How Much Is That Doggie on the Side of the Road?

Every day on my way home, there's this person dressed up like a dog standing on the corner of Butterfield and Naperville Rds. advertising for Petland. He usually holds a sign for a "puppy sale" and jumps about frantically in extremely repetitive motions ... kind of like the puppies he's trying to sell.

For some reason this cracks me up every time I drive by. Usually I get stuck at the light, so I get ample time to stare and laugh.

Today when I pulled up to the light, I noticed some additions to the usual costume. The dog had acquired a bath towel, brush, and shower cap (covering only the top of one of his ears. A lot of good that's going to do!) all to advertise for "Grooming Appointments." So I took a picture:

So That's How Shoes End Up in the Middle of the Street ...

The Date: Sunday, May 24, 2009
The Time: 11:30pm
The Place: Driving on Maple Ave. in Naperville, on the way to see Star Trek at the IMAX.

The bf (Scott) and I were driving along minding our business. Given the late hour, I may or may not have been a little slap happy and that may or may not have factored in to the rest of this story. As we were driving, I noticed a spider on the windshield. After observing it for a moment, I realized it was on the inside. And it was crawling closer and closer to me.

I was a little bit nervous, so I started looking for something to kill it with. Not having much luck, I went with the old standby (my shoe, a flip flop) and smushed the spider against the windshield. Scott suggested that I smear it a bit to make sure it's dead, which I did, leaving a nice trail of spider guts on the window.

Unfortunately, the spider's dead carcass was now stuck to the bottom of my shoe, and since Scott likes to keep things clean, I didn't want to put the shoe back on and let the spider get all smushed into his carpet. So I decided my best option was to open up the window, stick my shoe out, and let the wind blow the dead spider off.

So I opened the window and stuck my shoe out. However, the wind was stronger than expected and probably not even a second later, the shoe was gone. I gasped loudly and Scott asked if my shoe fell out the window (how did he know??). I then giggled for at least 10 minutes as we turned around, searched for it on the street, and pulled over to pick it up. I was a little bit concerned that someone had driven over it, but luckily, not only did it appear to be unharmed, but the spider carcass was gone. Done and done.

Garbage Picking Extravaganza!

Last weekend, I went with some friends to garbage pick. This was no ordinary garbage picking though. It was garbage picking on amnesty garbage day in a very fancy-pants Chicago suburb. And it was more amazing than I ever imagined.

The evening consisted of about 5 of us, in 2 cars, slowly driving down side streets, stopping, picking, and moving on. Things got a little tricky when it got dark, but we still managed to find some good stuff. Next year we're bringing flashlights.

My car was so filled to the brim that the 2 people I had to drive home couldn't fit, and my roommate had to ride home in the back of the trunk. A nice way to top of an already exciting evening:


Yes, in the back of that car, you'll see (behind the roommate) a large wooden chair, an old wooden sled, 2 floor chairs, golf clubs with bag, some work bench thing, and a variety of smaller items. All in all, a very successful evening.

Chinatown: Chicago

After my wildly successful (and slightly life-threatening) trip to Chinatown in NYC where I discovered the joy of knock-off purses, I've been wanting to try my luck at Chicago's very own Chinatown. Given my need for a new summer purse, the finally pleasant weather, and my new obsession with riding the "L", I made my sweet boyfriend take me down there for a shopping trip over the weekend.

I was pleasantly surprised with our Chinatown. It's fairly small, just one main street with lots of gift shops and restaurants and a little outdoor "mall" with some more of the same. But look at this fabulous gate!


But I know what you're all really wondering about: How was the knock-off purse selection?? Well, it wasn't nearly as exciting as New York's. There was only one store that really had a large selection, and there was a back room, but it was rather accessible and not really shady at all. Too bad.


Nevertheless, I found pretty much the perfect purse, and I would say our first Chicago Chinatown experience was a huge success!

Animals Living in My Car

That's right, I have animals living in my car. I've never actually seen them, but they've made their presence known on two separate occasions, both ending with me having to pay extra money to tidy up their mess. Little devils.

Over the winter, the fan in my car started making terrible noises whenever I turned it on. I brought it in to find out that some stupid animal was hiding food in there.

But today's incident at Jiffy Lube really takes the cake. I was sitting in the waiting area minding my own business, when I notice a few of the Jiffy Lube guys staring under the hood of my car in disbelief. They waved me over and commented that they didn't know mice were so organized. This disturbed me. Then I saw it. An animal of some kind had made a serious home for itself in my air filter box.

On the left side of the box, was a lovely rectangular "bed" made of yarn and other soft things. It was perfect. Perfect enough to be creepy. On the opposite end, was a good sized stash of mostly whole animal crackers; some chewed on, some not. It was truly incredible.

I almost felt bad cleaning it all out after this animal had clearly worked hard to organize it all. But not really.

Easter Fun

I have to say this was a great Easter! I played in the orchestra at all 5 of our services at church (2 Saturday night and 3 Sunday) which was tons of fun, and very moving. And my sweet boyfriend attended 4 of them. Such support! The only slightly sad part was that the orchestra was basically hidden on the stage behind some huge white screens. I guess it taught us a good lesson in humility :)

These large screens took up most of the stage and between them were these big gold doors that opened up at the end of the service when our pastor invited people who accepted Christ come up and walk through. The best part was the smokescreen coming down from the top of the doors with an image of Jesus projected on it. So yes, people walked through Jesus. At first I thought it was going to be kind of hokey, but it turned out to be really good, and pretty emotional. I cried more than once, even though all I could see from my position in the orchestra was shadows and feet.

After church, Scott and I finished up our fabulous bunny cake:


He's fabulous, I know. We brought him over to my family gathering in the afternoon which was lots of fun, especially with all the cute children we now have.


The highlight of our family time was when my cousin Christine sang a very special song for me. Christine is quite talented in her singing and guitar playing skills and has recorded some songs. So one night I had this dream that she recorded this Paul McCartney song, Mull of Kintyre, that I don't necessarily know that well but somehow it made it into my dream. Anyway, in the dream I was in the car listening to it and it was quite excellent. The next day, I sent Christine a quick message telling her she may want to consider this song for future recordings. So to my great pleasure, Christine found this song, learned it, and sang it for me on Easter. It was quite lovely.

The only thing missing from my Easter was a viewing of Easter Parade, but I am remedying that right now!

Tribute to Dean

So I have this bowling ball that I love very much. It's name is Dean and I bought it at a garage sale a number of years ago for $5. I named it Dean because it says "Dean" on it.

It's been basically the best ball ever. It's nice and light, but it has a big thumb hole which was the main selling feature for me. It's also purple.

So I've used this ball with great success for many years. Yes, everyone thinks I'm a huge dork for having my own ball, but I don't care because every time we go bowling, by the end of the night, everyone loves Dean.

But this weekend during a bowling outing with some friends, disaster struck when Dean started chipping in the thumb hole making it very painful to bowl. I tried to cover up the chip using some bowling tape (see below), but it didn't help much.


I had to start using the other bowling alley balls which were sub-par and my last 2 games were a disgrace. I averaged like 30 pins less than usual.

I'm not sure I want to get a new ball. Dean has served me well. But if it costs more to repair him than it did to buy him, then that just seems weird. Plus, if owning my own bowling ball makes me a dork, I can't imagine what it would mean if I actually paid money to repair said bowling ball.