Thursday, August 24, 2006


WE'VE DONE IT AGAIN!

With Henry's admirable assistance, Trevor and I have again found ourselves in a Chicago magazine! It's really extended our 15-minutes of fame to a couple of months, and it's so much fun! This time we're in The Real Chicago, which featured my friend Kelli in their last issue--she owns a painting company and they were doing a feature on small business owners--so we're in good company! Apparently you can find the magazine all over the north side, in coffee shops, 7-11s, local bars, etc (that's what the publisher told me, anyway), so pick up a copy!

Other news is that Trevor decided to stay at Pettersen instead of accepting a Studio Manager position at another photo studio. Pettersen was so reluctant to let him go, they countered their own offer 24 hours after they put it on the table! He was the most popular boy at the dance, and it was terribly exciting! So now, we just have to get those Home Depot folks to calm down and be normal and everything will be okay!

We had Trevor's college friend Adam Schizzle-Ottavi visit us for a bit from New York City! It was a lot of fun; we got to all have dinner with the famous Jen Davis before she leaves for YALE and graduate school (yes, I said YALE. She's so Ivy League), which was a hoot and a half, and Adam and I got to eat breakfast at the Flying Saucer while Trevor drank a martini and waited for his flight to leave for Atlanta. Fun was had all around! Also, Adam seemed impressed with the scarf I'm knitting for him, which is good. Now I just have to finish it before the weather turns!

I started classes this week, and it's going well so far! I've had one class each of my 3-hour class, and I'm still worried that I'll never really have enough to fill up an entire class--both times I've been 10-15 minutes shy, and I even did more stuff the second section! I may have been talking faster that day...but the 2x a week class is just perfect, so I'll just have to jam more stuff into the other 2! I'm still getting used to this schedule; it's so strange for me to be home during the day and leave to go to work in the middle of the afternoon. It just feels strange. But it's been great hanging around with Henry in the mornings--we discovered that Eckhart Park up the street has an informal meeting of pooches every morning! It's been great because the park is huge and Henry can run around the entire square block of field like the horse he is, chasing other dogs, being chased by other dogs, or chasing the tennis ball I try to throw very far for him. It's great--20 minutes and he's so pooped he can barely walk home (then he lets me get work done at home because all he cares to do is sleep. Ah, a dogs life!) Also, I've discovered (though I really can't take any sort of credit for it) the Swim Cafe, across the street from the Ida Crown Natatorium at Eckhart Park. I've gotten coffee there the past couple of mornings after our park time, and it's terrific! Great coffee, delicious pastries (I couldn't resist), and a serenely decorated shop that made me feel like I was wading around in a fish bowl. Really, it was pleasant.

Trevor and I are also talking about getting a new car--a Rabbit (newly re-released from Volkswagen)! It's pretty exciting. We're probably going to wait a couple more months to get a 2006 for a bit less $$, but soon enough we'll be zipping around in a little silver Rabbit instead of a one-eyed purple people eater! Although it's going to be really, really, really hard to say goodbye to my purple people eater. I will miss her. A lot. Ugh.

Well, that's about all we've got right now! We'll post more soon!

Wednesday, August 9, 2006


I'M A STAY-AT-HOME DOG MOM!

At least for the time being, and it actually won't be too long. As you know (I think you know!) I quit my job last month and said goodbye to Chicago Shakespeare Theater. I closed the door on my 3.5 years there last Friday (photo above; my friend Andrea made a cake and a lot of folks showed up to bid me farewell.) and for the next two weeks I'm working at home, on my 3 syllabi, preparing for classes to start August 21st. I start teaching at McHenry County College and College of Lake County (fastest commuter in three counties. Literally.) on the 21st, and classes start at East-West University on September 25th. I picked up my textbook for EWU on Monday and it's going to be a very interesting, very civic and globally minded course. I'm really excited about it. Also, I've recently learned of a certain yarn shop that goes by the name of Loopy Yarns, and it happens to be located 1 block directly west of EWU. Interesting. Very, very interesting.

And speaking of yarns, I'm currently working on a lovely grey wool scarf for Trevor's friend Adam, who's coming to visit us from NYC on August 19th. Although it will be too warm for him to wear, hopefully he'll get a lot of warmth from it over the winter.

I'm walking my TWENTY MILE WALK on Saturday for the AFSP. Yesterday, Henry and I did a long walk to prepare (6 miles) and he's too pooped to do much of anything this morning. It felt pretty good to me, though, and I think I'll be okay for the big one this weekend. And if not, my teammate, Audra, told me that there are vans that can "assist" the walkers if they're having troubles. Hopefully it won't come to that, but it's always nice to have a safety net.

And enough about me, on to the Power portion of the Bork Power. Trevor traveled to the ATL this week (we still haven't rented that movie) for work, and did a terrific job of avoiding the shrewish new woman at Home Depot while he was there, so he made it back home unscathed by her wicked sharp tongue.

He's investigating bikes online, and has a bike expert in NYC hot on the trail of a 3Rensho (I think?) that Trevor can get to ride around the town! He really liked a good looking red and yellow model someone was selling on Ebay, but a sniper snuck in and outbid everyone during the last 30 seconds of the auction. Although, this NYC expert (I have just learned that his name is Sasha...) told Trevor that the Ebay bike wasn't a good purchase, anyway, so Trevor lucked out and will get a sweet bike for a good price, with this fellow's assistance. And hopefully soon, so that I don't have to worry about him riding his current bike to work with its terribly suspicious brakes. Even worse brakes than the purple people eater (a.k.a. my car), by the way.

We're still obsessed with Miami Ink on TLC, and are thinking about taking a road trip (in the winter, perhaps) to visit the shop for some new work. Trevor contacted Jay Ryan months ago about designing a new tattoo, but if he's not up to the challenge, I'm sure that one of our favorite television artists can help Trevor out. And it will be beautiful. We have an ulterior motive, though, because Miami is much, much closer to one Miss Rachel Power and we were thinking of jaunting over to Palm Bay to visit Rachel and Letty. Although, if we don't get to see them then, word on the street is that they're organizing a trip to VEGAS next year, and we are SO in! I've never been to Las Vegas and I cannot wait to see it and all of its bizarrity.

We did some investigating on line last night (well, Trevor did, I peeked over his shoulder) into purchasing some lights for the house from Design Within Reach. They sent Trevor a coupon for 15% off a purchase, and there are some lovely pendant lamps we've had our eyes on, so we might get them! And we're still itching to run to Ikea for the new bathroom sink and cabinet so we can finally finish off the bathroom (after we paint and get a new door, that is...), and I'm hoping that we can go the weekend after Adam visits. Fingers crossed!

That's about all of the news that's fit to print for now. I've got to get myself another cup of Joe and buckle down to do some work on my syllabi! It's really exciting. Seriously, I love that I'm going to be in the classroom!

Catch you all on the flip side...

Tuesday, August 1, 2006



Here are some pictures of Henry beating the heat at the dog park. He's not much of a water dog, but he'll go in after a ball. Sorry for the poor quality of the photos, they were taken on my camera phone.