he's already changed my name in his phone to "Bev"

"Hello, this is Duuuaaane at AARP, calling to confirm your registration."

"Har har, brother. You couldn't even say that without a smile in your voice."

"Happy Birthday, old lady."

"Thanks, pal."

"I think you need a new, elderly-ish name to mark your entrance into your twilight years."

"What?!"

"Yeah, something like Ethel. Nah, Ethel's the name of Tony's dog."

"Something like Gertrude?"

"Nah, that's a little too old. If your name is Gertrude, you might as well be dead. Something not too oldish, that still has spunk... I got it! Beverly! Still youthful, but yet—you're old. Yeah, BEVERLY!"

"Ugh, isn't the name of that chipmunk-looking girl on Seventh Heaven that you thought was hot?"

"She was cute when she got older!"

"I cannot believe you're going to call me that."

"Now, Beverly, aging is a part of life. I just want to remind you that shuffleboard starts at 3..."

"Why, I never—"

"And it's Lights Out promptly at 6:30!"

"Shut it. What are you doing today, pretending to go to the office?"

"Nah, I worked the weekend, so I have today and Friday off."

"Lucky! What are you going to do?"

"We're driving to Atlanta to see the Cubs game."

"Sounds fun. Well, if you're drinking, have one for me."

"I'm pretty sure they don't sell prune juice at Turner Field."

"I was talking about ALCOHOL."

"You know, they might have milk, but I'm going to need a microwave."

30

Today I turn thirty. 

People keep asking how I feel about being the Big 3-0 and kissing my twenties goodbye. I'm at a loss. Most of my friends have been 30 for some time and I've honestly felt 30 for at least the last year or so. And I don't feel like there were xyz things I *needed* to accomplish by today, even smallish-ish feats like jumping out of a plane (which I did with H when he turned 30). Sure, there were things I've said I wanted to do, (and did) but there's nothing I feel the need to do to mark the occasion with fanfare.  

Don't get me wrong, my life is supremely different than how I'd imagined it would be when I was 10, 15 or even 20 years old. I had figured that by 30 I'd be married to a Nice Indian Boy with a couple of kids, living in suburbia, working at a job that "hasn't been invented yet" and serving as scout leader on Tuesday nights. If you had told me that instead I'd:

a) spend seven years living with mommy and daddy after college so I could take exotic vacations and save up to purchase a home 

b) discover my dream place of employment was actually a dungeon 

c) watch the industry I've slaved to be a part of implode so I no longer could afford the house I'd saved for 

d) find myself trying to unload a tiny piece of highrise real estate just in time for the housing market downslide

e) realize that a white guy from southern California understood me far better than any Indian Boy I'd ever met who wasn't gay

I'd never have believed you.

But I'm happy. Last night my mom and I got off work early and we hit the DMV (fastest service EVER!) then went for pedicures, got our eyebrows done and shopped. Today, H and I are going back to their house where I'm sure my parents will serve ice-cream cake, as they have every August 14 that I can remember. And I think my friends have planned something that I'm sure will be awesome this weekend. 

While it would be nice to have a couple kiddies crawling around, I'm pretty satisfied with my life the way it is right now, troubles and all. There are things I really should do, like set up a more solid system to save for retirement and find time for hobbies I love but haven't gotten to in years, like watercolor painting and pretending to breakdance. I'm also hoping to progress beyond the first-grade level of Hindi spelling/grammar at some point, and if we have to take the condo off the market I'll start making masala Indian food more than just once a week when I go back to my parents' house. (Hot sauce is a poor substitute, but it doesn't leave a lingering aroma that could turn off potential buyers.) Oh, and I've always wanted to see Iceland.

That's probably stuff I should put on a list to accomplish before I turn 40. Forty is the new 30, right? Maybe that's when this alleged sense of dread I'm supposed to be feeling will kick in. But if I'm to believe My Favorite Mami, I'll likely start feeling it tomorrow—like a nasty hangover. 

A wedding in technicolor

Last weekend, H, his family and I attended his cousin's wedding in Carmel, Indiana. I drove the cadizmobile, with H and his sisters along for entertainment. Little did we know that the destination was Pleasantville.

When we pulled into the subdivision/village/whatsit of West Clay and parked the car, it really seemed as though we had arrived in some back-lot movie set. Everything was idyllic in the way it only looks on Wisteria Lane. There was a lush park of green grass in the center with a gazebo, and all around were perfect little houses with perfect white picket fences; everything so gleamingly new (or so it seemed). I kept looking around for the Truman Show-cameras. Even the stores looked like modern-day market streets with perfect signage that all went together like an old-time movie.

The wedding was held at the gazebo; complete with kilted bag-pipe artist. (There was a family playing in the grass, way to the left of this shot, and I swear they were auditioning for a Juicy Juice commercial. Or dog food. I couldn't decide.)

Seriously, though, it was a lovely wedding. The bridal party walked up a long carpet of fluffy grass and the ceremony was sweet (and pretty short; thank goodness, because I could feel my skin cooking in the 90+ degree heat. Times like those I really wish wearing hats was still in fashion).

I should have taken more shots of Pleasantville/Truman Show.

The white building is where the festivities took place. If you look closely at the set of pastel storefronts on the left, you'll see what I mean about it looking like a movie lot—all the shops and restaurants were untarnished and uniform, give or take a paint shade.

But I have to say, the party planners had great taste. I really liked the colors—various greens and white—and while I felt bad for the bridal party having to be out in the heat, (they were wearing all black with different dress cuts), I felt worse for us; at least those guys were in the shade of the gazebo.

After the ceremony, there was a lovely cocktail hour with drinks/appetizers in the courtyard area (where all the people are gathered in the above photo). It was shady in certain areas and the wind was misting us all with the spray of the fountain.

Once inside, we found a lovely green/white/chocolate cake in the center of our table. It was a novel idea to me that dessert would be there to taunt us for the entire time we tried hard not to look at it and guess what kind of cake we had (each table had a different flavor).

Ours was Mint/chocolate. Yum!

The rest of the wedding was great. Dancing, chatting, meeting; you know, all that good stuff. They had a chocolate-covered-pretzel/nut/candy bar that you were supposed to fill bags with whatever you wanted as a takeaway, but you had to move fast, and I was too slow to snag any of the pretzels.

For the sendoff, they had everyone grab two industrial-strength sparklers from a bucket and a matchbook with the couple's names on it and line up along one of the staircases. Surprisingly, everyone pretty much cooperated, and the bride and groom ran for cover through a tunnel of sparkly sparklerness to their car and sped away.

That's them: the groom's on the left. They moved pretty fast. Personally, I'd be worried somebody's AquaNet-ified hair would burst into flames, but everyone managed to escape un-singed.

Of course, the party wasn't really over once the guests of honor flew the coop. This groomsman looked hell-bent on kicking it hard core:

Yep, he's in the fountain. If the rest of the bridal party had joined them with umbrellas, it'd been a pretty sweet homage to Friends.

Sadly, things did start to wind down shortly after that. But one of H's sisters, his dad and myself didn't want to head back so soon, so we closed out the bar on Pleasantville row with some of their extended family. And even after that we didn't feel like going to sleep, so H's sister and I dipped our feet in the hotel pool and talked a lot of smack about H (just kidding). I had a good time.

On the way back to Chicago, I was telling H about the proselytizing billboards I used to see while driving through Indiana back in the day on Interstate 80, and how there weren't that many on I-65. But then we came up on the doozy we had passed on the way in:

Funny, it says "Jesus is Real" when you're going toward Chicago, and if you turn around and look behind you, it says "Hell is Real" on the way into Indiana. Coincidence?

she may not be a techie, but she's pretty adorable

This weekend, H's family came to the Midwest to hang out with us and attend his cousin's wedding in Indianapolis. On Friday night they had a casual dinner with my parents at Famous Dave's. 

I had met all three of H's sisters and both of his parents several times on my frequent trips to California, and both of my parents had met his dad when we was here on business last year, so I'm pretty sure nobody was nervous about meeting each other, but I think it went well; everyone seemed to be laughing, talking and enjoying themselves—we stayed for two and a half hours and closed out the place, and then had a lovely walking tour of my construction-addled downtown.

One thing I don't think my parents were expecting was just how much H's family already knew about all of us because they read this blog. His peeps initially checked it out to see if this random girl in Illinois was good enough for their only boy, but after three years they're some of my most loyal readers. And their Web savvy comes in handy sometimes, like when my twitter updates revealed we were trapped in the bayou of Alabama for hours in the dark. His parents started researching news updates to find out what the heck happened so we'd know how long we'd be stuck. Unfortunately, Alabama isn't quite as savvy, so there weren't any updates to be had (and oddly, the only news radio station that we could get was WBBM 780, in CHICAGO.)

My mom and dad don't really read the blog. I attribute that to their slower-than-molasses dialup and reluctance to come home and look at a screen. Plus, I talk to them at least once a day, so anything they'd read will already have been old news. But after finding out that other people were in on all the scoop because of it, my mom passed along the address to her tech-friendly pals. I had to remind her of what it was, letter by letter, over the phone. 

She calls back a few hours later because her friends are asking how they'd know it was really my blog* because neither my photo nor my real name is on it. I told her to tell them to look for all the green and the photo of the cornfield across from our subdivision. 

"Oh yeah, I remember that. And your name on there is Cod-zee, right?"

*Welcome, ladies! Feel free to look around and click the links on the right to see some of the old stuff. 

such great heights

Last week I was at a professional conference held at Chicago's McCormick Place. If you haven't heard of it, let me say that joint is flipping ginormous. For Oreos' sake, they also host the largest auto show in North America every year. It's BIG, people.

I haven't worn high heels in quite some time, but because everyone at the conference was decked out in their most dress-for-the-job-you-want finest (and beyond), I felt the least I could do is upgrade the usual flip-flops to something a little strappier to go with my jeans. Sadly, that meant trips from one session to the next involved escalators, overhead signs and a tremendous amount of increasingly painful walking.

I was pretty cranky after day three of trekking around, building blisters upon blisters. H wanted to go to the grocery store (we walk and carry back) that night, and he sort of pshawed my complaint that I had walked six miles that day. Okay, that figure was a bit of an exaggeration, but my days of dancing all night in stilettos are long gone, and I there wasn't even any alcohol to ease the pain. So to me, the foot-ache equivalent of "windchill factor" was about six miles to every one.

Later I reminded H that I was doing all that walking on high heels and he conceded that, indeed, the shoes probably made a big difference. I don't think boys really understand what it's like to traipse around on those deathtraps for any extended period of time. Frankly, I just don't do it anymore unless there's a good reason. But here's a glimpse for anyone who hasn't had the experience: This week Jezebel posted a video in its "What it feels like for a Girl" series showing a man (who's a big stiletto advocate, btw) attempting to walk a mile in three-inch heels. The results might surprise you. Be sure to take a look at Part 2 as well.

Somebody really should determine the distance-walked to distance-walked-in-heels ratio. You know, for the record.

Snoop hits Bollywood

Yep, you read that correctly. 

New York Magazine* has a clip of some Akshay Kumar medley performance in Bangkok that includes the title song from Singh Is Kinng (I'm not sure why they spelled it that way, looks stupid if you ask me), which features some Snoop rhymes (at 1:30). The rest of the medley includes some of Kumar's other hits, like "Mast Kalandar," "Hare Ram," etc. 

Snoop is getting in on the promo action, too. Another link in the nymag story goes to a YouTube clip of Mr. D-o-double-G dressed all Punjabi style, sitting in fancy chairs with Kumar and talking about "coming to take over Bollywood." (1:20)

It really is becoming a small world. Either that or Americans are just getting wise to how much money there is to be made in the Indian film industries.

*Thanks for the tip, Jas!

sure she can nag, but you really do want mom in on the 411

Awhile back, I wrote about my brother's sudden and scary issues with bursting veins.  As he's over the age of 18 and has decided to stay down in Alabama, doctors there don't consult with my mom about what's going on with his care like the ones here did all these years. I'm all for independence, but if your mom is a nurse who in the past has caught healthcare professionals in potential mistakes and alerted them to important factors that laypeople wouldn't know enough about to point out, I'd want that mom in the loop at all times. I'm just saying.

So we got a call on Thursday saying he'd be having surgery on his left leg veins on Friday. That's all the information we got: He was going in at 9 am, and he'd call when it was over. I guess it all happened really fast after the consultation, during which the doctor was like, That vein-popping thing with blood spewing all over the place? Yeah, I can fix that, no problem. So he signed up.

Of course my mother was sick with worry. She's been unfailingly at his side for every little test and procedure for nearly 26 years (with all of us often waiting on him, hand and foot). And even though a kind friend would be there with him and even take my brother to her home after he was discharged, going through surgery really isn't the same without your mom. So this was going to be hard. Especially on my mom. 

To make it worse, while my brother was home in May for his graduation party he had an appointment with a chiropractor about back pain he's had pretty much his whole life. They found that he has scoliosis (possibly aggravated from being sawed open and pinned that way for dozens of hours at a time). They also found some other situation with his left hip. My brother has never had good luck with that left leg; it's the one with the bursty vessels, and the one he has an especially hard time bending over—he can barely put on his left sock/shoe. (But God save you if you ever offer to help him.) We thought it was because they always enter the camera for cardiac catheterization into that big vessel where his leg meets his pelvis and the immobility was probably due to all the scar tissue, but apparently there was also something going on with the bone all this time. 

Initially they thought the head of his femur was too big for the socket, which is why he's had pain walking since he started walking (he says he's never really known any different), but then a CAT scan showed there's actually a tumor there; they weren't sure it was benign, and there was a chance he had bone cancer. Yeah, as if the kid needs any more issues. Those couple of days were kind of crazy. My mom was losing it, and didn't even tell us until she got more concrete information, so she was losing it practically by herself.

But again, because she is a nurse, my mother compartmentalized her breakdown to find out if results only came back like that because of his pre-existing condition. After the doctor took a look at his complete medical history, she concluded that it's probably not a malignant tumor after all, and that my brother should just be aware of any pain he feels in that hip when he's not moving it. If that starts, then we have to look at it again.

So that was in May. The surgery last Friday seemed to have gone well. My brother called while he was high as a kite on pain medication and said he told the nurses that he was a pimp, but that no one believed him. Someone called him out on it and he said, "You're right, I'm not a pimp. I don't believe in beating on women and treating them bad." When I asked if he hit on anyone who worked there this time, he said (in what he must have thought was a whisper) "No way! None of these nurses are very good-looking." And as usual, he had no recollection of this the next day. I guess what the surgeons did was tie off one of the leg vessels at the groin and laser some other ones. Hopefully that will stop the random bleeding. My brother has been in a lot of pain (none of the painkillers they gave him have been working; he's got a high tolerance by now) but is at work today. 

I've been calling/texting to check in on him all weekend, and it sounded like things were going all right, except for the pain. But this morning I got a call from my mom that he casually called, asking what he should take because his entire body has broken out in red, itchy hives, a lot like it did after last year's bad surgery recovery when he had a severe drug allergy. After that episode last year he got very sick and it took a very long time for him to get back to normal. Later, they thought he was allergic to the tape they used on his IVs and dressings. So this time they used paper tape, and the result is upsettingly similar. I just hope it doesn't get as bad. 

Of course, when I call to check on him he says everything is fine and that he's at the office. Stubborn kid. But I am happy to know that even though she worries, he's smart enough to tell my mom what's going on. She's been ready to get on a plane within the hour all week, but my brother has another proposition:

"Mom, what will you do if you come down here? You'll just be hanging out at my house while I'm at work. Why don't you do this: If the Cubs make it to the World Series, you can fly me back home for a game."

at least the dark knight has a sense of humor

Last night, H and I went to see The Dark Knight, which we'd been trying to get tickets for since the movie opened last Thursday. H grew up reading the comics and was trying his best to deflect any hype before he saw it, which was becoming increasingly hard because record–ticket sales stories are all over the news. But he managed, and really enjoyed the film. (If you're sensitive to that kind of hype, consider not reading the rest of this post, even though I don't really give anything away.)

As for me, I spent the movie cowering. Heath Ledger gave a fantastic performance, and leaving the theater I was pretty sure I'd be having nightmares of knives, pencils and maniacal makeup. There are some days when I'm easily scared and freak out when I see something violent (Pan's Labryinth) and other days when I turn to people around me and mock them for acting just the same way (The Ring). This was one of those scaredy times: I had my jacket over my arms and would hold it up to the bridge of my nose or higher whenever a villain had someone by the throat. This Joker is much more terrifying than anything I'd seen on the Adam West television program. And I was pretty sure he wouldn't be challenging Batman to any surfing contests.

Scary stuff aside, what I enjoyed about the movie above all else was the location. Months ago I spotted a lot of the shooting, including Lower Wacker , the old post office (on which H saw the sign GOTHAM CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT while he was on the Architectural River Tour, Franklin Street (near my old office, where they shot the Lamborghini scene), Marina City (where my boss lives), the Chicago Board of Trade building, which I walked past every day on the way to the train station (and saw several key shots in the movie, including one with dozens of bagpipers) and most of all, the ramp to Lake Shore Drive—where Batman had a very contemplative moment—which is practically outside our front door. 

Recently, a coworker told me that H looks like Christian Bale, something about the facial bone structure, etc. I brushed that off, because H just looks like H to me. He didn't see the resemblance, either. However, while we were watching the movie I sort of saw where she's coming from: there's a hint of the same longish face, the ridge of the eyebrow and the sharp cheekbones. And I can admit that the slope of the shoulders is pretty similar, too. So when we got home I was giving him crap about it. "Hey Batman, can  you do the dishes?"

His response? "What? No way. That's Robin's job."

i'm pretty sure he's messing with me, because if not, my brain will implode

"Yeah, I don't think I'll be coming over Friday night."

"Why? Are you going straight home to suburbia?"

"My flight gets in at 4:00 and Dad gets off at 4:30. He's coming to pick me up."

"You realize that Dad works in the far northwest suburbs and it will be like 6:30 before he gets anywhere near picking you up at that time of day, right? You should just take the blue line from O'Hare downtown and have dinner with me and H. It's not like you're going to have any luggage; you're just coming home to drive your car back to Alabama, right?"

"True, but I might have to check a bag."

"Why? You won't even be in town for 24 hours!"

"I'll be carrying liquids—shampoo and stuff."

"Okay. Let me get this straight, you're coming HOME for LESS THAN A DAY and you need to bring SHAMPOO? You're coming HOME! Not some cheap motel with no complimentary cleansing products! HOME!"

"I need it."

"Can't you just put some into a smaller less-than-3-ounce bottle and carry it on?"

"I don't have a little bottle."

"Can't you GET ONE?!"

"No."

"Okay,  you know what? Just sit at the airport and wait for Dad. You could be enjoying dinner and perhaps the new Batman movie with us, but whatever."

"I did want to see that movie... Let me get back to you. I might come downtown after all."

on a first date, it's probably not a good idea to say you get relationship advice from your sister

"Hey, I have a question. It's a girl question"

"Yes?"

"So I've been talking to this girl for awhile and we both like soccer. A few days back I had said we should catch a game sometime, and today she emails me to ask if I'm watching the Portugal vs. Germany* match. "

"And?"

"I said yeah, but I didn't know where and she said we should watch it at the bar for lunch, since she has to study all day. Is this a date?"

"You were there, what do you think?"

"I didn't think so, but Mark said 'Dude, you're going on a date!' So now I'm nervous."

"Well, you suggested hanging out for a game sometime and then she offered up a specific date and time. I'd say it's a date."

"Crap! So do I offer to pay or will that be weird?"

"Hang on, let me take a poll...My consultants say that you should offer, date or not. Why don't you just say 'I got this' when the check comes. It'll be casual, but nice."

"But what if the server asks at the beginning if it's one check or two?"

"Geez Louise, why are you THINKING SO MUCH? Just say one. You're going to screw it up if you overthink it. When is this non-date date, anyway?"

"I'm driving there now."

"Hang up with me and focus on driving!"

"Okay...So do you think I should pull her chair out for her?"

"Good Lord! I don't know about all that Southern Gentleman stuff. Guys don't really do that up here. I say don't. Keep it casual. Dude, it's not like you haven't been on a date in a decade or something."

"Well, it's been four years."

"You'll be fine. Let me know how it goes."

"Okay. Thanks."

[five minutes later]

"Oh man, I just screwed it all up."

"Why are you calling me? Aren't you supposed to be on your date?"

"Yeah, I got here and I wanted to send you a text asking if I should get a table or wait for her, and instead of you, I ACCIDENTALLY SENT IT TO HER."

"That's it. You are now banished to the Friend Zone. Maybe now you can actually enjoy the game?"

"Oh my god, are you serious? Now what do I do?!?"

"RELAX! And be yourself. But I'm warning you: if you call me from your date again, I'm going to tell Mom."

*Obviously I wrote this a while back and didn't have time to post. The non-date–date went well, he paid, she said she'd pay next time. I think they're still cool; I haven't heard any updates.

streamlining

As you may know, my condo is on the market. And while it's not exactly going excellently (still isn't sold), we've had pretty steady potential-buyer traffic and a few offers, ridiculous as they were (If a buyer can only afford to pay 93% of his/her cash offer up front and promises the last 7% in five years, why the hell wouldn't s/he try to buy a home that's the 7% cheaper outright instead of toying with us?). We love the place; it's small but cute, and located in the juiciest, most touristy section of downtown Chicago. It also happens to be across the river from my former employer. The reason we're selling is because it is no longer affordable—three layoffs between the two of us, working part-time, taking a less-lucrative chance on a startup that will hopefully pay better later, the craptastic job market, the even more craptastic housing market and starting over across the country has put a pretty ginormous crack in the old nest egg. And from what my realtor says, the reason it's having any trouble selling is because people could get more space for the same price if they're willing to travel about 2 miles out of the way. So much for that awesome return I was expecting on the prime location.

So we're biding our time. And streamlining. Cutting nonessential expenses, being extremely choosy about attending events and cooking every meal at home. It's going pretty well, but tricky when you don't have an extravagant lifestyle to trim from and are fussy with your spending habits to start with. Of course I'm sweating over it—worrying is my favorite pastime, after all—and obsessing about streamlining takes up all hours not spent concentrating on work or watching several episodes of The Office in a row (Thanks, Apple, for making Netflix's View Instantly unlimited). 

This streamlining business has spilled over to all other aspects of life: cleaning out the pantry, tearing out what's interesting and recycling old magazines, storing work files in a more efficient way and reorganizing email labels in my five accounts. That last one includes all the posts I had up before Blogger labeled posts/comments emails with the post title, so I have hundreds of them personally tagged with titles. Getting rid of them one by one is making my head spin, but it takes my mind off the worry. In the process, I get to look back over all the stuff I wrote back when my life was so completely different, consisting of searching for parking (don't even have my car anymore), commuting three hours a day (now it's a 15-minute walk), talking on the phone with H (now he's usually in the same room) and not having a social life (well, not everything has changed very much).

Looking back at two tons of comments over the years is a reminder of  how supportive you guys are and that you always give great advice. Got any tips for streamlining/putting my mind at ease? I found a gray hair last week, and I could really do without finding any more.

Somebody let the Auntie Patrol into Ogilvy & Mather

Check out this commercial*, Kabhi Kabhi Pyar Mein, for Pond's "whitening" cream featuring Indian actors Priyanka Chopra, Saif Ali Khan and Neha Dhupia. It's the first of a several-part "novella." Here is the entire commercial series (as configured for another region in Asia).

I remember Aunties suggesting we use Fair and Lovely "fairness" cream in junior high so we wouldn't get "too dark" from hanging out in the pool. That stuff is just jasmine-scented sunscreen/moisturizer, but I bought into the hype back then. I feel lame about being shamed into using it. 

Sadly, this prejudice is still going so strong that they have entire soap opera about how much harder life is for the "darker" girl and how unfair it is. My mom watches it. While it's good that people in India are being shown how backwards and archaic these stereotypes are in mainstream soaps, it's sad that this kind of stuff is taking place in present tense.

*via the comments to a post about something even more ridiculous on sepiamutiny.com.

nothing says "Good Luck" like Underoos

As you may recall, a month ago my brother came home for a visit. He's decided to stay in Alabama, and he started his first *real* job last week. (Kiss those long school holidays goodbye, kid!)

While he was in town, my parents threw him a graduation dinner at a local pizza joint. To be perfectly honest, I think it was more of a party for them; the guest list was severely tipped in their favor. However, my brother got to choose the invitations, which he picked up at the party outlet store, that read COME TO MY LINGERIE PARTY!

I didn't make that up.

We had about 50 people on the list, most of whom are colleagues and friends of our parents (and some of whom are on the Auntie Patrol) and they each received a hand-written pink invite in the shape of a lacy camisole. My brother is the only person I know in real life who can get away with shenanigans like that. He will shrug his shoulders, smirk and hand you a card that says HAPPY BAR MITZVAH for your birthday or one with LA ABUELA MÁS FABULOSA on Father's Day. Somehow it works for him; people find it absolutely hilarious. I couldn't get away with it. I guess that charm gene must have skipped over me and given him a double dose.

So what did the guests do when they got those invites besides laugh? Poetic justice: They brought him skivvies.

There were Jockey shorts, lacy panties and even a sparkly thong with rhinestones that spelled out "Fabulous." And my mom's friend made a delicious half-chocolate/half–vanilla-and-strawberry cake in the shape of a bra and panties in my brother's school colors. But the best gift of all was from his long-time nurse, who has seen him through various surgery recoveries since he was in junior high. She made a long trip to be there and brought her four-year-old son. And she presented the new grad with a tiny pair of Underoos and a card estimating they're probably pretty close to my brother's size with a post script apologizing because they are used.

My mom gave a sweet speech in which she named nearly everyone in the room individually and thanked them for being there for us all these years: canceling work meetings to come and donate blood for my brother's surgeries, bringing food and hugs and prayers to the hospital, picking up slack for her so she could stay with him in the hospital for weeks at a time and letting her cry on their shoulders. She had nearly everyone in the room wiping their eyes.

It was a lovely party. We all felt pretty proud of the kid and I think all the guests had a good chuckle watching him open package after package of ridiculous underwear. But don't feel too bad for the little brat—along with all the undies, he got a fancy used car from my parents.

catching up with cadiz: wrigley field

For those of you wondering where the heck I've been, I apologize. Things have been mighty busy, and there have been dozens of posts that have been drafted and dumped because they didn't get posted in a timely manner. Here is one I thought I could salvage, even though I don't remember a lot of the details now. More posts to come, hopefully soon.

When my brother was in town (at the end of May, which feels like a million years ago), H and I took him and his roommate, Mark, to Wrigley Field for a tour.

The marquee (I remember it best from that flashback in Sleepless in Seattle).

The view from Waveland, near where everyone stands around in hopes of catching a ball.

The Chicago Bears played at Wrigley until 1970 and it's been used for soccer (Chicago Sting), concerts and they even had a ski-jump competition.

Originally it housed 14,000 fans and now can seat up to 41,000. We were a little mesmerized about how weird it looked all empty like this.

The place was the first to have an organ (the original is now in the Hall of Fame).

It's also the first baseball field where they allowed fans to keep foul balls as souvenirs.

No one has ever hit the scoreboard--with a baseball. Sam Snead hit it with a golf ball, teeing off from home plate.

If you look closely, home plate and the pitcher's mound don't line up with the "400" sign in center field. When they wanted to add seats, they cut left field and rolled it all back. The pitcher's mound now is where home plate used to be.

AC006299: "After Championship, it's been zero years since their last division championship, it's been 62 years since they won the pennant and it's been 99 years since they last won the World Series. The latin roughly translates to "Let's go Cubs."

People hang out on rooftops during games, too. Sometimes they light up that spinning Harry Caray wheel.

We got to sit in the pressbox. It's a real nice view.

Radio booth, where they might possibly sing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" during the seventh-inning stretch. Or not. I don't remember.

We got to go into the locker rooms. This one's for visitors.

This is how you're supposed to wear the uniform.

Don't forget your bats, either.

Professional athletes need a LOT of products to look good on the field. And this was the visiting bathroom.

Squint and you'll see a wedding party. Apparently people like to have their photos taken at Wrigley. (Sounds like something my brother would want).

We went on the tour right before the Dodgers/Cubs series at the end of May, and we went to a couple of games. H got a bunch of shots of himself with this dodgers round identifier thingy. It's huge; this photo is from the pressbox. (And I've been informed that it's called the "on-deck circle.")

When we were at the game the next day, these cute old guys would entertain the crowd with their impromptu band.

H caught Derrek Lee's home run. (In fact, he took most of these photos--the good ones, at least.)

Personally, I go to ballgames for the hot dogs and beer. And the peoplewatching.

The Dodgers didn't fare too well in that series. They got swept, and Murphy's Bleachers rubbed it in. Sorry, H. But at least they made a grammatical mistake in their rush to gloat.

The famous ivy.

3!

Part of dinner the other night.

It's amazing that even after three years of talking for hours on the phone (and now in person) every single day, we still haven't run out of stuff to say.

speaking of gangsters

They're filming Public Enemies just outside our office. Those poor production assistants have been working overtime in the heat changing street and window signs and there are dozens of old-school cars lining the streets. Johnny Depp will be playing John Dillinger.

Here's the only wimpy photo I could get on Monday with my camera as I crossed the street trying not to look starstruck. Coincidentally that was Johnny's birthday (some people had signs).

On the left under the trees you can see a bunch of sweaty extras in heavy coats and fedoras sweating away in the heat.

But people.com had a way better shot of the shoot, including the man himself:

photo by Charles Sykes, Rex USA via people.com

Fake gangsters seem to plague my working life.

office supply closet

At my old office in the River North neighborhood of downtown Chicago, we were near a lot of interesting things: a Brown-line El stop, Brett's Kitchen, Batman, The Onion, lots of art galleries and a Starbucks where people often got pickpocketed.

The River North area is known for its interior design outlets, cathedrals and has the most galleries in the U.S. outside of Manhattan. Back in the day it had a lot of warehouses, too, and you can see the evidence in the exposed bricks and beams featured in a lot of the galleries and office buildings in the area. If you're real lucky, your office will come with a built-in man-size safe.

This is in a hallway of our old office between the two larger rooms of desks.

Nobody knew why there was a safe built into the wall. We wondered what the heck it could have been used for, especially because the combination lock wasn't particularly effective.

There isn't much room inside, either.

While we were still working there, we decided (based on no historical knowledge whatsoever) that gangsters used that safe to hide ungodly amounts of cash, guns or booze during Prohibition. Or bodies. It's over the top, I know, but any sort of intrigue makes sitting at a desk job seem a little more sexy.

Nowadays the "sexy" in our new office comes in the form of some muffled samba coming up through the floor. You've gotta take what you can get.

what?

Even if you're not a Lost fan, there's something really entertaining about one word repeated over and over.

And if you are a Lost fan, you'll probably appreciate this.

Actual posting coming soon.

come and knock on our door

This weekend, my brother's roommate, Mark (the Wafflehouse Skanks' drummer) will be in for a visit. He's never been to Chicago, so he and my brother are going to crash at our place for a couple days and check out the city. It'll be a Wrigley weekend: a tour of the Friendly Confines on Saturday and two Cubs/Dodger series games on Monday and Tuesday. That means a lot of hot dogs and stadium beer for me. Plus I'm having the (in-state) high school crowd over on Sunday. That's a lot of people for a 685-square-foot place, but I'm sure it'll be a lot of fun.

I'd much rather have my home packed with loved ones than what's been going on—not that I have any problems with people coming to see the place—the more prospective buyers, the better! But H told me that yesterday after a showing when he got back into our unit, it looked as though someone had been sitting on our bed. For some reason that really creeped me out. Strangers walking around and touching our things, sitting on the couch where I fall asleep every night at 10 pm, fondling my pillow, opening my fridge and seeing my stockpiles of string cheese. It's a little too much to think about. 

So instead I'll focus on what to recommend Mark sees while he's here. Any suggestions?

can't never catch up

Last week I admitted on twitter that I was having a Jessie Spano "I'm so excited" moment, and some of you expressed your concern (Thanks for the "no hope with dope" reminder, Omar).

It's not that things are bad, or even really terribly hectic, but for some reason, I feel like I'm behind, like there are eleventeen hundred things that would better serve me to do than sitting around watching last season's So You Think You Can Dance all in one long Cat-Deely-narrated marathon. Yet there was nothing I could do to remove myself from its tractor beam.

Or maybe it's the waiting. Patiently anticipating has never been my strong suit; I always feel more productive walking twenty blocks than waiting twenty minutes for the bus, even though it takes a lot longer. The waiting—for things we've worked for to fall into place so I can finally relax—is killing me. So much so that the acid reflux/ulcer/monster in my stomach is coming back. I really hope I don't have to sleep sitting up again.

So in relaxation exercise, I share some of these shots of my trip to my brother's graduation:

I don't know too many people who can say they've been on a Jumbo Tron.

Mobile Bay, just behind the restaurant we went to for a celebratory dinner after the ceremony. There was a dock back there from which people were giving pontoon and airboat rides. We had to wait about two and a half hours for a table, and I was mighty tempted to hop on one and search for alligators.

*

But it was worth the wait: This was the view from our table. That was also where I tried alligator (small bites and a nice spicy sauce). It also had some killer Key Lime Pie.

Driving 14 hours in a Chrysler Sebring (the backseat is like a vortex—so close to the ground that adults can barely see out the windows) with my parents and H wasn't nearly as bad as it could be. Even though we were stuck on a bridge the bayou for three hours in the dark with hundreds of other cars because of a fatal accident, with no idea when we'd be able to see the inside of a bathroom. I had the through-the-night driving shift both on the way there and back, and couldn't help myself but cheer as we passed through a little town in Kentucky:

H was awake on the way back so I pulled over and made him take some pictures. I was in some of them, but after six hours of middle-of-the-night driving (on top of the three-hour bayou delay) I was looking disheveled at the very best and probably a lot more like a psychotic demon because of the way my hair got so very frizzy and frazzled down there in the humidity. So I'll spare you that nightmarish image. I'm dying to know how they pronounce it down there, but I'm pretty sure I'd have some shoes thrown at me if I tried to stop and find out at 3 am.

***UPDATE***

Sorry it's not more exciting. No actual woodmen were spotted, however there was a lovely (retention) pond by the side of the turn off.

* All photos were taken by H, except for the one of the airboat, which was courtesy of Cadiz.

the things we give up for love

"Did you see that girl we just passed? I really liked her dress."

"Eh, it was okay. But did you see how much makeup she had on?"

"I thought she looked nice!"

"Maybe from far away, but as she got closer you could see it was really caked on. Gross."

"You're totally the reason I don't wear makeup. Not because I'm lazy or anything."

"I never said Don't wear it. I just don't like when you leave that menthol or minty or whatever-it-is stuff on my Gatorade bottle."

"I stopped wearing that Burt's Bees stuff because you said that."

"We all make sacrifices. Like when I started dating you, I had to come to terms with saying goodbye to my liver-flavored chapstick."

"I appreciate that. You're a pal."

you'll never get those 3 hours back, but you won't get another shot, either

On Saturday we watched as my brother graduated from college.

A few months ago, he told us that he didn't want to walk in the ceremony, that it wasn't a big deal and it's not like he'll get anything other than the empty certificate holder anyway. Plus, it'd be an all-school graduation and likely last several hours. After a lot of persuading, I convinced him to suck it up and get fitted for that cap and gown because my parents deserved to see him up there. And though he grumbled the entire way and took his cap off as soon as he sat back down, he went through with it. 

We made the drive and got dressed up and filed into the auditorium. Most people sitting around us were leafing through the pamphlets and chattering (however there was an extremely frazzled mom with no grasp on her loud children, who rested their feet on our shoulders, drowned out the speakers and repeatedly hurled shredded programs at H's head). I was looking around at everything from the jumbotron to the blond-wood bass in the band and suddenly I was crying. 

I don't know what prompted it. I wasn't thinking about anything in particular, but the tears kept rolling and I couldn't do anything to stop them. All these years of my brother struggling just to make it through another day, let alone the rigors of earning a diploma—it really is quite an accomplishment. And it definitely wasn't easy. Several semesters were missed for surgery, recovery and complications, and dozens of credit units didn't transfer from school to school. A lesser man might have called it quits a long time ago. 

I looked over at my mom, who was in the same state. All she could do was smile through her tears. Later she said she had been picturing that first surgery, when my brother's tiny three-month-old body was covered in tubes and encased in an incubator, and how she hadn't known then if she should even hope to see this day. I held her hand; that's all I've ever really had to offer.
 

Five years ago, my then-boss' sister (who also worked at our company) had been diagnosed with lung cancer, despite never having smoked a cigarette in her life. The sister was one of those people who make your day better just by the way they say hello. My boss was just as wonderful: She was fair and kind and considerate and kicked ass at her job. And we worked hard because we didn't want to let her down. I loved that boss. She taught me so much, not just about our craft, but about what it really means to supervise people so they can grow. She gave me the feedback that pushed me toward a job I had hoped to snag someday but worried I wasn't good enough for. And she was a genuinely awesome person.

I knew my boss was having a really tough time seeing her sister in so much pain. And while there's not a lot that you can say to comfort people at times like that, I know a little about how it is. My boss said that hearing about my brother made her feel a little better—especially when I told her that the doctors had said we'd be lucky if he made it to age 20 and that we had just toasted his 21st birthday.

Unfortunately, my boss' sister didn't make it. Even more tragic, my boss herself was diagnosed with cancer last year. When I found out, I got her a card that just said "Shit." (She got a kick out of that.) When I was putting it into our office's Outgoing Mail pile, a senior person picked it up and approached me kind of menacingly. I thought I violated some policy about sending personal mail from the office, but it turned out that he was my boss' brother-in-law. He offered to hand-deliver the card because she'd been coming to his house to recover after every round of chemo.

Even though she had been doing really well, things took a turn for the worst and my boss passed away early Sunday morning, as we were getting done celebrating brother's graduation in Alabama. Losing her has hit everyone hard: I've gotten calls from people I haven't seen in years, and I will probably see more at the memorial on Thursday. It's terrible that it'll take a death to bring us all back together again. But it is a testament to how much this woman is loved and how I didn't have to go far before I bumped into someone else who is blessed to have known her. 

If I had gotten to see my boss before she died, I would have told her that not only did my brother finally graduate after seven years, but he'll be turning 26 in September and continues to raise hell every single day. I think it would have made her happy to hear. 

It pays to celebrate what you've got, while you still have it.

Leave it to the skanks

I have just been informed that one of the Wafflehouse Skanks has broken Rock Band. Granted, the way it was presented to me was with the phraseology "something shorted in the drums; we didn't do it on purpose" but I recognize that sentence for the flimsy coverup for alcohol-laden gaming that it is. 

I am upset. I was really looking forward to taking a crack at it because a) I've never played Rock Band b) I've never played w/ more than one other person c) I'd do WAY better at the singing than playing any instrument and d) Playing video games with my brother is really fun. 

I probably can still try out the other instruments and sing, but it just won't be the same without the drums. 

Maybe I can convince H to let us bring the extra guitar and Guitar Hero so any hard-core Cadiz rocking out will not be impeded in Alabama.

Stupid skanks.

p.s. When I googled "Wafflehouse Skanks" to get the link to my earlier post, it wasn't even the first one that came up! This blog came up third, and it wasn't even the band post that it linked to, but one about the people our office shares a building with. The first two links are to how Kid Rock got into trouble with the law at a Waffle House, and apparently there were skanks present. Who would have guessed?