Blog Archives

A Mish & Mash

July 8, 2010

1. B & I are going to Europe late this summer and as such we realized B should probably get a passport and I should probably get a new one so that my airline ticket and my passport names match. They prefer it that way, you know. Anyway we’ve been a little slow in the process- the applications sat on our dining room table for a week, then B had to bring home more applications because I kept making stupid mistakes (poor directions US Department of Homeland Security, poor directions) and then they sat some more and this last weekend we moseyed down to Walgreens to have our photos taken. My hair looks dumb and I smiled a “small smile” and it made my cheeks look disproportionately huge. That said, no passport photo is worse than this one: (I was a precious 2 year old, no?)

But then, bad photos aside, we discovered that passport fees go up next week, and not by some measly $10 but rather, my passport will be $110 instead of $75 and that isn’t including the extra cost to have it overnight shipped back to me, a no-brainer ever since the Incident in 2007 that resulted in a passport, my birth certificate and my social security card floating around the country in a battered envelope no thanks to the US Postal Service. Anyway. Well played, US Government, well played. We’ll be sending those applications in tomorrow thankyouverymuch.

2. Rhett Butler is as freaked out as ever by the storms. Last night, as a particularly rumble-y storm came through I made him a tinfoil cape out of desperation. (Shut up. I read that it can help.) But it didn’t really work so he opted to retire to the bathtub where he could monitor the storm from a safe place.

rb bath

That worked until a particularly loud thunderclap shook the ventilation system so he skedaddled to the safest place in the house, which is underneath the master bed. All that remained for a good hour was the tiny white tip of a shaking beagle tail. Poor guy!

3. My indoor herb garden that did so well for so long went down in a fiery ball of tiny white bugs that ate everything save my parsley. It is now a sparse little herb garden and I now realize why gardening isn’t for me. Namely: really? Every day you want some water? And take care of your bug problem? I think not.

4. Is anyone else in Chicago the least bit concerned that parts of Lake Shore Drive keep buckling? No? Just me? Right. Carry on then.

5. I’m a total sunscreen fanatic and last weekend I had B put sunscreen all over my back before we went on a long ride through the city. I was wearing a racerback cycling top and B has apparently never learned the golden rule of sunscreen application, namely, don’t stop at the edge of the strap/sleeve/collar. While we rode my top shifted over and I now have this incredibly vibrant, swollen, painful “C” across my right shoulder-blade. Hot. Stuff. It has been 5 days and it is still the color of a stop sign so I’m thinking that it is here to stay. So long strapless dresses, so long. (Then maybe we went to the dog beach the next day and I just plain forgot to put sunscreen on so now I the always classy shoulder strap burn and frankly, I’m just a hot mess.)

Happy Independence Day To You!

July 5, 2010

By Daisy

Here at the Daisy/B household we celebrated independence & of equal importance, being more than half way done with the economy sized package of toilet paper that B purchased. And by toilet paper I mean tissue paper lined with sandy grit, also known as The Other Reason Why My Husband Is No Longer In Charge of Purchasing Paper Products. (See also: the Awesome brand paper towel incident in which we learned, Awesome brand paper towels are not, in fact, awesome.) Chicago Fireworks

I don’t know about you, but that milestone is worth at least a sparkler or five, no?

S-S-S-B

June 29, 2010

By Daisy

After our marathon run of out of town guests, B and I have enjoyed slipping back into a few of our familiar routines; namely taking the hound to the dog park, cooking dinner and watching the occasional episode of Royal Pains. Simple but sweet. It also means that when B is out sailing in regattas I have the house to myself (as opposed to entertaining out of town guests). This of course means one thing and one thing only:

Super Secret Single Behavior. SSSB. The things you do when you are all alone and have the house to yourself with no judging, spying or space-encroaching.

For me it means sushi carryout or breakfast for dinner, reading in bed in my pjs at 3 pm, an embarrassing thick headband that I wear to keep my curls off my face, a potent fruit acid face mask that is bright green, shaving my legs with B’s fancy Kiehl’s shaving cream (what?), television on my laptop, long soaks in the tub complete with magazines and catalogs and not taking the trash out until the moment before B is going to walk in the door. Oh and Grey’s Anatomy. Lots of Grey’s Anatomy. The only SSSB of B’s that I’ve been able to deduce so far is eating his weight in pretzels. Seriously. There are never any pretzels when I come home.

(What is your SSSB?)

(Mine would never include dancing to Jimmy Buffet with the dog. Ever. Ok, maybe just once. Or twice.)

The Calm After The Storm

June 23, 2010

By Daisy

This evening in Chicago we had a particularly volatile storm move through the area- so much so that the tornado sirens rang and I took the dog and hung out in the bathroom for 10 minutes while the thunder rumbled and the hail pounded the windows. For a few moments I was fairly scared- it didn’t help that B was down on the lakefront, stuck in a glass sided building after sailing was cancelled for the evening. Of course I upgraded the operating system on my iPhone yesterday and some software bug has killed my weather app radar image page so I kept updating the front page of the Chicago Tribune mobile page, hoping that they’d at least have a fleeting headline along the lines of “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, OR AT LEAST GET IN A BASEMENT” letting me know the twister was coming. (No, I didn’t spend time living in tornado alley, why do you ask? Ok fine, I did. It sticks with you, sitting in an elementary school hallway in the dark for four hours while sirens go off, OK?)

As the page loaded, slowly, I realized I was almost out of phone battery and all I could think of was my Dad shaking his head in disgust, the only thing worse than being unprepared for a storm (i.e. no phone battery, no flashlight, I didn’t even bring a granola bar into the bathroom) is wearing open toed shoes or synthetic fabrics on an airplane – as he points out, YOU try egressing a burning plane with no shoes and melting plastic burning your skin. (He also frowns on failing to pack a shovel in the back of your car with some red fabric and a large 100 hour candle when you drive mountain passes in the winter, because seriously, THAT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU SURVIVE, DAISY. DIG OUT THE TAILPIPE, TIE SOME FABRIC ON THE ROOF RACK AND HUDDLE AROUND YOUR CANDLE. EAT YOUR GRANOLA BAR AND ENJOY IT. If you didn’t pack a granola bar, just go feed yourself to the bears, you don’t deserve to live.) Anyway. I was in a bathroom with a shaking dog, an insane thunderstorm, and last I saw, the radar over my house was bright fuchsia, a color typically reserved for old lady lipstick & weather situations only seen in the blockbuster hit, Twister.

After the sirens stopped it (and I) calmed down just enough to venture out from the bathroom, where a terrified Rhett Butler treated the situation with the brevity it deserved by army-crawling around our bedroom floor and under the bed and bedside tables, farting the entire way. (Yes. Farted.) I’m sorry for that visual image, but he was much like the Little Engine That Could, tooting right along, constant motion, skimming the floor, creating a stench only created by dogs that eat fish-based food, for five long, smelly minutes. storm

Once the worst was through I ventured out to pick up B, and we were treated to the most magnificent rainbow and the most golden-green sky I’ve ever seen. It almost made up for the ten minutes I spent in the bathroom, digging around for a flashlight we apparently don’t own. (Note to self: get some flashlights. Perhaps some candles. And keep your darn phone charged up, you idiot. Also: gas masks might be useful. ) storm 1