chicago

i'm working on a series. it's in a really early stage. but ah, here are some things i'm toying with.









bonus shots!

whoa!

how'd that happen? i dropped the blog ball again.

to summarize events since the last post, here are some--not all--events in chronological order, sort of:

minne xmas

(dinkytowner, rip)

new year's bash in chi-town, with lots of visitors.



carter got shot in chicago.



winter.



dwyer & hurt visit.



olive developed diabetes.


(she's not super happy about it)

cozumel.




spring.



new apartment.



ben visit.



minne memorial day.



summer.



wrigley: twins v. cubs.




jesse & katie visit.



ben visit, again.



minne july 4th.



pitchfork.



oh, hey, let's not forget m.j.

snow day!!!

benefit #151 of working at a school: the snow day!!! yes, i got the call this morning just before 6am, how awesome is that?? chicago got dumped on last night, and so here i am snowed in. it's great. i was kinda wondering how i would finish up all my xmas crafts & cards, wrap presents, pack, and clean the apartment all in one day. and then i was given the gift of two full days to get it done! hell yes.

altho truth be told the weather may bite back: 70% chance of snow on sunday, the day we are scheduled to head up to minnesota (the forecast up there is, i believe, a low of -12 or something that day). holy coldness! don't get me wrong, i enjoy winter, i really do, but sometimes it does make me miss new mexico. like, it's harder to want to make the effort to stroll down the neighborhood to do some last minute shopping when you know your feet are going to get soaked!

soo. my holiday break just got another day longer. i'll be in minnesota sunday through the following tuesday. my schedule is pretty packed during that time, especially monday through thursday, but give me a call if you're there and want to get together! on tuesday, jim and i will be bussing back to chi-town to meet up with ben & brian for a new year's extravaganza. i'm hoping that howard and erin will make it down from wisconsin as well (hint: you must come!) our friend from NM, ingrid, will be in town with a few of her friends, and rebecca is likely, but not certain, to be flying in from new york. meghen & justin have offered to have the party on new year's, which is great because our place is pretty dang small. and joe carter's going to visit the 4th-8th, so we will have lots of company here. which is amazing!

i really look forward to seeing family & friends in the coming weeks. & the much-needed break couldn't have come at a better time. stay warm everyone and i'll see you on the flip side!

new lens

wanted to bump that last bloggin down cos i havent written in a while. full speed ahead. i dropped 'underworld' after all (the book i wrote about a while ago). it was going nowhere slowly. i wanted to like it, i really did. there were some little golden nuggets in there but it was too much slogging through the mucky muck to get there. on to bigger & better things: i am now happily reading trickster makes this world: mischief, myth & art by lewis hyde, while joe reads 'the gift' by the same author and then we will swap. much better.

here's some first shotz from tha new lenz of our happy family. this is under low light. the lens is capable of mad bokeh (which is some sort of fancy terminology that makes me feel like a pro when using it). we also are not using a tripod, when all i hear these days is that you MUST use a tripod or everything you do will be crapola.









the bull head photo illustrates the shallow depth of field & that bokeh i was talking about (the blurry crap in the background).

la dolce vita is a super amazing wonderful film that we just watched. we almost finished our xmas gifty crafty thingamajig tonight. olive is sick. we thought she was getting better with the pills & all but today when we got home today she barfed all over the place. so i dunno. does she look sick in those photos?

i am getting way anxious for the holiday break!

late november/early december

had a nice, relaxing, family-filled few days over thanksgiving up in ely. flew in on wednesday and celebrated my birthday that night with my mom and brother's family. mom made a good meal and we had some fancy desserts. yum. joe was there that night & left olive at my mom's house, she stayed there with my sister-in-law, andy, while the rest of us headed up to ely for a few days (andy had to work). joe went up to pequot lakes to visit his parents.


my cousin maggie's baby, cole and my nephew, reece

in ely we stayed at my aunt julie's house, which is an awesome place, and thankfully big enough to accommodate more than 30 people and several dogs for a few days. it was great to see everyone again, i don't see them nearly enough. there were lots of little ones this time. had some awesome wild rice soup the first night, my aunt was kind enough to make a vegetarian version for me. then friday was the big thanksgiving meal, which was really good. i ate way too much up there!


the turkey, which i did not eat.


one of the thanksgiving tables.

we went shopping in ely thursday night, i had wanted to get some steger mukluks but they were more expensive than i remember them! played a new game, blokus, which is actually really super fun. it's kinda like tetris. also played boxers or briefs, which is much like apples to apples. it was snowy up there, the first real snow i've seen this year, altho we've had some in chicago this week.


my cousin melissa's baby, max

we drove back to the cities saturday and joe came back down too. we went out with jim to dinner and met up with brian later for a few drinks. it was really great to see jim again--i think it had been a few years since the last time i'd seen him. we are planning to do new year's here in chicago this time with those guys and some other super cool people so i really hope that works out.

my birthday was tuesday, thanks to everyone who called, sent cards, texted, emailed, etc. it was nice to hear from all of you! i worked and then joe and i had a 3 hour, 5-course meal with wine pairings with each course at a fancy pants vegetarian restaurant called green zebra. it was really really good. and so fun to be able to pick from anything on the menu for once! this is what i ate:

Roasted Beets, wasabi gelee, cocoa nib foam, chippy
Sweet Onion and Garlic Soup, truffle cream
Potato Tots, sunny-side up egg, nicoise olives, heirloom tomatoes (the eggs were tiny sized...quail? perhaps hummingbird?)
Savory French Toast, saffron, carmelized fennel, sultana raisin vinaigrette

the dessert was a pumpkin tarte, I can't find it listed on the website tho. each of these were paired with a different glass of wine, so by the time i was finished i was feelin pretty good :)

that was way fun. joe ordered me a camera lens, the same one i posted a photo of below, it is due to arrive on monday. i am very excited about it & hope to go on some photo hunts once it arrives.

looking forward now to xmas break, need to start thinking about/making gifts. baked some white chocolate/cranberry/almond cookies last night. tonight, joe and i made a pear/carmelized onion/gorgonzola pizza that was pretty stellar.

oh, and my brother got me season 4 of project runway so i've pretty much been doing that all week. fun stuffs.

not much to blog about blog.

this is my one hundred and oneth (first?) blog.

i've reached a pre-holiday slow period. thanksgiving is around the corner, and then I'm sure december will fly by. one beauty of working at a school is the time off. i've got five days in a row next week, then two full weeks for xmas. ooh yeah. i look forward to heading up to ely to hang out with lots of family, including two new baby cousins, plus lots of dogs. and of course my awesome little nephew. ely is beautiful too, although i'm guessing it will be very cold !

otherwise, work is going really well. it has been quite cold in chicago, which i don't like because it prevents me from biking. i think joe will be bringing the bikes up to minne over thanksgiving so i'll have to kiss that mode of transport goodbye for the season. which is depressing. but we really have no where to store them here, and i don't want it to get all rusty from snow.

here's a run down of other happenings, however banal.

watching: synecdoche, ny. this is an amazing film!!! i highly recommend it. it was both surreal but incredibly real. there was only one scene that disappoints. philip seymour hoffman is one of my favorites. it's written & directed by the guy who wrote eternal sunshine, another one of my favorite films.



listening: prince, sign o the times, on vinyl. i wish i had it on my ipod. this album is so solid. it's my favorite prince album by far. altho prince said some weird crap lately against gay marriage, which i was very disappointed to hear. last night i saw a prince cover band on letterman which only reaffirmed that there is only one prince. prince gives me some minnesota pride. so does wild rice.



cooking: i have been going a little susie housewife on this one, and it is way fun. i have been cooking and baking up a storm. two of my recent creations have been brought to joe's studio and his night class, which have made them happy :) i've been recently making tacos, wild rice soup, barbeque tofu, baked ziti, ginger snaps, pumpkin bread, oatmeal cookies, and white chocolate orange cookies. i love my oven. and it helps to heat up the house to boot. also, i have been eating carrots every day. i never even liked them until recently. now i can't get enough. it's weird how taste buds evolve.



crafting: i made a linocut this weekend and printed up a bunch of cards. i hope to make some more linocuts soon, perhaps some xmas cards or something crafty for xmas gifts. i love the idea of multiples. i was a big andy warhol freak in high school. therefore i am printing. i would love to get an antique letterpress. in fact i have been looking into it on ebay, i wouldn't mind spending a few bucks on one, however i don't have extra room. something else i would like is a gocco. it is a small japanese screen printing machine. unfortunately, they don't make them anymore. so they are kindof rare.



shopping: joe and i have been playing around with getting a new lens for the digital camera. i think we will be springing for a prime lens soon. joe hasn't had any time off to actually go with me to a camera shop to check them out however, so we are waiting for a time that he will be around...it doesn't look like that'll happen until after thanksgiving.



reading: underworld by don delillo. i picked this off of the shelf. joe is a fan. i tried to read white noise but didn't get into it. why i picked this much longer book by the same author is a bit of a mystery but i really like it so far. perhaps i should give white noise another chance.



that's about it for now. i didn't say this would be interesting!

obama election night footage

joe and i shot this video on tuesday night in grant park. it fails to convey the excitement or the sheer joy shared by all. it further fails to put faces to the masses, but it was dark and crowded, so what can i say? the flip camera isn't exactly conducive to night shots. but my hope is that someone may view it and kinda feel like they were there with us. joe shot most of it, which is why i'm onscreen a lot. i edited it last night, and joe picked out the song ("si, se puede" by antibalas afrobeat orchestra). enjoy & let me know what you think.



i wish i could've gotten more footage when the actual announcement was made, but we were a little caught up in the moment :)

yes we can

the excitement builds.....

vote vote vote vote vote vote vote vote!

tomorrow's gonna be a good day.

and now, for some cheesy sappy stuff.

the rising.

change.

yes we can.

video #2: last weekend

here is the video from dwyer & tiffany's visit last weekend. you'll see: terra (joe's studio), lincoln park zoo & conservatory, toast (brunch), neighborhood cuban restaurant, lunch at black bird, us out and about, etc. what you won't see is the madonna concert, dwyer's got the footage of that. not too much of joe or myself, as we were usually shooting the video. it was a great weekend! i hope this clip can do it some justice. enjoy.

hey, did you miss it?

...probably not. i'm talking about obama's prime time blitz last night. i had my reservations about this. but it is great. so i highly recommend you check it out if you haven't already:

i missed the boat, sort of.

so, i guess tickets for the election night obama rally are all gone. word is that the obama campaign emailed illinois supporters to invite them to sign up for free tickets. like yesterday. now they're gone. well, i have donated to the campaign, am registered on his site as being here in chicago, but still didn't receive an email. now i'm waitlisted for actual tickets.

that sucks! owell. we'll still head down there and see what's going on.

what we're not talking (enough) about

we are all caught up in political smears lately. that, and watching the economy collapse. but let's take a minute to focus on science & technology. if we're going to get serious about america's global leadership role for the future, this is where to do it. Education, health, the environment, energy independence, and yes, national security are all hinged on support for scientific research. more emphasis & investment in new technology advancements here would reshape our economy to make us more competitive in the 21st century globalized economy.

joe has always said that everything boils down to one thing: energy. access to clean, unlimited, renewable energy would change everything. i know this isn't some novel concept, but i've just been so amazed that what we usually hear on this topic during the campaign is 'drill baby drill'. we have got to get away from oil. so long as politicians are in bed with the oil industry, the innovation won't come. the motivation isn't there. so this is where government needs to step in and push hard.

here's some things that may have been overshadowed by other distractions during the campaign (like, say, lipstick)

-an open letter from 62 nobel laureates in support of obama

-obama's answers to questions on science for the journal nature (mccain declined to answer)

-the science debate 2008, pitting obama & mccain's responses to 14 important, science-related questions side by side

and, lastly, obama giving a speech on energy in michigan:

well said.

get bachmann out!

spread the word to everyone living in minnesota's 6th congressional district...



...to vote tinklenberg and oust michele bachmann!!! she IS NOT representative of the kind of minnesotans I know. you may remember her from a video i posted a while ago, where she gets into a tangle with james carville...well, she's at it again, this time claiming obama (and many other liberals?) are anti-american.



Bachmann currently holds a 4-point lead over tinklenberg, 42-38, 15% undecided.

http://www.tinklenberg08.com/

video, that i made.

this is my first attempt at any sort of video. it was taken by the new flip joe gave me last week. i had a lot of fun messing around with it tonight in ivideo. not exactly perfect but i like it. mostly shot during the first day of my ny weekend.

new york

photos are up! summary to come later. i am super tired right now. it was absolutely wonderful !!!

lookie!

inspired by howard i've got a new bloglook, at least for a moment. altho the flower photo above can't compete with his banner photo, i am a photoshop novice, what can i say?

i had resisted the blogger-supplied formatting for a long time, using cut n paste html, but i finally caved. it's still pretty haphazard (can't control the overall background color, for instance. or maybe i can and don't realize how??) anyway it's fun.

there is also a new flikr slideshow gadget on the sidebar of the blog...we'll see how that works. hopefully it doesn't crash anyone's computer. let me know if you have trouble seeing it.

in related news, joe got me a new gadget! you will see its debut right here on the blog after my trip to NYC this weekend! hooray!

post vp debate decompression

word is that mccain's camp is gearing up for an unapologetic smear-fest in the final month of his campaign. it's not a rumor, it's something that his advisors have no qualms about announcing publicly.

it appears that, since mccain has given up all hope that he could win on issues and integrity (wait, he gave up on that long ago), flimsy, empty claims based on lies is about all they can do. again, based upon the roveian assumption that americans are stupid and easily manipulated. but it isn't going to work this time.

this is his final chance at a hail mary, and i won't be surprised if 'obama is a muslim' rumors are rekindled (palin just today claimed he's been 'pallin' around with terrorists')...did they mention his middle name?? he's no joe sixpack! btw, the ny times article palin cites (see, she reads the times, in answer to katie couric's question! and also the economist!) concludes that obama's ties with Ayers are minimal and distorted by mccain's smears.

which leads me to the media, oh the liberal mainstream media, the bane of mccain's existence, at least as of late (he liked reporters not too long ago). apparently the media is to blame for everything. why don't they just let the republican spinsters have a free pass? why must they fact-check and call them out on lies?? jeez, that's not fair.

and, why again, would the MSM want to target mccain specifically? what do they stand to gain? with mccain in office, quite a bit:



more on mccain's corporate tax cut plan available through this link

we've all seen palin speak out against the mainstream media (and mccain likes to hide her from them). apparently katie couric was 100% responsible for palin's complete idiocy, palin saying that she was simply 'annoyed' because couric was tricking her, thus her terrible responses. or something. seriously, though? did she not ask the exact same supreme court question of joe biden? was that really an anti-palin trap? good god. i guess anything off the topics of oil-gas energy, motherhood and maverick-ness is a trap. lucky enough for palin, during the debates gwen ifill gave her several passes when she refused to answer the questions. that was unfortunate.

speaking of the debate, i find it appalling that the expectations for palin was so frighteningly low that her performance was hailed as a wild success, since she didn't completely embarrass herself with a major gaffe. wow, amazing, she kept to the talking points, didn't answer anything she didn't want to talk about, and winked several times (can you IMAGINE if she were a man, and winking and flirting with us?).

the scariest of all was palin's comments on the vice-presidency and cheney and how she seems to be pushing for more authority, a la cheney in the vp's role. cheney's legacy is disturbing, and i shudder to think that cheney's policy of expanding executive power, and the expansion of the vice presidency in particular, would be continued with a mccain/palin administration. that is a nightmare i don't want to think about. remember, palin was asked (as was biden) what the best/worst things cheney has done, and the worst to palin was the hunting accident. another classic palin deflection. biden's answer to the same question, appropriately, was cheney's theory of the 'unitary executive'. and in the debate it appeared as though palin would embrace that same theory. this is scary, folks.

hmm i wonder

how is tomorrow night's veep debate going to play out for palin? let me guess. a bunch of republican platitudes, force fed mccain talking points that have nothing to do with the issues she's asked about, lots of winks and cutesy gestures, oh and, no real content or actual answers whatsoever. kinda like this:



or this:

visitors

i haven't had the internet in several days so this is a bit of a belated post.

last weekend, not this past weekend, but the one before, katie and eiko took the megabus down for a few days. for those unfamiliar with megabus it's basically a cheaper option than driving if you were to go from, say, minneapolis to chicago and back. (hint hint for you minnesotans! come visit me!!) katie and eiko reported that it wasn't scummy at all, in fact is a double decker (!) which they even got the top front seats for a portion of the trip...that would be super fun to see the ride from that angle. so, when i end up taking it i'm going to plan to get in line early in hopes of snagging the hot seat.

katie, joe


eiko


anyways it was so refreshing to have some visitors here! friday night, joe ended up having to work (boo.) but us ladies hung out in the neighborhood, went to a good italian restaurant and hit up a couple of neighborhood bars, danny's and the charleston. both about 2-3 blocks from my house. both cool in different ways. that was fun. had a few too many gin n tonics however. haven't really drank much at all since i've been here so that played a role.

next day, went to brunch at vella's cafe, also in the neighborhood, tucked under the el stop. had a really good crepe. then we trained it to chinatown, ate some pastries, got some mystery gifts for katie and eiko. for some reason i love the idea of buying something pre-wrapped so it's a surprise when you open it to see what it is. yesss! even though they turned out to be fairly crappy things (chinese bird whistles, some unidentifiable toy, a chicago-themed magnetic clip) it's all about the anticipation!

chinatown


uhh yeah. so we then headed over to lincoln park for some boutique shopping, i myself being priced out of the market however interesting to see nonetheless. back to bucktown for some chinese food, then we took a cab downtown to go to joe's restaurant, blackbird, for some serious dessert. we had five different desserts, all damn good and very unconventional. joe also ordered me a 'pimm's cup' which is a drink that he thinks is hilarious. just because of the name i guess. it was really cool to see where he works & i look forward to checking out avec next time, which is the sister restaurant that he also works at, next door to blackbird. went home and henna'ed (is that a verb? or is it 'did' henna ? or what?) i am quite proud of the peacock i drew for katie, it was my first attempt at henna and it was super fun to do.

check out my handiwork


next day they headed home pretty early. it is awesome that we are close enough to minneapple that people can pop over for a weekend and do so relatively cheaply (hint again).

in other news, my computer and ipod touch hath arrived. good god the ipod touch is cool. not to brag or anything but that thing is so...hip. perhaps i have turned a blind eye to the blackberry phenomenon wherein people check their email and the internet in a tiny device but it's really thrilling to be able to do such a thing now!! plus photos and music and videos galore! dependent of course on wifi access but still! so freaking cool. ooo yeah.

not much new the recent weekend, watched the debates of course friday night (with joe, he was actually at home on a friday night!) then went shopping on saturday, had to do a return plus get a case for the aforementioned ipod, got falafel with joe & aaron, watched the coen brothers' 'miller's crossing' (good) uhm, went grocery shopping, was lazy, etc etc. fiddled with the new computer (the novelty has not faded).

that is about it for now. heard that the stock market had an epic tank today altho haven't had time to investigate. i guess it this would be a bad time to open that roth IRA i've been thinking about for a few years. i have zero investments but i do worry about my mom's retirement. o what a tangled web...