Holy Corn and Peas!

The other day Trevor mentioned that our blog hadn't been updated in thirteen days, and now it's been an even longer seventeen. Now, to my defense, I've been in the throes of end-of-the-semester grading, and I stupidly assigned a five-page research paper to be due on the last day of class, which was also the day my students took their final exam. An essay exam. With that being said, however, after getting all of the students' work, I did find time to hang out with Henry, read a mystery novel, hang out with Henry, apply for a full-time job at MCC (haven't heard anything yet, but cross your fingers and toes!), hang out with Henry, watch some X-files, and--oh, right--grade some papers. I turned in my final grades this afternoon out at CLC, so I'm free and clear from class until June 9th! I have a couple of syllabi that need tweaking, and I've grown sick enough of the Edens expressway to find a few full and part-time teaching positions here in the city that I'll apply for in the coming days. But other than that, I've got not much on my plate. Which means I have spring cleaning and organizing to catch up on--primarily cleaning out my student portfolio "shelf." I tell them to pick them up by the end of the following semester or I'll toss them, but it hurts my heart to throw their work in the garbage, so I keep them. But I can't do it any longer. I need more room for more important things: clothes and books. Sorry students, but this ship has sailed. Sailed to sweater island.

In the past few weeks, we've had some excitement. First, young Miss Destiny Napier Bradley got confirmed! We went to see her take her confirmation vows (oath?), and then to the house for some party-ing. Deeelicious sausages and macaroni and cheese were eaten (not the sausages for Trevor), and this photo was taken of the lovely confirmee with me and Trevor. Though Trevor is not smiling, I know he was smiling on the inside. (isn't Destiny the prettiest?? She is.)



Destiny will travel to New Orleans for a mission trip with her church group to rebuild houses and do other good works. We're really excited for her and will update you all when she returns.

Also, our Best Man, Dan Segar, is on holiday in California and Nevada with his lovely wife, Simona, and her parents, who came for the visit from Lithuania. As I understand it, the last time her parents were on an airplane, they were going to somewhere in the former Soviet Union, and it was many years ago (when the Soviet Union wasn't so "former."). Before they all flew out to San Diego to meet Simona's sister and husband, her parents stopped here in Chicago for a long weekend to spend time with them and, as a perk for us, US! They were so much fun to meet and spend time with. Friday night, we went to eat at Butterfly, a Thai and Sushi restaurant in our neighborhood. They'd never had sushi, and really enjoyed it. We all went back to our house to have a gander at the Chicago Skyline from our deck, which was lovely, as usual. We also saw them for lunch on Monday, and then were persuaded away from our Monday-night kickball game for the Cubs.







Tuesday came and I took the gang out to O'Hare (because I'm on vacation!!), which I love to do. It was nice to see them off. They should be in Las Vegas by now, and then back to San Diego (Dan wanted to catch a Padres game), then to New York for a few days where they'll see their parents off, back to Lithuania. I enjoyed dropping them off, but I got melancholy when I thought of how I used to love picking friends up from the airport, back when I could park for $3 and go meet them at their gates. I used to love doing that, but that excitement is no more. Ah, such is modern terror.

So, after our visitors-by-proxy, I buckled down and did a little grading, and Trevor went off to work. We haven't done too much since. We hung out with the Bosco and Bork gang for Mother's day. Lisa, our Maid of Honor, came with us to the party (and we snapped this AWEsome shot of Lisa that morning), and then we had a martini at the Matchbox in honor of Trevor and Lisa's moms. The day was nice, though the weather was junk.



And SPEAKING of this picture, is seems that Lisa has joined us in supporting the Manchester United Red Devils, much to the chagrin of her lovely boyfriend, Josh, who, quite unfortunately, is a Chelsea fan. Really, it's distasteful, but we'll forgive him because he's a nice fellow. We got Lisa to sport this scarf while we watched last week's game. TOMORROW is the Man Utd. v. Chelsea game in MOSCOW for the Champions League final! It's very exciting for us. So exciting, in fact, that Trevor's taken the day off and we're going to a soccer bar for lunch and to be with our fellow Red Devils to watch the game at 1:45 p.m. I have two soccer fans in my CLC comp. 2 class, and they've been e-mailing me supportive things about Man U (they're Liverpool fans. and are happy to see Chelsea eat cleat for 90 minutes).

In other brief news, I have finally ridden on Trevor's fabulous motorcycle (I have a gorgeous red helmet that already got me a compliment at Arturo's Restaurant! [I wasn't wearing it in the restaurant, I promise]), and on Friday we went with our friend Sarah and her husband Matt (and their friend Michelle--who's a former/continuing student at CLC! I liked her immediately.) to a biker party at Delilah's on Lincoln. The "Ton Up" club (apparently a group of bikers who have ridden over 100 mph. Trevor will NOT be joining.) was driving a bottle of Bushmill's whiskey down to Indianapolis as part of a bet. Apparently they got in an accident on the way there (old blind man + van + changing lanes = bad news for motorcyclists) but everyone is fine. The night of the party, a girl was selling raffle tickets for her bike trip in Europe. Of course, sucker for a raffle that I am, bought a bunch of tickets. And I won! Twice! I won a pair of ladies motorcycle gloves (which are fierce!) and a "Fastest Bike Races" DVD! It was very exciting. I also drank a glass of absinthe with Sarah, and I recovered from it all day on Saturday. God only knows what it was, but it tasted licorice-ly delicious. Also, we dog-sat for Greg and Paula again and Henry and Pepper hung out for a while. It was a double success!

Okay, I just realized that the previous news-in-brief was not brief. And it's late, so I'm going to bed. We'll have updates after tomorrow's game!

GO RED DEVILS!!