ain'tnobodygonnabreakamystride

Well poop. All that preparation and she didn't show. Ah but yes, I know, important people such as her have busy schedules. Another time.

Instead we had a quiet weekend. Uneventful. Saw fake Don Cab. Saw some friends. Took some naps.
____________________________

In other news, I just asked for my first raise in my life. Not that I haven't received raises, but I've never asked for one. And oh it was a whopper I just asked for. And oh was it ever uncomfortable. I'll keep you posted, of course, as to what shakes out. Around these parts it could likely take a few months to even see a response.

Truth: One of the big reasons women still don't make as much money as men is that we've learned that self-promotion is bad. Unladylike, for sure. Right now I feel like I just traipsed across all the desks here, shaking my ass & singing the vocal parts the women sang in the studio on Rock of Love. Or worse. Although I swear I put it more eloquently.

Fingers crossed.




Now I need to go work like I deserve the raise.

lia ahnana

Been scrubbing, cleaning, dusting... Got to go shopping tonight for things like nanas and whole milk, because we have a very special guest staying with us this weekend.

keeping busy

Even if with a whole lot of nothing. This morning at breakfast I made a to-do list on my my placemat.

I'd never been to Berwyn before and so we went on a field trip. All I knew of Berwyn is that it has those cars on a stick that, if memory serves me, were shown for a split sec in Waynes World. And I thought maybe Svengoolie came from Berwyn, but I still don't know.

It's probably got all that and then some but one Sunday isn't enough to fully understand, I'm sure. We spent the morning going in and out of open houses (big old houses with amazing & swanky basements that haven't been touched since 63) sort of half pretending we were shopping.

It's a real sleepy & pleasant place, that Berwyn. To my surprise. If not full of heshers. It's nice to know that if it's your thing, you can actually afford to own a n octoganal front bungalow with a swanky basement that hasn't been touched since 63, on a quiet & well-kept street. Only 15 minutes from our current neighborhood.

And duh, cars on a stick! Totally made my day.

We're going to alice & friends

We're going to alice & friends
We;re going to alice & friends
we're going to alice & friends

maybe it means i get more out of living

Maybe I've mentioned it before. It's fun from time to time, but it's really starting to drive me nuts. I dream all night, every night. This year it's gotten to the point where I sometimes confuse my dreams with reality if the dreams are tame enough. It's manageable now, but if it were to get any worse I might end up committing myself. Have you ever heard of any related disorders?

And

I realize no one ever cares to hear about any one elses dreams, but just to illustrate what I'm going through, here are my last couple nights in order. No exaggeration. In fact I'm sure there was more that I've since forgotten.

___________________

Thursday July 12

Phase 1 – I’m at a carnival of some sort. I have a long, loosely knit dark purple scarf. The winter kind. It’s fun to play with. Then I’m riding up to the top of a ride. Something like a roller coaster. It’s jolted and I start to free fall.

Phase 2 – I’m riding to a sold out concert in a van with strangers. Somehow I know we’re privileged & will be getting in. We arrive in a gymnasium fit for an elementary school. We stay strapped in to the bench seats of the van as they’re removed from the van and roll us up to the stage. The bench seats become the “front row.” I feel awkward and restricted.

My analysis: When I wake up I mourn the fact that the purple scarf wasn’t real. No idea about anything else. This dream was stupid.
___________________

Friday July 13

Phase 1 - Hanging out with Janess Vartanian. Childhood friend, family friend. It must be back in time. Their house is next to the Dufour’s, which in my dream some how lead me to think “It all makes sense now.” Don’t ask me what makes sense. It doesn’t make sense. Anyhow the two houses share a yard. There are a lot of cars sitting around. A lot of works in progress. I feel pretty happy. Home again. Although this combination of things never really existed in my waking life.

Phase 2 – Here’s Clare again. She’s in my dreams more often than anyone else. Childhood bff. She’s somehow fallen off the face of the earth. No idea where she is. Anyhow, in this dream I meet up with her. She’s living in the house her parents lived in when we were young. She has a baby. She’s married. I feel really upset and cheated because I wasn’t around to witness her wedding, and didn’t get to see her pregnant, or as a brand new mom, figuring it all out. She’s gained weight and as much as I strain when staring at her face, it doesn’t look like Clare to me. I feel frustrated.

My analysis: This dream is pretty realistic, though I don’t know that Clare would ever gain weight. I often feel like when I left “home” it was for good. The day I moved to college, my parents moved out of the house & town I grew up in, and there began my systematic severing of all ties. I move on, I make menial efforts to stay in contact, I lose touch, and then I feel cheated when people forget about me.
___________________

Saturday July 14

My memory is really limited on this one since I didn’t write anything down. I do remember inventing snacks for whales, however. Whale snacks. They came in a box like milk bones. It was very exciting because until now, whales haven’t had snacks. They’ll be so appreciative. I’m so excited I wake up and tell Zach about it in half sleep.
___________________

Sunday July 15

Phase 1 – I’m driving to school and realize I forgot to put make up on, and so I turn around to head back home even though I know I’ll be late. I’m driving through a suburban neighborhood. Can’t see over the dash board very well.

Phase 2 – I’m suddenly pushing a lawn mower up a steep & slippery hill. I notice some steps cut into the hill. Duh, that would be a lot easier. The steps veer off to a house.

Phase 3 – I’m in the house. No one is home. I’m not supposed to be there. This happens all the time in my dreams. I see two little boys & follow them through some “secret doors”. Something like Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. We enter a room. It’s not Narnia. It’s just a plain old empty room. One of the boys if playing with a superball and I try to hush him. The bouncing on the floor will let the owner of the house know we’re up here. To no avail. An adult comes in and is angry. (Dang this is going nowhere).

Phase 4 – Boss’s boss is assigning a new project to me for work. It’s a new, creative gum packaging. (I thought I got away from this?) I’m supposed to get the project started and hand it off to one of the newer employees. He’s sitting and communicating too close for my comfort. This isn’t realistic.

Phase 5 – I’m back in the secret room the little boys led me to. The girl from the Exorcist is there. Apparently this new work assignment involves working in the same room as her. She’s strapped to her bed, but it’s still really distracting, especially since she can make the bed levitate. I worry that she’ll come over into my space while I’m looking down at my work, which is spread out over the floor. I keep thinking “I hope she doesn’t spit that STUFF on me.”

Phase 6 – I’m laying in a bed. In the same room. Her demons are swirling around. I’m using all my willpower to fend them off, but some slips into my mouth in a liquid form. Then I realize I’m just in my own bed, in my own room, sleeping with my mouth open. Just great.

My analysis: I’m totally crazy and I’m sort of sick of dreaming. My life is becoming scarily like Science of Sleep and while it’s fun to know my imagination is still working, I feel like I’m losing control.
___________________

wedgitables

We discovered an asian supermarket with entire aisles of faux meat products, frozen steamed dumplings, dehydrated rice cakes (which I'm not sure how to prepare). I feel like we've uncovered a gold mine.

Actually, dang, we discovered a lot about Chicago this weekend that we'd never seen before.

I'd like to learn to cook with cabbage & radishes. Not necessarily together, but, you know. Have any recipes?

I am not making enough things

And this is perceived to be a problem. By me.

Perhaps, in that sense, it's a good thing that my computer is slow moving, overloaded and crotchety. Maybe this inhibits me from spending hours on end playing with it at night. Or perhaps it just slows me down. Limits my productivity.

Anne and I talked tonight about feeling overwhelmed and caught up in the web of obligations. Resenting full calendars and taking it out on technology and estrogen and our innocently bystanding dudes.... and then we wondered, "What happens when we're moms?" When our time is never our own.

And for a minute we felt sorry for ourselves.

But the truth is, the more you do, the more you can do.

Maybe this is why I'm not doing enough. Because, duh, I'm not doing enough.

I'd hire her. *wink wink*

We have an intern working here this summer who looks just like Francoise Hardy and the boys are all a flutter. It's funny to listen to them talk.

"She's a ten."
"Dude, she's twenty one."
"Ehem, and she's got a ring on her finger."

It does breathe a little life into the building.

bizzy

So bizzy! I owe you some pictures. I owe some people phone calls. I owe some people some estimated shipping cost savings. I owe promontory point at least an annual visit.

I owe I owe. There's always tomorrow.

dusty magazines, sweet photos, bad web design

dusty magazines:
Inevitably, I failed my own experiment when a yard sale next to our demo derby meetup location was selling Life magazines from the late sixties for $1 each. Technically Zach gave me the two dollars but I made the purchase.

Please don't confront me with my failures. I had not forgotten them.

In bettah news....

sweet photos:
Our June calendar piggie was adorable. For any of you who did not make it by this month to see (ehem, that would be ALL OF YOU):



bad web design:
Tomorrow morning we're heading off to the Michigan to visit family, drop off the dogg & have a mini vacation in Saugatuck. We're staying at this place.

A boutique lodging experience with retro charm, a 1940/50's style motorlodge located in the heart of the villages of Saugatuck/Douglas.

Fun. A motorlodge just like the one in Psycho!

Ok. Back to work so's I can get out of here...

so far, so good

No really. Although anticipation of a beach vacation next week is making it kind of hard not to buy anything. I mean, we can use our regular old bath towels as beach towels, and I can cart my crap down to the sand in a plastic grocery bag. Those things work just as well, even if they are atypical. The sunblock we've got should be able to last... Tupperware might make decent sand castles...

I've had to stop and think a few times already. Be resourceful for a change. In that sense the experiment has been a total success so far.

totally cheating

Note to self, andrea: You can NOT just have someone else buy the stuff either.

I admit, I just had the following conversation with myself :

"Man I need a new pack of dill seeds since mine didn't grow this year....
....but oh that's right, I can't buy anything...
..well maybe zach would buy them..Oh my God you didn't, you pathetic, pathetic human..."

Oniomania

Yesterday with a 20% off coupon for Bloodbath & Beyond I bought one of those wacky head massagers that looks like a spider, and a flexible mini muffin pan. Are those things neat? Oh yeah. You bet. Do I need either? No.

I've been trying for years to pare down the amount of stuff I have, but I continue to do things like this. I wear one fifth of my wardrobe. I'm embarrassed by the number of shoes I have, most of which are ouchy. I refuse to sell old cds (yes I still have my copies of School of Fish and MC 900 Ft Jesus – you never ever know). Yet I spend an hour on ebay looking for Snoopy crap. Because, you know, I need more Snoopy crap.

I'm a sucker for the instant gratification of purchasing things, whether it be $1 or $100. I mean, I'm sure we all are to some extent, but ugh. Ick. I feel ashamed and ungrateful. It's so much more practical to find enjoyment in things you already own.

Let's try an experiment:

Starting today, I'm going to try not to buy anything other than food (for me and for my car) for one week. Oh and possibly a demolition derby ticket. Because that was already planned. And a giant beer at the demolition derby. Because that's a given. You think I can do it? I don't. I'm an American. But I can try.

Tick tock.

dig wayy wayy into your cache memory....

This just in: Jewel Osco sells VERNORS!

Do you know what that means?

ants555ants: guess what I'm making tonight
ants555ants: boston coolers!
ants555ants: remember those?
ants555ants: vernors & ice cream all blended up
ablon kralovec: mmmmmmmmmm
ants555ants: like from Dairy Queen?
ants555ants: Jewel sells Vernors!
ants555ants: i bought a case
ablon kralovec: woah
ablon kralovec: nice!
ants555ants: but i'm supremely bummed to find out that boston cooler is a slang for a dirty thing
ants555ants: one of my coworkers came up and was like "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!"
ants555ants: on wikipedia
ants555ants: and I had to explain boston cooler
ants555ants: and he was like "you know that's something ELSE right?"
ants555ants: so sad
ablon kralovec: its somethign dirty?
ablon kralovec: i'll look....
ants555ants: urban dictionary told me what the dirty thing is
ablon kralovec: wtf?!?!?
ablon kralovec: my childhood is tarnished
ants555ants: i know
ants555ants: mine too

Anyhow, once you get over that, who wants to come over to our house this weekend to make proper boston coolers and watch cable? We even got a blender to make them more authentic.

Um, is that "pwchh" verbatim?

Wtf?

Zoooo!

Man, for some reason this entry just got snagged by spiders and spammers and ugh. So here I am, a couple years later, and I'm stripping it of whatever might be attracting these dang things. Anyway,



Hey all. This Sunday we're going to the Brookfield Zoo to try and see the BABY POLAR BEAR! (There was a link to the zoo here)

(There was a picture of bears here)

Weather permitting, we'll probably leave around noon or 1:00. Not sure yet. Want to go?

And for those of you who are into a different kind of cute, Brookfield also has naked mole rats. Yay!

Manditory

I got a new phone! It was one of the cheapest models they had, yet is tres skinny like a razr, & is some of the cleanest design I've seen on a cell phone as of yet.

Of course a camera phone requires that you have a photo of your dog as your screen saver, and so here is mine:

play you pay

itch itch itch...

We went camping this weekend. Sitting at my desk now, scratching at the squito bites. We had great fun though. Rode bikes, stood in a lake, played on swings, caught lightning bugs, made veggie burgers over a fire, ate pizza, saw some bunnies, gophers, deer, worked on our farmer's tans, took long naps before being woken up by a carbon monoxide detector in the camper...

...itch itch itch.

Mmwuuuhahaha

Despite having cable, I've had this song in my head for 30+ hours now:



Again! Again!

We'd like to make a good first impression

Barry and I are messy.

We were told to tidy up our workspace tonight before we leave because a tour's coming through in the morning. ...But that they'd like it to look like we're working. A clean desk doesn't say to me "This person is in the thick of it!" I mean, does it? Excuse me, we're working here.

Why I do this

Man, the people I work with are so considerate. They tell me when they think I've done a good job. They thank me for taking the lead on things. They make jokes (not saying they're good jokes, but)...

There are jobs on monster.com which are an hour closer to my home and that offer 10K more, but what price can you put on having a team of coworkers who aren't total assheads?

I owe you some thoughts on cable television. I'll get to it sooner or later.

that much more grown up

We got a new thing to put our teevee on.





Tidy, eh? Thank you oh Target for your Thomas O'Brien "Vintage Modern" "collection". Though we took the legs off this piece to make it sit lower than it's intended to. I like the design of it more than any of the tables I saw at fancy pants places like Room & Board so yeah, score! And for what it cost, it's really not a bad piece. Though now that I'm looking at the photo I realize it doesn't do it any favors. In fact, it sort of looks like crap here. Oh well. Trust me.

I'm real real happy about it. As much as I'm glad to have gadgets & devices, I don't like looking at them. So this new thing with the doors on it pleases me. Clutter is just... a weight. Now I could sit here for hours, staring at my blank television screen, admiring our new purchase. But only for say, 48 hours because WE'RE GETTING CABLE ON TUESDAY!

Let me get over my excitement before I can fairly describe my mixed emotions on that subject...

About Pirates

We watched Dead Man's Chest for the first time last night. Not as good as the first one in my opinion. The slapstick was over the top (see: Johnny Dep shish-kebab) and the fishey people vs. skeletons made it more Star Wars (which isn't scary) than Carnevil. Just my preference. BUT. Did you notice they play a form of Kuriki on the Flying Dutchmen?! I feel a funny kind of privy!

what'll it be?

The weekend is here! And it's mine! And we have multiple pirate movies at home! Hooray! Hooray!

integrity is the pit in my stomach

They say your physical environment is a direct representation of your mental state.
My desk looks like a bomb went off.

Someone I work for just returned from a two week vacation.
Before she left for that vacation she loaded me up with to-dos
which I subsequently filed & forgot about.
Which she subsequently called me out on via email.
And as a direct response
I'm cowering like my dog when she craps on our couch.
Reaching for the phone and retreating because my ways of phrasing
"I have no excuses."
"I've become disorganized."
or
"Your wheels don't squeak when you're away on vacation."
don't seem good enough.

Some appreciation for our comic relief

Today is Barry's birthday. He thinks we've all but forgotten about him, but we're taking him out at 4:00 for beers.



Come to think of it, I'm really asking for it considering my next birthday is a milestone. It's a good thing we're all contractors and could be kicked out on our rears at a moment's notice. Maybe I'll escape the humiliation of a milestone birthday.



ps - Right now he's telling me a story about how back in the mountains one of his cousins found a neighbor who'd hung himself from a tree, and his cousin proceeded to revive the man with a car battery. Now he's telling me about the snowy egret's mating rituals. I bet I could make a blog of just Barry stories.

(For anyone just tuning in, Barry is my next door neighbor in the cubicles)

ppss - he drove all over town with that sign on his car and didn't notice it until after he'd gotten to work this morning. That, friends, is success!

no chicken vs. egg please

Omg Whitey is having her foster babies! look!

Happy Half Birfdang ZB!

Today for Z's half birthday (30.5) I took him out for surprise mashed potato pizza @ Piece and then a trip to the Chicago History Museum. Inside the museum we saw Lincoln's deathbed, some ancient bloody bandages and a tuft of his hair. On the same floor was an exhibit of a modern low rider. Upstairs there were diaramas of the fire and real tools used in the stock yards.





Outside the museum we saw bunnies and a garden.





Then we walked most of the way home, stopping for Italian sodas (Vanilla Italian sodas are the way to go this summer. Sort of like Boston Coolers but not as good. And a sort of exotic alternative to iced coffee for those of us who've recently become paranoid about developing addictions to anything) before it started to rain on us.





Now we're doing laundry and that doesn't really offer much worth taking photos of. Videos, perhaps, but still photos, no.

sweet coded stylez

like check it out. my html is so hott - when you click on links they turn from blue to purple.

let's give it the cute:



yawn.

Check out my beautiful new blog

Pretty much just making this account so that I can comment on other peeps.
Also looking to spread myself as thin as humanly possible over the interweb.
It's not the kind of car you drive, it's the ubiquity of your web presence that will get you into heaven.