Apr 30, 2004

Chicago is the place for movie sets this spring, with Ocean's Twelve, and The Weatherman crews taking over the streets of the town. Since I have recently moved into the city I have had the chance (along with thousands of other Chicagoans) to experience one of these sets while trying to decide on my new commute to work. Division Avenue has been selected as the site for an Ocean's Twelve scene and has been backed up for the last few days with gapers trying to catch glimpses of celebrities between the massive 16 wheelers and countless numbers of crew members lined up along at least 4 blocks on the north side of the street. After getting thoroughly irritated at the delay preventing my timely access to the Lake Shore Speedway, I became one of the slow moving distracted drivers myself and caught sight of Bernie Mac. Although I would have preferred Mr. Pitt or Mr. Clooney as my celebrity sighting of choice, I have had a lifelong lack of celebrities encounters, so I can't be picky. Bernie Mac was born and raised right down the road from the set, in Cabrini Green, the worst public housing failure of all time, and one of the landmarks on my new scenic one hour commute to work. (UPDATE: I'm a liar. This is false. Mac was raised in Woodlawn, not Cabrini.)

Who knows, maybe I'll run into Brad or George this weekend.
You know you've made a good choice in moving when on the last night in your old apartment the toilet won't stop flushing itself until the building engineer comes to replace some gasket, and in the process floods your bathroom with toilet water. Yes, I'm glad we moved.

Other than the outrageously painful pulled muscles and a ding right at eye level in the only piece of furniture we own that I care about, the move went surprisingly smooth. Everything went out of the old and into the new in about 6 hours, much better than the 9 hour marathon move in Craig and I experienced when moving from Virginia two years ago. Of course, we hired four extra large biceps to assist us this time, which was the smartest thing we've done in a while.

Five of the most memorable events of the last week:

5. Eva managing to hide in a closed cardboard box in an otherwise empty apartment, resulting in our assumption that someone had broken in and stolen one of our cats.
4. Stella shitting in the car on Lake Shore Drive.
3. The toilet flushing for half an hour while Craig and I sat in a boxed up living room eating Chinese food on the last night in our old apartment.
2. After 90 minutes of Brillo padding the kitchen, handing back the keys to our first apartment in Illinois.
1. Using the new dishwasher for the first time.

Apr 21, 2004

Five reasons the blog has recently been demoted to last on the to do list: (though I did add the nifty little image to your right after figuring out some convenient web space, and if all goes well, said space will become the future home of work in progress)

1. Moving day in T-minus two days
2. Packing for take off
3. Research projects and papers for the class I'm not getting credit for
4. Hectic work environment due to absent injured coworkers and lazy staff
5. Bloggers block

Apr 15, 2004

I have been frantically reading Fat Land by Greg Critser in preparation for a developmental psychology paper about obesity in children. I have become increasingly depressed about the state of our nation from learning statistics like more than 20% of all adults in the US are considered obese, a number which is consistently on the rise. Thanks to the abundant snacks, fast foods, fad diets and empty calories available to Americans, we are slowly killing ourselves. Cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and high cholesterol are more prevalent now than ever. But people are starting to take notice, and hopefully we'll all start to live longer as America slims down.

The United States Department of Health and Human Services has recently sprung the Small Step campaign to promote health and fitness through simple changes in daily life, like taking the stairs instead of the elevator, doing sit ups in front of the tv, drinking plenty of water and leaving a few bites of dessert on the plate.

McDonald's is in the process of eliminating the "super size" option, reducing the number of calories in a combo meal drastically. This step may have been spurred by one man's eye opening film experiment.

As much as I hate to admit it, the Atkins craze of late may be a good thing, but only for the attention to health and weight it has spread across the country. In 2003, Atkins books outsold other non-fiction books three to one, which shows in increased awareness of obesity and a desire to slim down. [Disclaimer: I am most definitely not promoting this idiotic unhealthy diet plan, I'm just noting it's effect on the state of mind of the American people.]

Apr 12, 2004

Happy one year anniversary, to my favorite husband.

Five reasons Craig wins the Best Husband Ever award:

1. Planning a surprise anniversary weekend
2. Sofitel with a view of Lake Michigan
3. Nacional 27 with creme brulee
4. Work day floral deliveries
5. This.

Apr 6, 2004

Tom Heinl is the best opening act EVER. Friday night hubbers and I went to see the Decemberists at Schubas. We walked in to Heinl's "IHOP". I must admit that I arrived in one of my bad moods but after ten minutes I was laughing so hard my cheeks hurt. He is a petite man, rather handsome, with a boyish face and a deep mountain man voice who reads from his 5th grade journals and sings exaggerated songs about his crummy car and being a child in a department store hiding from the kid eating escalator. If I had an iota of musical talent and were in a band Tom would be our only opening act. Between his Johnny Cash voice and absurdly funny lyrics, he had everyone's attention for the duration of his set and left us with a 100% increase in mood. Tom Heinl is musical pot.

Apr 2, 2004

I don't know what it is about Fridays that always gets me depressed, but it never fails. Maybe it's the exhaustion of wading through the stupidity of the work week, maybe it's something to do with a lack of sleep or malnutrition. Whatever the cause, I am grumpy and I wanna go home. I have no appetite so I still haven't eaten breakfast, but maybe that's a good thing. Or maybe not.

Sometimes I dream up an elaborate plan to fake my abduction and run off to Aruba or Atlanta or somewhere equally exotic. I could resurface in a couple of weeks, claim amnesia, and start over. Of course my husband would be privy to my plans, and would wait patiently for me until I returned. He would be the pity of Chicago, having a missing wife, then only to have her return with amnesia, forgetting all details of their wonderful life together. He could hold press conferences explaining how difficult it was trying to remind me of my past, all the while we could be frolicking and enjoying my new calm relaxed sense of self resulting from my hiatus. I would have to time it perfectly, in order for me to be able to avoid particularly unpleasant projects at work, and to allow for a slow period at hub's place of employment so he could take a suitable amount of time off to care for me and imaginarily nurse me back to mental health. And maybe some rich person would take pity on me and buy us a house and pay for our groceries because having endured such a traumatic event as to elicit amnesia, I would be in no state to ever work again.

I actually feel a lot better now. A little bit of fiction is awfully therapeutic.

So it turns out that the story that the quote I loved so much is from, about the mind's eye not being able to see everything, is about lesbians and pot. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just found it interesting for some reason.

Apr 1, 2004

Three reasons today may be the best April Fools Day ever:*updated

1. Bi Bim Bop for breakfast. I'm not so much a doughnut/sticky bun/omelet/pancake person in the morning. I'd much rather have some beef and rice.
2. Winning a round trip ticket on United Airlines simply for filling out a survey. I'm promised it is not an April Fool's joke, and am scheduled to pick up my certificate at 11:30 am this morning.
3. Free case of Snapple from Jewel because it didn't scan the sale price.

One reason it may not be:

1. The Golf might be burning oil. Yikes!