"Heather has very good ovaries"

As quoted from my good friend Mary Trotter outside of a Wrigleyville bar tonight in order to make sure her friend Derek didn't punch me in them. Although my ovaries were never in danger, but Mary's were. You have to keep drunk people in line, and sometimes that means getting rough. That quote was followed up by, "John O'Hagan would be very sad if you punched Heather's ovaries." I don't really follow or understand Mary's logic there, but she was really, really trashed. It was lovely seeing her if even for only what seemed like a moment (or two hours really).

We did however go to a bar with her friend Robyn and her current boyfriend (as well as one of her ex-boyfriends--who was in the group of Mary's undergrad friends) to watch another of Robyn's ex-boyfriend play in a band. Robyn is not really my kind of girl, mostly because she seems to get a perverse pleasure out of bossing the group around and making us be around her and all of her ex's and currents. Plus I have the feeling that the current was not really a big fan of this plan and that she was getting too much of a kick out of that too. The band we saw was a country and western cover band. The lead singer and the guitarist had a general feeling of being authentic country people, but the rest sort of were like doing a straight person's version of drag by dressing up as 'country' singers. It was very weird and sort of like wandering into any karaoke bar in my hometown--NOT what I am looking for when I go out in Wrigleyville.

Also, I have been working my way through Criminal Minds season 1 with Renee because she got it for Christmas, and tonight we watched an episode of maybe ritual satanists killing people. I screamed in the middle of the teaser because the first person to get murdered in the show was Matt Bennett the first (who may have predated many of the CMS types who read this). He was Emily's boyfriend before Kevin, and I had the hugest crush on him. Plus he was playing a high school quarterback--at thirty and vastly unathletic, he has this crazy liquidity to his gait and his being, awesome. Anyway, it was fantastic to see him on my TV. Fantastic.

75% of the way

Through my twenties. Today is my half birthday, and I am 27 and 1/2 which means wow am I close to 30. However, I don't feel close to thirty and I don't feel my adult life reflects real adulthood all that much. So, whatever.

I received Christmas cards from Sally and David (wow on the weight loss!! Awesome!) and Jim and Amy (this may be a repeat). I also got my parents card which included a family photo. The best part is that it is of everyone in my family but me, and then my sister cut and pasted a kind of crappy photo of me from the summer vacation into the corner of it. I will have to post a copy for you all to see because it is kind of hilarious (if not a little unflattering--it was of me looking bored and tired and also probably hungover on one of our wine tastings).

Anyway my Christmas was quiet, but Mystique (Sara and Jon's cat) made it better. She snuggled me. I also got blamed for things by clowns during the clown show. It was fun and funny, and I inadvertently sat next to Paul's family during the show to, so I met his brother. He nearly fell out of his chair laughing at the show. I seriously just grabbed an obviously single seat in a different part of the audience then I had formerly sat, and it was in the Kalina section. The show was great again--a little girl in the crowd came up and hugged Paul in the middle of it when all of the clowns are yelling and after he has come back from running away. It was pretty much awesome.

Umm, that is all more later.

Missing

Every time that I have called my sister Natalie or my brother Dan this past week they have been together. I miss that. I miss big long breaks at Christmas where you have time not just to see your family but to just be with them. Just hang out and watch TV or play hearts or anything. I miss going to the grocery store with my mom.

I won't be going home this year for Christmas (again). It is too expensive and that pretty much sums it up. Also Christmas has always been a pretty low key affair at our house since people stopped being little kids, so it isn't some big dramatic event. Thomas won't be home this year either. He is going to Mexico. I can't imagine Christmas being event-like until one (or more of us) gets hitched or gets real serious and then people start having babies, but that seems pretty far off. It is just church and a dinner in the dining room on the good china. But I do miss my family. I genuinely like them all as people, and it sucks not to get to hang out with them like that. My sister gets to all the time (since she lives in the hometown still), but I hardly ever do. Plus when I am home it is such a whirlwind of events crammed into a short amount of time that there is no just being--I usually need a vacation from my vacation.

Anyway, I won't be alone for Christmas, and there are even some good things planned (courtesy of Angie and Sabrina). Plus I get the apartment all to myself for a few days (which will be so awesome I can hardly believe it). Not that I don't like the roomies, it just doesn't happen very often that any of us is truly alone in the apartment for more then a few hours at a time, so I think we all sort of treasure that. One day I will be solvent and have a place of my own. I think it says something about me that I want my own apartment a lot more then I want a significant other. Things to ponder.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a safe trip to wherever they are going on these few days before the holidays.

Plus cards up from Amy and Jim, and the stockings are finished and I will post some pictures later.

Hero of the week 4

Oh yeah, I almost forgot.

Hero of this week : postal workers. Let's face it right now is when they need some love.

Post Office non-drama

I went to the post office yesterday, and I was scared that it was going to be bad. It wasn't though. It was quick and easy and calm. I was in and out in fifteen minutes. It was great.

Less great was my plan to carry my three boxes the six-ish blocks to the post office. It kind of sucked, so after two blocks I waited on the corner of a busyish street to get a taxi. It took a couple of minutes, but with tip it cost me five bucks and was way worth it. I think it may have taken longer to get to the post office then it too being there.

I also went out for Sara Jo's birthday, and it was great fun. We had a great time at Ed Debevic's and a really fabulous waiter to thank for it. Then we went back to the Idaho house and fell asleep after ice cream and about 2/3 or a little more of "It's a Wonderful Life." I crashed on their couch and came home this morning. It was great fun.

Wine crimes

My roommate put two bottles of cabernet-sauvignon in the FRIDGE!!!!! I cannot handle it. It was just wrong. I love my roommate, but we had a little lesson tonight of what wines get chilled and which don't.

Also, Sara and Jon gave me a Christmas card, and I finished the first round of stockings. They kind of look awesome. I will post pictures later (probably on Tuesday).

More Christmas Cards

I got two more today. One from my grandparents and one from Donald and Margaret (the handmade kind with a cute picture on it). Send me a Christmas card, and I will talk about you in my blog. See, I have already done it.

Umm, busy at work--in the fun way. Most annoying SASM has quit (or as she called it, resigned). It was her choice (our main boss told me) which I figured because our boss would have given her a chance to change and adapt to the feedback she was given. Really it seems far more like annoying to quit out of pouty pettiness--she is super immature and just proved it. Least annoying SASM has sort of bonded with me. I feel like we get along much more, and he is way better when not anywhere near most annoying.

Still busy sewing, and I was a jackass and didn't go to the post office this morning, so I have to go tomorrow night which will suck. Post offices in big cities at Christmas=no fun at all. Plus I don't have a present for my babiest brother or for one of my roommates.

Oh, and I could've gone and seen the clowns again tonight for free but I was working. Very sad. Plus, I should be a life coach. That is all.

Hero of the week 3

This week's hero goes to Robyn and Joe for sending me my first Christmas card of the week (what can I say, it was a relatively uneventful week), but what pushed them over the edge was the look of their Christmas card/photo. Their faces are superimposed onto Han Solo and Princess Leia. It is certainly the nerdiest Christmas card ever while also being pretty awesome. Anyway, thanks guys.

Merry Christmas and many other holidays celebrated round a bout now to all of you out there reading this.

The Internet is my friend

It let me order my photo prints online today, and I can go pick them up from Walgreens in an hour or so. That means that when I wrap presents tomorrow the photographs will be in the frames that are going to my grandparents and my great aunt and my sister. Plus I just develop exactly what I want, and I am off.

The only bummer is that I have to go to a Walgreens that is slightly far away from me (not really because I can take the El and it is only three blocks to my stop and a half a block to the walgreens). The one five blocks from my house is not acccepting online orders at this exact time (although they say it is a temporary disruption in service). That would have been better. This is what I like about cities. This and ordering something online from best buy and then walking down the street to pick it up forty-five minutes later. No dealing with crappy people, minimum lines, and no shipping and handling brew-ha-ha. Very happy Heather.

Santa wouldn't let me go to his bar

I am serious. A man in a Santa suit told me I couldn't go into his bar today because it was a Santa bar. I only wanted to look in because, after seeing four men in Santa suits (one also smoking and another in a blue Santa suit--all sans beard) standing outside this building in a clutch trying to open a back door, I realized that the bar was in fact filled with drinking, smoking Santas. Filled with probably 50 or 60 drunk off their ass Santas. It was kind of awesome in a parallel universe sort of way. I have no idea what the hell was going on, but I was so glad that I was present to see it. Especially because earlier in the day, I had seen a Santa ice skating and thought that was kind of cool. Apparently I had no idea. I am going to go back to my pink champagne now.

Ugh!

I absolutely hate it when I figure out thriller movies way before they are through. I hate it. Stupid actors who telegraph the ending from the beginning, so you just know that the innocent person is in on it. Then, of course, shock--shock--shock the innocent person is guilty. Anyway, it pisses me off. Audiences are not completely stupid. They just aren't and treating them as such only makes your work worse. It does not help you to pander, ever. Pandering=suckiness.

Hero of the week 2

Week 2's hero is scarves, just in general. They make life better, especially when it is cold. They cover your face and your neck (and sometimes your ears and head too), and they keep the terrible cold wind out. Well, they do that as best as they can.

Thirty pieces of government cheese

Last night the Colbert report made me laugh so hard I nearly peed, and it got my Republican roommate to laugh (one of them anyway)--at the idea that Jesus is of course a Conservative. It was pretty funny.

Also funny was me slipping and falling while on the way home from a movie. I totally bit it. One second there I was upright scooching across the ice covered sidewalk in 20 degree weather, sidewalk that had not been cleared by the gas station it belonged to, and the next second there I was lying on the ground laughing. It kind of hurt. I hit pretty hard, and it was my shoulder, my ass, my hip, my side, my arm, and my elbow. I feel that justifies getting chips and salsa mixed with sour cream for lunch today. Hey, it's my day off and I am walking wounded. Okay, I am just walking bruised.

The movie we saw (for free in a preview) was quite excellent for a cheesy romantic comedy with a slightly Christmas theme. We saw "Holiday" and I would highly recommend it, if you are into that type of movie. I laughed aloud a lot, and there was also cringing as I watched other girls do dumb things.

The funny part is that I invited Sara Jo to go with us (since my two roommates and I had four tickets total), and we were just going to meet her at the Grand redline stop. We were to head south from fullerton, and she was to head north from Jackson. However, as we got off the brown line at Fulleton to transfer, we hear an announcement that the red line is experiencing delays heading southbound. That sucks, so we grab the next purple line that arrives and take it to State and Lake to run down the stairs and transfer to a red line for one stop north. The station is packed with people (and a really excellent street performer singing some donny hathaway Christmas songs all bluesy/folky--how'd you like that musical reference Chrissy, aren't you proud?), and we can't get onto the first train, so we wait like two minutes for the second train. When that train arrives, who do you think is standing immediately in our doorway? That's right, Sara Jo!! So all worries about us finding her were for nothing, since she or us were put into the others way. It was very crazy, considering the rigmarole we had to go through to get downtown where we were going.

Also funny for the day was how I felt like I was on an arctic expedition to get to work in actually six degrees, feels like freezing to death weather at 5:30 yesterday morning. I was dressed for an expedition that should have included sled dogs. Where were my sled dogs? I ask that with all sincerity.

Movies on the couch

That is what I have done all day today, after waking up really, really late. I did go out to blockbuster (three blocks away) once, but other then that, living on the couch.

I watched a bunch of episodes of West Wing Season 7, and now V for Vendetta is on, but the bulk of the day was taken up with Star Wars Episode 3 which sucks hard. Really, really, really, REALLY hard. I was very saddened by how heavy-handed and leaden the story-telling was. It was just terrible. Very, very disappointing (which is especially amazing when my expectations were that I probably wouldn't like it very much, it managed to be worse then my poor expectations).

Although I did discover that my roommate Renee is 'charismatic like Hitler.' Those are her words not mine, and I feel we all need to poke fun at her. She is a nazi and a fascist (she then made the mistake of telling me she isn't a real nazi but a new one--like we all don't see where I went with that one). Anyway, hilarious. Great fun.

Also, there will hopefully be changes at work since we have talked about how crappy one of our SASM's is with the manager and the manager will talk to the SASM on Tuesday. Awesome, huge relief. Also it is cold out and it won't be warmer tomorrow.