Cicadas are gross.
I guess you won't be seeing my daily update of cicadadom because there aren't many around. Oh, they are still there, and loudly taking over my eardrums, but I think they've hidden themselves high up in the trees. There are ones on the ground but they are either boring or are flying around and running into my head. And it's hard to take picture of things that are running into your head.

I am gross.
I have quite seriously worn the same pair of pants to work every day for at least the last week because they don't really wrinkle and I have been to busy/lazy to do laundry and/or iron.

Last night.
Nad, Bryan, Bryan's friend Joel, and I headed over to Skylark for some yummy hard cider and "Tater Tots with Three Dipping Sauces." Have you ever seen "The Break Up"? This is the bar that's in that movie. It's a totally awesome little dive in Pilsen with crappy metal chairs, a christmas light-up deer, and an Elvis pinball machine. They have a really random bar menu that includes panko shrimp, spaghetti and meatballs, and roasted butternut squash. But we came for tots.
Bryan said he could get me a fake ID that says I'm Kirsten Dunst.
Bryan likes Nad's tots, but then tried to grab for mine. Shame on him.
The bbq sauce was yucky, but the sour cream and chive was delicious.
There was more, but I'm forgetful.

Congratulations!
Congrats to Jen on her engagement! Now try to guess which Jen I'm talking about. Hint...it's the last of four Jen's I know who have gotten engaged and/or married in the last year.

5,6,7,8
Yeah. So Mat called me the other night. I suppose I should refresh your memory. We dated like eight years ago for a year and then were on again off again (although never really on) for forever. About a year and a half ago I went to spend a week with him in Los Angeles. I then never heard from him again. I then found out that maybe a month after I went to see him he moved to Chicago. I went to see him in a play and then he totally saw me afterwards and didn't even care so we just left without saying anything.
He called me Monday night. He called me four times. Four times within half an hour. He left two messages saying to call him and that he wants to end the silence between us. He also signed online and IMed me. I didn't answer.
My thoughts are that he was either wasted or high and probably doesn't even remember it. There's often a small window of opportunity for talking to the boy, and I'm guessing even if I try to call back, I won't hear anything from him again.
I guess we'll see where this one goes...

Posted by valry at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So...it's been a cwazy 24 hours.

I got home last night at 2am...to a town that was completely black - all the streetlamps were out. Come home to find that all of the power is completely out. Now, the phone in my room is kind of old. It has a battery backup that is also kind of old (aka never been changed). So, when the power went out and the backup kicked in and didn't have enough juice it just started beeping...a lot...over and over and over and over. So, my room is pitch black, my phone is beeping like crazy, it's 2 in the morning, and all I want is some fucking sleep. So I try to unplug the phone, but the plug is behind my dresser. So I can't reach it. Finally I manage to unplug the plug from the phone...but the phone is still beeping! And then I try to open the battery door...but the battery door won't open. But it loosens it a bit...which causes the beeping to turn into a loud annoying hissing that sounds like a dying cat getting run over repeatedly by an SUV. And it's still pitch black and I can't see anything. But then I find a hammer on my dresser and pound the damn phone with it. Seriously, I took a hammer to my phone in the middle of the night. I came super close to throwing out my window too. But that did shit, damn resiliant phone. So then I finally manage to open the battery door and get the battery door open and so it stops hissing and beeping. And then two minutes later the power comes back on.

Today was the Inline Insomniacs Summer Chicago Skate. I drove over to JoeJoes first to grab lunch and skate over with him.I had to make Joe park my car for me. A couple walking by was laughing because they thought I was standing on the curb to help him park, but I don't think they realized that more pathetically he had to park it for me because I can't park on the left side.

We grabbed some Cosi and it took forever and a day to get our salads. Seriously people, it's a salad. It shouldn't take fifteen minutes to toss some lettuce in a bowl.

Then we skated the four miles along the lakefront to the Sears Tower...Well, Joe and his bro skated...I kind of hobbled. My skates were being bitches and totally giving me no support. It was so bad my foot was basically bent and on it's side. Not fun. It was horribly painful and I could hardly skate. So, alas, by the time we got to the II meeting point, I had to take off my skates and leave (I was really looking forward to it, but there was NO WAY I wold have lasted the next seven hours in those devil shoes). :(

So I paid my respects to the fellow insomniacs and instead trudged off to Nadia's who lives like three blocks away.

We then spent the next four hours chatting in her super-cute condo where I was force fed pizza, koolaid, and grapes. And then Bryan came home and tried to force feed me ice cream and tell me all of the stuff Nadia already told me.

Apparently all of Bryan's friends who saw me at the wedding want to date me. They all also think I look like Kirsten Dunst :)

Nadia said I could move into their spare bedroom. I looked at Bryan and said "Congratulations! It's a girl!"

Then we headed to the burbs to go to Kona Grill with Adad and Jen. My macadamia-nut crusted chicken breast was delicious. It came with not one, but TWO sauces. And cheddar mashed potatoes. Yummy. I ate every drop of chicken. Their lack of a blender for drinks dissapointed me though. Oh well.

Jenny broke the bathroom and Adam and her said I could come live in their guest bedroom. So now I have two sleeping rooms all for moi :)

Then we, of course, ended up in the LaGrange Starbucks where, of course, we saw a couple cop cars hassle some fighting kids (I have never been to that Starbucks at night and not seen a cop car out taking care of business).

Then Nadia had to drive me from there, which was about 2 minutes from my house to Lincoln Park, which is about a half hour away so I could pick up my car so I could drive right back :( At least I remembered where I parked though :)

Posted by valry at 1:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I love to bake!
Today I made homemade pumpkin raisin cookies with a pumpkin glaze.

Yummymcyumyum.

Oh, I also drove my dad's SUV this morning. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Although I could never find my speed gauge because my Saturn Ion has ruined me (my car has all the gauges in the middle of the dashboard).

Anyways, in the afternoon ScottyMcHotty and KennyK (MattyK's brother) had a bbq! Yayfoodandpeopleing.

Earlier in the day I asked JoeJoe if he was coming. He had no idea what I was talking about. I told him I saw his name on the email Scott sent. He still had no idea what I was talking about. I looked at the email and apparently Scott had sent it to his waywayway old aol account. JoeJoe laughed about this and I told him to come because technically he was invited :)

So JoeJoe came, and ScottyMcHotty, and KennyK, and Robert (pronounced as the French would say it) and Becca and later Karen and Tracy, Karyn, and Rich. Becca made a really good cheesy dip thing.mmm. People liked my cookies. Rich said I looked like Kirsten Dunst. We all spilled things all over the new table and carpet (I spilled soda, Joe spilled cheese and ice, Ken and Scott hit a cup of coffee and sent it all over the place playing table hockey with styrophome plates...). We are bad. I played Ken at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the Nintendo and he only slightly kicked my ass. It was a good game to play because my normal strategy of hitting all the buttons at once seemed to be the way to go.

On my way home I somehow accidentally got on a highway. I had to get off right away because I had no idea where to go. I had to pay a toll to get off of it. Sucks.

"I Want a Famous Face" is on MTV right now. This show hasn't been on in forever.

Posted by valry at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Congratulations Jenny and Adam!

Aw, two of my best friends got married last night and damn, it was about time.

The wedding was simply amazing because Jenny was just the perfect bride in so many ways.
We started the day out bright and early at 9 meeting at the salon to get our hair done. Appropriately, Nad brought the Starbucks along with some fruit and croissants. Our last Starbucks as all single people, ah. Jenny wouldn't let me get a faux-hawk though (at one point while she was getting hers done it so looked like a faux-hawk was in the works, I told her to leave it because it was a great look for her) and the hairdresser told me I looked like Kirsten Dunst. hehe.
After all our hair was (almost) perfect we went back to Jenny's place to do our makeup, put on our dresses, gather our flowers, and start taking some pics!
Then it was off to the church, so we all piled into the limo and hung out in the brides room peeking out of the curtains.

The wedding was beautiful. They did the whole Catholic mass thing, which was kind of weird because they did the ceremony part right in the middle of it, so they did their vows and I dos and rings and kiss...and then went on for a while doing mass things before presenting the bride and groom. Jenny was gorgeous and Adam just looked so happy as he said his vows. Honestly, I don't think I could ever know two people more perfect for each other than those two. :)

After the ceremony we sent them off with bubbles then took more pictures (in the church and at Mayslake Peabody Estate) and rocked out in the limo where Jenny yelled "I just got married" to people out the window and we shared some champagne out of plastic cups before heading off to the reception. A funny thing about the reception hall... I saw two other bridal parties walking around, and each one had a token bridesmaid with a tattoo on her upper back. It was just funny because each bridal party I saw there had one bridesmaid with upper back tattoo. Hehe.

Anyways, we did the whole receiving line thing where I saw some people I haven't seen in a long long time like some teachers from high school Mrs. Marelli and Mr. McOlgan and old friends like Jackie. It was really good to catch up. And one of their relatives said they thought I looked like Kirsten Dunst (so that was twice in one day! I really hope these people mean that in a good way). I am so glad though that there was no videograper, because since the line stopped mostly at the family and breezed past us, I danced away like a good drunken bridesmaid while I waited). They did our introductions next (the families walked in to the theme from Forest Gump nd the bridal party to Eye of a Tiger) and then Jenny and Adam cut their cake (which was PINK! Now, I am all for a pink cake, but considering that everything else in the place was decorated in lilac/lavander, you'd think the stupid cake people would have realized that the cake was supposed to be lavendar!) then it was time to chow down. Soup, cake, pasta, beef, checkien, green beans, mashed potatoes, chocolate mousse (all family style so you could sample it all!) Oh, and really yummy champagne! All the place cards were held on little bells (remember the ones we tied the ribbon around!) so we'd all ring them to get the lovebirds to kiss (I suggested that if we clanked the glasses Adam and Josh, the best man, should kiss, but they didn't go for it). The head table was a blast because we all (OK, the female side of the table) sang along karaoke style to all the songs :)

Adam and Jenny then did their first dance, then she danced with her dad, then we all hit the floor! I swear, Jenny did not miss a song to dance to, she was going all night long! We did our thriller moves, the chicken dance, the humpty dance (Adam's only request), the Electric Slide, Cotton Eyed Joe... hehe.

My hott date MattyK danced with me to all the slow ones and some swing.

He refused to chicken dance but I did get him to electric slide. :) While Nad and I were busy with our bridesmaidly duties, he got all buddybuddy with Nad's fiancé Bryan so we kept joking that we were losing our boys to eachother and that they were going to be BFFs. Hehe. They even scored each others' digits. Oooooo.

I didn't catch the bouquet in the toss :(

I managed to pick up a flower that fell off of it that I determined meant I'd get married some day, but then the stupid staff threw it out. :(

Jenny and Adam danced to the Grow Old with You song from The Wedding Singer, and it was supercute.

Then more dancing, then the last song, Time of Our Lives which Adam almost missed so Jenny had to dance with Nadia for half of it before Adam came running back. The boys refused to lift us up a la Dirty Dancing though :(

As we said our goodbyes (they headed off on their honeymoon this morning) I made sure to remind both Jenny and Adam that the video we showed them how to make a baby, it did not show them how not to make a baby, so to be careful :) and Jenny said that they'd defiantly be "doing their taxes" for months (Full House, anyone???)

It was a wonderful night and an amazing wedding. Jen and Adam are two of my greatest friends. I have known her since third grade and him for at least ten years and could not imagine two people being better for each other. I love them both and I know they love each other and I know that they will have a long wonderful amazing marriage.

Congratulations to them both!

(more pics tomorrow!)

Posted by valry at 6:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

so on the radio this morning E&K were talking about how Kirsten Dunst was apparently mistaken for a hooker and approached outside of a hotel by an old man who wanted to lick whipped cream off of her. They then asked people to call in if they had ever been mistaken for a hooker or a sripper. They then threw in "Eh, we'll take it if you've ever been mistaken for Kirsten Dunst."
I so was going to call in, but chickened out.

I once was at a really nice restaurant and this man at another table kept staring at me the whole night. I was getting really self-consious that he just thought I had bad table manners or something. He kept staring and then whispering to his wife and such. Later, the pastry chef there was walking around and talking to him (I think he was a regular because they seemed chummy) and then she came over to my table and said "Sorry to bother you but that man swears that you are the girl from Spiderman." hehe. I have also been told a few times by people that I look like her (most recently one of Nadia's friends on New Years). Anyways, here's a side-by-side comparison if you're really interested (it was the best I could do right now for matching pics):

Posted by valry at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)