and there's nothing you can do about it

Last Friday, my coworker was driving along with her two kids in the car, minding her own business. She was crossing the intersection on a green light as one is supposed to do, when a vehicle to her right decided to just jump on into the intersection. Apparently that driver didn't happen to see the HUGE WHITE TRUCK my friend was driving and slammed into the passenger side, where her son was sitting. Everyone was fine, save for the possible broken ankle of the son and the seatbelt marks on everyone, but the huge white truck was completely totaled.

That same day, another coworker of ours was in a five-car pileup. Hers was the first car stopped at a light. The fifth car was driven by an elderly man, who plowed into the fourth car hard enough to cause a chain reaction all the way to the front.

Both of these coworkers were obeying the laws, keeping within their limits and these boneheads just hauled off and caused terrible accidents. You can be the most perfect driver on the road, and if you happen to cross paths with some idiot, you could be seriously injured. The reminders that these things are possible at any time with no warning makes my brain hurt.

I know, cocooning yourself in the safety of your home is no way to live. But it's easy to forget that the world is a dangerous place.

this coming from the boy who changes clothes like three times a day

"There's a store in L.A. that sells almost all the Jordans. Even the really old ones."

"Are you serious? Why out there? Why not in Chicago?"

"I guess it's more of an L.A. kind of thing, I don't know. They have other shoes, too."

"You had so many of those ridiculous shoes when you were a kid."

"Yeah, I had the [insert unsure rumination about which Air Jordan models he may have had over the years]. This place has the MJ 3s, but not in my size."

"Wait, didn't those come out in the early nineties?!"

"Uh huh. Some of the ones they have listed have notes like 'the plastic has yellowed.' "

"Wait, so YOU would be willing to wear USED GYM SHOES?!?"

"Cadiz, we're talking about MICHAEL JORDANS. Of course."

"I'm not going to even ask what they cost."

move over snuggie?

Apparently this Norwegian onepiece sweatsuit is all the rage. I rather enjoyed the "extreme sleepover" promo photos at cushzilla.com. (Via www.gofugyourself.celebuzz.com). I would totally show you some of the pics, but I can't' figure out how.

In other news, we downloaded the Netflix Streaming to the actual Wii so now I won't have any way of knowing when that someone has been playing Guitar Hero instead of going to sleep early anymore because I'll never have to change the disc.

My apologies for this lackluster post. But it'll seem better if you check out those ridiculous photos on cushzilla.com.

take a little time today to make a turkey out of your handprint

On the way home from work, NPR had some Canadian radio program on* with Lynda Barry who has written a book about drawing, and how everyone does/can do it but somewhere around age nine people become aware that others can judge them on it and that's when they start nonsense like "I can't draw." She described putting pen to paper or other actions you can do (I'd like to consider knitting or even dancing work the same way) give you a little boost that few other things do. Examples: doodling during a boring meeting makes it go just a teensy bit faster, and smiling after creating a turkey out of the outline of your hand works at any age. It was pretty interesting.

It got me thinking about this past weekend, when my mom and I volunteered at a fun fair of sorts for breast cancer patients/survivors. My mom has been working at this event for years, long before it pertained to her personally, but it was my first time being there. They had booths of all kinds and massages and paraffin hand wax treatments. Mom signed me up to help at the Henna/Mehndi table, and a beautician and I gave the attendees temporary henna tattoos. We worked nonstop from 9a to 3p! It was a big hit, and I think it brought a smile to a lot of people there. They so totally deserve to be pampered. Which made it totally worth the effort.

And on top of it, there was the personal joy I got from doodling. What Barry was saying on the radio really rings true for me. Drawing and painting introduced me to the wild concept of staying up all night. I couldn't get enough, and had an art class nearly every semester in high school. I was almost talked into going to The Art Institute in Chicago instead of University before my parents flipped out over the possibility of my being a "starving artist." I tried to get into classes in college, but if you weren't a declared Fine Art Major, you basically had to fight to the death for a spot/be randomly selected and that only worked once. Of course, just as I was about to graduate college, my mom was like "You know what you should do? Graphic Design! That's not starving artist, that uses COMPUTERS!"

ANYway, there is so little room in my life for that kind stuff anymore. And I miss it more than I realized. We were so busy, I hardly took any pictures of the mehndi event, but here is a rudimentary version of one of my most popular designs that day (I was just starting to get a feel for the cone at this point, which is why it looks so globby).

Trust me, these were better as the day progressed. THERE! I just reacted to the thing Lynda Barry was saying, by worrying you guys would be all judgy judgerson about the quality of my Mehndi work! She's really onto something there.

*The program is called Q and here is a link to the November 4 podcast. Lynda's segment starts at Minute 32, right after the interview with Bryan Adams, and it is about 20 minutes long. The part at the end about the amputee's phantom limb was REALLY interesting.

nightmare: the only guaranteed way to get me out of bed in the morning

I had a horrible nightmare this morning. I spent 20 minutes here describing it in detail, but I've deleted that to spare you further opportunity to think I'm a freak. So I'll gloss over the gory parts and say I dreamed about two unknown people coming into my place of business for a shooting spree, cornering me and threatening to shoot in several places (including under my chin) and then being distracted by a very unfortunate nurse. She was eventually dispatched, and what woke me up was seeing/feeling her demise.

Very upsetting, I know. And of course I couldn't go back to sleep, so I hopped on the computer to figure out what it means. Here is what www.swoon.com had to say:

Killing: To dream of being a witness to a killing portends a change that will not be entirely to your liking. 

Guns: Whether you saw it, heard it or used it, any type of gun featured in your dream forecasts an injustice, either to you or to someone in your close circle, that you will have to fight hard to overcome.

Blood: Be prepared for a period of hard work against hostile forces if you saw blood in your dream.

Death: To dream of a death often signifies news of a birth.

Fear: As a general guide: If you conquered the cause of your dreamed fear and/or the sensation disappeared during the dream, the forecast is that you will overcome your difficulties; however, if the feeling persisted and/or the cause was indefinable, you should expect to have to cope with problems arising from the deceit or dishonesty of someone you trusted.

Threat: You are being strongly warned against gambling or speculation if your dream featured any form of threat or threatening atmosphere.

I haven't had one of these types of scary dreams in a long time. I think I'm good for a long while.

yesterday was my work friend's 30th bday

And now I can add balloon-animal artist to my resume.

hey, at least i've saved on sick days

Have you noticed that if you get the flu shot, instead of dripping and coughing and puking and feeling like utter garbage for three days but getting over it, you've got prolonged sniffling, clearing of throat and acheyness that drags out over weeks and weeks? As more people get the flu shot every year, I wonder if we'll have hordes of functioning-but-irritated people instead of a good smattering of really sick people who stay home a few days. I'm not sure which is better.

Take me, for instance. I work in a hospital and while I'm not actually administering direct patient care (unless you consider the healing powers of a cheerful smile in the face of serious grumpiness), there are a lot of germs floating around the halls. So I find the flu shot necessary. But I've been feeling generally blah for a few weeks: sniffly, sore-throaty and really really tired. So I take an allergy-fighting med so I can work undisturbed all day, then basically collapse at the end of the night. This is really wreaking havoc on my extra-curricular time. You know, the hours I need to catch up on Spanish/Hindi soap operas and make baby booties.

I guess this is just a rite of passage of winter. But I'm so ready for it to be over. And I could really do without the bloody nose first thing in the morning.

it's the time of the season

I'm coming out of hibernation for NaBloPoMo again, folks. I wish I had great excuses for why I don't post more often, but my free time happens to occur in the morning, which is when I do my very best sleeping. It is what it is.

Anyway, I'm not one to break a 5-year streak, so there will be something up here every day. Here's a little recap of what's been going on the last few months, for those of you playing along at home:

• In June the condo was [insert angels singing here] sold, after 2 years and four months on the market. I don't know how she did it, but even though it almost fell through a couple of times (apparently the renter/owner ratio was hovering at dangerous levels--something the association has now decided to deal with by trying to get people to vote on not allowing anyone else to rent out their units) my realtor made it happen. 
• J got a new job out in suburbia. I work evenings, he works mornings, and though we see each other once a week, at least we're not separated by 30 miles anymore!
• We flew out to Cali and drove his car back (I can sort of drive manual transmission now).
• We're saving for a wedding that may happen sometime in 2011.

And that's about it. A lot of people I know just had/will be having babies, so I've been busy making stuff. I love babies!

Let the monthlong posting begin!

I am here with you, because I've been there

Last week, one of my cousins overseas had a baby. Apparently he was admitted into the ICU shortly after being born and we weren't getting any details. I cannot explain to you the terror my parents and I experienced those few days until we found out it was just an infection and that everything would be fine. The parents and the grandparents of this baby now have a minuscule glimpse at what that terror is. As much as they love us, that part of the family has never really been involved, so they have no idea what my parents went through all these years with literally no family around.

I pray they never have to find out.

***

This week, I had an 11-year-old patient whose paperwork said "status-post Fontan surgery." And suddenly the words became blurry. Fontan is not a word I see every day, and it took me by surprise, right back to those days of not knowing what was happening or what would happen, or if I'd ever get to see my brother again. I can't help but cry.

I don't have any idea how she found out, but my mom got wind of this patient and happened to bump into the kid's mother in the hall. Seventeen years ago, our family was in a similar situation. The other mother's first question? "Please tell me your son is 40!" After scolding the woman for thinking she was old enough to have a forty-year-old son, my mom told her all about my gem of a brother. Soon, they were both crying together. 

***

Yesterday, a friend from high school emailed me about a 19-month-old she knows who has been battling a heart condition since before even coming out into the world. And they have another (healthy) baby on the way. I am definitely sending love to her family, because I know it's not going to be easy, even though I really really hope that it will.

***

Basically, my heart breaks every time I think about how much my brother has suffered. And while it's such a miracle that he's 28, a college graduate who went away to school, has a real job that takes him all over the country and handles his business every single day--never once using his situation to make excuses, he will never be free from the medicine and the checkups and the memories. It's almost too much for me to even think about, let alone imagine. And I will never be free from my own set of memories. It kills me that there are other kids and other families out there that have to go through it too. All I can do is pray for them and hope that they will surround their kids with as much love as we have been lucky to have.

28 years, six days

My brother and I are opposites in pretty much every way. I tend to walk into a room of people I like with an exclamation announcing my arrival. When I get excited, I speak faster and louder. And I remember my mother telling me when I was a kid that "there's no need to show EVERY SINGLE ONE of your teeth when you smile." But I can't help it.

The kid, however, is slow to smile--he's got this thing my dad does where they aren't smiling but you know they really are because the dimple on the side of their chins turns into a wink (it's also the tipoff when my brother's lying). He enters a room quietly, observing what's going on. And usually everyone else in the room exclaims when they see it's him.

So even though I knew he was probably coming, it was still a nice surprise when he stopped by my office yesterday to say hello. Sadly, he's downtown this weekend and booked up nearly every second, so those few minutes are pretty much all I'll get to see him until he comes to town again. I didn't really even get to wish him a happy birthday.

I love you, bro. Don't make me have to get pregnant to get you to move home.

why I should write more stuff down

"So did we discuss everything that we were supposed to as we made this long drive and actually had time together?"

"I don't know, had you made a list?"

"In my mind. But as you know, that's sort of unreliable."

"I have always found your mind to be completely illegible. I've never been able to read it."

-- Posted From My iPhone--everybody needs an editor.

road trip!

Very shortly, Jon and I will be driving his little red car from my future in-laws' house in California to Illinois. By the end of the trip, I hope to be confident driving a manual transmission vehicle outside of a high school parking lot. And have a lot of random postcards.

Any suggestions on places to stop?


-- Posted From My iPhone--everybody needs an editor.

in the future i'll rephrase when asking for "a little bite" of his lunch

"Ugh. I don't know in what universe I thought I could have completed this thing by today. I've been working on this for two hours now and only finished like five inches."

"Sadly, this is a common problem. You always seem to bite off more than you can chew with these types of projects."

"C'mon, you know me. I bite off more than I can chew with EVERYTHING I do. But then I somehow manage to chew it all."

"I know. I've seen you eat sandwiches."

birthday

After that last post, particularly the "this is a Cadiz post, of course" bit, I decided to take the advice of some of you to revamp my attitude.  Some of you remember the failed "no complaining" experiment of 2006. But today is a day of birth and rebirth, so we're going to give it a go. This year will (hopefully) be about focusing on the positive.

I am so thankful for all the love and support in my life. And, as always, it's always the little things that say the most.Yesterday our volunteer, Susan, brought homemade red velvet cupcakes into the office before I clocked in. They nearly disappeared almost as soon as she set them down, so not one but three different people grabbed one and set it aside so I'd be sure to get one when I got there. And that doesn't include the one my mom had.

When people can keep a red velvet cupcake on their desk and refrain from eating it, just for you? Damn, that's love. And don't get me started on my family and friends. You guys are all the best.

the closer we get, the farther apart we are

So Jon and I finally attained our goal of being in the same zip code for what we hope to be a long long long long time. We've been here for almost three months.

HOORAY!

I continue to work evenings--generally 11:30a-8:30p. This will probably go on into the unforeseeable future as my shift is the least desirable/hardest to cover and my counterparts aren't going to be retiring anytime in the next two decades.

Jon got a new job.

HOORAY!

It's no longer in the city (no more getting up at the bootycrack of dawn to get him to the train). It's a not-temp position for a bit more money. He will be out of the house for about the same amount of time but be paid for more of those hours than before! And there's benefits!

HOORAY!

But this is a Cadiz post, so of course there's a downside, right? He starts at 4a, gets home at 2:30p and will be sleeping by the time I get home. I am sleeping when he has to get up. At least when we were in our various forms of longdistance we could talk to each other in real time.

wah, waaaaaaaaaaah.

I know, I know, this is an awesome development. It really is. Did you check out the font sizes on those HOORAYs? There are people with even crazier schedules than ours, some of whom have kids. I'm certain we can make this work, even if it means one or both of us has to take two naps instead of a full night's sleep. And there are always Sunday mornings, which have generally been pretty great.

But I can't help but feel like we're stuck in a Paula Abdul video.

Vrrrrrrrrrrrroooooooooooooooom!

Way back in 2005, I professed on a list of hundred things about myself that I have always wanted to drive a race car at regulation speed. Jon must have been paying attention, because for this past Valentine's Day, I got a certificate to Chicago Indoor Racing, good for lessons and two spins around the track. We redeemed them this weekend with a work friend of mine who purchased the same gift for her fiance's birthday.

Technically, they're very fancy go-karts, but they're low to the ground and go up to 30 mph so it was still totally awesome. Plus it felt much more official wearing jumpsuits and helmets.

This is the starting line. The action shots I got just showed blurs.

I didn't finish nearly as well as I felt I had--something like 9th in the first race on Track 1 and 7th in the second on Track 2 (Jon placed 6th and 4th). Not to make excuses, but general consensus was that the rule-flouting people in our race who had no problem cutting us off and actually hitting people have probably done this before.

I feel like I look like a groupie in this picture. That was not my intention. Maybe next time J will be MY groupie.

Next time we take a spin, I'd like to be in a bigger group of people that we all know. Do I smell bachelor/bachelorette party?

apparently one CAN live without television...sort of

As you've seen before, we've decided to downgrade our television-viewing opportunities (no cable/dish). The only channel we get clearly without acrobatics is Fox. And we always happen to turn it on during shows I don't particularly care for, such as the Family Guy spinoff about Cleveland.

But with my long-held devotion to Netflix and a not-dialup Internet connection--on top of the fact that we're both working so much that we barely have time to sit down on the couch--I don't even miss it.

Isn't that shocking? ME, not miss tv?!? I know.

So I've taken to getting the bulk of my daily television allowance by walking through patient waiting areas (I could dedicate a whole other post to how all the tvs in the various departments tend to be tuned to the same things at the same times: Access Hollywood, Ellen, Dancing with the Stars, The Biggest Loser and local news). And I also watch in the department breakroom.

The tv in the breakroom is hooked into the hospital-wide system, which has sort of an On Demandlike option for movies. So over the last few months I've seen 30-minute snippets of dozens of films that I will inevitably add to my Netflix queue just to see the endings. This is awesome because a) the queue is getting robust again, and b) I can sort of pre-screen the films.

The downside?


The On Demandlike program is completely controlled by the patients. As you can see, if some guy in the room that supplies our tv feed decides he needs to pee during The Blind Side, he can pause it. And I eat my dal and rice, patiently hoping he comes back. The worst is watching them decide. I see them flipping back and forth and back and forth andbackandforthandbackandforth. I usually eat at 4:30, often by myself, and wonder if people can hear me screaming at the television for that patient to just choose "Up" already because time is ticking on my lunch hour.

Why don't I just give up and watch regular tv, with cable? Because even watching some patient play solitaire is more appealing to me than having to sit through commercials.

human conductor

Things are getting somewhat settled--albeit VERY SLOWLY--in the new apartment, but one thing that's hard to get used to is that the only channel we can get in here without some serious acrobatics is Fox* (which wouldn't be so bad if my work schedule didn't overlap with So You Think You Can Dance. Don't tell me what's happening; I'm hoping to catch a marathon of the current season soon).

But the World Cup is An Event, so we pulled out the big guns. Jon had made this very fancy antenna when we were in the condo, and as you can see we are able to get ABC. But only if we hold it juuust so.

Excuse the hair. I didn't want to miss anything by trying to fix it after I jumped out of the shower.

I had to hold the antenna at a different place than Jon did (of course we took turns); who knows what conducting a signal with your torso for a few hours does to your body.

What I lacked in jumping up and down, I made up for in yelling. My dad would have been proud, if he weren't busy jumping up and down and yelling in his own living room.**

The neck pain was totally worth seeing Espana win it all. Sorry, Ale, your guys played a hell of a tournament, but after the U.S. and India, I always root for Spain.





*No cable or dish--we're trying to save for a wedding.
**We were worried about missing something if we drove over to my parents' house to see the extra time.

After 765* days on the market, the condo is sold.

A lot has happened since that post about the fortune cookies. If you don't want to read it all, I will not be offended. Bolded parts will give you the gist.

• We switched realtors. Our old realtor was fancy, but I think too concerned with the million-dollar properties he was dealing with. Our new realtor is my friend from high school named Mala Gandhi with Coldwell Banker who is PHENOMENAL (she deserves her own post). I am kicking myself for not asking her at the outset due to a misconception that she only worked in the suburbia. Seriously, email me if you're selling/buying anywhere in suburbs/Chicago; I will hook you up.

• We got an offer on our first showing with Mala. Unfortunately, the buyer wouldn't budge on his offer and decided to go with one of the 18 foreclosures in the building. :(

• We got an offer on our third showing with Mala. This one really seemed promising. We bargained and came to an agreement. After two years this was actually going to happen! We were excited.

• I visited CC in San Diego. We did so much awesome stuff, including hanging out in Coronado at the hotel where Some Like It Hot was shot, as well as fancy high tea.

• In exchange for the plane tickets, Jon and I shot his friends' wedding in LA, much like we did with that friend's sister at about the same time at the same location last year. We tried very very hard not to repeat stuff from last year, as a lot of the guests were the same, but it was a whole different ballgame.

• We were supposed to close at this point on the condo. But because regulations have gotten so tight on lenders, they perform checks at the beginning of the process as well as at the end. This buyer is very solid; there was no problem with him. However he wants it as an investment to rent out, and for that Fannie Mae requires the building to be at least 51% owner-occupied. At the start of the deal 246 units in our building were owner-occupied. The day before close? 251. And that was enough to derail our sale. I was DEPRESSED, because all around us, units were dropping prices like insects smacked dead against a wall. If this deal didn't happen, we wouldn't be able to compete with those foreclosures and thus would continue giving all our money to the mortgage and not be able to move on with life until this economy turns around. You know, when we're 87.

• One of my BFFs Highcon is a superduper rockstar at his job. In appreciation, his company awarded him an all-expenses paid, four-day trip to The Bahamas. For two. He asked me to come "because I've had a rough couple of years." So--with Jon's blessing--I went. It was awesome; especially swimming with dolphins. Thank heaven for BFFs.

• Basically in the time it took for me to fly home from Nassau, the deal with the same buyer somehow was back on track with a new lender. Closing was set for June 4.

• We lost the money I had hastily put down on an apartment near the train station (so Jon could get to work) before the first closing. But I didn't feel so terrible when he spotted two little squirrel faces poking out of a hole in the roof above our potential unit.

• Mala found us another apartment for a good price. We signed the lease and cleaned the heck out of it. It's not nearly as nice as the condo I was selling, but really, what is?

• Closing was set for 9 a.m. Jon and I stayed up late packing, so when my parents showed up at 5:30 (there has been a LOT of construction and they didn't want to be late) we tried to get them to go out for breakfast so we could sleep a little more. But we were awake already, so we just got going. Over the next 60 hours, we got a total of 6.5 hours' sleep.

• There were several other snags during closing that I don't have the energy to explain, but let's just say we got to know our buyer pretty well as we sat there for four and a half hours before the deal was done. It didn't feel real until I handed him the keys. Nice guy. I hope the renters he gets don't completely destroy the upgrades (esp the beautiful but soft bamboo floor) we worked so hard to make.

• Moving was a NIGHTMARE. Between the lack of sleep and the lack of food (I had an egg sandwich and OJ and Jon had a Jamba Juice, that is all) and the stress of trying to get out of there by the end of the night, it was not our best day, with our next worst day nowhere near close behind. If I had to deal with us that day, we would have been smacked. My brother happened to be in town and saved our butts on more than one occasion.

• Our good friends MFM and A got a babysitter so they could help us move. We thought we'd be in suburbia with a truck full of stuff by 5. They were going to help us try and squeeze the couch and other big furniture into the 1960s elevator. Sadly, at 5 p.m., not even half of our stuff was into the truck back in the city. I called them at about 7 to let them know to eat because we weren't going to make it to the apartment at a decent hour, but forgot to add that they should probably go home. They waited around for us at the mall until 9:45. And that day was their 5th wedding anniversary. We feel terrible about ruining it.

• As the sun came up through the floor-to-ceiling windows we got the last of our stuff out of the condo. It was sad. That place was the last remainder of my old professional life, ten years of slogging crap hours for little pay doing what I enjoyed and hoping it would eventually pay off. All those weekends not going out with my friends, of living with my parents so I could save to buy a place of my own. And it's all vapor, now. I won't even go into the heartbreaking amount of money I lost beyond the fact that it sold for way less than what I paid five years ago, not to mention all the upgrades and the fat chunk of change I had originally saved to put down. Funny, when people in the building asked us why we were moving, somehow "we just can't afford it anymore" didn't seem to be an acceptable answer.

• Moving into the new place was challenging, what with the rain, the faulty security door key (other residents kept kicking out the rock we'd put in the door, which I actually think is a good thing), and the fact that it was Jon and I by ourselves. But it went surprisingly well.

We are so very thankful to my parents, my brother (who spent a good chunk of his visit helping load/unload stuff) and MFM and A. Without them, we would likely STILL be dragging ourselves and our things up and down elevators. And that's only a slight exaggeration.

Everything is still in boxes. I can't keep my autopilot from turning into my parents' driveway. It'll be difficult to go downtown and remember that we no longer live there. This is going to be a big adjustment. But we're looking forward to the future. And we're ready for what comes next.



*Mala was our realtor for only 90 of those 765 days.

the results are in

Remember

when

we

entered

that

Crate&Barrel

Ultimate

Wedding

Contest?



No, unfortunately we did not win.

BUT WE WERE SO VERY CLOSE!

We placed 70th* out of NINE THOUSAND!!!!

That's in the 99th percentile, people.

The president would so totally have given us an award if how much people loved us counted for fitness.

Thank you all again very much for voting for us. We love you.



*We had to have placed 50th or better to have been considered.