Today I am 31. It's a little bit hard to process, actually, but I'm more or less okay with it. Later this year, my mother turns 50, meaning that for over a year we have overlapped in the most important TV-watching demographic. Which in turn doesn't mean much, I guess.
Since Paul had his wisdom teeth removed on Monday, we're not going to do much tonight. I mean, he's still eating pudding and ice cream for every meal. This weekend we're hanging around at In Fine Spirits for awhile on Friday and having people stop by when they can for a drink--everyone gets so busy in Chicago summers and I left the planning too late to really plan a big party. I'm rather looking forward to this birthday approach, though, which should be nicely laid back.
I need to post for you all the pictures of Paul and I doing the Great Urban Race, which we ran last Saturday. So fun! And we learned a lesson, that the crab walk and the wheelbarrow are way tougher than you remember them from elementary school P.E.
Okay, worst blogger ever, let's get that out of the way.
Here's what I've done since coming back from the WBC:
April: Got through tax season at work, had a wisdom tooth pulled.
May: My mom and Aunt Toni came to see me in Chicago, meeting up with Cousin Jay who was here for his oral boards. I say we all had a lovely visit, and there was Second City and the Wiener's Circle and walking Michigan Avenue and other fun things. And we didn't even make it to a single museum! Which means that they, and all the rest of you, must come to seeeee meeeeee. I recommend May through October, unless you want snow on the ground, in which case, come for New Year's.
Later in May, I went to Sacramento for a girls' weekend; a friend who lives out that way took us to some of her favorite wineries in Napa as well. My first time in Napa, and I loved it. It reminded me so much of Tuscany, which I also loved (though not as much as Paul loved it).
And at the end of May, I auditioned to be on Jeopardy!; they tell you nothing about how you did on the second test (you take the first one to make it to the in-person auditions) or anything. They keep you on file for 18 months, and if you don't hear from them, you can try out again. So keep your fingers crossed!
June: Aside from a quick jaunt to Michigan to visit my friend Karen, who some of you met, not much.
July: Over the Fourth, we went to Cleveland, which thesevideos aside was a very pleasant place to visit. That's two out of the three big industrial Rust Belt cities we've visited that we've liked, so far; Pittsburgh was the other one from which we came away with a favorable impression. Detroit...well, not so much. It feels like...okay, you know how if you're in downtown Las Vegas, and you go that extra half-block so it all becomes buildings that are crumbly around the edges and the homeless people are so down they don't even ask for handouts, and it smells like all the sewers in town run right under that intersection? It's like that, but worse, because the buildings themselves are gorgeous; you can tell how much money there once was. It just made us sad. Pittsburgh and the Cleve, they feel like they still have hope, and they're both on lovely bodies of water (Cleveland on Lake Erie, Pittsburgh surrounded by those three rivers), and they're just in better repair. People still care, I guess, is the biggest difference.
ANYWAY. Since then, we've mostly stayed near the house. Coming up over the rest of the year we have a likely trip to Las Vegas, though probably just an in-and-out visit. That's if we can get a good ticket price. After that, we're going to Disneyland with Dad and his wife in October, then back to Sacramento and Napa in November because as much as I liked the Tuscany feel Paul will love that even more. And then always home for Christmas in December. Whew.
Next time: more day-to-day stuff, which is always the part that I like reading in other people's blogs. You?
Hmmm. Not such a good job of keeping to once a week.
Anyway, Paul and I were down in L.A. last weekend and early this week to watch the World Baseball Classic semi-finals and the final game. We went to the event in '06, too, and loved it, so it was great to go back. We got to see Korea vs. Venezuela, the U.S. vs. Japan, and then in the finals, Korea vs. Japan. We were kind of hoping for this matchup, because while of course we love the boys from the U.S., Korea and Japan care about the event more, and also, they HATE each other. So it makes for a good audience experience. We saw them play each other in the semis last time, and guys were in those little sumo loincloths, and there were giant drums, and signs that we didn't understand because they were in Korean and Japanese, and signs that we DID understand and were highly political. For all that, somehow, no fistfights broke out. So seeing them play each other in the finals this time was a real treat. Paul and I rooted for the Koreans (and the guy a row in front of me, when he saw the little Korean flag I had bought, lent me his Korea do-rag to wear for awhile), but the Japanese won. They're two-for-two right now.
The real baseball season starts in a couple of weeks, and that will be great. We're going to Cleveland over the Fourth of July to see that stadium--we have a goal of seeing them all.
Next up, travel-wise, is a visit to ME by Aunt Toni and Cousin Jason and Mothra. I'm very excited by that.
The first flowers of spring are starting to show here. I'll take pictures for you guys as we go, but I'm afraid the snowdrops might die before I get a chance, so here's a picture of those. Aren't they cute? I think hyacinths, daffodils, some kinds of lilies and irises will be next. And then tulips!
In one of those twists where my life apparently intersects with that of a main character from some chick-lit novel, I'm going to meet a friend for drinks after work, and then we're going to the opera. Fun, if making me feel much more like a grown-up than I normally do.
It was a good weekend, except for the weather, which was a misery. That's the "joy" of March around here; last Thursday I was so excited because it was nice out, yet later this week we'll have a high of 27, and this weekend it rained so much there are still roads flooded.
So, it's supposed to get up to almost 60 degrees here today, which is quite exciting. Any day now we'll see the first shoots of the the crocus and daffodils poking up. When I first moved to Chicago, I was amazed at how black the soil is, and I thought maybe people constantly were using manure or potting soil. But no, America's breadbasket (well, corn and soybean basket) really does have black soil that smells so good after it rains I like it as much as I like the smell of the desert after it rains. Anyway, I guess the point is that the weather's beautiful today, and it will be again tomorrow, and this could be the beginning of the end of winter since we're not supposed to have a high below freezing for at least the next five days. My legs are bare under my skirt today and I feel like dancing, at least a little. It'll probably snow at least one more time before we're really done, but today I can't care. Bare legs!
See that? That's Paul's first try at cooking a dinner he's never cooked before. It came out as totally delicious.
The deal is, I was tired of cooking every night just because I know how. I mean, how does he think I learned? Some of it was, of course, hanging around the kitchen with my mom and aunts and other family members while they cooked stuff, but the rest of it was that I practiced. Cooking actually makes Paul nervous, and I decided for my sanity and pocketbook, he needed to get over that. So we made a deal that he has to cook once a week. And since I've never made a good pork dish, I narrowed it down and said he needed to cook something with pork as the protein.
This is a pork tenderloin recipe modified from this website. He used blood oranges instead of regular oranges (which is why the sauce is pink), an extra clove of garlic (because we love garlic), and whole-grain dijon instead of regular (hence the darker flecks in the sauce). The recipe, either way, is recommended.
We also went out with friends here on Saturday night. It was our second time eating at Topolo, and man, is it great. Greatgreatgreat. Paul had the Celebration tasting menu (though it had a different dessert, a blackberry-chocolate cake), and I had the Winter tasting menu; you can see both menus here. A perfect treat for the whole party.
Then yesterday we ate my first-ever try at white beans with ham hocks, which came out just like I remember my mom's, so I was really happy with that.
Thank goodness I'm over my cold so that I can start running again--I was putting on weight, and no wonder!
Way too long. In fact, let's ignore everything that came before and start again. All right, I'll give you the run-down since I was last around: We voted in a new president, which is always a lovely process (the voting itself, not the campaigning). It got cold in Chicago. It snowed and snowed. I went home for Christmas (I call Las Vegas "home" when I'm in Chicago, and Chicago "home" when I'm in Las Vegas). I spent New Year's Eve in the suburbs with my husband's family, like always. I went and visited a friend in Alabama and saw her GIANT BABY (24 pounds at 6 months old) who was adorable. My husband turned 32. That takes us up through last week, but I left out a big piece, which is that over Thanksgiving, I went to France with my dad, his wife, and my husband. It was pretty wonderful. The whole trip rundown would take an awfully long time to write, but here are some pictures. I can also tell you we ate incredibly well. I love France.
I'm visiting Las Vegas Feb. 19-24, and I hope to see all your bright shining faces.
I was born and raised in Las Vegas, NV, went to college in Claremont, CA, and now live in Chicago, IL with my husband, in an apartment on the North Side. We eat a lot; we run for exercise, and our primary form of decorating our place is putting up more bookshelves.
