 pounds in the past year, tipping the scales at 50 pounds! That's comparable to me gaining 40 pounds in a year - yikes! So, now we both need to lose a few.

I got up the guts to talk a bit more to the cute new guy at work, and also to a couple of other ones there - we had a special workshop/meeting today. That was good. I like to, um, rediscover every once in a while that there are actually guys all around, it's just that I don't have crushes on them very easily or often. Maybe if I get more desperate, horny, or bored as the spring progresses, I will become less resigned to singledom, and actually do something about it.

So: yep - I'm home blogging on a Friday night. The plan for dinner with the family was cancelled due to a crazy bike accident in which my stepfather broke his collarbone, so here I am with a free night. Instead of taking the opportunity to go to a really good show at my place of work, for free, I came home, walked Lois, talked on the phone with my mom, ate a weird cheap dinner, then texted back and forth with my friend M, who just broke up with his gf/fb over the phone after like 7 months of dating. Ugh. Such a guy. (At least he feels kinda bad about it.) I'd go drink with him, but I am just so comfortable here at home...plus, he's playing a show at a bar I don't wanna go to, and it's far away for biking, and it's cold out.

I watched a so-so German film about these rich kids in the 1920s who shoot each other because one (played by an actor I like) is secretly gay and depressed. Hm.

So that's my exciting Friday night. I'm gettin' up early tomorrow to go running, even though I'm totally bad at it.

And, even though I am not perfect about pushups, flossing, or talking to new guys either, I think it's time for me to add habit #4: SITUPS! I will start tonight with however many I can do, and report back to you tomorrow.

xo

Pics, plaster parties, pooches

David and Sheila on the roof, looking blurry.

It's been a lovely, relaxing (read: lazy) weekend. Sheila, her friend/coworker David, and I went to a 60th birthday party for Cynthia Plaster Caster at the home of Derek Erdman (whom you might remember from an earlier post) and had a great time.

Cynthia (in hat; she looks wasted here but she wasn't) and Cat with the delicious psychedelic-frosted cock-shaped sugar cookies Cat made.

I didn't think I'd last more than an hour but we stayed til after 2 and I wasn't in bed sleeping til after 3 - I had to walk the pooches. I drank red wine. Not enough to get drunk—I *was* the designated driver after all—but I did talk to a cute guy and got a cigarette from him for David. That's the extent of my so-called "flirting abilities."


The sign Derek painted for Cynthia, and Julia talking in front. Note the Nancy Reagan with bad hair painting in the top corner. Hilarious.

Being at Derek's place again made me a) want to make more art and b) want to own more art, so I got out my checkbook and bought paintings from him for a ridiculously cheap amount. I didn't take them with me, but will have to go back and get them. I like his style a lot and like him, so it's a feel-good-all-over way to spend my last $50 until pay day. It just means I won't pay as much to my credit card. Oh well.

Here are the pooches on the porch.

Lois has been having a great time with Hedley here - it's sad that he's only got one more day with us!

Yesterday I hung out with my mom and the pooches, and we ate and talked and I did a load of laundry, and today I've done some cleaning and restoring the kitchen to its normal state - the surprise floor replacement thing really did me in, and my roommate hasn't helped at all unless you count putting all the kitchen stuff onto the living room floor and leaving it there all week...

I'm heading over for a swim, basically to avoid more cleaning. Thank goodness the pool is open today! Happy Memorial Day!

Hearts and flowers

Here are 2 twilight pictures from my lovely porch garden! I finally finished all the planting today. I also went swimming, took the dogs for 2 long walks (and some short ones), took Sheila on some errands (she doesn't drive) and splurged for the latest Yo La Tengo CD, I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass, which is about a year old but I never got it. It's SO good. I am only down to a few bands I still like and make an effort to buy and listen to, and YLT is always worth it. I swear, they make my life better.

I haven't had a chance to write about my internet date on Tuesday night - my first from match.com. He is a divorced police officer, cute, balding, blond, and tall. We met at the Starbucks across from my workplace. He was friendly for the most part, but he did this spacing out thing every once in a while, which was disconcerting, especially because he was doing most of the talking (which is a gooooood tactic I learned from that book). The sorta kicker came when I said, fishing for topics:

"So, what kind of music do you like?"

"I dunno. I guess I mostly listen to Q101 in the car. Nothing particular."

"Well, what about at home?"

At this, he went on the tell the story of how, when he got his iPod, he didn't have any music to put in it, so he went to a friend's house, and borrowed his friend's wife's CD collection, which was huge, because she had been a member of the Columbia record and tape club for like 20 years. So that well-chosen bunch of stuff is what's in his iTunes and iPod.

It was then that what I had suspected ever since he contacted me was absolutely certain: I would never be able to hang out with this guy again.

He went on to talk about how he would NEVER let his dog sniff anything while they were on walks, which was a handful of extra nails in the coffin.

When we finally decided to end the torture, about 1-1/2 hours too late, I grabbed my bags - laptop and regular, and he asked:

"Oh, do you have a Mac?"

"Yes! I love it."

"Yeah...all the artsy people have those."

(Awkward pause while I fumble with my bike helmet.)

"Um, OK, nice to meet you! Thanks for the iced tea!"

...at least it was a lovely night for sitting at a sidewalk cafe!

Two Dog Nights

I have two dogs right now, and unfortunately, I did not sleep much last night. Hedley (above R) is Lois' boyfriend dog, and his "Mom," Lisa, who lives in Madison now, had a wedding to attend in Austin, so even though dog and mom are rarely apart, Hedley's staying with us for 6 days.

I LOVE Hedley. He's a great, mellow, and very handsome, fluffy dog (as you can see). I took him and Lois for a 2-hour walk-and-park-play last night. But, all the excitement of a new place (and no Lisa) must have still made Hedley restless, and Hedley being in Lois's midst at all, let alone restless, made Lois all anxious, so basically I was up at least once every hour during the night. I took them out twice in that time, fearing one or both of them had to go (but they didn't). They would jump on and off the bed, make semi-growly noises in response to each other or to things outside, and click, click, click, click across the floor, then plunk down in various places for catnaps, sometimes with sighs and groans. No matter how much I petted them, sang, and talked softly—trying to make them hang out and go to sleep—it didn't work. The upshot is that I couldn't get out of bed for my 8am meeting, and I've been acting spacey and dropping things all day.

In other news, I don't have to go in to work tomorrow! Woot-woot! 4-day weekend! (But I do teach on Sunday...that's fine.)

And: I'm back in the swimming groove! More on that later.
And: above is my heinous, but new, kitchen floor. There have been workmen in and out of my apartment all week. They still haven't replaced the screen or handle on my back door but I am hoping for that soon. Slumlords...what are you gonna do?

Woody's was smokin', or Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight

Fire! Well...sorta. Last night there was a fire scare directly across the street from my apartment. I'd just come home from Home Depot (more potting soil) and Petsmart (dog food and a new kong), and parked directly in front of Smokin' Woody's, a barbecue joint whose front door is directly in line with my bed window (Oh yeah, the smells on summer window-fan days are as incredible as you imagine.) It turns out Woody's was the burning building, and suddenly my street was swarming with firemen - 3 fire engines, 2 of those paddy-wagon trucks, and a big SUV supervisor truck, plus an ambulance and a couple of cop cars surrounded, my street and my car. Of course, Lois and I went down and sat on the stoop in front of our door and watched all the action. It was better than a DVD and I'm getting tired of those anyway.

My building neighbors, Steve and Alia, also came down, and my other building neighbor, Nadrine the crazy lady, was up in her window trying to talk to us, too. It's funny how many people come out for a fire. Guys on bikes and blades stopped too, asking what was up. A cute girly couple came up and petted Lois for a while. Lots of people just stood around (including many of the official men in uniform). It was nice. And a great night for a fire, weatherwise. I don't think there was any real damage.

Except that the firemen broke through the glass door of the restuarant, and maybe the funniest part of the night was how long it took them to clean up the glass - about double the whole rest of their manouevers, including the big ladder and everything.

Then, after all the engines took off, and when I was sitting in the living room, all of a sudden I heard drilling and a guy with the THICKEST CHICAGO ACCENT I have ever heard, talking about 'dis' and 'dat' and 'C'mahn, gice, let's get it over dehr!' Apparently it was the guys that came to fix the door.

Woody was probably very sad to see the whole thing this morning. But you know what? He's not the nicest man, so I actually think it might be karma. He's the kind of guy who harasses all females and then always has the "Waitress Wanted" sign in the window.