Back window says "I Dig Chicks" and the side says "Putting the fun in funerals." Reminded me of Claire on Six Feet Under and her green hearse and the skeevy boyfriend with the toe fetish, which of course led me to watch clips from the first few episodes, which is where the title of this post came from. Two of my favorite characters in the history of film have to be Claire and Ruth from Six Feet Under.
So this weekend didn't work out exactly as I planned it, because instead of hitting the World of Outlaws race in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, I blew the motor in my car instead. Saturday night was spent moping and eventually coming to the realization that the car was 11 years old, had almost 200,000 miles on it, and needed twice its value in work in the immediate future, even before the engine seized. On Sunday I picked up my other vehicle, the Chevy Silverado truck my dad gave me a couple of years ago, and I drove it home while enjoying such crazy luxuries as reliable brakes, an attached driver's side sun visor, working air conditioner, dome light that doesn't randomly turn on, a muffler that wasn't in danger of falling off at any point in time, and a rear view mirror that stays attached to the windshield. And a radio that will play music from my Droid.
I'm weighing a lot of options. The truck spent yesterday in the shop getting some exhaust work done and a general inspection. I am probably going to drive it for a couple of weeks to get a handle on just how much of a hit I will take in fuel mileage. Based on its city driving statistics, it will be about $30 a week more than what my car was costing me, but I'm hoping to improve that number when I introduce it to my country roads and hypermiling skills. $30 a week is worth it to me, at this point, to not have another full car payment, to have the comfort the truck gives me, and to be able to see over those damn corn fields that have blinded every intersection I travel through every single day.
My first choice, my first instinct, is to continue on with the plan I've had for a few months now, which is to buy a small and extremely fuel-efficient motorcycle. This is something I've wanted since long before the car bit the dust, and having the truck for bad weather days and winter driving would still allow me that choice. I have safety classes to take and a license to procure (items on the updated 101 list already) and the type of bike I want seems to be available everywhere I look. So we'll see how it goes.
I had Friday on my vacation calendar at work for the last couple of months. My original plan to fall from the sky fell through, and instead of showing up at work, I chose to take a mental health day and head downtown to bond with Chicago and cross a few things off of my perpetual list of things I want to do in the city.
I was the only person on my car on the train for a couple of stops. While taking this photo, a woman walked into the car, sat down three rows ahead of me, gave me a look like she clearly thought I was a moron for staging photos of my train ticket. Then she did her hair and makeup on the train. Because that's so much more dignified.
Upon arrival at the station, I had a little bit of time to kill before Dano was sprung from workin' on the railroad to join me on my city frolic, so I headed to a cafe and phoned my Palindromic friend, who took a morning break to have a cup of coffee with me.
In addition to coffee, I grabbed a chocolate croissant, the pain au chocolat that was my breakfast every single day that I spent in Paris. The chocolate was not dark enough, but the memory was sufficiently sweet.
I met up with Dano, and we took a short walk to the big eyeball.
The eye is Tony Tasset's Eye, and it was just installed. My primary objective for seeing it was to get this photo:
Yeah, he's looking at you.
From there, we strolled towards the Chicago Cultural Center, stopping occasionally to play with one of my camera lenses.
The Chicago Cultural Center is a fun building, with an Art-O-Mat machine that reminds me of my friend Bombadee's Tiny Drawing a Day project on Facebook.
But the building is probably more famous for housing the world's largest Tiffany dome.
We explored a couple of other rooms, and took advantage of the lighted floors in the Grand Army of the Republic Rotunda to highlight our Vibram 5Fingers footwear.
And then we watched a ballerina do the space far more justice as part of her own photo shoot.
What brought us to the Center on Friday was an exhibit called Sullivan's Idea, featuring architect Louis Sullivan, who is (against his own wishes, we learned) called the "father of modernism".
Many parts of the exhibit dealt with Sullivan's extensive use of architectural terra cotta, with much of the final product coming from sculptor Kristian Schneider and the American Terra Cotta Tile and Ceramic Company in Crystal Lake, IL.
Sullivan used a lot of organic and botanical themes in his work, and was an avid rose gardener and photographer. This wall made me think of my father's roses and my mother's Rose of the Day twitpic.
This model of the Chicago Stock Exchange was constructed from the prints themselves, and was gorgeous.
After the Sullivan exhibit, we jumped on the L to Lincoln Park and made a quick stop at The Counter for custom burgers. Mine featured smoked provolone and garlic aioli and so many vegetables that it was 2' tall and I couldn't fit it in my mouth without unhinging my jaw. Dano had a turkey burger with sprouts, spring greens, feta cheese, and a vinaigrette. We had sweet potato fries with some kind of dipping sauce that neither of us can identify, and their website is down at the time I'm writing this (and linking to them . . . ) so I'm going to go with my original instinct that it was some kind of chipotle mayo.
We rushed from lunch to Landmark Century Centre for a screening of the new Julianne Moore/Annette Bening movie, The Kids Are All Right, which was released that day to a limited number of theaters. If you have one of those theaters anywhere near you, go see it. Amazing. In addition to being a refreshingly honest and not emotionally manipulative movie, it gave me my new favorite non-curse curse, which I won't spoil here because it's so much better when I say it out loud. Oh my stinkin' heck, you guys are going to love it.
Also? Landmark has these:
ASSORTED flavor, bitches. My last trip to IKEA was a crushing disappointment when they were out of the Assorted and only had the Original. Now, my movie theater assortment only contained 5 fish that weren't red, but it's still better than nothing. I love Swedish Fish more than should be allowed by law.
We flew out of the theater and raced back to the station to make the (immensely entertaining) train ride home. Overall, an amazing day!
This is a short week on either end - no work on Monday because of the holiday, no work tomorrow because I took the day off to hang out with a friend who flaked, so I'm taking it as a mental health day and going to the city with my camera.
I'd promise pictures tomorrow night, but I know me. Especially lately. I promise I'll get those photos to you sometime before October.
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I will be in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin for the World of Outlaws sprint car race on Saturday night. The rest of my family is partaking in Indiana Sprint Week, so feel free to say hi to them if you see them wandering around. You know they're more fun than I am anyway.
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Chicago, or anywhere in the Chicago-ish area, is not a stop on Rosanne Cash's impending book tour. Dudes. CHICAGO.
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Shazam has been my favorite app for the last few days. I use it to identify music playing wherever I'm at. Things I've tagged lately: Fleet Foxes, Josh Thompson (a Fan Letter coming soon), Silversun Pickups, When In Rome, Skillet, Joan Armatrading, and Stellar Kart. All artists, songs, or funny stories I would have forgotten about or failed to note without my phone's magic music guessing app.
But at least it's an app that doesn't cost me a million dollars. I'm one week and four whole brand new full-price books into Kindle for Android. Somebody slow me down.
One of these days, I'll make a list of all of my favorite Android apps and why. I rattle them off to people in the real world a lot, always forgetting who I am talking to. So to all of the guys who have installed the Magic Girl Fairy Special Lady Times Visitor app . . . well. Sorry. But isn't the flower icon pretty?
Hey friends! My 4th of July weekend was action-packed and awesome and let me tell you all about it! Maybe get yourself a snack first. And a soda. Or a pop. Your choice.
One of my most favorite friends and frequent commenters, Mare, flew in from the east with her husband for a couple of days so that we could catch up and hit a winged sprint car race on dirt. Rob took me to a road course race last October that was a new and very cool experience for me, so it was a lot of fun to show him "my" kind of racing.
But first, we had lunch. I picked them up at the train station and we met up with my brother, Wags, and headed for a pub that offered a lunchtime special on "Rum Barrels". Barrels o' rum. A great start to the day. Over lunch we chatted about various types of racing, ideas for revolutionizing the sport of sprint car racing, and Wags' current unemployment and/or potential future grad school. He graduated in May, but employment prospects for a school teacher are grim at the moment, so he is weighing a lot of options. And ending almost every sentence with ". . . but first I have to get a job." Sometimes it is funny, sometimes not so much, and I worry about his lagging spirits, so if you have some good mojo to put out into the job application world for him, please do so.
After lunch, we (Mare, Rob, Wags, Dano and I) drove to Wilmot, Wisconsin for Mare's first trip to Wisconsin and less importantly, the IRA sprint car race. We were met there by another invisible pal, Catwmn, and her husband. We watched Billy Balog win the A, feasted on brats and beers, and enjoyed some good ol' Americana, baby. It was fun to see sprint cars through the eyes of somebody completely unfamiliar with them, and I thoroughly enjoyed Rob's comparison of a stalled sprint car with no starter to a turtle on its back.
We started Sunday off right with omelettes and cakes at my favorite pancake place, with Mare being the only person on the planet who appreciates a quirky little Mom and Pop diner type place as much as I do. From there, it was off to the city for some hardcore tourist business.
The Chicago History Museum was featuring an exhibit on the history of weddings, and this was the inspiration for the weekend tweet about looking at wedding dresses. You guys are so easy to rile up! The exhibit was really interesting, and I look forward to exploring some things I missed in the rest of the museum soon.
No visit to Chicago is complete without some deep dish, so our next stop was Lou Malnati's (not Iluminati's, Rob, we wanted cheesey goodness, not shadow governments). Lou did not disappoint, and the air conditioning was very very very VERY welcome.
A photo I took of Rob and Mare on our walk, right before we got rained on:
The rest of the story: train back to suburbs, some ice cream, early bedtime to prepare for the 5 am trip to O'Hare the next morning, and teary sad goodbyes until September.
Monday, post-ORD, was spent mostly sleeping and watching Friends on DVD, until I took off for the city yet again to attend the Rush Time Machine tour stop at Charter One Pavilion at Northerly Island with Dano.
Hmmm. That was supposed to be the name of the tour + the venue + the name of the person I attended it with but it all kind of runs together and sounds like Dano was the opening act. Given that he sang out loud at least three and as many as four times last night, it's kind of true.
We are out of practice with this whole self-portrait thing. This was the 3rd take. In the first two, his eyerolling was visible through the glasses. Also, it's not as easy as it used to be - I gave away my old baby Canon that was dying, and chose to go sans-purse for this concert, so all photos and video were shot with Lloyd the Droid, who does not make self-portraits very easy on me.
I love this venue. Chicago skyline off to the right, the lake behind us, and Soldier Field behind the stage. Very very fun. I can only assume that Rush plays outdoor shows like this so that their pasty white nerd boy fans can get some occasional sun. What? Oh my god, tell me I'm wrong. Just try.
I cracked a lot of jokes before/during the show about being the only woman there, and I wasn't quite alone, but there weren't many of us. After the show, a video played where the members of Rush themselves joked about how there were seven females in the audience and that might have been a new record.
We bought our tickets on Craigslist from a guy who drove up from Indianapolis with his son. The son spent part of the night texting on the oldest working Blackberry I've ever seen. I asked him about it, and he let me play with it a little. He said that it was from 1998 though it looks more like the 2000ish model shown in upper right of this pic. Whatever year it was, it was hilariously cool and would have been a fun prop to have in another cell phone related gag that I'm planning.
I am not a Rush hater, but I haven't ever really considered myself a Rush fan before last night either. I'm a Neil Peart as Author fan. I've read all of his books, recommended all of his books, forced his books on every person who will listen to me talk for more than 30 seconds. I watched my favorite author play with his band last night, basically. A band that I have read about but haven't devoted a lot of airtime to, and I think that will change. Live music tends to do that to me. Especially live music from a lead guitarist that looks like William Shatner. Dano thinks that Neil is starting to develop a passing resemblance to Sammy Swindell. And really, who WOULDN'T pay to see a band featuring William Shatner, Sammy Swindell, and Geddy Lee? (Geddy Lee looks like nobody but Geddy Lee. Nobody else looks like Geddy Lee. Well, except a lot of Geddy Lee fans. But I digress.)
Here is a brief video I shot, scanning the crowd last night. The very very white male geek crowd.
And this is the first minute of Tom Sawyer.
Listen closely, somebody with a big mop of curly hair is singing! Okay, a lot of guys with big mops of curly hair were singing. As we were walking towards the venue from the car, the first intersection we waited at was also occupied by four other guys with Dano's exact hairstyle. It was a little unnerving, having so many fluffy-haired BMW-riding Rush lovers in one place. Like a Dano Convention.
The amount of music performed last night was just overwhelming. They played the entire Moving Pictures album, many other old works, and quite a few new songs. And given that each of their songs is about 12 minutes long, I fully expect that I'll leave the Pavilion sometime just before their Wednesday show starts. They might be done playing by then. No really, it was 3 hours, and there was no chit-chatting, just solid music. Neil's 47-minute drum solos gave me a deep rich understanding of why it takes me months to get through each of his books. The level of detail is comparable.
My head did not hit the pillow until 2 o'clock this morning, and my alarm went off at 5. So this Tuesday is a rough one, but totally worth it. Big thanks to Mare, Rob, Dano, Wags, and Neil Peart for the extra special memories and for helping me to declare my independence from a normal sleep schedule.
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