Michigan City was amazing.

I truly did feel like I was on vacation, just as I had hoped I would. Except in Michigan City we had our own beach house, and our own private beach, and there were co-workers there. Minor details. I didn't even get burnt despite the 95+ degree weather. It was a beautiful day away. I could definitely get used to that every weekend.

But today I'm back in Chicago, close to Lake Michigan, but so far away from having a beach house.

This morning after church I went out for lunch with Sarah Grace. it was her birthday. We also stopped at a garage sale and i bought a barely used papasan chair for a mere $10. If you don't know what a papasan chair is, you don't know what you're missing. My suggestion to you would be to look it up on the internet. You've proabably seen one before, you just didn't know it had a name. Anyway, it's great. My aunt and uncle used to have one when I was little, and I've wanted one of my own since then. I could've bought a brand new one from the store for at least $100, but I think $10 is much more in line with my budget. Ok, I'm going to post a pic of it so you can share in the joy of how cute it is.

Cute, huh. and it matches my comforter. For only $10 it wouldn't even have to match my comforter, but it does. so there's bonus points.

While I'm at it, here are a couple pictures from yesterday, at the beach in Michigan City.

meh

Yesterday after work I went to the Art Institute to hear a lecture about Harry Callahan. There is also currently an exhibit of his work there. An Archive of his work actually. Meaning not just photos, but his negatives, contact sheets, and notes. Seeing the inner workings of an artist makes their work a little easier to grasp. especially being able to see how they worked. Pretty inspirational. The lecture was good too. Harry Callahan was just a normal guy who loved to take pictures, and he is now considered one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. He was heavily based in the Chicago area, so many of his photographs are set in familiar locations.

I'm going to try to go to more of those lecture at the art institute. They're free and I enjoy them, so I really have no reason not to go.

Well, tomorrow I'm off to Michigan City. I've never been there and have no idea what to expect. But it's a work party at the beach, so I'm hoping it's fun. I like all the people I work with so it should be entertaining to say the least. I'm considering it my summer vacation. I know, it's pretty pathetic to consider a work party a vacation, but it's decently far away so it qualifies in my book. My co worker is picking me up at noon tomorrow and we should have an entertaining drive down there. She's a crazy lady and really funny. Hopefully we make it there ok. She told me that her horoscope predicted that she would have problems with driving directions. Let's hope that's not the case. I certainly don't know how to get to Michigan City.

parking and buses

So I watched a lady parallel park her mini cooper the other day. Ok, I watched her ATTEMPT to park her mini cooper. If you have a mini cooper, parallel parking should not be an issue, and it should definitely NOT be something that people, such as myself, watch. You should be able to drive right into the spot. Ok, well. This lady was struggling. The whole production took about 5 minutes and about 10 or more manuevers to get her settled in. And it's not like the spot was small either. Seriously. No wonder women drivers have bad reps.

Oh, and in case you're wondering why I was watching someone parallel park, I was waiting for the bus.

Then I saw a bus, and on the side of it was an advertisement for Mitchum deodorant. It said, " If you could totally parallel park this baby (referring to the bus), you're a Mitchum Man."

There. My story just came full circle. Parking and buses. Have a good night.

wake up slow

For the first time in almost 2 months, I won't have to sleep on an air mattress tonight. That's right, I finally bought a futon and it was delivered today! cheers to that! though I had to pay an extra $40 for delivery and it didn't even come assembled. But that doesn't matter now, because Rachel, bless her heart, helped me assemble the thing. It wasn't easy either. First of all they forgot to include the instructions in the box, so I had to go back to the store to get an extra copy. The instructions consisted of 3 steps in small black type with a small, cluttered illustration. Oh, and the parts they listed didn't match up to the labels on the illustrations. It was a bit ridiculous.

Speaking of Rachel, it was her birthday on Saturday. And we had a great time celebrating it on Friday night, it was a late night, but super fun. Went to the lake front on Saturday afternoon and Sunday...got a bit too much sun, which I'm still regretting. But it was such beautiful weather and I couldn't not be outside. Sunday morning I met a bunch of people at church. Some had been in the Chicago Semester program recently, some were even from Northwestern in Orange City! It was nice to finally be able to talk to someone who knew what a Dordt College was, or even what a Sioux Center is. Tomorrow night they're hanging out and they invited me as a "20-somethings" group through church. All-in-all this was a really busy, really fun weekend. Rebecca Slagter (Groenendyk) came downtown on Sunday night, so I got to see her again too. I miss her, and she's going to be moving to Florida in January! I know it's a ways away, but still...Florida! Might be a good time of the year to visit her....:)

Not sure what else is new. I made myself banana pancakes for dinner tonight. It was a new experience for me, and truthfully I have Jack Johnson to thank for the inspiration. Thanks, Jack. They were delicious.

umbrella reflections

This morning I shared my umbrella with an elderly lady on my way into the museum. I couldn't refuse her the assistance, even though she never asked to be sheltered from the drenching downpour. She claimed to own 3 umbrellas, all of which were, of course, at home. Her husband quietly followed behind us in the rain, not saying a single word until we got into the museum. Then he politely thanked me for helping his wife. It was a feel good moment for me, and I was surprised later in the day when a couple co-workers told me how nice it was of me to share my umbrella with her. I thought, why wouldn't I? Is an umbrella such a prized possession that it is rarely shared with others in the same need? Or is more of the stranger attitude: I don't know you and I'll most likely never see you again, therefore I have no obligation to help you? I admit I've had the stranger attitude before...when I see people running to catch the bus that I'm on, yet I don't tell the bus driver to wait a few more seconds. Or when I shove in front of someone in line at the train station in order to catch the awaiting train, causing them to miss it.

It's no surprise to me that most of these "stranger experiences" happen to me on the CTA, yet that's where I feel the most connected to others...relying on the same thing to get us home or to work or to the store, swaying in the same direction on the turns, losing our balance when it lurches forward or stops suddenly. All of us having the same alert and cautious looks on our faces, appearing to be confident and on guard of everyone other person around us. How easy it is for us to ignore each others needs when we are all concerned with the appearance of others around us.

can anyone relate? or share a similar experience?

i have a roof!

Ok, of course I have a roof. But tonight I discovered I have a roof top....with a view of the John Hancock building and the Sears Tower, and I can sit up there or lay out up there and it's quiet and peaceful, and I can see the sunset or the sunrise (but probably not the sunrise unless I'm super ambitious, but it could happen) I love it!

movies and such

This weekend was weak....in terms of entertainment and doing stuff. Can't really blame anyone but myself though, i didn't really feel like doing much yesterday or today. Friday night was fun though. Went to dinner and a movie with a co-worker, his finance and his brother. We ate at Big Bowl and saw the movie You, Me & Dupree. Funny movie, borderline dumb funny, but funny nonetheless. Sucks that it costs $10 to see a movie in the city though. Ok, it was only $9.50, I tend to exagerrate things sometimes. It was fun evening though so it was worth it. Plus I got paid last week, so it feels like I have boatloads of money, even though most of it will go towards rent, utilities, and I really need to buy some furniture one of these days. Thinking a futon would be my best bet since I don't have a bed and i don't really have room for a bed and a sofa. Anyone got any suggestions on buying a futon? Any experienced futon shoppers out there??

I feel like venting some more about the heat, but it really won't do any good. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been sweating all day, so I'll spare ya'll the complaining and just say that it sucks.

I watched the movie October Sky today, Rachel let me borrow it from her collection. I think she felt sorry for me when she saw my pathetic collection of 3 DVDs. Anyways, the movie was ok, one of those 'feel-good' type of movies. Lately I've been really critical of the movies that I've been watching. I don't know what has caused it, but i notice things about films that are trivial, and it annoys me. For example. In the movie October Sky, there were times when the camera would focus in on the props or things that the actors/actresses were doing with their hands. I don't know why but it really bothered me. It made me feel uncomfortable, like something bad was about to happen. Maybe it was the whole mood of the scene which encouraged the foreboding feeling, but it was disturbing, unneccessary, and distracting. Similarly, in You, Me & Dupree, there were several scenes that I thought were completely irrelevant to the movie. I hate it when movies have all sorts of tangents and random aspects that do nothing for the film except make it longer than it needs to be. For example, in You, Me & Dupree, there was one random character that was talked about a lot in the film and was apparently a pretty important role (though I think the film would have been fine without her), and we never actually saw the characters face! We would see the back of her head or her leg but never her face. Annoying. This wasn't the only thing about the movie that was distracting for me. There were several details about other characters that were not developed enough to be important. All they did was distract me from the main flow of the plot. I definitely like things to be streamlined, no frills no fuss type of stuff. Maybe that's why I never liked Super Troopers. Anyway, I don't want to talk to much about You, Me & Dupree because if you haven't seen it, you probably wouldn't know what I was talking about, and maybe you want to see it yourself and don't want some chump movie critic like myself ruining it for you. Either way, watch it sometime, and tell me if you know what I'm talking about.

Maybe it's because I took part in a test screening of the movie The Departed (comes out in October) a few weeks ago, my main purpose to analyze the film and let the movie experts know what I thought about the plot, characters, scenes, etc. Though I think I analyzed the movie Over the Hedge the same way....and i saw that before my test audience experience.

six foot man on a double decker bicycle

I saw it first hand as I was walking down the sidewalk today. he went whizzing by and it was quite a sight. Tall as a bus. I have no idea how he got on the thing, but it looked like 2 bikes stacked on top of each other. bizarre. One of the many moments in the city when I wish I had my camera ready.

I went shopping today, not so much because I needed stuff, but because it was too hot to stay in my apartment. Normally on super hot days people don't go out, they stay in where it's air conditioned. But for me it's the opposite. If it's super hot, I go out. My air conditioner doesn't seem to cool my apartment down no matter how long I run the thing. So I try to avoid running it. I just went out for dinner with Rachel, left the air on while I was gone and when I came back nearly 2 hours later, it doesn't feel like I had anything but a fan on. So I tend to go "shopping" or pretend to shop while I'll I'm doing is using other people's air conditioners.

Tomorrow's supposed to be hotter.

apartment pics....here they are!

ok all you blognivores

Not quite where to start on this one. It's been almost 2 weeks since my last decent post and so much has happened since then. I guess I'll start with the thing that's freshest on my memory, and that is my flight back to Chicago from Omaha. As many of you know, I was home this past weekend for heather Kroeze's wedding (more on that later) and I flew in and out of Omaha. Well, Monday night, my flight was supposed to leave promtly at 7pm, giving me an ETA of 8:20ish to Midway. Jill lovingly drove me to Omaha and dropped me off around 5:30, plenty of time before the flight. I went to the gate, not having to check any luggage saves a lot of time, so I was there around 5:45. Sat down and waited. Around 6:45 we started boarding. Pretty sure everyone was on the plane, settled down and buckled it when they announced that we all had to de-plane because of maintenance issues. Didn't find out til about 7:50 that the plane was not fixable and that we would have to wait til 10 until there would be another plane available to take our broken plane's spot. humpgh. so, we waited. I finished a book and a whole magazine before 10:10 when our flight finally departed. We arrived at Midway at 11:15, and I finally got back to my apartment at 1am. It was ridiculous. If you figure in the time it took to drive to Omaha, that trip took me 9.5 hours :P

I was only a half hour late to work this morning.

Despite the crappy end, I had a great little visit to SC. There really is far to much to talk about so I'll list a few of the highlights:
1. seeing Heather get married, and being a part of the big day as the candid photographer and personal attendant. I took 6 rolls of film!
2. Spending some incredible quality time with Jill....ok, and Joe....ok, AND Elizabeth!! A few things come to mind: Burger King, the car behind us at burger king, the guy in the car behind us at burger king, Room 231, 57 Chevy with Blue Hawaiian Plates, the claw, Wal-Mart, Hillbilly Teeth, no teeth at all, highschool basketball tournament, the alligator, Hokey Pokey, Chicken Dance, and every other wedding dance that should be banned!
3. The amazing clouds on the flight home
4. Eating Wells Blue Bunny Ice Cream in LeMars with Dani instead of going for a walk. haha....it was far too hot outside!
5. Randomly running into Lauralee Stel at the Bakery...it was so good to see you again!
6. The beautiful Marc Chagall prints at the Campus Center gallery.
7. Driving my car again!
8. Getting to see a ton of people that I miss dearly....even you Posty!

It really was a great weekend. But it is also really good to be back. Coming back to Chicago felt really good, even though it sucks leaving everyone again, and not knowing when I'll be back in SC again. I feel like right now I belong in Chicago. As much as my mom doesn't want to hear it, it's true.

the craziness that is

well, the move went fabulously. thanks to a huge group effort and a lot of sweat. 4 flights of stairs is no small feat, and I'm very grateful to all who helped. so....thanks Becky and Jess, Rachel and Becky H, and the Carpenter family. words can't even express how thankful I am to you!

Becky and Jess left sunday afternoon, after a great weekend. Even though we spent friday night moving all my stuff, we had a great time hanging out, being tourists on saturday at the craziness called Navy Pier, shopping on Michigan Ave and State St., and laying out at the beach on Sunday (even though it was sprinkling off-and-on and there was a total of about 5 minutes of actual sunshine, we made the most of it!) I had my first experience at the American Girl store this weekend (thanks Jess!) :P What craziness! I don't know how many of you are familiar with The American Girl Store.....but what I saw this weekend was nauseating. Some little girls are incredibly spoiled, and they have no idea. I don't know what was worse, the level of spoiled-ness of the girls, or the adults who work in the store's doll beauty salon and hospital. It's sort of ridiculous to see adults brushing doll's hair and getting paid for it. That's just my opinion....not worth much in the minds of the American Girl Store business executives. They're making millions!!

Work today was like a ghost town, being the day between the weekend and a holiday. I, however, cannot afford to take time off, so I was there with 2 other co-workers (out of about 30!) It was a very good day for museum business though. So many tourists! I'm thankful I was up on the 4th floor away from all the commotion.

Oh....my apartment is so nice!! I've fallen in love with it! I'll post some pics when i get everything hung up on the walls. It's a beauty, with a much better view than the previous apartment. ok, i'm gunna grab some dinner. cereal sounds nice and easy!