Messy New Place

Since these photographs were taken we've made progress but I haven't taken photographs. So you can see the place in full dishabille (is that a word I can use? the spelling's bad but?). Below is the living area.
This is the dining room.
The sunroom/perhaps office/cozy nook.
Meowcat on the front porch.
A look down the hallway from the sunroom type place...our bedroom is down and to the right another bedroom (perhaps office?) is to the left.

Sunflower Markets

On Tuesday (was it Tuesday?) the boyfriend and I went to Sunflower Markets' sneak peek event. Sunflower Markets is a new organic friendly grocery store. We got to attend this event through my chicagoist hook up....you can read my write up about the place here. I didn't take the photographs, Rachelle did ( I think ).
I would like to point out that the above is not a haiku...6 syllables is not 5.




This guy's name was Clevon.

What You've Been Doing...Only Me

So today the boyfriend and I finally got every last trace of ourselves out of our apartment and got every last trace of ourselves into our new apartment. We've been sleeping here for the last few days but tonight will be the first time in a bed and not the floor. Below is a photograph of the boyfriend and exploded viewer maneuvering our sofa out of the apartment by way of our bedroom...and Meowcat not giving a damn.
To stave off craziness and to partially thank exploded viewer for all his much appreciated lifting we got an Art of Pizza pizza...with pepperoni and olives. It was amazing. And we drank some beer. Then a college chum came by with her car and helped us move more stuff. Oh and the boyfriend found one of his stolen bikes (more on that later).

Dim Sum c/o Furama Part 26

On Sunday the boyfriend made our weekly pilgrimage to Furama Restaurant for dim sum. We got there a wee bit early (9:15 am) and had to walk around the block until they opened at 9:30. It was delicious as always though a little strange that early...there were far fewer people sitting in the large dining area which meant less noise...though more dim sum for us. Strangely, the fried food cart's treats were still lukewarm in temperature which led us to wonder if they're not made fresh at all. Either way it was good.
On the walk home we noticed these mushrooms. We didn't eat them though. We're still in the process, though closer to the end thank goodness, of moving into a new place/cleaning the old one/new one. Photographs of this will follow at a later point in time.

Run Run Run

When the boyfriend returned on Saturday he was greeted by smoked salmon mashed potatoes. That I made. From scratch. I even caught, gutted and smoked the salmon. Zoom!

A Closeup On Bacon

I like my bacon crispy and a little on the burnt side...but with a little sensitive pink lurking in the the middle. English bacon is weird. The end.

Fried

Parmesan encrusted fried veggies (a few zucchini sticks, carrots and green beans)... cripalicious. Made a bit of a dent in the vegetable pile...no it didn't.

Teacherly

This is an excerpt from the class materials I've been working on today. Isn't it teacherly? Maybe not. I feel a bit funny saying anything about essay structure as some of the best essays do not follow, in the slightest, my vague guidelines. But I figure these kids may need a little guidance and if they disagree, well then they'll do their own thing and it may be better.

My feeling about essay structure:
Basically the first paragraph should tell me what your essay is going to be about and have a few general sentences about why you have that opinion or idea. The subsequent paragraphs should take each of the general sentences and expand them with details, insights and delight (okay you don't need the delight). In writing about fiction, no opinion can be wrong as long as it is properly backed up. If you want to tell me that a book is really all about the author's love of ketchup, fine, as long as you have examples and quotes from the work to make this a possibility.

College Chum

This is the college chum at The Signature Lounge in the Hancock Building. She went away on Tuesday but it was absolutely lovely to see her in my natural-ish habitat. She also said something really funny (to me anyways) that I thought could go on one of Toby's tee shirts:

If I Wanted To Be In Your Pants
I'd Be In Them Already

And, no, she wasn't talking to me.

Orientation

Yesterday I went downtown to the SAIC ballroom for a little orientation celebration. Okay there wasn't all that much celebration...there was no booze, I was misinformed on that score. But there was food. Thai food. Little fried dumplings, phad thai and fried rice.
And there were people telling us things. I feel like last year there were a lot more people at this thing...far more second years (now I'm a second year and I think there were about ten of us out of a possible 30-40) and far fewer first years. But it was a good wake up call. I'm getting the distinct feeling that school is about to start back up, or something. Weird.
Today I have much to accomplish. Most of our books are off of the shelves and into boxes, but not all. And now I'm wondering if the dreaded time has come to take a good look in my closet and maybe do something about it. Ugh. Dread.

Yellow Red

Yesterday I got a little accomplished. Not as much as I could have and I'm not kidding about 'a little'. But I did eat. In the end there seemed to be a theme, a color scheme that is. For lunch I made English Muffin Pizzas just like I learned to make in 6th grade home ec class...only with cheddar cheese instead of mozzarella.
And for dinner I used the two languishing corn cobs to make a corn something er other...corn off the cob, two tomatoes, butter, salt, hot pepper flakes, parmesan cheese and one tablespoon sour cream. Tasty.
With the boyfriend away I've been living a life of abject television watching. It's bad. It's really bad. The other night I watched a Primetime Special on blonde racist twins who sing about how great it is to hate everybody. Yesterday afternoon I watched I Love Lucy--Lucy tried to pass off a 25 hunk of cheese as a baby while on an international flight. I always whine about the boyfriend's strong objection to television watching and thus rebel whenever he's away. But, I admit, this is going overboard. Good thing that today is the Writing Program's orientation...I don't really need to be oriented but they give you a free meal and booze, can't beat that.

I Am Procrastinating, Hardcore

So, yeah, I'm procrastinating. I'm procrastinating in getting into proper clothes and I'm procrastinating on going out and buying milk and cigarettes. But both of those activities are really just an insulation layer of procrastination covering the real thing which is to start packing...and calling all our different bill type people and telling them our new address. So, instead, I'm going to tell you about a bunch of things I was or was not entertained by.

Starting with The Bonfire of The Vanities by Tom Wolfe, that dandy of a mandy. I've read a number of Wolfe's books-The Right Stuff, A Man In Full, The Painted Word and I am Charlotte Simmons all come to mind. This book falls right into his style. I like Wolfe's way of doing things though I'd never want to be him. I guess what I find interesting about him is his way of describing real people...even if they have different names. The slightly pompous insights he manages to make about the rich, the poor and everything else. The way he humanizes people who do bad things or people who do good things. That is all on Wolfe.
I attempted to watch Ellie Parker the other day. But it was bad. So I stopped.
I did, however, watch Aeon Flux from beginning to end. It's got it all, Charlize in tight outfits, Frances McDormand with orange hair, a woman with hands on her feet, you know everything that really makes a movie a success. Perhaps because I expected it to be terrible I was pleasantly surprised. Is it a good movie? No. But it's not so bad.
I read An Unfinished Life a while back and when I found out it had become a movie with Jennifer Lopez, Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman I figured it might not be so bad. It wasn't so bad but all the actors seemed to deny the characters' any true amount of depth (this is often my complaint when I've read the book). Robert Redford is too Robert Redforry and Morgan Freeman's character is supposed to be disgustingly mauled by a bear but he pretty much looks like himself. Not bad but not as good as the book...imagine that.
And then there was Madonna's latest tour documentary, I'm Going To Tell You A Secret. I am a huge fan of Truth or Dare and I was definitely disappointed with this latest version of Madonna. In Truth or Dare she's shallow, petty, funny and dumb. In this latest movie she's all of those things but a little less...this is due to the extreme PREACHINESS she believes she's entitled to. It's boring to hear Madonna talk about her beliefs because she's an idiot. But Guy Ritchie comes off relatively well.
Check out the map on my right sidebar and add yourself! Unless you're concerned about security and then don't.

One Could Call It Obscene

We have a lot of vegetables. I am trying to deal with them while the boyfriend is away. In this effort I have done another Chicagoist post which you can read here.

Dinneroony

Last night a rather motley crew of folks went out to dinner. Included in this group was, of course, me but along with me was the visiting (now departed) college buddy, a fellow SAICer who was in the same college photo program as myself, another Chicago based chum (our movie angel...he got us in to see Little Miss Sunshine for free and even gave us popcorn in cute plastic containers) and a high school friend of the visiting college chum. We went to Ras Dashen Restaurant and filled ourselves to the limit.
I'm very disappointed with the framing of this photograph but it's the best one in terms of lighting conditions...whenever I play with photoshop I only make things worse...or not better.

Anyway. We shared a bunch of different dishes, including a phenomenal tilapia and peppers, chicken that came with a boiled egg that at first seemed scary but then ended up being tasty, multiple vegetarian options, a lamb dish and a beef dish. Different textures and spices made each one good and unique. Yum!

Fiesta Mexicana Off The Lawrence Red Line

After our expensive drinks (mine was called, I'm sorry to say, the bikini martini) we went up to Landmark Century Theater to watch Little Miss Sunshine (which was pretty darn good, I do declare). Afterwards I had an insatiable desire for a margarita and a chile relleno. This was thwarted by the place nearby that I thought would quench the need being closed. But! With perserverance comes reward...we went to Fiesta Mexicana and got a 1/2 pitcher of margaritas, chille rellenos for me and quesadillas for chummerstein.

For whatever reason the lady who took our order and then gave us the bill included a complimentary shot with the check. I'm guessing this may be because I was taking photographs of the food, or because the combined beauty of me and my friend was just too much to take. Either way the shot, kahlua and cream I think, was appreciated and I do feel like I should tell you a little more about the food. It was good. I had dined there once before for lunch, months ago, and hadn't been overly impressed. But I did order a chimichanga and I'm realizing that I never like chimichangas so it wasn't fair to write this place off on that basis. Having never had authentic Mexican food I can't vouch on its authenticity but its chile relleno was just to my liking...large, stuffed with cheese, moist and saucified. The chum seemed satisfied with her meal as well. So, yeah, good place.

Now It Works!

Before going up the elevator we looked up at the John Hancock from the outside.
And then four or five fighter jets flew right into it...that's actually not funny at all. The planes didn't fly into the building they flew by it and very high speeds and very loud noises. They flew by the building a few times while we had our drink...I took pictures but they just look like specks...and I'm totally over the friggin' things, which is just as well since they're done flying for the year.

Blogger Sucks Sometimes

For whatever reason Blogger is not letting me upload the other photographs I wanted to upload. So look at these two and imagine what the others could be like. Just imagine. The college chum and I went to the John Hancock Center and went up, up, up to the 96th floor for an extremely overpriced drink at the Signature Lounge.

Golden Nugget Breakfast

Yesterday the college chum, M. Lady and I went to The Golden Nugget for a midmorning breakfast. I had the 1-2-3 special, 1 biscuit and gravy, 2 eggs and 3 sausage links. It was exactly what it was and that was good.

Silly Cat

The other day I walked into the kitchen and saw this. Silly cat on top of the refrigerator.

A Little of This and A Little of That

The boyfriend and I are overloaded with vegetables. What with the community garden and the farmshare....and my insistence on buying a hell of a lot of heirloom tomatoes in Evanston last weekend. Last night the college chum left us to go to a suburb and see a guy about a thing. The boyfriend and I then ate some pasta with the first batch of pesto I made. I also made gazpacho, thus using up most of the heirloom tomatoes, two purple peppers, 2/3 of a cucumber, garlic, cilantro, chicken broth, a red onion, basil and tarragon vinegar.

Not so bad.

Yesterday the college chum and I went down to the Shedd Aquarium to look at some dolphins and lizards and other such things. This was, lucky for us, free due to the boyfriend's being employed at the aquarium. We got off at the Roosevelt red line stop and walked the two or three blocks to the museum campus. A muggy day indeed.
There is a special lizard exhibit at the aquarium right now and so these sad sacks had to stand in line inside the gizzard of a lizard. We, on the other hand, had will call and things went much faster (kind of...except they didn't have our name so then we had to find the boyfriend and have him vouch for us).
In the main lobby they have these great light fixtures, complete with nautical illustrations.
Once we found the boyfriend and got our tickets we then had a quick lunch with the boyfriend. Lunch was served c/o the nearby hot dog stand.
The boyfriend showed us the community garden and its outstanding looking kale...or was it Swiss Chard?
The college chum and I watched the dolphin show. It's pretty damn hard to take a photograph of dolphins jumping out of the water...since, you know, they start under water so you don't know they're going to jump until they're already in the air.


For the last few days, everywhere in the city, fighter planes have been making dives into buildings and loud noises. This is because there's an airshow this weekend (today probably) and they've been practicing. I can't help but have a very teenagery thought about this. Mainly that: it's kind of messed up that the only time we, the American people, see fighter planes going overhead we're supposed to clap and ooh and ahh. Whereas most other places in the world when people see fighter planes overhead they scream and run for cover. They are really freakin' loud.