Jersey Boys!!!

On a whim (like, bought the tix the night before at 10:30pm whim) Mom and I went to go see the musical Jersey Boys. It's the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. You would recognize most of their music. It was so so so good, probably partially because I grew up on the oldies, but still I think anyone would love it. The acting was superb, we got the understudy for Frankie Valli, and he was a fantastic actor and obviously a great singer, but he overdid the falsetto sometimes. :) Think the song "Big Girls Don't Cry", and you'll understand. The guy that played Bob Gaudio, Drew Gehling was my favorite. He had a killer voice, and he was kind of adorable too. We had a fantastic time. Here are pics from that and just walking around Chicago.


Characters left to right: Nick Massi, Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, and Tommy DeVito
Actual Four Seasons, starting at the top, clockwise: Bob Gaudio, Frankie Valli, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi






Random Adorable Child

The Bean





And then on Sunday we laid out on Lake Michigan.



Edited: Oops! Forgot to mention my major clutz moment. Now, normally, as most of you know, it's mom that's always tripping over concrete and falling off trolley cars, but apparently it was my turn. Today (Sunday) we were shopping and as we were walking down the sidewalk to get something to eat I tripped on a ridge in the sidewalk and just went down. I hit it hard and didn't have time to catch myself w/ my other foot so I think it went something like my knee hit first then both my wrists (and the sore one is none too happy about that) and then I rolled to help distribute the impact. There was absolutely nothing going through my mind except "Oh Crap", so I can't say I had the presence of mind to roll, I just kind of did it. But me and Mom agree that that probably saved me from some bad injuries like a broken wrist or hitting the concrete with my face. So really I just have a skinned elbow, a badly bruised knee, and a scrape on my foot and probably a dozen bruises. Tada!!!

Pickles

Other tags considered: "Kamaflawge: Ur doin it wrong", and "I iz stelthy hunter". Couldn't really come up with a good one for this.

Thanks for adopting me!

I believe this was taken the day they adopted her (oops, him).

Doggie Sundae Toppings

Sniffle

So I've been recording most of the Olympics on Tivo and watching them the next day lately. So I watched Misty May and Kerri Walsh win the Gold and then I was watching the very end and they were showing who won the...um, weightlifting? medal, I'm not sure what it's called. And they guy that won is from Germany and he lifts it up, holds it with a huge smile on his face and then lets it drop and just collapses in sobs because he knows he won the Gold. I'm getting a little teary at this point, but wait, there's more. At the medal ceremony he holds up, with his Gold, a picture of his wife who died last year in a car accident. She had started a savings account so she could join him in Beijing. And that made me cry. So I thought I'd share.

huh.

No, seriously, who buys this stuff?

I'm looking for a shower curtain, and I went shopping today. After trying about 18 stores I finally gave up and started looking online. And that's what I found.

LOLGeneral

LOLCali

Fun Day

So I have some random stuff to post. Today and tomorrow is the Chicago Air & Water Show, the 50th Anniversary. So we kept getting to see the Blue Angels go over the city. I didn't go down to the Lake, so I didn't actually see the show, but you'd hear it coming from time to time. So I got my camera out and took a few pictures and a video. I went down to Clark & Diversey to go shopping (which is about 3 miles South of my place and closer to where the show was) and I parked on top of the building and took some of my pictures and video from there. I was only 3 or 4 stories up, but it was a good vantage point because the planes kept going over. At one point, the noise shook everything so hard that it set someone's car alarm off. So watching all of that actually made me woozy. I think it had something to do with being up higher than the ground, but at one point during the video you can hear me say Oh My God because they just went so high up and it was making me literally dizzy. Yes, Michael, literally, not figuratively. I finally went down to go shopping because my legs were a little weak.

This is my view from the rooftop:

SO, when I went shopping I got Izzie a new litter box to try and get her to stop tracking quite so much litter out of her box. It kind of looks like an igloo, it's interesting.

Unfortunately, they did not have it in this lovely shade of purple (if they had, I would've gotten it). They had a really ugly gold and "seafoam". We got seafoam. As the cat goes up the steps, which you can see then it turns and the litter is to the right. Supposedly, the stairs and the little turn helps keep the litter in the box instead of on your floor. We'll see.

Golden Boy

Well, Wow. While I was working so diligently on my LOLAbby Michael Phelps won his 7th Gold by 1/100th of a second.

That's a fingernail.

I don't know at what point these Europeans are going to learn to keep their mouths shut. Hubris, kids, Hubris. Study your Greek Mythology. Hmph...I'm not a geek at all. Now, get off my lawn.

So Cavic actually said (I think) yesterday that it would be better for swimming as a sport if he beat Michael Phelps in this race the 100m Butterfly. I...um...what? Does that make ANY sense to anyone? Anyway, his coaches are in the "Resolution Room" (what do you think that's like - like plastered with posters about how we should all just get along?) filing a grievance about the end of the race. Bob Costas says the electronic sensors never lie and since you can't really tell from the video - some look like Phelps won, some look like Cavic won, I think they have to rely on the sensors. Also, that's a huge can of worms - overriding the sensors. I doubt they'll even seriously consider it. They wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole, or a six foot Serb, as it were. Ba Doom, chung. I'll be here all week. I had to explain the joke in painstaking detail to my coworkers; please tell me you get it or I will have to disown you all as my friends.

Update: They've rejected Cavic's protest.

If you have absolutely no idea what's going on with the captioned LOLAbby, it's from this website: LOLCats (this website: icanhascheezburger.com and ihasahotdog.com). It's all explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolcats . The LOLCats are what makes me smile at least once a day. I've been meaning to make a LOLCat of Izzie (which will be a LOLIzzie), so I'll work on that. Also, I just realized I have like eighteenmillion pictures of all my friends and relatives pets so I might try to play with those too, although I have serious doubts as to whether I have the wit to give all your little darlings justice.

US Men's Beach Volleyball

I think maybe I have never heard of such an eminently unlikeable person as the guy Rogers and Dalhauser are playing against. His name is Laciga, he's from Switzerland, I think, and he just sounds like a jerk. The announcers are talking about how "volatile" he is and in the first couple of points how he "laid into" his young partner for messing up. Then they tell the story of how him and his older brother, who used to be partners, haven't talked in ages, INCLUDING when they played together. It was their father who suggested they not talk during matches and it dramatically improved their play. What the...? They didn't talk AT ALL through the entire Athens Olympics, and they showed a clip of how his brother tried to give him a high five after a play and he walked right by him. Just now, he fell down trying to block and then tried to kick the ball up to keep it in play and he kind of smiled (looked like a grimace to me) and the announcer said "rare smile from the volatile one". He just sounds like a ray of sunshine, doesn't he? So this is the first player at the Olympics that I'm actively rooting against. Oh, and this gem, which I'm not touching with a ten foot pole (or a six foot german): "If he keeps this up he'll have to play with himself". They should have said BY himself. BY himself. Think before you speak.

Update: YES! US Wins as Laciga goes and has a tantrum in the corner.

There's something in my eye

Hmm. I seem to be using that excuse a lot lately. Nastia Liukin totally made me cry. A lot. Also, eat a sandwich. I mean she had a ton to live up to what with the father that got the Olympic All-Around Gold for Russia in 1988 and the mom that was the World Champion Rhythmic Gymnast in 1987. She was awfully flawless, even on vault which isn't her strongpoint. It was a nice counterpoint to the Men's All-around which was so sloppy. Except for that large step on Uneven bars, she was virtually flawless. I felt sorry for Shawn Johnson since she was expected to win and she just couldn't pull it together perfectly (although she obviously did very very well, just those little steps. Argh.) But yeah I could do a whole post juxtaposing how Nastia and Shawn are such opposites and how they relate to American identity (Born and Raised in Iowa, vs. born and emigrated from Russia) but I'm too tired.

Also - Yay Ryan Lochte!

Argh.

I turned the TV off. I am frustrated. Oh Alicia, why?

Oh. My. Gah.

The men's gymnastics team just exhausted me. That was awesome. They qualified 6 out of 8 for the finals and then they went and won the Bronze. Half way through (taking into account the fact that different apparatus score higher than others) they were leading and with one apparatus to go they were in second. Unfortunately Pommel is a very low scoring apparatus and the Japanese were on their highest scoring apparatus. But Alex Artemev nailed it again to put it out of reach of the Germans. So The US Men got the bronze using 2 of their 3 alternates and without either of the Hamm twins, and not a single returning member from 4 years ago. So cool. Jonathan Horton was incredibly awesome, but Justin Spring is still my favorite. He's a little nuts and his high bar routine nearly killed me because he goes after it so hard and it's nearly out of control, but so fun to watch. And I'm happy the Chinese won the Gold. They deserved it really. Especially since Japan didn't seem to be taking the meet seriously. Um, Olympics, anyone? Maybe you shouldn't be laughing after you majorly flub a vault and be taking video on the sidelines?

And Tim Daggett ought to be shot. There is such thing as hubris. Look it up. You know, how in football or basketball, when they're about to kick a field goal or shoot a freethrow and the announcer then proceeds to tell you how they won't miss, they inevitably do? Yeah, that little superstition goes way back to Greek Mythology. It goes something like this: The Gods are not nice, and if you have hubris (over-confidence) they will shoot you down. And Tim Daggett ought to be a stone statue by now because Every Single Apparatus he kept on about how this person does it so well and at the end he kept saying, The Americans have the bronze, when it wasn't clinched yet and I wanted to reach through the television and choke him. I actually watched most of it on mute. Ok, I'm done with that little rant.

Men's 4x100 Relay

I didn't think swimming like that was physically possible:



Apparently the fuzzy videos aren't being pulled. But if you haven't seen it already, try and watch it on NBC's website because it's amazing and you should see it in as much clarity as possible.

Gymnastics

Argh. Women's Gymnastics is ticking me off. I'm watching the Chinese women and if at least 2 of those women are 16 years old I will eat my hat. She looks about 10. Apparently a Chinese newspaper has made allegations that the Chinese or her coaches padded her age on her passport so she could compete. The Chinese start picking their gymnasts at age 3 and because they push them so hard, they start to wear out a lot faster than girls in other countries, and that, supposedly, is why they would want younger girls. I don't know. If you watch it online or on tv, tell me, do you think they look 16?

sasha artemev

This is the second half of Sasha Artemev's routine on Pommel Horse. He was the second alternate selected after Morgan Hamm dropped out. The guy you see cheering in the white shirt is the alternate that wasn't selected. This video might not be around forever because NBC is pulling all Olympic clips off of YouTube. Jerks. Especially because that video isn't actually available on NBC's Olympics website.

Anyway, while I was watching this I got really nervous because he started to go so fast I thought he was going to fall off the horse. And sorry it's fuzzy.

Summer Olympics XXIX

Expect a lot of posts with this heading for the next 2 weeks.

So the first set of medals for Women's Sabre Fencing (something like that) was a sweep by US Women. So after the medal ceremony the girls went over to the stands were George H.W. Bush was waiting to greet them. And one of the girls was crying and he pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and gives it to her. It was just so grandfatherly and normal and it made me giggle. :)

Also, I don't know who did the arrangement of the National Anthem for these games, but I think whoever did it had a bet trying to make as many people cry as possible. It's very...moving.

My Very First Time at Wrigley Field

I'm gonna kind of let the pictures and video speak for themselves.

Make sure your speakers are on for the video

Were those tornado sirens, you ask? Why yes, yes they were.

Ok, to be perfectly honest I had a blast. The whole time the storm was moving through I was having a great time. Honestly, I think they partially put the tornado sirens on to get people out of the stands and down into the concourse (which they had announced on the loud speaker, but most people weren't really moving). The last video is of us in the concourse squished in like sardines. They shut the doors (big metal things) for a bit, but it started getting really really hot so they had to open them again and just try to keep people from leaving. Afterwards, me and Kitty just walked home and the lightning was awesome! I told Kitty that there for a while right when the tornado sirens first went off and with the sound of the fire engine outside, that I kind of felt like an extra in a disaster movie. :)

Bummer.

So I've been having a lot of pain in my right wrist for the last couple of weeks ever since my first Pottery class. I was super excited about signing up because I used to take pottery throwing when I lived in Philly and I really liked it. So I went to the first class and during the first part when we were wedging the clay (it's a lot like kneading bread, only harder) my wrist was killing me. After that class I took some ibuprofen and it was mostly fine. A few days later it started to hurt A LOT, and it has hurt every day since then. It got so bad that last Friday at the bar I was using my left hand to drink my beer, and we KNOW that can't continue so I made a Dr.'s appt. So I went this morning and he told me I have ulnar neuropathy in my right wrist which is like Carpal Tunnel just on a different nerve (the ulnar nerve is on the outside of your wrist going up to your pinkie finger). Essentially the tissue around the nerve got inflamed from over-use and pushed the nerve around so the nerve is causing me pain. So we need to get the nerve back where it belongs so I don't have any permanent damage. So I had to quit pottery :( and I have to wear a brace and take some anti-inflammatories and do some exercises and hopefully it will go away with all that. If it's not gone after that, I'll have to go to physical therapy. Also I am to avoid any strain on it that's not absolutely necessary, hence quitting pottery. I'm supposed to try and do everything I can with my left hand (have you ever tried pushing a revolving door with only your left hand? Harder than you would think. And every building in downtown Chicago has a freaking revolving door). So I should probably also avoid typing, but since that's kind of essential to my job, I'll just make do. I'm really rather bummed out about having to quit Pottery (if you couldn't already tell) but the art center gave me credit for the rest of the classes and when I want to sign up next that'll pay for about half of my next class. So mostly I'm blogging about this to garner sympathy :) Poor me. :(

Conversation:

Anne:  Did you see that they were filming something across the street this morning?

Me: Why?  It's so humid out the picture quality would be terrible!

Anne:  It's called "Fancy Pants"

Me: Oh.  Nevermind.

Actually, I found out later it was called The Beast and it's some TV/Movie on A&E starring Patrick Swayze and I'm very upset that I didn't get to see him.  :)