domestic anxiety attack!

Wandawega Wonderland

2011-06-16T11:52:00.000-07:00

Friends who built the amazing tree house at Camp Wandawega invited a bunch of us up for the weekend. What a perfect way to start summer! Especially this summer--the first in 9 years where I'm not running a summer program and missing out on all the fun. Woooh me.

Everyone's photos can be seen here.

On Being and Frumpiness

2010-05-11T12:57:00.000-07:00

I love this little article (envoyé à moi d'Elisabeth) debating whether Simone de Beauvoir was considered attractive. I'm looking forward to reading the new translation of The Second Sex since I couldn't get through the original version. (A bit too laborious for the mood I was in...) Although Wartime Diary and Transatlantic Love Affair: Letters to Nelson Algreen I could not put down. I highly recommend the later, especially with all its Chicago connections and living near and frequenting some of her old haunts.

I say, total fox.

WELCOME SPRING!

2010-04-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

How cute does my front yard look??

Garden/cats/home update coming soon...

For Sandy

2010-02-16T14:30:00.000-08:00

Add 8 to your tally...

from the photo archives

2010-01-22T12:36:00.001-08:00

snowbound (snow lazy)

2010-01-13T13:34:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday and Friday we had a snowstorm. Didn't end up being as much as they anticipated, but ended up with about 8 or 9 inches. Just enough to be annoying and require snow boots for my morning hike to the train:

View from the office:

Friday night I decided it was time to order all of our random kitchenware collections displayed in one of the pantries off the kitchen. Pantries plural, you ask? Yes, we have 2. One with a door that hides all the ugly stuff and one that is more of a coffee-making/toast-making nook that houses all the random collectibles. Lately it's accumulated a collection of wayward objects like tools, cat treats, vitamin bottles and items our neighbor Ann gives us(more on that later!). Fed up with the rummage sale vibe, I opted for the color sort:

Yep, that's what I did Friday night.

woohoo.

the lost slides

2010-01-05T13:52:00.000-08:00

After my grandfather passed away this summer, my dad discovered a box of old 35mm slides. Among the pictures of of my father's (and his siblings') first communions, confirmations and graduations there were these amazing images from--as we say in Wisconsin--up north, of summers spent fishing and swimming during the the 50's and early 60's. Oh simpler times, sometimes you look so good...

(My dad is the blonde with the big ears)

the holiday season: time to hate less

2009-12-11T09:43:00.000-08:00

This photo of my niece makes my black heart hate christmas just a little less...and this one even more so!

autumn wrap-up

2009-12-04T09:52:00.000-08:00

Well today felt like the first day of winter; it was 23 when I left the house and flurries. It's been an incredibly mild fall--the plants on the porch which I planted in May were still flowering last week. This morning they looked like they are finally starting to die.

October brought another birthday and a bunch of good meals including Halloween at Lula. Lula "dresses up" as a different restaurant every year, this year it was Hot Dougs or rather a zombie version, called Not Dougs complete with Doug himself chained to a makeshift counter taking orders.

The food was great--it was basically the lula-ized version of Hot Doug's menu. My absolute favorite though was the duckfat fries with cheese. The cheese was so amazing I had to order it again Afterward we were stuffed and lazy and ended up ditching our other plans for the sofa and TV...

The garden is in dead-mode. The cats miss it and let me know this by screaming at me incessantly when I get home from work (this is when I would usually let them in the garden for a bit) As a trade, I thought I would make a birdfeeder so they can watch the birds from the kitchen window. But that plan backfired when it attracted my nemesis (nememsi, plural??) SQUIRRELS

Yea, I know the photo's kinda cute but these assholes are messing up my garden and digging up my bulbs! I spent weeks running outside in my pajammas, yelling like a crazy woman when I saw them digging up the plethora of tulip, daffodil and hyacinth bulbs I laboriously planted weeks earlier. Jerks.

Thanksgiving was here before I knew it and we hosted. It was our fourth and probably best. I got a 14lb organic bird from a farm in MN, brined it overnight and roasted it 30 min at 500 then the rest of the time at 300. It turned out beautifully, though I realized I really don't care for Turkey that much. It's only as good as whatever you slather on it, whereas a good piece of pork or beef is good on it's own. I think next year we'll break from tradition and serve different animals. (Squirrel?) What I do love are the sides and especially this stuffing which I have made 5 years now. SO GOOD. I made an extra pan of it that I ate in it's entirety on Friday while watching really bad movies on tv

Cuteness. This is pretty much as close as they get to cuddling.

amazing time capsule of sorts

2009-10-15T08:23:00.000-07:00

JOHN MALOOF acquired a collection of 30,000 negatives plus hundreds of rolls of undeveloped film at a furniture auction which turned out to be the work of an unknown Chicagoan, Vivian Maier, who shot around Chicago (and elsewhere) during 1950 - 1970. He has been posting her work at http://www.vivianmaier.blogspot.com/ And as fate would have it, Vivian Maier passed away just days before he was able to track her down.

PANCHO

2009-10-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

oh yea, Paris

2009-09-29T20:40:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it was fatigue or the transition from countryside to city, but Paris was kinda on my nerves! And for those of you who know me (all 2 of you readers)you know my nerdy obsession with it, but something about it this time was not working for me. Everything was so crowded, I got bumped or shoulder checked on the street at least a million times. The metro was always packed. The few items of clothing that I actually wanted to buy had no small sizes left. WAHHH! I know, poor me, in Paris...

We did some of the usual:
-Pompidou -great exhibit on all women artists and a good lunch at Georges where I ordered the exact same dish I ate with elizabeth on her birthday two years earlier
-Palais de Tokyo--which always has unusual exhibits, this time included. One exhibit was NASA moon photographs (where we ran into some Chicago people!) and the other was a random exhibit called "Spy Numbers" which had these amazing photographs by Arthur Mole (on loan from the Chicago History Museum, of all places!) Mole made "Living Portraits" around WW1, where he would get THOUSANDS of people together to create a portrait of Abraham Lincoln or the Statue of Liberty or a waving flag. They are pretty incredible. Here's one:

One new thing we did was the Musee d'Orsay, which is a really amazing building--an old beaux arts train station, retrofitted into a museum. The collection wasn't necessarily our cup of tea, but impressive all the same. Speaking of tea, they have an amazing tea room which I had what I always have at tea time--wine.

Je pensais "Ou est Elizabeth??"

On the retail front, we got to go to the new store MERCI which is (if I may use buzzwords) a boutique / concept store. It was like if Anthropologie mated with Fred Segal. It was pretty impressive and they had a very cute cafe with awesome chocolate cake:

Then it was onto London, where I didn't have to think so hard,the shopping was more productive, and the tables were huge.

It was pouring rain (or pissing rain as those brits would say)so we spent some dry time in the Tate Modern. The huge table made me relate to a cat's perspective. Then I missed our cats. But they were all well and good, see:

It was like a crazy camp for cats at Megan's house.

We stumbled upon the Liberty of London store while walking around and although I was aware of their fabrics--I didn't know they had a whole department store. It's like a way cooler Barneys and we spent about 3 hours in there and got lots of fun things like soaps, tea towels, notebooks, uber fancy chocolates, toiletrie bags and, of course, afternoon tea/wine:

The Dordogne

2009-09-11T11:26:00.000-07:00

Spent 4 days in the Dordogne River Valley, home to walnuts and foie gras

view from our window, Sarlat

this is foie gras country and the stuff is EVERYWHERE in a million variations

So after days of drinking red wine I thought it would be nice to have something a little more refreshing, especially on a hot day. I ordered a bellini, which I assumed would be a flute of champagne with a splash of some sort of fruit puree or juice, but instead I got this monstrosity. UGH! It wasn't even good. I stuck with wine after that...

I don't have time to put these in order at the moment, but they images from our lovely day canoeing down the Dordogne river and exploring tiny medival towns:

la lune de miel

2009-09-05T13:16:00.000-07:00

After 24 hours of traveling, we spent a day and a half in Chinon before we head southwest to the Dordogne river valley

Our hotel-

the chateau de chinon

les chats: they seem to find me

Joan of Arc stayed at the chateau de chinon when Charles VII was situated there during the 100 years war--right before she set off on her crusade against the english. One of the surviving towers of the chateau (built and continually expanded on during the 11th and 16th centuries) now hosts a museum to her, including maps that look like your 6th grade social studies project on a piece of posterboard that your dad got you at the drugstore. There was also a great display of crude ceramic figurines of Joan d'Arc created by schoolchildren of Chinon in the 1960's. Although there were some pieces of historic value, the less precious ones were more endearing...

J'ai bu beaucoup de chinon rouge and Cody, he drew.

It Never Rains in Southern California?

2009-08-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a relaxing visit to Los Angeles and saw all my favorite California ladies.
Highlights include:
-deep fried beef and pickle tacos
-santa barbara wine tastings
-rain?!?
-pastries in Solvang
-finding out Elizabeth was kidnapped by a horse
-slumber party with Heather and Hannah
-learning Australian
-Charlie Boy the Cat
-dropped baby toy concussion
-Thurston & Kelly
-foxtail purse

Seems it never rains in southern California
Seems I've often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California, but girl don't they warn ya
It pours, man it pours

Way Up North

2009-08-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

Just returned from a road trip with my parents to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, birthplace of my mother and destination of all our family vacations until I was 12. And I can happily report that not much has changed since the last time I was up there, twenty some years ago. We spent all of our time in the Keweenaw Peninsula, AKA Copper Country. A little history: The discovery of huge pure copper deposits in 1843 led to the first contingent of U.S. Army troops arriving to begin construction of Fort Wilkins to maintain law and order in the settlement of mineral prospectors. For the next 120 years copper was the main industry. (My mother's Grandfather worked at the mines) By the 1970's all of the mines closed, miners left, businesses closed, creating ghost towns and leaving tourism as pretty much the only industry of the region.

There are no McDonalds or Wendy's or Walmarts or strip malls when you get that far north. How amazing to see a place that doesn't look like the suburban-sprawl, strip mall wasteland of America!

And we're off:

sunrise from car window

My lovely parents at the gas station outside of Chassel. Chassel had great junk shops (inside of buildings that looked to be condemned!)

"Enter at Own Risk" warns the sign. Stuff was haphazardly stacked to the ceiling. It was hard to even look at anything because there was just sooo much. The lady wouldn't let me take any more photos because "My son is a police officer and said no photos because people might see what you have and then come back to break in!" Yes m'am. Although there were a few objects we wanted, they were asking big city prices, so we passed.

A WPA war memorial in which I re-enacted a famous photo of my brother John, a few decades earlier (i'm supposed to look dead...)

The house my mom grew up in,in Lake Linden

Where Eagle River flows into Lake Superior

I forgot just how clear Lake Superior (Largest freshwater lake in the world, FYI)is! Because it's so cold, no plant life grows so there is nothing to muck-up the water.

My dad apparently wanted to show-off his thighs since there was really no need to hike up his shorts while wading through ankle deep water...

awwwww

We finally arrived at our destination, Copper Harbor. It's where US 41 ends (or begins, depending on how you look at it) 1,990 miles from where it starts in Miami, Florida.

A lovely sunset...at about 9.30! It's so far North and on Eastern time (despite being about the same longitude of Chicago) that in summer it stays light out forever. Later that night we saw 4 falling stars. Someone in the town mentioned that there were meteor showers the past few nights.

Things we did:

Throw rocks.

Buy jam from monks.

Climb waterfalls.

(butterflies were attracted to my bathing suit...)

Eat hotdogs.

View "Scenic Lookouts" and read placards

Snow measure. Last year they had almost 24 feet of snow over the course of winter!

us at the top of Brockway Mountain

Cody looking at a big piece of float copper. What is float copper you ask? Well read on:

Hang out with taxidermy

Explore old copper mines

Overall, we drove almost 1,200 miles but it went pretty fast. My father is like a human version of wikipedia and kept us (well, me) entertained with his wealth of very random knowledge. Here he is in action:

Or as my mother would say, "Your father, he likes to expound."

In closing, here's a sign I saw on a restaurant door which I think sums up Copper Country

Kinda zen-like!

All Mine.

2009-08-09T17:52:00.000-07:00

Work consumes my life in June and July but come August, summer is mine! Lots of stuff happening in the next few weeks but for now, GARDEN UPDATE (with obligatory cat photos)

Our cat Pancho has this strange condition; everytime he eats, he cries brown tears. Weird!! So we constantly are cleaning his face. When he's grazing in the back yard, he turns into a crust face, as so:

Maplewood block party the other weekend. Bouncy castle in front of the house at 8am. The mariachi band was great otherwise the whole event was pretty mellow, but we did hang out on the front porch for the first time ever.

bounce bounce bounce bounce

Coming soon: roadtrip to Copper Harbor, Michigan
oh yea, with my parents.

Garden Update: June

2009-06-14T13:42:00.000-07:00

Zinnia seedlings.

Lily patch. These should be blooming in the next few weeks. Mainly asiatic ones but we planted a few ornamental varieties this year which I'm excited for. Hopefully they won't disappoint like those iris' did! That was a bust! We've only had about 4 or 5 blooms. There are still a few on their way, but nothing like the 2 dozen or so last year. Maybe they didn't like this COLD weather the last 3 weeks.

Iris

Sofi and aliums

INTRUDER!

Farmer's markets started again! Today's (blurry) booty:

Peonies. perfect for my lovely vase made by Elizabeth

Yard Report: May

2009-05-10T19:25:00.000-07:00

LUSH!
(photos are almost 2 weeks old...)
STATS (cause you were wondering.)
hyacinth, tulips, magnolia: already bloomed and finished
lilac: in bloom
alliums: just opened this week
phlox, coralbells, wormwood, hydrangea, clematis...all coming in strong
COMING NEXT: irises, and that shit will be crazay!

For the first time, we paid some attention to the front yard which was just covered in an overgrown vine. We trimmed back and dug up alot of the vine and found (!) a pre-existing flowerbed. Planted hydrangeas, jackfrost and some ground cover. From Gethsemane. Best spot for flowers (but not for wallets...)

ELOPEMENT the long version

2009-04-21T17:12:00.000-07:00

In January we planned a visit to LA and Palm Springs. In February, I started to plan a Chicago wedding for sometime in September. Planning made me sleepy. And crabby. Three days later, I googled "how to elope" and the rest is history! It definitely was the best decision for us. And although, regrettably, there were a few hurt feelings, I would not have changed a thing. The whole trip was great and we got to see (and surprise) most of our CA friends/transplants.
Et voila:

We arrived early Thursday morning and spent the first part of the day at the LAX branch of the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. Very romantic. Next we visited Kelly who I haven't seen since she moved to LA almost 2 years ago. She (along with new husband and new baby!) is living out her post-modern hippie dreams in a very charming little cottage with a sprawling backyard, nestled in the hills of Echo Park. Lounging in her backyard with a beer, the bougainvillea and cactus, sounds of the next door neighbor playing guitar---for a minute we were like "We need to move here!" But then the talk of property prices brought us back to reality...

Friday I got to hang out with BFF LE LIZ and do some of our favorite stuff, like complain and talk about TV. Awesome! We then drank on the roof of the Standard until the sun set, later joined by Cody and Pete & Nicole (our only Chicago people who were in on the gig). Ate dinner and ended up at Hop Louie, a divey bar in Chinatown where we all met up with lots of california pals and held court till they pretty much kicked us out. Cody's friend Sean was buddies with the Chinese owner and got them to play the wedding march, while we awkwardly stood on the dance floor and drank kamakazie shots, classy. It was a classy event, all around:

PALM SPRINGS

The next morning we left for Palm Springs to meet up with Heather (Cody's cousin and my absolute favorite relative) and her boyfriend John at the Parker. They had no idea we were about to spring a wedding on them. We were supposed to tell them at dinner, but Cody blew it right away. But it didn't matter. We had a great time hanging out, talking about cats, Cops, drinking beer and playing pétanque.

(this is how Heather looks whenever John expresses his love of the tv show COPS)

Later we had a decadent dinner at Mr Parkers and met up with everybody in the lounge.

CAUSE/EFFECT:

WEDDING

The next morning we had a pre-wedding brunch at Normas. Jared and Nicki joined us from LA. Jared took all the amazing photos at our wedding.

Cody waiting for me.

and here I am.

This was right about the time, as we we gathering in the lobby to leave, that MARTHA STEWART walked by and SCOWLED at me, a veiled bride! We have witnessess...

A quick stop at the grocery store for some tulips:

And the ceremony:

L&L

I love these photos Jared took:

Afterwards there were drinks at the Viceroy, forgotten dreams of the funicular, demands for wedding nachos, Nicole's awful iphone navigation skills, tequilla shots, sad goodbyes to Heather, John and Elizabeth, and then fireside lounging at the Ace.

disappearing into the abyss...

RELAX
We checked into the Ace on Monday and lived happily ever after.

The End.

DESERT ELOPEMENT

2009-04-10T19:59:00.000-07:00

So...we eloped to Palm Springs last week and it was perfect. A big 6-day recap is coming soon, with many great photos like the one above (thanks to Jared) but mainly ones where I look like this, cause that's my thing.

Just you wait.

signs of life

2009-03-23T18:52:00.001-07:00