Om

Every Wednesday a group of yoga folks come to the house for an hour of instruction. It seemed like a nice thing to do for our families; they are all under stress and we all know that remembering to breathe, really breathe, is something people forget to do when they're stressed. So the yoga folks come and do their breathe-y thing and it's great.

I've always wanted to do it but I never seem able to pull myself away from my desk. Or else I have to take off to get The Child from rehearsal or some other thing. But last night she was rehearsing until 6:30 so I figured it was the perfect opportunity to give it a whirl.

I've always been a pretty flexible person. One of my personal Stupid People Tricks is that I can put my leg behind my head. (It's not extremely useful in most situations but it makes for good entertainment at parties). And being able to stretch all the way out made me feel very smug when we did our first Downward Dog. Plus it felt awesome. Then we did some other poses and I began to discover unpleasant places in my back. There were a few muscles that started screaming. It sounded sort of like, "Hey! You there, in the Warrior Pose. You wanna knock that off? We're sleepin' here". I ignored them and posed and breathed and then when we laid down for our final visualization I thought that dying was as good an option as anything else.

But I didn't. Victoria pulled my legs and rubbed my back and the angry muscles grumbled off to get a scotch. They weren't necessarily happy about being awake but at least they weren't yelling at me anymore.

During the visualization Molly was saying all the yoga instructor stuff about "Picture yourself in a place that you love...somewhere calm and beautiful....it might be an ocean or a mountain peak..." etc etc etc. I tried to go to the ocean, which I do love. But the place that kept popping into my head was the Balcony of Terror, 50 stories above the Chicago River. Not a very typical yoga place, but one that is, to me, one of the most beautiful views in all the world. And a place with exceedingly good associations. So I sat on the balcony, watching the sunlight dappled the water, turning the sounds of washing machines and folks making dinner into street noise and it was pretty awesome.

The good news is that, despite some earlier fears, I'm not walking dead this morning. Actually, I feel pretty fantastic. This yoga thing might be just the ticket.

Now I have to go see if The Cat is done killing a mouse in The Child's room. Gross.

Ah-ah-choooooo

I need bacon. Specifically, I need bacon fat. Oh, yes I do. Because I have 4 tomatoes in my garden that are never going to ripen and they need to be fried.

I sit so wrong on my desk chair that it isn't even funny. I'm going to cripple myself. My friend Julie says I should get one of those big balls to sit on because it would force me to sit properly. But then I couldn't pull one leg under myself and stick the other one up on my desk when I play SimCity. Apparently I'm not overly concerned about the cripple thing.

I miss JP. I want him to move to Seattle.

The Child is playing volleyball with Bad Coach. Last week only 6 girls showed up for the game so he had to play everyone. It must have killed him. It probably bugged him even more that The Child pretty much single handedly scored every point in their first game, got all her serves over and was generally not making any mistakes. And his 3 favorite players were largely useless. Hi, the ball is at the net. It's called spiking.

My kitchen is clean.

My cold makes me snore. Last night The Spouse hit me. Then I was afraid to fall back asleep. Even though he was snoring. I need my own room.

The season premiere of "Brothers and Sisters" was really good. I think there's a Cindy Sheehan storyline coming up for Sally Field. The Hat thinks I look like Rachael Griffiths. I wish.

I miss Chicago. I coul really go for the view from the Balcony of Terror about now.

I'm going to go see my baby tomorrow. He misses me. I love him.

Hi. I'm Not Hungry.

We recovered sufficiently to have dinner at Lao Szechaun. Ouch.

The food was very, very good; the company even better. We met up with Harry, Jack and Steve (from the other night) plus their friend Ken and his buddy Euan. And then we ate and ate and ate and then I wanted to die. Mineral water is my friend.

Last night, while The Spouse and I were enjoying some wine on the Balcony of Terror, crazy weird clouds started billowing across the sky. It looked like the pipe smoke of a giant. The clouds massed together and came down to earth and for a little while there I think we both had visions of spending the night in the bathroom, hiding from a tornado. But it wasn't a tornado. Silly us.

The day has again dawned clear and warm. We'll be setting off soon to meet up with Nicole et famille for lunch at Navy Pier and then our fam will finally head to the Art Institute. Jon and maybe Iwanskis are coming for cocktails, then we go see "Wicked" and are planning on an apres theatre dinner at the steakhouse by our building because The Spouse has yet to indulge in a Chicago steak. I personally will be dining on 3 lettuce leaves dressed with salt.

Some Observations and Some Food

Yesterday we went out for lunch at Iwanski's favorite hot dog joint.

A classic Chicago dog. Yum.
Words to live by.

Then The Child and I went out and did a little shopping. It was a little warmer yesterday than it has been, but still lovely.


The afternoon was all about getting ready for the Trailer Trash party. Merlene Hogswaller, fixin' up some of her dandy devilled eggs.


'Cause any proper Trailer Trash party starts with real good horses ovaries. And Miss Healthypants brought the fried pork rinds to round out the spread.
Talk about good! Corn dogs, baked beans, tater salad and a nice red Jell-o.
Cousin John Bob brought his real fancy NASCAR cooler full of some right fine beer.
The Mouse family came on up 'cause ain't no party complete without 'em anymore. (I'm really hoping they'll come out for my birthday party in September. If you are looking for property in the Chicago area, please contact the Mouse and let her sell you something).
Since The Spouse's Trailer Trash name is Buck, we had to call the actual Buck Two Buck. (Did you know that if he'd been a girl his folks were going to name him Jacqueline Creama? Creama Wheat. Seriously. He even called his mom to confirm the story. And then we passed the phone around the room to tell her what a lovely son she has).
John Bob, posin' fer the Kodak.
MHP and The Child, doin' the Shimmy Shimmy Shake.
On the roof for the fireworks show.
Jon makes watermelon daiquiris. I'm not a fan of the watermelon. But his drinks were really delicious. Went down real smooth. Stubbed my head on 'em, but sometimes you pay the price. Paying the price. That would also be why after all this eating I look 5 months pregnant.

Climbed a grueling 11 floors to the roof to watch the fireworks (using the elevators wasn't even an option as everyone in the building plus all their guests were headed up there as well)and then came back down to sit out on the "front porch" some more and talk and laugh and call both The Neighbor and JP and pass the phone around so everyone got to talk to them.

Iwanski finally hit his wall and went home like a sane person. But Buck, MHP and the fam were just getting started. So we did karaoke until 4 am.

At one point, well before the daiquiris had kicked in, I announced that I felt truly blessed to be in Chicago with this particular group of people. It was just the truth. And later, in the midst of much conviviality, Iwanski said, "Can you believe we just met 3 days ago?". Because, you know, there we all were just hanging in that totally comfortable way that friends do.

And I observed that when I told people we were making this trip to meet people I knew from the interwebs, there were often those who would lift and eyebrow or make a remark like, "Wow. Hope they aren't serial killers". (Which was silly because what are the odds that they'd all be serial killers? I mean, really. The odds of that would have to be like, what? really, really high).

But here's the thing: we weren't the only ones taking a risk. Crikey, for all Buck knew we were going to come here and sell all his stuff on eBay. And it should also be noted here, since I noted it last night, that this trip could certainly have gone the other way. Serial killers and scam artists aside, we could have discovered that all we had in common was the fact that we blogged. We could have spent 2 minutes saying "Hi, how are ya?" and then just sat around awkwardly, wondering how we were going to stand to be around each other for a week. Or we could even have found each other really obnoxious.

JP and I have talked about this before, about this magical little circle of bloggers we've found and our friendly little virtual neighborhood. And we talked about it again last night and how superfantastic it is that our expectations about these particular people have been met and exceeded. If I lived in Chicago I would totally hang with these people. And I think they'd let me hang with them. It's just a gift, puppies. A sheer, unmitigated gift.

Oh, and a big storm blew in last night, as we sat out there on the Balcony of Terror, watching a million people trying to get out of the city. (Bwahahaha). We'd been hearing about these legendary Chicago thunder storms and it was impressive. The Child was inside when it started and came out at the first flash.

"What was that?" she asked, all saucer eyed.

"God's fireworks".

"Oh. Cool".

Today has been spent in recovery mode...cleaning up, resting our heads and watching what appears to be an airing of every episode ever of "Twin Peaks" (which was one of my favorite shows ever). There has been some napping. And mineral water. And The Child continues to explore the wonders of Easy Cheese.

In a bit we're going to head for Chinatown and a much ballyhooed dinner at Lao Sze Chaun

I will not be eating beef maw.

Oh, and happy birthday America.

Go Cubs!

I just like saying that.

I put some food pictures up over at "Here's the Dish", in case you're interested.

A small wall has been hit. We were going to go to the Art Institute and recreate a Ferris Bueller moment.
Turns out that digesting takes a lot out of you.

So instead The Child is singing karaoke, The Spouse is reading and I'm fixin' up some eats for the 3rd of July party. In a bit The Child and I will sally forth to find some hot dogs (not hungry, just peckish) and do a little more shopping. The walking around is exceedingly necessary.

Here's my favorite view from "our" flat:

We're right above the Chicago River.

Look north and you see this:
Look south and you can wave to Iwanski (the building with the blue "condo" sign on it).
Here's a shot of the neighboring balconies. JP doesn't like the heights. He asked last night if I was on the Balcony of Terror.
The Child and I listening to the concert last night at The Taste. Other Taste revellers, with the Chicago skyline behind them.
Posing at Milennium Park. Some shots I took for JP. This is reportedly his favorite building in Chicago.