girlfriend sweatshop beach/craft weekend extravaganza super heavy image post!

we meant to leave at 12.

we instead left at 3 (or was it 4?). me, jen, rachel & bekah met up with erika at the hotel. it was lovely. we were greeted with:



and we were soso relaxed and relieved to be there.







this didn't last long of course, once the asti was opened.



out we went to whole foods for some delicious snacky snacks and for me, ibuprofen. 5 girls, 4 of them bleeding, 2 of them sick. i conveniently got the flu and my period on friday - lovely, no? the car was filled with crafts, estrogen and a veritable treasure trove of herbal medicines. and ibuprofen.

so we ate and went to the tavern on the main to meet some other vendors and hang out w/ yen & mike. hurrah! then back to the hotel to craft some more and to PLAY ON THE BEACH AT MIDNIGHT.

check out rachel's awesome pajamas. she needs a smoking jacket. and don't ask what jen's doing to my butt, i have no idea.



must... craft.... cannot..... stop!!



on the way to beach - this is jen & erika's american apparel shot:



the beach was cold and quiet and dark. the sand was freezing! like soft soft sugar. so different from ft myers beaches, which are full of shells. i was able to run about without fear of sharp cuts and stick-a-burrs.



much frolicking ensued:





and then the fun photos began. the cold makes us delirious, not the free beer at the tavern.

so many stars...



and unexplained objects





the dangers came from all sides



fear is the path to the dark side. fear leads to anger. anger leads to hate. hate leads to suffering



and yet, we were able to relax enough for some interpretive dance. there is always time for interpretive dance. we are the ocean.







erika really wanted to go skinny dipping until we realized creepy people were watching. go to bed, man! it's midnight!









anyways, the next day was full of coffee and crafts.

here's the auditorium:



us, pre-show



jen & rachel had this awesome idea for a logo sign!



and, our booth. lovely, no? :)



hopefully you were able to stay with me the duration of my trip down memory lane. i now love the beach and want to go back. so soft!! though, probably imported.

i should.... probably get back to work now. mayhaps i'll have time to write more later.

i'm a posting fool, because i dislike my job

ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

i hate feeling behind. which is how i feel. immensely. stressfully.

schedule:

• do bulletin board discussion for class at work. get out of work.
• go to petsmart and jo-ann for fabric and catnip. staples/office depot for organizational supplies.
• pick up anthony.
• drive by marshall ctr for a free student organizational calendar. (can you sense a theme here?)
• go home. make catnip toys like crazy. anticipate feline orgy at home.
  
• saturday. will want to sleep in, but will instead meet w/ GFSS for stride for strays. sell items and drink coffee or tea. ooh! pack a picnic! mimosas? sneaky.
• organize classwork and maybe even finish some.
• have mulled wine party, possibly with pumpkin defacement and mutilation. i need warm spiced wine.
  
• sunday. SLEEP IN. awake groggy, yet refreshed.
• get classwork done(ish), maybe make 2 bags. yea. 2 bags. that's not so bad.
  

things i learned in chicago:

• i need new shoes
• sometimes, boys are cleaner than girls
• cigarette wrappers can be used for those other than tobacco*
• rats really do live in sewers
• people in the mid-west are really nice. like, really, really, inhumanly nice.
• the majority of my clothing consists of solid colors (hence, i oft appeared as though a rainbow had thrown up on me)
• i lick the top corners of my lips a lot
• i'm addicted to burt's bees beeswax sticks
• chicago is cooler than tampa (temperaturally and fun-wise)
• faith in humanity +60 - because andy had only met us briefly maybe twice and didn't know us that well at all and we got a key to his apt! and dug drove his car in chicago.

* this one is a joke; really, i'm not that naive. really.

and i got to see wait, wait! don't tell me taped live in sarasota! listen on saturday to hear me & ant clapping. yen & mike also took us out to have some thai and afterwards we went to a little gelato shop and had ice cream and pastries. lovely AND delicious!

things i learned in sarasota:

• after the show, they re-record parts that got muddled or weren't clear
• old people sometimes wear a TON of cologne
• sarasota has a lot of old peoplecarson cooper looks *nothing* like i thought he would
• apparently, it's 8 degrees in chicago (w/ wind chill) - wtf?
• one of yen's cats is as big as thomas
• i need to make a lightbox like yen's
• watching is more fun, but listening at home is easier to hear

listening to:

tortoise - standards

part II - chicago? may i have some more?

hm.

so where was i? rats.... andy's amazing breakfasts... super cold...

well, i'll just post some pictures to keep you visually, if not mentally, entertained.


here's the bean on saturday. i didn't take any pictures of myself in or under the bean, because all the distortion made me physically motion sick (pathetic? answer: yes). also, i thought ant & dug & i would see it on sunday, but alas, we did not make it downtown.


klee makes me feel good and fizzy.


a picture of dug! during daylight! and you can actually SEE his face! every single picture i have of dug at a show is of the top of his head with him hunched over his keyboard. every. single. picture.


the leaves were so incredible. such color! i heart the fall.


and the sky became so beautiful on saturday. friday was rainy and cloudy, but it became so beautiful, and even warm, towards the end of the trip.


at the brookfield zoo. doesn't that make you yearn for a picnic?


a lonely snail in the swamp exhibit


sleep goblin and ds, showing off their machismo.


on the long march towards the train station, pre-argyle yuppie party.


seriously? gorgeous. obviously, chicago needs me. and jen and rachel and meaghan and erika. because i need my girlfriend sweatshoppers. onwards, christian and agnostic soldiers!


from the field museum




these are 3-inch golden water lilies. tiny shoes for rich, crippled, yet super sexy chinese women. these were SMALLER THAN MY PALM. i cannot even begin to imagine the pain, nor the stench. the shoes for a baby were larger than these.




rowing away in the dino bone rowboat.


some of the dinos were actually really quite nice.


awww... a kiss!


and some... were not so nice!


the boys in the studio: (from the left) dug, anthony, andy, laurent


we rocked the cb2 and trader joe's. :D


models on the chicago street. damn my cold shaking blur-inducing hands!


waiting for the bus with throbbing feet. we are weak.

part I - chicago? may i have some more?

anthony graded me on my steely resolve against the bitter chicago cold: D-

a D fucking minus?! that's failing! i never fail! ... the chicago cold has broken me and i weep.

despite the failing grade and bitter cold, our trip was really awesome and really not long enough.

pre-trip. we go to bed around 2 or 3 on wednesday night, cleaning and packing.

thursday morning we have no water with which to brush our teeth or shower. !!
run errands with dead-rat-breath mouths.
end up showing at bekah and eric's doorstep, stinky, carrying towels and bath products, wearing mis-matched pajamas and begging for mercy.

oh. thank. god.

pack frantically, forgetting a warm pajama top, but remembering to bring 2 pajama bottoms.

on the plane, i manage to spill ginger ale directly into my crotch-al area. not on the side, not sorta-near, but directly on my crotch. luckily, my pants dry quickly and i am spared the embarrassment of meeting new people with an uncommonly wet hoo-ha.

so we get in on thursday and are picked up by andy, guitarist and avant garde audio consultant (truly). he took us to los nopales where we dined on insanely good mexican food. did i mention that it was insanely good? i'm back to work today and am dreaming longingly of delicious lime tilapia and nopales salad. eff. i am so hungry. no breakfast. :(

i also saw my first rat this evening.

kim: "was that a possom?! you have possums in the city??! abnormally large squirrels?!"
andy: "uh, that was a rat. yea, they get big here. cat-size."

awesome! city rats!

total kim + anthony chicago rat count: 4
total cities in which i've seen large rats: 2 (chicago and firenze, italia)

then out to a bar for a few alcoholic beverages. (this became a relaxing theme of the vacation.)

friday and saturday the boys pretty much stayed indoors all day mixing their CD under the tutelage of andy.

i.e. they were warm whilst kim braved the cold to venture into the city (not sure what's up w/ my use of third person today).

friday, i was able to see the art institute and it was almost emotional how incredible it was. i love museums and cities that love their museums. it was rather inspring. plus, some klee paintings! (i don't think anything will quite top the paul klee center in switzerland for klee paintings, though.) rachel actually used to live in chicago and i got to see the ando gallery (in the art institute), where she spent many a contemplative hour. so beautiful and peaceful.

saturday i met up with sleep goblin and ds in downtown chicago. we talked about their recent wedding and meeting boys online and had wild adventures in reaching the brookfield zoo. the crappy part was that we only had an hour at zoo, but we were able to see some swampy animals watch some river otters frolic. throw in a polar bear, some lions and tigers and some real animals (kids dressed up for halloween) and it was pretty cool.

ant and i are planning another trip to chicago in the spring, maybe i can see more of the zoo then.

and it was so beautiful! almost like a park with geese on the lawn.

bonus: i got to see ds mount a stone lion. unfortunately, my pics came out blurry - hopefully sg will be able to post some.

on the way back, we walked from the brookfield zoo to the metra station. it started to get dark. i almost called a cab on my cell phone, with ds' blessing.

good deed for the day: knocked on a stranger's door to inform them that a car light was left on. was invited in for a yuppie argyle party. declined, though later regretted not grabbing (what looked to be) a delicious party beverage. they got out a train schedule and were able to direct us to a metra station. hurrah! bliss! bi-pedal relaxation, 2 story trains and mood-color-change tickets.

i'm thinking it was the ashfield station, i'm not positive, but if it was, we walked 10 miles. (in addition to the 1.3 miles one-way i'd walk from the studio to the rail station each day.) i'll formulate a chart of how many miles i covered. i was literally limping the next night (sunday).

in florida, we make liberal use of our cars.

oh! and breakfasts! andy made the three of us breakfasts each morning. barefoot boys in the kitchen, ftw. i am very jealous of people who are able to frequent trader joe's.


... to be continued, i suppose i need to get some work done sometime....

monday madness

ok, some exciting things that have been going on that i've neglected to note:

• michie & scott have gotten engaged! it was a while ago, but it involved a long drive out to the country-like area, a farm, a diy bouquet of flowers and sweat. sweat from a hot-temperature-heat kind of way and not a hot *ahem* kind of way. i'm sure they saved that for later. in the air conditioning.
• tickets for chicago have been bought - and only $119! we're going at the end of october - i'm so excited! i've never been there, but have always wanted to move there. so this is like, "research." {btw, was informed by jen that it's not only called the "windy city" because of the wind, it's because of all the windy politicians.}
• i applied for a full-time library assistant position. oh, how i hope i get it! and hopefully they'll give me a pay close to what i make now. because truly, my job is sucking the life from me. slowly, surely, inexorably.
• library asst requirements: typing test results: needed 70 keystrokes a min, can type 200 keystrokes a minute. written test results: needed 60/100, got 87/100. that test was harder than i thought it would be! analogies and math and grammar! crazy - it was like taking a standardized test.
• my good friend from high school and his wife & his beagle, shajan & tina & watson, moved to tampa! i love love love when friends move closer to me.
• crafting out loud this sunday was hot and muggy and sticky after the warm florida rains. thankfully, framboise lambic on tap kept us cool cool cool. afterwards, jen & brian came over for some 'v for vendetta' action. during one of the protest scenes, they used real footage that said on one sign, "bush you're a f*cking..." the rest was cut off. HA!

check out these awesome pics of the bbq last last weekend. : )

this dog weighs more than me - 170 lbs!

tonk is a bull mastiff! ruff! he'd eat our kitties alive. but only because he wanted to play, he's the biggest puppy at heart w/ the most adorable jowlies. a little drool-y though.

this is their other baby, harley, a great dane.

mm... much fun was had and insanely good and delicious steak was ingested.