My So Called Life

Maid in the shade

/ Shane / Leave a comment

So I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this, but we now have a maid.  Aren’t we hmm hmm hmm?  When we were renting we used to have a maid and it was actually pretty awesome.  I could justify it though because it was just included as part of our rent.  It’s almost like they were twisting our arms. 🙂

Now however…its all us.  I do feel a little guilty about paying money for something that we could (should) do for ourselves.  I feel like if we just worked a little harder we could fit it all in.  The fact is, we just don’t have enough time to clean like we would like to.  And with Evie crawling all over now, and with the lead levels in Chicago, we should probably mop, dust, etc. regularly.  A quick sweep now and again isn’t going to cut it and when you’re short on time you cut corners.

The thing is, people used to make fun of us for saying, “The maid is coming tomorrow, we’ve got to clean!”  Anybody who would say that though never had a maid!  First off, who wants anybody seeing their house as a disaster?  Second off, we didn’t hire them to tidy up our clutter.  In fact, I’d prefer that they didn’t actually.  They don’t know where to put anything and it ends up in weird places.  We want them taking care of our dusting and stuff like that which is only more difficult with our junk lying all over the place.

We did some investigating and interviewed a couple of people and ended up finding the same people who used to clean for us when we were renting.  They always did a good job before and it is a little scary to let strangers into your house when you aren’t there, so it is nice to find someone who you’ve already taken into your confidence (and they haven’t burned you) and not have to go through that again.

So today was the first day of the cleaning and I have to tell you, it is sooo nice to come home to the cleanest house we’ve had since we’ve moved in!  Call us bougie if you want but I didn’t know our place could look so good.  And I didn’t have to lift a finger! 

So if anybody is looking for a recommendation for a cleaning service in the Chicago area, I’ll go ahead and vouch for Edith’s Cleaning Service.

Ma Ma

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Well, the day has finally arrived, just over 10 months in the making and Evie finally said “Ma ma”.  (Well, more like “mamamamama”)  It’s funny because on T.V. and cartoons and stuff, that is always the baby’s first word.  Anyway, Evie has been pretty sick all weekend and she has been extra-extra-clingy to Sara.  I was trying to entertain her while Sara was busy but she really wanted her mommy.  And finally she said it!  It is also weird because it is the first time she’s ever made the sound and yet she meant it.  Contrast that with “Da da” which she was saying for months without really meaning anything.

In garden update news, holy cow weeds.  They just grow like crazy!!  It seems like a never ending job but I swear all the other gardens around us never have any!  Ours is like weed heaven.  Last week we weeded 4 times and never spent less than an hour and a half at it.  But the good news is, our “crops” are growing as fast as the weeds.  Well, the carrots are a little iffy, but everything else is good.

Speaking of garden-based updates, the farmers’ market is really taking off.  I previously reported that it was sort of lackluster but we’ve been back every week since and it gets better every time.  There are more booths now offering more things and they’re not sold out by the time we get there.  We’ve tasted fresh salsa, admired the fresh cut peonies, investigated the spinach, asparagus and mushrooms, bought organic Amish bread, considered the lamb and we’ve never been able to avoid buying something from the organic baker.  There is even a drummer now for entertainment.  All in all, much improved and much recommended!

Finally, a condo based update.  We bought like a big hutch thing to contain, among other things, our china.  So we can finally get all of those boxes out of the closet and unpack them for the first time (although it was convenient for moving that they were still all packed up).  Also, we finally put up some tie backs for the curtains in there so we can let some light in.

And now also I suppose I have a blog update ::publish::

Almost famous

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Well, almost Internet famous at least.

After our trip to Molly’s Cupcakes last week, Tony and I both blogged about it.  Well, yesterday Tony was listening to Ron and Fez and Ron was talking about the Ron Bennington “I have my own cupcake” cupcake (which is of course what we ate when we were there).  He went on to say through the magic of Google alerts he knows when he is talked about on the Internet and that most of this talk revolves around his cupcake.  He went on to say that just in the last few days “two blogs” had talked about his cupcake!  Now it might be a coincidence, but I have to assume he was refering to Tony and me.  I guess we’ll never know, but it is sort of exciting none the less.

But I don’t just plug these places for the fame and I certainly don’t do it for the money (since there isn’t any).  I only plug things that I really like and think other people should check out and that they would enjoy.  I would never plug anything that I didn’t like myself, unless there is money involved.  Then I would proudly endorse anything on God’s green Earth!  That is to say, if it were something I didn’t like and then someone paid me to like it, I would start liking it a lot more.  (Hint, hint advertisers!  J/k I don’t think I have the kind of readership it would take for something like that)

So anyway, if you happen to be in Chicago, you should check out Molly’s Cupcakes sometime.  If you don’t want to listen to my endorsements, skip anthing with the “plug” tag, I won’t be offended.

Big news for my neck of the woods

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Two separate front-page-of-CNN news stories that greatly impact this little neighborhood of mine:

1) Barack Obama officially gained enough delegates to lock up the nomination, although Clinton hasn’t officially conceded yet.  As you probably know, Obama lives right by me.  We’re practically neighbors. 😉

2) The list for the 2016 Summer Olympics was just shortened by 3, leaving Chicago as #3 of 4.  Tokyo and Madrid were ranked #1 and #2 respectively at this point in the game (odds listed for all the gamblers out there).  There are 16 months until the final decision, which means Chicago needs to get it in gear!  As you probably know, if the Olympics come to Chicago, they will be situated basically in my back yard.  We’ll practically be neighbors.

The Zombie Apocalypse, or, How I’m Doomed

/ Shane / 9 Comments

So, the other day we were at the “Smart Home” exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry and they had these awesome glass walls that you could open up and fold away.  Later we saw that there were sort of wooden slat walls on tracks outside that you could slide across the glass.  I said, “I wonder why you would slide this wall across your windows?” and Tony Vegas said, “For the zombie apocalypse of course!”  So it truly is a smart home!

This brings up something that has been really bothering me a lot lately…in the case of a zombie apocalypse, I am unprepared!  I have thought about this issue off and on, but it has been highlighted lately by my brother’s own zombie apocalypse plan (which, by the way, has been very slow in the revealing.  What if the zombie apocalypse happened tomorrow, there would be all of these people hitting refresh waiting for step 2 to be posted) which just highlights my own lack of plan.

Let me give you a historical run down of my own zombie apocalypse plans.

At home my plan involves 2 stages.  Stage 1 is to go to the Scotts’ Grocery Store a couple of blocks from the house.  The idea of holding up in a grocery store has been appealing to me since I first read The Mist all those years ago.  This is inherently limited though because when you run out of electricity you are going to have some trouble.  And do you really want to be sitting on a hundred pounds of rotting meat with zombies stalking around outside?  I think not.  Also, my zombie apocalypse plan (Z.A.P.) always involves finding some weaponry A.S.A.P. and there isn’t much of that at a grocery store.  That is why the 2nd stage involves making my way to my dad’s house.  He’s got plenty of firepower (handguns, shotgun, rifles, muzzle loader, even a bow and arrows), but he also has other amenities.  First off, he lives out in the country which is important.  Less population density = less zombie density.  Also, he has a generator that he bought sometime around Y2K.  He also has survival skills like hunting skills, numchuckskills, etc.  Chicks love a guy withskills.  Last but not least he has a big freezer full of venison.  His house is more or less defensible too since he has steep drop off to a creek bed behind his house.

Since I brought up weaponry, I want to touch on a point.  Conventional zombie fighting wisdom tells you to grab a machete, but I argue that is not the best course of action.  Maybe it is because zombies originate in the Caribbean.  Anyway, I say you are much better off with something more like a baseball bat.  With a sword you run the major risk of getting it stuck in a zombie, which will spell your doom.  Unlike in the movies, you are unlikely to be hacking off limbs and / or heads with every swing (at least until later on when they are more rotten, but by then if you are still alive you probably have something better than a machete).  You will probably be causing superficial flesh wounds that the zombies will ignore.  You are better off going with something that can bash in skulls but also can possibly break some bones and incapacitate the zombie.  And don’t forget that it should be relatively light!  There is never just one zombie, so you are going to have to crack a lot of skulls.  A tire iron is going to tire you out too fast and then they’ll get you.

So back to the plan.  After I left home I had to find a new plan but it wasn’t too hard.  Purdue is a warren of underground tunnels connecting one building to the next.  It would take some time and some caution to remove all of the zombies from those tunnels, but once you did you would have an underground highway allowing you to travel from one building to the next.  This includes cafeterias!  I’m not sure if the tunnels connect to the armory, but they have a cannon there so it would be worth an overland excursion.  Food and weapons and an underground sanctuary…perfect!

Next came Philly and a 3 part plan.  Part 1 was to hole up in my apartment which was on the 2nd story and had only one entrance.  If we blocked off the internal stair case we could be relatively safe.  This is obviously only a temporary solution though because we are missing a large store of food and weaponry.  That is why step 2 was to make it over to Tony Vegas‘ apartment.  There we could arm to the teeth (in guns and guitars) including the giant claymore hanging by the front door.  Also, he lives on the secondfloor with a very narrow internal stairway which could easily be defended.  I’m sure he also has a large store of cheese and pepperoni layed aside as well.  Eventually we would run out of food, but once we were armed we could make our way to step 3 which was getting to Lockheed Martin.  All entrances to the building were secured and even if a zombie employee tried to return to work, punching in a code would be above the dexterity of your average zombie.  In addition every door has a badge reader so you could secure smaller areas piece by piece until the entire building was cleared.  There are also cafeterias there and vending machines, which means food. 

Around this time I also decided I needed a 4th stage…find Ving Rhames.

That brings us to Chicago.  I have thought and thought about it and there is just no good plan!  First off, the city is way too big.  Obviously, more people means more zombies, but you also have to consider all the abandoned cars and other impediments to getting out of the city when the time comes.  Second off, my house is practically set up as a zombie hotel.  I have 3 entrances as well as about 14 zombie accessible windows.  Even the basement isn’t very defensible because it has the windows and also the stairway is too wide and open to blockade with any hope of success.  I have no weapons and no hope of attaining any, no where to hole up, no good way to get out of the city and there’s hardly even any grocery stores around.

Doomed I tell you.

The best  can come up with is some vague notion of getting a boat out on the lake.  Then I wouldn’t have to worry about car pile-ups blocking my way out of the city, and obviously a zombie can’t come at you on the sea (although I have seen one fight a shark).

So, loyal readers, what do you think? Any ideas?  Surely saving my life is a worthy price for all the time I’ve wasted for you!