Monday, June 19, 2006



WHAT A SUCCESS!
The weekend was chock-full of pre and post party events. I cooked most all of the day on Saturday in preparation of feeding 30-something people at our barbecue Saturday night. The party, a fundraiser to get together some $$ for my 20-mile walk in August, was a huge success! The attendees contributed a total of $579, which is so generous and fabulous for just one night! Though we narrowly avoided a near-hurricane early in the evening and we had to shepherd everyone down to our tiny house while the storm passed. It never actually rained on our buliding, even though we saw the wall-o-rain headed our way from the south. Who knows, maybe the gods knew we were trying to have a party for a good cause... I wanted to thank everyone who came for being so generous, and for eating and drinking, and just having a good time! The clean-up afterwards wasn't bad, either, which is always the worst thing about a party, so we were very happy about that! Although the recovery process took me all day (I slept until about 4...) and finally got rid of my post-party headache after dinner with Mom and Dad Bork to celebrate father's day. Delicious tapas. And I gave Dad a book on Patton I'd found at the Printers Row Book Fair, so hopefully he'll find some interesting tidbits in there on his favorite general!

Trevor spent his between-party-preparation time watching World Cup games, of which I hear there were a few good ones! Ghana did very well, and the U.S. tied someone else...he'll have the details. But while I was chopping up onions and peppers for the salad on Saturday afternoon, he kept shouting "GOOAALLLL!" which tipped me off that he was watching some exciting matches.

I got the scoop on the Power's recent trip to Ireland, and it sounded great--beautiful weather and time spent with the Power clan and Fran said they got to almost everything on their sight-seeing list, which is quite an accomplishment! And Mr. Power is starting a new job next month, which he's happy about, and he's got some time off during which he's going to start working on our bookshelves (yahoo!) and visit Rachel and Letty down in Florida, which all sounds very pleasant if I do say so myself.

So, now I have to get rid of a cold I caught over the weekend, and go kick some homeruns at our kickball tournament tonight! Until we meet again, this is Bork Power signing off!
(to see more pictures, check out Laura's Photos!)

Sunday, June 11, 2006




SUNDAY, BLOODY SUNDAY...
Was the song we were singing as we rolled up to the Cicero Stadium to watch the first bout of the Windy City Rollers' new season. Our friend Kelli is on the Double Crossers (her name is "Terra Fye") and they kicked some major butt. It was great. We'd never been to a roller derby bout before, and man, those ladies were flying! They cruised around this flat rink trying to knock out each other's Jammers (the girls that score) before they could make it to the top of the pack. The Double Crossers were winning at half-time and Trevor and I decided to call it a night. We wanted to get back home to Henry, and it's a school night after all!

Trevor spent Saturday and Sunday hanging out with his brother Sean, watching the WORLD CUP! Apparently, the Mexico/Iran game was great (Mexico won, and the goalie on Iran's team brought flowers for Mexico's goalie, whose father just passed away. I thought that was just lovely.) as was the Germany/Costa Rico game. And Ecuador won on Friday, so our friend Linda, who's Ecuadorian, was thrilled! There are more games through the week, but the U.S. plays tomorrow, which is terribly exciting. I'm going to try to listen to it at work, and Trevor--who's going to be on his way to Atlanta to see Home Depot--will try to catch it in the airport bar. Let's hope they kick some Czech rear end.

We're also having a fundraising party next Saturday for the walk I'm doing for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. So far I've met 25% of my goal (thanks to Aunt Carol, Shannon O., and a special thanks to mom and dad!!), and hopefully the party will inch that goal upwards. I went to Target this morning after dropping Trevor off at Sean's house, and picked up a few party supplies. I've got to figure out the bbq menu, as well. I love throwing parties!

Well, that's about all we had going on this weekend. Trevor went to a party Saturday night at his friend Brian's house, but I was an old lady and fell asleep watching television. I'm knitting a choker for my co-worker, Roxanna, so I'm going to sign off to finish that. Until next time, true believers, this is Bork-Power, signing off.

Friday, June 9, 2006

BOOKS, BOOKS, AND MORE BOOKS!
I figured that I should catch you all up on last weekend before we embarked on this one! Last weekend was devoted mainly to books. I went to the Printer's Row Book fair Saturday and Sunday (Saturday, my friend Lisa and I went for a few hours, and Sunday, Trevor, Henry, and I went for another few hours), and both trips were terribly fruitful. We found books for ourselves and books for lots of other people--a book about Patton for my dad, a book about poker for Trevor's brother Sean, a hard cover Bluebeard (Vonnegut) for Trevor, and then he found another one for himself on Sunday (Wampeters, Foma & Granfaloons)! Henry didn't find any books for himself, but he sniffed a lot of them, and may have licked a couple, too. I also have grown my collection of first edition Stephen King books; it started as a whim when I was working at After-words, and has apparently become a collection I have. I think I'm up to about ten, three of which I found at the Book Fair. Since the man has written over thirty novels alone, and about five other short story collections, we'll see if I eventually need another King-only book shelf.

And speaking of books (what else!), I've finally gotten over the halfway hump in Infinite Jest, the 1066 page book I'm reading by David Foster Wallace. It's easily the most brilliant thing I've read, which is terribly exciting. And I'm worried that I'll have withdrawl when I've finally finished. I'll let you know.

We also got to hang out with my friend Brenda and her sister Sarah over the weekend. Brenda is a singer/songwriter (check out her link in the margin!) living in Portland (we're staying with her and her husband on our trip next month!), and her sister just finished getting her Masters in Cinncinnati in music and is now heading to Italy for a while. They recently lost their sister Jennifer to suicide, and the show Brenda did Saturday night introduced some new songs she'd written about that. It was an emotional night for everyone, and so good to see them both. And the subject now brings me to the closing topic for the post:

I'm doing a 20-mile walk to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (see link in margin--again!) in August, and Brenda and her family are a big part of why I'm walking. Suicide and depression are also, unfortunately, an issue in my own life, and I'm happy to be participating in such an important event. If you're interested in pledging for my walk, you can do so through the website, and we're also having a BBQ next weekend to do some fundraising!

Well, that's all for this week; more to come after this weekend of Ikea, a party on Saturday night, dog-parking it with Henry, and who knows what else!

Bork-Power

Friday, June 2, 2006





SWAP-O-RAMA!
It was a fairly successful Book Swap last night. The Chicago Reader held their first of its kind at The Hideout (which, I realized after eavesdropping at the bar, is owned by a guy who teaches at Jones College Prep, which is one of the schools that visits Chicago Shakespeare Theater, AND it's one of my mom's alma matters!). Although the Swap was a bit cramped, there was some pretty good stuff on the tables. I picked up a few paperbacks, including the orangest copy of A Clockwork Orange that I've ever seen, and even though we already have 2 copies at home, the neon sucked me in and I had to put it in my tote. Among my other tote stuffers were the last book Charles Dickens was writing before he died (a mystery! the book, not his death), a paperback of The Little Friend by Donna Tartt (which I've actually read, but decided to give it another try, to read it this time for the language and characters rather than for the mystery I so erroneously read it for the first time around...FYI if you're a poor sucker looking for a good murder mystery, she never tells you who-done-it. After 600 pages. I could have punched her in the nose. It was two years ago and I'm still mad about it.), and a few other odds and ends. Our friend Jessica got a few interesting things, as well, and after the swapping, we left the Hideout to meet Trevor and the Hunters for some eats at the Handlebar. Delicious.

This weekend is the Printers Row Book Fair, which means that the piles of new (new to us) books on the counter and table and book shelf at home will only continue to get higher. After coming back from Door County last weekend with books from a great little shop we found, and from Trevor's grandpa's library, the stacks were big enough. But after last night, and what I can only hope will be a fruitful trip to the Book Fair tomorrow and Sunday, we may bury ourselves in books! Not a bad way to go, really!

Well, we'll keep you up to day on the weekend, so until then...