Archives for the month of: April, 2006
spring sky cecile, asli
asli asleep me, matt, trevor

saturday was asli’s going away party – she’s moving back to turkey this friday – and i promised her a better than sex cake. i got up early on saturday to go buy eggs and realized that i’d been putting off culling my pantry for far too long. i threw away two garbage bags worth of stuff. i threw out anything that was past its expiration date, looked questionable or even more frightening – i couldn’t remember buying in the first place. i rearranged the shelves a little too. i bought eggs and some other things at the grocery store around the corner then made the cake. i used eric’s stand mixer, and i have to admit that i’ll probably buy one of those. super handy and time-saving; i cleaned stuff up while the batter mixed.

once the cake was done (or all that could be done before i got to jon & andrew’s for the party) i hopped on the train. the weather was beautiful and the sun was really bright. when i got to the party i walked into the house and the kitchen was a flurry of activity: asli rubbing chicken with jerk seasonings, josh kneading hamburger mixture so vigorously it required him to have his foot up on a chair next to him for extra leverage and soon thereafter, me spreading caramel and whipped cream on the cake. matt brought a huge bowl of his sun-dried tomato pasta salad, there were more kinds of meats, vegetables, a keg of leine’s and a second cake for grace’s birthday that was served as dessert after round 2 of overeating.

as expected, the better than sex cake was a good conversation starter – after some discussion josh and i decided that it’s better than bad sex (what isn’t?) and better than a hand-job but the certainty sort of ends there. probably not better than actual decent sex. thus, in the future i’ll have to parenthesize it or something to reflect its new title of ‘better than a hand-job cake’.

i got a lot of great photos that day. sadly, no photo of “the four biggest nerds at the party” sitting on the couch together (josh, matt, lucas and i), josh elbow-deep in hamburger or the big jam session that happened in the basement. i also made sure to have other people take pictures of what seemed to become the highlight of the night (at least to some of the guys) – almost all of the girls on the couch, then four of us on the couch in various stages of sleep. a lot of admittedly adorable photos from that stretch of time, including a really good one mark took of asli.

pink tree

sunday i tried my best to sleep in but i couldn’t sleep past 8am. disappointing. i just need a mortgage or some car payments and i’ll be a real adult. i spent the morning dusting and sweeping my apartment and doing some laundry. in the early afternoon charlie, travis and one of travis’s roommates, chase, picked me up and we drove up to the chicago botanic garden. it was a really nice drive and the parts of the garden that were in bloom and not drained due to ‘shoreline stabilization’ were beautiful. i believe charlie referred to it as ‘eden’. we walked all over the garden and only left once it got so cold/windy that we couldn’t stand it anymore. i got some more good photos of the guys smelling (all of the) flowers and posing with a replica of a giant pumpkin.

after the garden we went to ted’s montana grill for bison and cherry lemonade. much discussion of borax and whether travis and chase were on a date (no, but i bet the waiter thought so – shared check, shared to-go box, shared meaningful glances…wait no, not that last one).

post-dinner charlie and i dropped off travis and chase at the blue line then went back up to andersonville for ‘the sopranos’. after that antonio, charlie and i watched ’empire records’ and then charlie and i watched ‘major league’ which i didn’t realize starreddennis haysbert. from pedro cerrano to the allstate guy? odd.

i’ll post photos from the weekend over the next week or so!

photos: asli’s party, botanic garden

on friday silent hill opens and i’ve been breathlessly counting the days since i first saw the trailer. in preparation, antonio has set out to beat the video game ‘silent hill 3’, which is not the game the movie is based upon, but is still pretty creepy. last night i went to his apartment and charlie and i took turns reading the walkthrough* while antonio and charlie took turns at the controls. we got about 3/5 of the way through last night and are going to play tonight (and tomorrow night before the movie if need be) in order to finish the game before we see the movie.

other ‘silent hill’ and ‘silent hill’ related delights:

* – is this cheating? sort of. but we only have until friday night to finish this game off, so in the interest of time – walkthrough all the way.

every straight boy’s fantasy come true – a man who actually got away (for awhile) with giving out free breast exams door-to-door. “charged with several felonies” indicates to me that at least several women fell for this. i’m not sure whether to be horrified or amused. leaning towards amused.

update: vaguely related in that it involves breasts, boobs for bourbon street.

[from travis! i bet he’s so happy i’m crediting him with this.]

the most exciting weekend for lunches ever!

saturday: hot doug’s

there were nine of us at hot doug’s: cecile, jon, kat, trent, andrew, matt, mike, asli and me. we got in line shortly after 1pm and managed to get a big enough table(s) so we could all sit together. i had the apple and chardonnay marinated chicken sausage with sweet curry mustard and blue cheese. other people had the elk or rattlesnake sausages. we had one order of tots and two orders of fries (one regular, one duck fat) and two sides of cheese sauce. because it was a holiday weekend everyone got free easter cookies with their order.

sunday: three happiness

easter morning we met in chinatown at three happiness for dim sum. it was fantastic. another good group: cecile, stef, matt, mike, asli and me. after we had stuffed ourselves with dumplings and noodles and cucumber and shu mai and mango custard (or whatever that was that was orange and opaque and wiggly and delicious) we went to the chinese bakery and bought some red bean paste filled sesame buns – my favorite!

eric: i like wil wheatons thing about the disposable mp3 player. that sounds good

kara: ?

eric: that is like what i’ve been saying there should be for YEARS now.

eric: http://suicidegirls.com/news/geek/15147/

eric: they also should make disposable cell phones, for if you lose or misplace yours.

eric: walk into walgreens, buy a disposable phone, punch in your account number and you are set!

eric: or i dunno, maybe you have to call cust service to verify identity.

eric: probably can’t have that tho cause it would help the terrorists or something

kara: right

eric: all with their improvised explosive devices and what not

kara: right

eric: and their hippety-hop music

kara: well seriously, i mean aren’t just regular watches and clocks helping terrorists?

kara: providing them with a cheap and easy way to buy timing devices?

eric: you know what else? freedom!

kara: time should be outlawed! chronology hates freedom!

eric: when time is outlawed, only outlaws will be on time

so i’m staying in chicago so i can work while getting some art conservation experience. sorry for jerking everyone around for the past year. it was a tough decision, but i think it’ll work out. plus i get to stay near my family and st. louis/chicago friends!

my grandparents liked ‘brokeback mountain’ better than ‘walk the line’.

yesterday jon and andrew threw an impromptu cookout for trevor, who is in town for a few days. the weather was beautiful and the lamb burgers were fantastic. so were the brats. and the veal brats. and the spicy italian sausage. and the steak. and the veggie burgers. and the hummus. and the potato salad. and the pbr. and the stella. and the guinness. and the pudding pops.

i didn’t consume all of those things, but what i had was delicious. a lot of people showed up – probably about 15 or so. by the end of the night (it went till about 11) all of the girls were inside the coach house talking about weddings apparently, while all of the boys (and me – as always) were on the deck listening to jon’s cosby impression, talking about the x-rays mike has seen of odd objects that patients um, fell on (riiiiight) and plotting to kidnap and hold hostage a roomba.

i saw brick last night with charlie and travis and it was AWESOME. it’s a noir set in high school about a guy (joseph gordon-levitt) who decides to find out what happened to his ex-girlfriend, who suddenly disappears. the music was good, the script was good (so much special lingo and spoken at a mamet-esque clip) and the atmosphere of the whole thing was incredible.

this weekend my mom was in town to drop my cousin off at the airport. after i got a haircut she picked me up and we ate at costello’s and saw ‘ice age: the meltdown’ at the davis theater. we spent the rest of the night vegging on the couch watching the food network while i texted and IMed people, most of which were at the good night, tv! product photo shoot (which went very well and the photos are über-hip).

sunday (post-daylight-savings-time-change) we got up early and went to the southport bakery & cafe for breakfast. after that i picked up a few things at osco and then we drove out towards oak park to see my cousins. my aunt was visiting lisa and brad for the weekend so she was there too. kjirsten (almost 3) had set up a tea party for us, which was totally adorable. once harry (almost 7 months) woke up from his nap my mom held him and played with him for awhile…during which he proved that either a) he was ravenous or b) he was ravenous for boobs, because he kept grabbing the collar of my mom’s shirt and looking down it while his eyes practically bulged out of the sockets. this started out cute – you know, the first 10 times he did it – but soon i started to get a little creeped out a little. this kid is clearly going to be a boob man. we ate a really nice lunch there then mom drove me back into the city. we parted ways and she made it home just before the storm hit the quad cities.

i went to firebelly and once charlie got there we/he/whatever cleaned up what was leftover from the photo shoot. we picked up travis and drove up and down chicago ave. getting gift certificates from some really cool restaurants – japonais and green zebra.

we had a lot of time to kill before the sopranos started at 8, so we went to the loop and drove lower wacker again then took lake shore drive up to evanston. i showed charlie and travis around northwestern’s campus and took them out on the lakefill. we walked around on the big cement blocks – a nice length of it actually, because charlie saw a block with some writing on it he wanted to check out but when he got there i guess it was sort of a let-down because all he said was, “…oh, it’s just some stupid poetry.” after travis and i finished laughing our asses off we walked back to the car and went to cross-rhodes for dinner. oh delicious greek fries! it was awesome and we all ate until we were stuffed.

at this point it was time to head to antonio and patrese and charlie’s apartment for the sopranos. travis brought popcorn and we watched a really good episode while the thunderstorm started outside.

post-sopranos we watched ali g then charlie drove me home and i would like to make special note here that he gave up a really good parking space to drive me home (i appreciate it. i appreciate it a lot. i owe you. k?) in the rain. and then he had to park a few blocks away and walk there in the rain this morning. which antonio was not pleased about. so i appreciate it even more.

anyway, it was cool to see the apartment finally – antonio and patrese have a really nice place – like, it’s got stuff on the walls and is organized and designed and stuff, you know, like a real adult apartment. unlike mine which i’ve lived in for almost 2 years and have basically done nothing to make it my own space. but i suppose this is a matter of personality, because once i was surround-sound- and broadband-enabled it was pretty much home.