"I've still got $12 left"

Last night we went to downtown Chicago & took a lovely boat cruise sponsored by the UChicago MAPH program. Unlimited drinks & tasty little finger-food on the 3-hour trip up and down the Chicago river and out into Lake Michigan. The lake was a little choppy, so that part of the trip was abbreviated, due, i think in part, to the dance party located on an elevated level on top of the boat. Every time we hit a bump in the lake the entire dancing crowd was tossed starboard & then suddenly back the other way (aft? lee? head?). But at the end of the night we'd only lost 2 MAPHers to the drink, so it was well worth it. At one point, we pulled up parallel to another large cruise ship with music & dancing (though, they had disco lights) and it seemed our two boats would have to compete in a dance-off.

After the cruise was over & we'd all stopped begging the bartenders to pour us 'just one more' drink ("we won't tell anyone") we debarked and headed up north in a couple taxis to a club called Berlin, which had been described as "a gay dance club, except for Saturdays." At first this seemed very apt, as there was pretty much nobody there. We soon left the barren bar (but managed to get hand-stamps... mark of shame for Sunday morning) and tried to go to Sheffields, but were turned away by the massive line of people waiting to get in outside. So we went to a karaoke bar down the street & had a sweetsweet drink. We returned to a reviving Berlin & danced a bit, but were tired, drunk, and hungry, so we went off in search of the Gay Donkey, a late-night Mexican food place, but were once again unable to find it. Oh so aggrevating.

Brooke pointed out that Joel never takes her to 'cool places' in Chicago, which he reserves for everyone else. Joel lamely countered with 'cruise?' but the night was degressing quickly. We hopped a taxi home & crashed. All in all a fun evening. Images should be forthcoming. Joel backwardly took photos with an actual film camera...

Don't Know much about Algebra.

Hey Hey Hey. Mission Accomplished. Major academic operations at UChi have ended, and i will soon be coming home... Yeah right.

But the thesis is over. Bitches. I handed in my 3 copies today, and just as i was handing them in Nate & Lissa arrived in town to help me get drunk in celebration.

We got some free beer & french fries on Eirik, then moved on to grab a bite to eat @ Shiroi Hana, my favorite sushi place in the whole wide world. Then on to Sheffields, a somewhat cool bar, with good beer (Czechvar in a mug), a pinball machine & a photo booth. Monkeys that we are, we needed to use the photo booth (then Nathan & i played a couple games of pinball while we waited the 7 minutes for photo development.

After Sheffields, we walked by Wrigley Field in search of food & good times and, while we were unable to locate the Gay Donkey, we did find a somewhat suitable replacement for 1am Mexican food. Free chips & salsa, but the burro was decidedly straight.

As you can see, i wear my sunglasses at night... but only so i can look like a jerk. Brooke refers to my new sunglasses as 'jerk sunglasses' in that they instantly make me look like (and i will argue act like) a complete jerk as soon as i put them on.

Happy Birthday Davin!

It's our nephew Davin's 1st birthday today! And since he hasn't got around to getting an email address yet we're posting our birthday wishes here at Hand of Dog. This picture of Davin (left) is back when he was a little kid. Just a few months old. Good looking kid, and a vision in horizontal stripes.

Being an aunt (pronounced aunt) & uncle is a pretty sweet gig. We get to hang out, sometimes babysit & bolt when things start going south. Joel has really missed being around Jen & Tim & Kylie & Davin this year & the last time he came to visit he couldn't believe how much Davin had changed. But he's very much looking forward to his return to 'Drunkle Joel' duties.

Division of Intellectual Labels

or, Crisis on Infinite Blogs

I have been plagued by doubt because of an innocent comment by Miron, and have been noodling a mission statement of sorts for posting my entries on my various blogs. Because i dove headfirst into the blogosphere & started two blogs simultaneously, my solution has been, basically, to post in whichever blog felt a bit lacking in recent entries. Unless i was writing specifically about zombies, or specifically about me & Brooke, i would just try to keep both fairly recent so as not to lose readership. Plus, Hand of Dog is maintained by Brooke, Gilbertson & myself, so i figured, once we got into the swing of things, this blog would be the more productive ones, but somebody (i won't name names here) seems a bit trepidatious to step fully into the blogging pool. I try to encourage her, or it, by writing moderate to sub-par blogs, in hopes that they will be convinced to actually make this blog interesting by submitting... but thus far, with limited success.

I think the distinction between the blogs will clear up a bit once summer is here and i don't spend most of my waking hours silent & alone in my room thinking about zombies. A clear distinction is there, i can feel it, because it's not quite like i said before, that i just randomly choose which blog to post on based on when the last post was, because, the two blogs have slightly different flavors (Roman Numeral J tastes more like a gimlet), not to mention our ill-fated liveJournal blog, which is only kept up because otherwise the majority of my internet friends would completely ignore me. (On this last blog i mostly post things like the current contents of my fridge).

I aspire to a slightly less structured version of J.D.'s blog, where entries that fall under various categories can appear in multiple blog categories, but alas, i fear my new friend Blogger will not allow it without too much effort every time i want to doubly classify an entry. So, for now, all i can do is muddle along, trying to slowly clear up what i'm saying & where i'm saying it as i go along.

Now... where do i put this?

the sky is falling after all...

I went to see Mission Impossible: III tonight (somehow brooke & i didn't get a chance to see it when i was in Omaha) and it really puts things in perspective, you know. Sure, my problems seem rough - horse shows, zombies, smelling like soup - but at least Philip Seymour Hoffman isn't threatening to shoot my fiance. Some people have real troubles in this world, people like Tom Cruise.

I wore flip-flops today, which usually makes me feel better (citing Gilk's concept of 'flip-flop wearing feels like permanent vacation), but when i got back from the movie, it was raining & now my heels are really dirty... Plus i lost my prime parking space.

Yes, well... now i'm all fretty & must wait till morning to have a peanut butter sandwich to make myself feel better. Cheerio.

G-Storm

Joel & Brooke are watching some TV with me on the couch. It's very thunder-stormy outside. Smelling them when they came in, I can tell they were eating sushi this evening. Probably at that new "blue" place I've heard about. Joel's leaving tomorrow morning, back to Chicago. That's too bad, but we'll see him again sorta soon. It was nice having him around for the weekend.

I enjoy a good stormy evening in Nebraska, but I can never see the storm from our house. My cage offers a poor perspective on the windows, but even when i'm on the couch, there is too much overhang & houses too close to get a good look. A pity, really, as I love a good storm.

I hope you all enjoy some good spring storms. Sometimes I think it'd be nice to hang out outside, munch on the grass and watch the stars come out, but then I remember that there are birds out there. But it would be fun to go out and enjoy some rain-smelling air & cool grass. This weekend featured a lot of good lawn-eating opportunities.

I could go for a carrot. Or some celery. Anybody got some vegetables?

Wine & Wild Animals...

Yesterday, after a trip to the farmer's market, we bought some styling new sunglasses & headed over to the zoo on a suddenly cloudy, chill Saturday afternoon. We renewed our zoo membership, which we love, because it allows us to go to the zoo in short bursts, without feeling like "we have to get our money's worth" every time... We saw the sun bear, who was begging for the graham crackers that some punk kid kept throwing at him & watched the polar bears put on a pretty good show... Have you ever noticed that polar bears are very neurotic, slightly obsessive compulsive bears? Every time we see them, it seems like one of them is caught in an endlessly repeating loop of activity, swimming the same path over & over again. It's a little disconcerting

Later, we went downtown to La Buvette, had a bottle of wine & later went out to Chris & Ben & Jake's place, where many large hunks of meat were being grilled & many a beer consumed... And we once again met Doug Flood for the first time... Good times had by all.

We also heard from Dave & Carolyn... Congratulations, guys! We love you. All in all it was a pretty good day, capped off with a trip to the Homy Inn for some more beer & some gummy peanuts.

Cinco De Mayo

We'd like to congratulate Mexico (150 years too late) on their victory over France... in some battle or another... Way to go, amigos. We three amigos are sitting on the back lawn of the Martha House, enjoying Margaritas and chips & salsa (and grass, but not the mind-altering sort), basking in the Omaha sun, & listening to Mexican polka on the radio.

We hope you all find a wonderful way to celebrate your 5ths of May... Joel made the trip in this morning from Chicago & we are awaiting the arrival of a Wisconsin contingent destined for further merriment. Tonight we're heading to the Dundee Dell hoping to enjoy some fine scotch & even finer deep fried pickles (a lesser-known Mexican delicacy).

We'll keep you updated on Gilbertson's progress at becoming a guineaPigLawnMower... He's good. Feliz quesadilla a tí!

Lawn Party!

Hello everybody.

I'm pleased to be a part of the blogging community with Joel & Brooke. It's a great way for us to keep in touch with our friends.

Just wanted to say a brief hello & say that I'm looking forward to Joel's visit. I think it's going to pretty nice this weekend & I'd just like to suggest some quality time sitting out on the lawn munching on some grass... Or drinking margaritas, whatever.

Anyway. Travel safe everybody. DaveT, looking forward to seeing you...

Expectorate the Expected

I am a huge fan of 'anticipation'. I much prefer the moment when something is about to happen to the moment when it actually happens... I am by far not the first to think of this phenomenon... Jerry Seinfeld has a bit about 'the ride to the movies' generally being better than the movie itself. Questions of 'are we going to get there ontime?' & 'will the movie be good?' Everyone's excited...

I'm getting on a plane tomorrow morning to go to Omaha & man i'm excited. Which is, of course, not to say that i won't enjoy it when i'm actually there - i don't mean that the actual moment is not fun, just that expectation, anticipation, is great. Not knowing what all we'll do when i get to town (Brooke's taking a "no-questions-asked" day off from school), Cinco De Mayo, scotch at the Dell, what all's going to happen, it's so exciting!

The moment right before the moment, i love it. How will it all turn out. I guess it's sort of like watching tv-on-DVD. I'm borrowing Lost Season 1 from Eric & Bethany & if there's a cliff-hanger at the end of an episode, it's OK, it's cool, i can just watch the next episode... Maybe i have to change DVDs, but it's there, in just a few moments. I've long been a proponent of watching tv shows on DVD, but maybe there is something to that week in between... I suppose i could create it artificially, only allowing myself to watch one episode every other day or something, but that would be artificial anticipation... anticipation i could end at any time... Hm.

I guess i can't figure it all out today... Just thought i'd try and share my antici...pation

el sicko

Well, Brooke & i both enjoyed sick days on opposing sides of the midwest today, kind of... I had no class (if you can imagine that), but cancelled a meeting & she had "liquid food poisoning" & both of us drove home today... I also successfully frittered away most of my time at home, ultimately doing very little work at all... So i'll call it my solidarity sick day in support of the May Day Off protests, because remember... if we lived in a different country, we'd all be immigrants, unless you're currently an immigrant and the different country you lived in in my hypothetical situation happened to be your actual country. Don't forget.

So, i will totter off to bed now, continuing my support on into the night, not having done much of any of the work i need to do, but i do hope that the Mexican girls who work in the Classics Cafe are back tomorrow, because i'm really going to need that mocha latté.

postScript
anyone kno(w) how to say 'spangled' en español?