I was a “breadwinner” and Shea was “Shea butter” and together…we are bread and butter.

Yes, I made the costumes. Only took a few hours.

And you expected something different from us? 😉 Happy Halloween!

I took a camp chair, some books, and a sandwich and carbonated doogh (yogurt drink) to the beach a few nights ago. The doogh fizzed a bit when I opened it, and I had nothing to clean up my hands, so I had to wipe my hands on my tank top, leaving yogurty white streaks.

I settled down to read, wincing every time the yuppie mom yelled at her daughter Ella to come back toward shore, and tried to enjoy the sunset and water.

At some point, a gaggle of teenagers were playing with a soccer ball in front of me and spraying me with sand until I gave them a bit of a glare, and they realized that there might be violence and quickly moved away.

THEN flies were biting my feet non-stop and the sun went away and I was cold, so I gave up on the sandy area and moved over to a grassy area in the park nearby.

My doogh didn’t have a cap anymore because I had dropped it in the sand. I set down my camp chair and placed the doogh in the cupholder. When I sat down and leaned into it, I nearly toppled backwards because I didn’t realize I was on a slight incline, and doogh sprayed ALL OVER ME.

Face, hands, legs, clothes, chair, sunglasses…covered in a salty yogurt drink.

so yeah.
I packed it in after that and called it a night.

I forgot to write about an incident that happened on March 4, 2011. Well, maybe it isn’t so much that I forgot. It was slightly embarrassing and hard to convey without photographic proof, so I let it slip out of my mind for a while.

At 10:00 am I left my house to go to my grandfather’s funeral in Atlanta, Georgia. My flight was at noon and my friend had offered to let me park at her hotel near the airport and catch the free shuttle.

Instead of exiting at Mannheim road, I nearly missed the exit and quickly pulled over to the area that is designated “Mud Trap” on the map below, thinking I could just cut across that little triangle of dirt and continue on my merry way.

Unfortunately, days of rain had created a mud pit that immediately sunk my car 4 inches deep. I tried using pieces of cardboard under the wheels, used a snow shovel, turned my wheel in every direction…nothing worked. I called AAA for roadside assistance…30 minute wait, minimum. I was getting worried that I was going to miss my flight.

After a while, a gentleman stopped to assist. He was wearing a very nice suit. He told me to turn the wheel a certain way and hit the gas…and promptly splattered him with goopy, side-of-the-road mud. I apologized profusely. of course. Finally a couple of taxi drivers stopped, and the three guys pushed my car onto drier land.

All I had to offer as thanks was some banana bread. The gentlemen refused my offer. One of the rough looking taxi drivers said with his thick Chicago accent:  “Honey, I’m on Jenny Craig!”

I zoomed to my friend’s hotel and told the story to the employees while I waited for the shuttle, covered up to my knees in mud and with mud all over my hands. I made it through airport security (they were baffled at my appearance) and had to wash my boots off in the bathroom by my gate. I made my flight (just barely).

The inside and outside of my car were mud-infused, and I had to get my car detailed twice before all of the mud was removed from the seats. I am still trying to get my boots clean. I truly wish I had photos, but all I could think was that I could not miss my flight.

Next installment: the flight home.

Today is the first day of the Nineteen-Day Fast. I came home from Baha’i Feast last night around 9:30 pm, thoroughly exhausted but happy from spending time with the Baha’is in my local community. I baked banana bread, as the bananas were turning brown and I had very little food for breakfast the next day.

I often set up my breakfast the night before, since I’m not quite functional at 5:30 am. I cleaned the kitchen, and as I picked up the electric griddle from the counter, the drawer where bacon grease drains fell onto the floor.

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but a few days ago I had poured boiling water on the griddle to clean it off, so the bacon grease was in liquid form and covered my entire kitchen floor in bacon grease water. At 10:30 PM. And I needed to wake up at 5:30 am.

I promptly started cleaning the floor. As soon as I was done, I picked up the griddle again…and apparently all of the water was not drained, because it spilled AGAIN.

I had to wash my floor for the second time in one evening. I think I learned my lesson.

My griddle is trying to kill me.

I have really bad luck when it comes to weather and moving.  In the last 8 months I’ve moved 4 times, and each time there has been some sort of precipitation.

Every. single. time.

I went back to check the weather reports from last year for those dates.  “Surely,” I thought, “I must be mistaken! Perhaps my mind is making things up.”

Nope.  And my poor friends who’ve helped me move have been subjected to this horribly inconvenient occurrence each time!

June 22, 2009 : Moved to my first sublet in Evanston from my parent’s house. It was raining.

August 17 & 19,2009 : Moved to my second sublet in Evanston.  There was a torrential downpour.  On both days.

October 30, 2009 : Moved to my third sublet in Evanston.  Started drizzling as we drove to the new place.

February 16, 2010 : Moved to my condo.  It was snowing.

February 21, 2010 : Moved more stuff from my sublet to my condo. There was sleet this time. Super fun!

February 23, 2010 : Getting a few last boxes from the old place, snow flurries.

I am so glad that I am done moving.

Some of my friends know that I find ducks very amusing. I don’t know why, I just do.

A few days ago, George sent me a link to this video.

“Maybe if more people had a duck in their life…maybe we wouldn’t all be so mad at each other.”

I overheard this conversation at Starbucks this morning:

Wife: “What do you want to do today?”
Husband: “Shoot myself in the head.”
Wife: “Not today, lets do that tomorrow.”
Husband: “Ok.”

“Hey man, you gotta wipe the prints.  They find the prints, you’re going to get caught.  You gotta wipe the prints!”

-young man on the phone, crossing the street at State and Randolph, downtown Chicago.

hahahaha, yeah, that was weird.  And oh, I’m back.  Sorry about the problems with the site, all fixed now (thanks, webmaster!).