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Thanksgiving Weekend: Part 2

November 25, 2000

Thanksgiving Weekend: Part 2
"Lunch at Crapplebee's"

Where was I? Oh yeah. After leaving Best Buy. I complained (imagine that) that I was hungry and needed to buy Kleenex. Brad suggested we go to one of the 18 Meijer's in the area. For those of you unfamiliar with Meijer's it is one of those giant stores that sell absolutely everything you need. You can buy everything from shrimp cocktail to tube socks. From a toaster oven to a car battery. DVDs to milk to a belt. It has a grocery section, some middle part with women's clothes and then a pharmacy on the end. Imagine a Wal-Mart, only nicer and bigger. I like Meijer's.

In any case, I made a bee-line for the facial tissues and Brad disappeared somewhere in the CDs (because he didn't just wade through eleventy billion CDs at Best Buy?). I sneezed and the pharmacologist blessed me. How nice. I found the Kleenex travel packs. It was a pack of 8. I needed one now, so I tore it open. I placed the opened package in my shopping basket. I then decided I needed cold medicine. It takes me for-ever to decide on what medicine I need. I don't have an achy head, but it is stuffy. I am sneezing but no sinus pressure. Runny nose? Check. Congestion? Got that. Sore throat? NO! Scratchy throat? NO! I don't need to rest either. Non-drowsy? Okay, good. But wait, that is for coughing. This is too much. I am high maintenance. Finally I decide on Dimetapp liquigels. I like made up words. Liquigel. Sounds nice. Plus it was a pretty blue color. That is ultimately how I make decisions. Based on packaging.

Okay, I have the Kleenex and the pills (I tend to over-medicate), now I need a bottled water to take the pill with. I find the refrigerated section. The only water they had left was "Aquafina." Yuck. It tastes like a tin can, which is bad considering it is in a plastic bottle. Where is that Smart Water I had the other week?

[Side story: Our office had an all-day meeting on the 99th floor of the Sears Tower a few weeks back. I bought some NEW bottled water called "Smart Water." I'm an idiot, I know. We were in the meeting and I was drinking this water and I started to feel dizzy and shaky. Was it the electrolytes in the water? I was feeling really sick and out of sorts. It had to be the poison "Smart Water!" Of course, that didn't stop me from drinking it. I would take a drink and then say to myself "Did that make me sick? Am I moving or is the building? Am I having a stroke? A brain tumor? What is happening to me? I need to take another sip to be sure. Yes, it's the poisoned water. Why am I shaking? Do I have Parkinson's Disease?" I was silently freaking out. At the first break I told everyone that I was having a mild seizure and I need to lie down on the floor. No one offered to hold me tongue aside. It was then that we figured out that wind was violently rocking the building. We were all getting sick. Oh. So it wasn't just me. Good. But now we have 5 more hours of this mild Poseidon Adventure. I had a splitting headache by 5:00. -- End of story. Good water.]

So I rip open the Dimetapp, pop two liquigels and take some water. I then attempt to find Brad. I used up about 87 Kleenexes (Kleenices?). We go to check out and the check out woman was like "This medication is open...so are these tissues and you have an empty bottle of water here." I explained my issues and she just looked at me like I'm a freak. She's the one working at the Meijer's! Rude.

Now I am starving and I had convinced myself that the pills weren't working because I hadn't eaten anything lately. Maybe I should take some more. Brad says no, as it's been about 20 minutes since my first dose.

Our choices of places to eat were all the same. We settled on Applebee's. I hate all of these chain restaurants that have an identical giant menu with a picture of each meal and the "clever-clutter" decor. Just find any old piece of junk and put it up. "Yeah, put the Lacrosse sticks on the wall next to the miner's hat. No, below the stop sign, below!" How can I tell where I am if they are all the same? T.G.I.Tuesdays? ChiliBee's? HouliGans? It doesn't matter. The bar is always located in the middle, the tables around the outside, bathroom in the back.

The food was fine. I had an overpriced lunch meat sandwich with three seasoned fries. Eventually my cold went away and we all lived happily ever after. Until Brad insisted we go to the Olive Garden for dinner.

Death to the CTA

November 20, 2000

This morning, I left my house at 7:40am for work. Imagine that. I actually left early.
Now, considering the fact that I have to be at work by 9:00am at the latest,
you'd think leaving 80 minutes ahead of time would be enough. You'd be wrong.
There is always the CTA factor.

So I am trying to sneak around the apartment as not to disturb Brad, who is still sleeping because he is a bastard and has this whole week off. Of course, that means that no matter how hard I try to be quiet, it's inevitable that I will make a ton of noise. Like when I was in high school and my mother made enough noise outside my bedroom door that she sounded like Daffy Duck and his one man band. In any case, I woke him up. He's awake and ready to get out of bed.

I leave for work and it is so frickin' cold. It's like the remote Ice World of Hoth and had I happened upon a dead Ton-Ton I would have climbed inside for warmth. But since that did not occur, I decided to break one of my Chicago rules. That being "Do not consume food on the El." I stopped at one of the 30 coffee shops I pass in the 4 blocks between my apartment and the train, and decide to get a tall hazelnut latte. Since it was a little independent shop and not Starbucks, it didn't cost $38. I get the coffee and go to the train station. I had just missed a train. No biggie, they come every few minutes, and one did. I get on and manage to balance my coffee and get my book, Memoirs of a Geisha, out of my bag without incident. I'm all set for the train ride.

Now, drinking a coffee on the el is a big step for me. I'm not a germ-o-phobe or anything, but the train is gross. I try to not even breathe on it for fear I'll get Hepatitis C through M. I have seen people pull apart bologna sandwiches and stuff their mouths getting Miracle Whip in their facial hair (both men and women). That is disgusting for many reasons. It is not unusual to find the floor of the train covered in half eaten chicken bones. It looks like an unearthed archeological dig at an ancient KFC. But I figured I was safe because the coffee was double-cupped and had a lid with a very small opening. No problem there. The problem occurred when the train left the station, traveled 30 feet and stopped. We sat between Sheridan and Addison for 15 minutes. Then we get to Addison and stop before Belmont for another 15 minutes. GREAT! By the time I transferred to the Blue line and got to work it was 9:05. I had been on the crappin' train for over an hour. The office is less than 6 miles from my apartment. I can see the Sears Tower from my living room and our office is 2 blocks from that. Yet, it takes me one hundred years to get to work. I am bitter.

So after I have to restart my computer 64 times to get it to work, it is 9:30. Over 1 hour and 45 minutes have passed since I left home. I decided to call Brad and complain. He was asleep. Well, I felt bad for a second, but not really. That reminds me of a time in college when my friend Barb woke up super early on a Saturday and decided that if she was up, everyone else needed to be as well. So she drove to my house and demanded I get in her car. We then drove to our friend Debbie's and pounded on her door until she came out. Then we all went to Eat-n-Park* for breakfast. Good times.

*Eat-n-Park is an infamous restaurant in the tri-state area**.
**Tri-state being Western PA, Ohio and WV.

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Hide the giant lube jar! The parents are coming!

Recently my parents came to visit from Pittsburgh.

My boyfriend and I live in the heart of Boystown and by now my parents are used to what they refer to as "the lively activity" that goes on nearly 24/7.

When they first visited years ago, I was more worried about my surroundings and made sure everything was "parent friendly." I would reddup the apartment (that's Pittsburghese for "a quick clean") and do a scan to make sure there weren't any nude male screen savers on the computers, a dog-eared copy of the "Gay Kama Sutra" on the bookshelf or a 30-gallon jug of lubricant on the dresser.

Bedroom is a two-way street

A relationship is a two-way street.

One person gives a little and takes a little, and the other does the same. There are also certain agreements made in a relationship because one person doesn't like a particular chore. For example, the guy might clean the litter box and the woman will vacuum, or one person will kill the spiders and the other will dust the tchotchkes. Or the husband will hunt dinner and the wife will cook it up--hey, that's how the Ingalls family operated.

But this sort of arrangement can get sticky in the bedroom. If one person is tackling a big chore and the other is simply reaping the rewards, there's a problem. That's why I was surprised when a friend of mine, whom I shall call "Bob" to protect his identity and use a name with a double-entendre, said he refuses to perform oral sex on his girlfriend but expects her to pleasure him that way. How is that fair?
Read more.

How much 'Sex' can one person take?

I have a love/hate relationship with "Sex and the City."

I loved the TV show but hated the first movie. So I was a bit concerned about the "SATC2" movie that opened last week; would this film be better or worse than the first?

I had seen most of the episodes of "SATC" when it aired on HBO from 1998 to 2004. Say what you will about SJP's constant puns, Samantha's over-the-top sexcapades and the girls' drag queen-inspired wardrobes, it's a fun way to pass 25 minutes of your day--except when the character of Mr. Big in on screen, and that's where my apprehension begins.