My life as an (unwed) housewife.

Thanksgiving was a success. Here are a few photos:


Potatoes in progress. The shallots and sage recipe was a success. Thanks New York Times!


Cranberry sauce. Thanks Epicurious!


Medieval Times (the "Times" and the restaurant) style! Thanks Joe!

I am trying to be inventive with all the leftovers. We got to keep all the turkey because the boy who made it is a vegetarian. All I have come up with so far is curry turkey salad.

The day after Thanksgiving my dear friend Kat arrived in Chicago. She will be staying with me for a three weeks while she looks for a job and an apartment. Turns out there is an apartment available across the hall from me, so we are looking into that.

I really don't have much to write right now. I think we will see a movie today as we spent all day yesterday walking. I think I need some new indoor hobbies, but for now, movie watching, cooking, and making progress with my book club books work for me.

ALSO, I am very proud of one of best high school friends. I write this; she writes this. Way to go, Fran.

"Wouldn't It Be Nice" is playing in the cafe where we are hanging. This song now reminds of Bob because of his goodbye blog post to a group of us.

I am thankful for Friends.... the TV show

I am having my first non-familial Thanksgiving this year. A Thanksgiving with Friends! It will look like this:


Paul Rudd and I have been dating for a few weeks now. It's going merrily. I'm Jennifer Aniston though. Shh, don't tell Phoebe. Lauren is Monica. Our friend Joe is Joey. Duh. And I guess Shira will be Phoebe because she doesn't live with us.

I am in charge of potatoes and cranberry sauce. I brought a few recipes to tea time today to get opinions on what I should make. I will be making carmelized shallot and sage mashed potatoes and a yam au gratin with ginger and orange zest.

Also, last night, we established (maybe semi-drunkenly) that our rule is (at least) one bottle of wine per person. I think it's a good one.

I hope to make everyone say before we eat what they are thankful for this year. My dad always makes us do that, and I kinda like it. My guess is that everyone will say Barack Obama. And maybe Mad Men, too.

Misc. End of Work Week Post

Today was good because I met one of the co-founders of Facebook (Chris Hughes), ate yummy pizza (artichoke and chevre on one, red peppers, feta, olives, and pesto on another), and ordered a new MacBook. Chris arrived at our office when I was filling in for the receptionist and had my work laptop up at the desk and was on Facebook. I'm pretty sure he saw. I'm pretty sure that happens a lot. Like every time he goes to any public place with wireless.

Forecast says my next definite good day will be next Friday because my computer will arrive and so will my friend Kat! She is moving here and will be staying with me until we leave for Christmas and will return in January with an apartment of her own. I am excited to have this lovely lady back in my life.

I am contemplating going to a "pub night" after work. These happen every Friday, and I have not yet gone, but I don't think I will today. Only one member of my work "crew" is going. My work crew is loosely defined, by me, as the people who tea (yep, it's a verb, like "lunch") together every day at 3 and send each other funny emails.

I have a lot of reading to do in the coming weeks as I am now in two book clubs. One is with my roommate and her former roommate's twin sister and a bunch of her friends and oddly one good friend of one of my friends from high school who lives here, too. For that club, we are reading the Omnivore's Dilemma. My other book club is with my coworker and we are reading a secret book that we will discuss weekly over salads at this place she introduced me to this week called Ponte Fresco. Best salad I have had in a long time. Damn good.

I am listening to Daniel Johnston radio on Pandora which I hadn't listened to since summer 2007 when I listened to it a lot. I watched the Devil and Daniel Johnston the other night because my mom sent me the DVD, so that inspired this revisit. I had listened to him since then, just not this Pandora channel. I can't decide whose version of "True Love Will Find You in The End" I like best.

This is a boring post, but it, along with lots of water drinking, managed to kill my remaining minutes of work. My apologies. But thanks!

Birds Could Choke on the Flour, too. Duh.

Several people have told me that they used to read the Red Eye, Chicago's free daily commuter newspaper, but got tired of it's "fluff." "It's always the same." Blah blah. It took more than one issue for you to realize that? I knew it was bad from day one, but that's not why I don't read it; I don't read it because my train is so jam packed every day that there is no way I possibly could. There are, however, those who try to read it, and for that, I am thankful because I can sometimes read the back page, the gossip page. I'm sure they have some juicier name for this back cover.

Yesterday I couldn't read the back, but saw a picture of LiLo, whose gossip is really the only gossip I care about following. Since I couldn't read the text, I Googled it today, and I must say, I am glad I did.


Lindsay showers in blow! No, it's flour. An attack by French animal rights activists.

Her ladyfriend Sam Ronson gave a moving comment on the event:

"I'm pissed at the bag of flour thrown on Lindsay last night. Not because I got powdered down, but because the girl who threw it acted like an animal herself. I take that back -- it's an insult to animals to group her in with them, my dog is FAR more civilized than that person."

Ronson then pointed out, "I think there are plenty of families that could have used that flour for a meal. Nice job, lady."

Flour: It's What's for Dinner.

11/11

Good Luck Day!

I am a dork who kisses my phone if it's 11:11 and makes a wish. I have done this since my BFF Laura and I became friends. She does it. She even combines a knock on wood with the kiss of the phone.

We are bizarre, and that is why we are friends.

The kissing part, however, didn't start for me until I was a sophomore in college. A boy I liked said it was 11:11. I knew we were meant to be. I made a wish and he kissed his phone. I commented on that, and he said you are supposed to kiss whatever tells you what time it is.

I looked into his eyes, "You told me what time it is." And then we kissed as a band named after highlighters jammed on the green for all the kids who cared not about 11:11, only 4:20.

My life isn't a bad movie. I said, "Oh" and kissed my phone.

Bowling Together, Again?

A few weeks ago, I made a note to read the book Bowling Alone again.

In the last few days, others have brought that book up in conversations about politics, community, and fidelity.

Will a new administration mean a country that bowls together again? I know some folks in Saratoga who are. Right now, in fact. But I guess they never stopped.

A country that goes to the polls together, bowls together.

Okay, I tried.

(A longer election post is still coming)

In my dream, I hurt my foot

I had a dream last night I stepped on a rusty nail. I think that is my mind's recognition that the weather is now cold enough for me to watch one of my favorite movies of all time:

We Did, We Will

I am clearly, like every other proud American, going to share my thoughts on the outcome of this election, especially since I had a not-quite-front-row, but pretty-good-nonetheless seat to history.

I, however, have too much to say and have had too little time to say it the last two days.

For now:


Raise it. I'm proud.

To be continued...

(Updated) Seeing John Malkovich, and other things that have happened to me since I last blogged

I really fell out of the blogging routine for the rest of October, but I am determined to get back on it. Bob is the only one who actually requested I do, but it's been bothering me a bit lately, too.

Since I last blogged here are some things that I have done/been doing:

My parents visited. They were here during the B of A marathon weekend. My dad made several jokes about us just running from restaurant to restaurant. He also got a little drunk, I think, during dinner at Bistro Campagne (two Manhattans!) and sang along to the Cars "I Love the Night Life" in a cab at 8 pm. Correction: two different songs. There was a Cars song and then "I Love The Night Life." He was made fun of for singing "I Love the Night Life" so early in the night and for knowing all the words to a Cars song, but both were pretty cute. It was a good weekend.

I saw John Malkovich on the corner of Le Moyne and Damen. He was with a young boy.

I have been working for 3 weeks now and really like it. The people in my office are great. I was in invited to join an elite tea time group that meets daily at 3. I'll write more about work later. As much as I like it, I still don't wanna think about it on Sunday night.

I saw the movie Rachel Getting Married and really liked it. I saw Tunde again the next week at the TV on the Radio show.

I went to a pumpkin carving party and carved this beauty.



I dressed as Cher from Clueless for Halloween.



Overall, I've been enjoying autumn. There are a lot of spooky, tree-lined streets in this city.

I am excited, but still quite scared for Tuesday.