Archive for October, 2007

Dashing Through The Snow…On Halloween

October 30, 2007 · Filed under Uncategorized

All the way through high school, there wasn’t a question what I’d be doing on October 31: I’d be pulling some random costume from a Christmas pageant out of the closet at the last minute, jumping in the green pickup with Dad as chauffer, picking up Trish and making the rounds to trick-or-treat all the country folks.

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of trick-or-treating in the country, you’re TOTALLY deprived. These people never see people. And they buy candy like the world’s going to end. So not only would you get a FULL-SIZED snickers, but you’d also get candy corn, a popcorn ball, a caramel apple and probably a $10 bill.

That’s probably why Trish and I just couldn’t give it up. We justified it by saying that the neighbors REALLY enjoyed seeing us in costume every year – so how could we possibly disappoint?

The event was particularly memorable my junior year in high school. Halloween snuck up on us, and I didn’t have a costume. So I raided the closet and found Brother DIY’s reindeer costume from about 4th grade. Mind you, he was about 4’5”, 80 lbs at that time. And I was 5’5” 130. Try that on for size.

The good news was that in addition to the fuzzy brown suit, I found the cardboard antlers he’d worn.

So with T-15 minutes, I jumped in the suit, adjusted my antlers, and ran out the door.

You should know it was snowing, and the power was out. Yes, it was October 31.

Mom snapped a picture of me as I was prancing down the sidewalk, and it’s amazing she managed to get me in the photo, given that it was truly pitch black outside. (Once the photos came back, the flash had reflected off the snowflakes making it look like little white bells were falling all around me.)

I jumped in the green pickup with Dad, who was once again carting us around – good thing, because the snow was pretty nuts.

We chatted up a few neighbors, who were happy to unload their goods (knowing that few people would be coming by), and then we decided to cut it short because of the weather.

Fast forward 10 years…

As you might have previously read, one of my ploys for getting a job in Chicago was to do a powerpoint presentation following my interview – to show that I was indeed the most qualified candidate on earth to work on the John Deere account.

I’m sure the antlers sealed the deal. Click here to view: Love for Deere.

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Being in Love

October 26, 2007 · Filed under The Homefront

In case you hand’t noticed, I am in LOVE with Ree, the Pioneer Woman. It’s really unfortunate that I’m not a lesbian. Otherwise I would tear her away from Marlboro Man and we would have babies.

For those of you who are following the “From Black Heels to Tractor Wheels” romance, Ree was going to move to Chicago, to an apartment on Goethe Street.

When I moved to Chicago, I lived at the corner of Dearborn and Goethe.  Two blocks from Lake Shore Drive.

We were meant to be together.

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Stripping Down The Issue

October 24, 2007 · Filed under Friends and Strangers

In a scientific poll conducted by Galloping, one in four million men claim they won’t visit strip clubs because they’ll get a cold.

Galloping’s lead researcher, Ms. Firewife, decided to conduct an official internet search based on insider information from Nelly’s brother, who reported that several of his friends had come down with the crud after having a stripper’s bosom rubbed on their nose.

Ms. Firewife’s shrewd Google search uncovered a disturbing article on MSNBC, ultimately leading her to launch the full-fledged poll:

TUBERCULOSIS OUTBREAK BLAMED ON STRIPPER 
Dozens treated in St. Maarten after dancer diagnosed with disease

Nelly’s brother declined comment.

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Recognition

October 24, 2007 · Filed under The Homefront

Sunday night, while I was getting my laundry out of the dryer in the basement (because I’ve STILL not called the handyman to give me a plan for the dryer vent), Mom called and left a message.

Apparently a week had gone by since we’d talked. I thought it’d only been an hour or so. (I still keep thinking last month was June.) I figured someone died — that’s the only time she usually calls me. I’m the one who usually does the calling, since it’s more of a sure thing for her to be free when I want to talk than vice versa.

Indeed, someone had died. But that wasn’t the headline — that was just the “what’s going on in the community” news flash.

The big news was that Mom’s entry in the Pioneer Woman’s photo contest got an honorable mention! And considering that there were over 2,500 entries, this is quite a feat.

Her entry was “Turf War.”

Brillant! Hooray, Mom!

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Service Week, Part 2: Thodos Dance Chicago

October 21, 2007 · Filed under Chicago is cool

You might recall that I’ve been involved with Thodos Dance Chicago for the past couple years, most recently working on a branding assignment. I’m really excited about the brand positioning we came up with: Inspiring Expression. And though we haven’t put together Brand Standards, a campaign or anything else yet, they’re really taking our suggestions to heart (see flier for show below).

That project ended a couple months ago, and as of this week, I’m officially a board member. So, last night I attended their Fall Engagement (in an official capacity), and it was excellent. There was an array of different moods, all in perfect form — from dance technique, to choreography, to costumes to lighting. I really enjoyed it. (Never mind that my companion unintentionally let out a very small snore during the second number, which I immediately nipped with an elbow to the ribs.)

Afterwards we went to Lucca’s for the “Gathereen” — drinks, desserts and chat with the other board members, benefactors and dancers.

If you know anyone who wants to give a few million dollars to an up-and-coming dance company, let me know immediately.

Thodos

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Service Week, Part 1: Off The Street Club

October 21, 2007 · Filed under Chicago is cool, Work

Amidst the general craziness of deadlines this week, I spent some of my free time doing community service projects.

Thursday night was our work outing to “Third Thursday” at Off The Street Club. OTSC is an after school program — with a fantastic facility — located in the heart of the hood, abot four miles west of the Loop. The advertising community in Chicago has supported this effort for over 50 years, and at my last job there were a lot of opportunities for involvement.

In 2006, my old agency was tasked with hosting the Holiday Luncheon, which is the club’s major fundraiser (to the tune of around $600K). I was on the committee, and part of my job was to organize the photo shoot for the materials. So we spent a couple days over at the club with a renowned photographer from New York, capturing the kids a la Annie Liebovitz.

I don’t really like being around kids that much, and when it comes to volunteer work, I’ve always said that I don’t do kids, and I don’t do animals. Must stem back to my 4-H agent days, when I got burned out. With kids, I always end up with a cold, and they exhaust me. But these kiddos at OTSC are amazing — so sweet, polite and open. (Never mind that I can’t spell most of their names.)

So this past summer when we were deciding what service project to undertake at work, I suggested that we go to one of their monthly “Third Thursday” events, where community folks go to the club for the evening and play with the kids. The October event was a pumpkin carving party. And though everyone at the agency had the best of intentions to make it, we ended up with a small but mightly delegation of 5.

We set out at 5:15 to head over to the the square across from the Wrigley Building to be picked up by the OTSC buses. As we were waiting, a hail storm came up. And we got drenched running the 150 feet to the nearest building. Four minutes later it was done.

But our spirits weren’t dampened. Michelle and I reminisced about our school days while waiting for the bus to take off:

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Once we got to the club, we were met by a mass of kids giving us hugs. I should mention that the traditional handshake at the club is a hug. So for people with personal space issues — well, this isn’t the place for them.

Two 8th grade girls –Chamika and Julia — latched onto me right away. We spent the first hour in the gym, first tossing a football (yes, I know this is weird), then waiting in line for face painting. Then they discovered that I could do handstands.

It was all over. I created handstand mania. We had people falling on their heads. I ripped my shirt. But they had a blast.

Next it was trivia time. Here’s my pal Chamika.

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After a round of Halloween Q&A, we moved across the street to start our pumpkin carving adventures. They told us not to be too greedy with the knives.

Here’s Angela with her buddy:

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And Beth with hers:

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Erik and his new friend went all out decorating their pumpkin.

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I have to say, we were all dragging by the time we went to the basement for dinner. (It was 8:45.) But we all situated ourselves at one table, ready for the kids to arrive downstairs.

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And yes, service projects are a great place to meet hunky men. Here’s Jeff. We carved our pumpkins next to each other. He’s hot. And none of us single ladies were bold enough to get his e-mail address so that we could “send him the pictures we were taking.” Sigh.

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We feasted on a nutritional dinner of fried chicken, rolls, potato salad, macaroni salad, jelly eyeballs, sugary pumpkin candy, cupcakes and cookies. Accompanied by McDonald’s orange drink.

(That’s Julia at the head of the table — she was my other pal along with Chamika.)

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All in all, though we didn’t get dropped of until after 10, we were really glad we went. The kids are truly amazing. We’re looking forward to attending the holiday luncheon, where we’ll see 10-year-olds do public speaking on par with professionals. You’d be blown away.

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Cleanliness is next to…

October 15, 2007 · Filed under The Homefront

I’ve been giving quite a bit of thought to hiring a cleaning lady. Or man. Really doesn’t matter.

But it does seem like the lazy person’s way out to HIRE someone to clean 742 square feet. Seriously. Next thing you know, I’ll be paying someone to pick my nose. 

Several of my cowokers and clients swear by their cleaning ladies — who even do their laundry. (But I suppose they actually have a washer/dryer in their living space. Um, yeah…I was supposed to do that last spring, wasn’t I?)

Assuming I can track someone down this week, I am indeed going to fork over the dough (and my pride) to a bright shining lady donning rubber gloves.

What’s precipitating this, you ask?

I decided to take my sofa cushion covers to the cleaners. So I figure my place better be spotless (and hairless) by the time they arrive back in my hands on Wednesday.

And why did I take my cushion covers to the cleaners, you ask? Well, it turns out that every guy I date is allergic to cats. So it makes things a bit difficult when you want to invite them over for dinner. They sneeze in the soup. And puff up like my fuzzy cat.

Meow.

Nette

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Mindless Productions

October 14, 2007 · Filed under The Homefront

My Tivo is full. Right now I’m getting caught up on Dancing with the Stars from last week, and I have yet to watch the following:

  • Mad Men (last week’s)
  • Big Shots (two episodes)
  • Top Chef Results Show
  • Dirty Sexy Money (two episodes)
  • Private Practice (two episodes)
  • America’s Next Top Model (two episodes)
  • Oprah (Nate Berkus episode)
  • Desperate Housewives (last week’s)
  • Grey’s Anatomy (from two weeks ago — had to watch this week’s first)
  • Dancing with the Stars Results (last week’s)

The good news is that I can watch an hour-long show in 20 minutes, because I fast forward through all of the commercials and the parts of the storyline that are boring. The bad news is that even if I do this, I will end up in front of the TV all day today. But I guess it IS rainy out, so why not?

Now that we’re entering the fourth week of the TV season, it’s pretty clear which shows are the winners. My favorite: Gossip Girl. Love, love, love this ridiculous teenage drama queen soap. Brothers and Sisters continues to be a great one. And of course Mad Men, to which I’m addicted.

Most disappointing: Big Shots. It had such promise, based soley on Michael Vartan’s presence in it. I thought it would be impossible to mess up.

Average: Grey’s Anatomy. It’s kinda boring this season, but I’ll give them a few more episodes to get back on track, given that they’re trying to develop quite a few brand new story lines.

I’ve only watched the pilot for Dirty Sexy Money, but I have to say it was much more interesting that I thought it would be. This could be the dark horse of the season.

So yesterday I went to the gym for the first time in ages. I happened to hop on a treadmill where the TV was was playing America’s Most Smartest Model, and the show was about 10 minutes from the end. Basically they’ve cast 7 “himbos” and 7 “bimbos” in a show that puts their overall intelligence and beauty to the test. So amid naked photo shots, they have to answer questions posed by Ben Stein.

Seriously, it’s hysterical. Even funnier than Beauty and the Geek — which is pretty darn good.

As the credits rolled, I saw it was created by Mindless Productions. How appropriate.

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Agony of Defeet

October 8, 2007 · Filed under Travel

Greetings, bloglings. Sorry I’ve been out of touch. I just returned from four glorious days in Breckenridge, Colorado — where I only had internet access at 10:42 a.m. each day, when the neighbors decided to log in to their wireless network.

This is the third year for “Girls’ Weekend” in the mountains. My cousins (Bobbi and Brenda) are the instigators of the festivities, and they invite their gal pals from their enclave north of Denver to hang out at “The Homestead” for a few days to get away from the grind.

Homestead

Homestead 2

I enjoyed this year’s trip in particular. We had only 8 girls this time — compared to 20 the first year and 12 last year. I even had my own room.

The Homestead sits at about 9,800 feet, which is pretty darn close to the tree line. So it’s really not surprising that I found myself short of breath while lying in bed — considering that trees can’t even survive much above that altitude (treeline = approximately 11,600 ft).

The first year I didn’t really notice the altitude that much, except that I was always thirsty and my lips were dried up. Last year I felt sluggish the whole time (probably made worse by my snoring roommate). This year I woke up with a headache on the first day, and hikes definitely got my heartrate up, but overall I adjusted pretty well to the difference between 9,800 feet and my normal 586 feet in Chicago.

As a child, the altitude never really bothered me. I could “sleep” all night on the floor of a tour bus going from Kansas to Summit County and be rearing to go for three days of skiing.

Dad and Brother DIY — well, they’re a different story. They’ve puked many a time at the Idaho Springs exit on I-70. I think we’ll have to erect a memorial there.

As we were entering the Eisenhower Tunnel this trip, I was reminded of skiing at Loveland Pass probably 20 years ago. Loveland is one of the highest ski areas, which means it’s cold as hell. And it was over Christmas break, which is traditionally much colder than skiing in March — which I much prefer.  It isn’t a resort I’d normally choose, since it’s realtively small, and did I say cold? But it’s one of the closest to Denver, and we happened to be driving up for the day from Longmont.

That day it was probably 10 degrees, at the very most–and incredibly windy. We could hardly bear it. And poor Dad had a headache by the second run (hard to say which contributed most — the altitude, the temperature, or the fact that he’s allergic to vacations). When Dad gets a headache, he’s usually out for the count.

On this paticular trip, my brother also got altitude sick, and he was miserable in the car for most of the afternoon. He puked in a paper bag and then put it outside the car, where it steamed until it froze.

The day ended pretty early. Besides them being sick, I nearly got frostbite. And never fear, we had to make a stop at the Idaho Springs exit for a big ole ralph fest.

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Term Papers

October 1, 2007 · Filed under The Homefront, Work

It’s midterm at the agency–and I’ve had about four papers due. Of course, that’s what I do for a living, so the routine of outlining something at 11 pm because inspiration has been muffled by reality TV, and then getting up at 6 to write, is almost a daily routine.

But this method has always worked for me. If I can jot down my thoughts mind-map style in red ink before I go to bed, the paper almost writes itself when I wake up.

I went on a date Saturday night with a guy who’s in grad school, and I was reminded of my grad school paper-writing pain.

The first night of major grad school misery was in Qualitative and Rhetorical Research Methods. The course’s major paper was due on Friday, November 19. That was my 27th birthday. I’d done a decent amount of prep earlier that week, including writing the intro. But the last 18 pages plus bibliography…well, I started that at 5 pm the night before. By 7 am, after an all-nighter, I realized I was going to have to skip work (though I still was committed to a lunch meeting). At 4:45 I was frantically printing it, hoping to make the 17-minute drive in 14 minutes, leaving me one minute to run inside and hand it to the secretary.

Yes, I made it. And then I went to dinner with my parents, my friend and her parents at River City Brewery. (During which my friend innocently handed me a gift bag holding a very naughty adult toy, which I promptly hid.)

The unfortunate thing about the all-nighter was that I missed out on the big practical joke I’d staged on our office manager.

It was tradition that the birthday person got to pick what treat they wanted, and the office manager would arrange to get it.

I love my mom’s butterscotch pie, and since she was coming into town for dinner anyway, I made up a fake name of someone who supposedly made great pies for people and told my office manager to call and place an order for two. Mom was in on the joke, so she graciously took the order, telling the office manager to make a check out for $10 to the church.

So, mid-afternoon, I had to call and tell Mary (office manager) the whole story, to explain why the pies wouldn’t be arriving as planned.

But never fear, Mom brought them anyway. And they’re much better on the second and third days. I got my little party after all on Monday.

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