Thank you!!!

I just wanted to thank everyone that has signed up to be a bone marrow donor. I'm really touched that so many of you signed up and I'm sure there are some that I don't know about either. I know it's last minute, but I also wanted to let you know that they are running a promotion through May 19th where the donation is free. Also, if you don't get to it by then, someone told me that you can do it through the Red Cross for free as well.

In the meantime here is a fun pic of Izzie on her new lounge chair/scratching pad. (She's yawning, not hissing at me, I swear!)

Bone Marrow Donation

So I had planned to actually do a whole video on this when I did it and post it, but I'm not doing that because I decided I needed to turn the donation in and be done with it. I decided to put my tissue in the Marrow registry for a few reasons. My friend Emily had donated once and ended up saving a guy's life. Then at the end of November, Emily and her family found out that her 18 month old nephew, Gabe, had leukemia. I knew that chances were next to nil that I would be a match to Gabe because matches are closely related to ethnicity and Gabe is half-Jewish, but I wanted to make the effort for all the other children and adults out there that can be saved by donating bone marrow or white blood cells.

Unfortunately I found out today that Gabe died on Wednesday due to complications from his Leukemia. I will be going to his funeral on Sunday which would have been his 2nd birthday. Emily lives with Gabe's Mom and Dad (Randee and Jim) and their other son, 5 year old Jack and has helped raise the boys for the last year and a half since she moved back to Chicago from Washington D.C. They had been in the midst of making plans to move downtown near the Children's Memorial hospital for further treatments for Gabe. I've listened to Emily tell me about all the treatments that Gabe went through and the huge sacrifices that his family (including Emily) made to try and save his life. So in honor of Gabe Donovan and his family I'd like to encourage you all to sign up to be a bone marrow donor. This is a picture of Gabe and his Auntie Emily making brownies at home.

I signed up a couple of weeks ago by getting onto http://www.marrow.org/and going through their online registration. It essentially asked me a whole bunch of health related questions similar to what you are asked when you donate blood and then once it decided I was a viable candidate put me through to the next step, tissue typing. In order to type the tissue the Bone Marrow registry requested a donation of me to cover the costs. It was $52.50. In cases like Gabe's, the family may cover the costs for candidates that they think may be a match, or for rare ethnicities sometimes there are grants to cover it, but in my case I chose to make the donation myself.

I received the tissue typing kit in the mail 3 days later. It has a return envelope, 4 cotton swabs, some bar-coded stickers, and a little kit to put the cotton swabs in once you're finished. You take the sterile swab out one at a time and use each swab for one quadrant of your mouth. For instance, you swab the upper right cheek, lower right cheek, etc. You just run the swab over your cheek for 10 seconds like you are brushing your teeth. Then you put it back in the envelope, seal it, and mail it. After about 6 weeks they send you a card that has your tissue type on it.

If you are selected as a donor you undergo further testing to make sure that you are a match and are healthy. You can match as a marrow donor or just a white blood cell donor (which my friend Anne's father does). After that it's up to you whether or not to donate, but knowing it may save someone's life, I think it would be worth the inconvenience and pain. So, I'm just asking that you consider becoming a marrow donor and also please keep Gabe, Randee, Jim, Jack, Emily, and the rest of their family in your prayers.

Slave to Marketing

I often tell people that I am a slave to marketing, because if I see something new and interesting in a magazine or on a commercial I HAVE to try it. This is why I put up food "reviews" and whatnot so often. So I have 2 more. One is the new Sally Hansen nail polish pen.

Don't aske me why this one's black, it was the only image I could find. It's MUCH easier to hold and do your nails with than a normal bottle, but the polish comes out onto the brush funny and my polish started peeling the next day. If you want something that's truly not messy, and lasts forever try these:

They're dry nail strips that you set on your nail and essentially rub on. They smell a little nail polish-y still because they finish drying after you've rubbed them on and mine lasted at least 2 weeks. And it supplies you with everything you need for a manicure - emory board, cuticle pusher thing, etc.
Finally a food product:

Sorry the image is so small. Click on it to enlarge. It's Bolthouse Farms salad dressing. This is a brand new brand of salad dressing that I found at the grocery store the other day. It's in the refrigerated section with the Marzetti's brand dressings. It is made with a base of yogurt and has "no added preservatives, MSG, added sugar, or trans fat". It has the same calorie and fat content (approximately - 70 cal and 6.5 g fat per serving) as the "lite" dressings and drum roll please.....it tastes amazing! This is the only dressing I've ever tasted that didn't have 20g of fat in it (and even then) that I liked. It comes in 4 flavors and I will try the ranch next and let you know about that, but the blue cheese actually tastes like dressing that you get at a restaurant. I realize it sounds like I'm getting paid for this, but I swear I'm not (but I'm open to it, Bolthouse Farms - call me!) The only downside is that because it has no preservatives it only lasts about a month in the fridge. It's a 14 oz bottle and it's around $5 which is pretty pricey too. But because I love creamy dressings and hate any "lite" creamy dressings, this will forever be in my fridge and I can throw out all of my Kraft/Newmans/LiteDoneRight dressings and free up space in the door.

Portion Control

Nifty! This is a teeny tiny carton of ice cream. It's 3.6 fl. oz. For those of us with no self-control when it comes to ice cream it's obviously intended to keep you from eating entire pints of Ben & Jerry's at once. Haagen Daaz has them too (I have no idea how to spell that). It's like one little scoop. And it even comes with a little spoon in the lid. :)

Pretty pretty present

So this is my pretty, pretty present that Nikki sent me from Italy. It is (obviously) a wine bottle stopper and it is gorgeous! I think it matches the wine bottle over there nicely! That is a "casual sparkling wine" that my wine store just started carrying that is really very good. That is the Moscato and it is slightly sweet and slightly sparkling. I really like it a lot. The red sticker in the box of the wine stopper says "Made in Murano Italy". Thank you Nikki!

Chrissi-mas

My Birthday (observed). So, my birthday isn't until Monday, but we decided to celebrate on Saturday. So my friends put more thought into it than I did and after a very moving introduction by Bill they toasted me and told me that they've decided to christen my birthday "Chrissi-mas". :) We decided that "Chrissi-mas" will be celebrated on the Saturday nearest my birthday. Just in case you were interested, Nikki-mas is celebrated on the nearest Friday.

We went to "Killer Margaritas", which you can see had fabulous (and large) margaritas. Bill had a leetle one. :) Then we went to a Dueling Piano Bar. You can see me and Katie dancing and wailing along.

Santa Rita Reserva Merlot

I haven't done a wine review in a while, partially because I feel like I don't quite have the vocabulary down and partially because I feel pretentious doing them. But I'll do one anyway. I'm actually planning on taking a wine-tasting class downtown if I can get in at a place called Bin 36 in Chicago. I've actually seen their wines on the shelves, and been there before and I'm looking forward to it. I'm taking Wine 101.

So I don't think I've done too many reds because I prefer white, but I bought this Merlot recently and I thought it merited a review. It is actually a Chilean red wine. I highly recommend getting some of your wine, in particular red, from Chile or South Africa. They have the right soil for growing the grapes and because it's not Italy or France, the wines tend to be very reasonably priced for the value. This one I bought for $10.99. I don't think it's one you would find at the grocery store, but probably at a liquor store.

I have to say it wasn't anything super-special in taste. I can't recall that it had particular flavors that I marvelled at. However. It had barely any tannic taste to speak of (that pucker feeling you get in your mouth), wasn't bitter at all, and was very smooth. Considering the price, I thought it was quite good. It's definitely a red that you could serve at a dinner party or something without offending any guests. :) I quite liked it and will probably buy it again.

That's all for the review, but here's a story. I went with a friend of mine to a wine-tasting a few weeks ago. Her apartment is above the owner of the restaurant and she got free tickets. So, we went. There were probably 15 or so tables there and we decided to start with the white, then move on to the reds. Oddly, some of the people there (the ones showing the wine) agreed with us (most, actually) and some seem surprised we would split them up that way. When me and Mom went to Napa Valley that is how we were taught to taste the wines. Anyway, most of the people were very nice and did not expect us to be particularly sophisticated in our tastes. However, one of the guys, I believe his wines were from Greece, was so snobby! I tried to comment on how dry the Riesling was and he scoffed at me! Not openly really, but he didn't try to hide it either. And the real kicker was that his wines weren't even particularly good! So despite that, I ended up buying 4 bottles. Two of Madera, which is normally a dessert wine - very sweet, but one of the bottles I bought was dry and very good, and two of Gewurztraminer which are also sweet white wines. The Gewurztraminer (which is very close to a Riesling) are excellent! They are all wines that only sell to restaurants which is why I didn't review them. Unfortunately, me and Natalie were only able to get through the white wines before both of our stomachs couldn't take any more, so I sampled a few reds and then we left. But it was still very cool.

Ah, Chicago

So normally I feel like Chicago is a pretty safe place to live. At least the places I frequent, but this weekend has been kind of crazy. I was driving home on Friday evening and on one of the local roads right after I got off Lake Shore Drive I saw police with their lights on so I slowed down. Then as I was sitting at the red light I saw another police car come up really fast and the Police officer got out WITH HIS GUN DRAWN running toward a car that 2 other cops had pulled over. When I passed by there were at least 6 cops all with guns drawn pointing them at a guy that they had on the ground trying to handcuff. It was kind of odd, because you wanted to stop the car and not just drive by and act like nothing was happening, but I certainly didn't want to be in that area at all. So I just drove past just like every one else. It was freaky.

Then today I was driving to the Salvation Army down in Boys Town which is near Wrigley Field and the traffic got really stopped up. I happened to be turning left at this particular intersection and so I went around every one and went up to the intersection and I could see further down the street why it was backed up. Two guys who had maybe gotten in a fender bender had gotten out of their cars, the doors were still open, and were shoving and pushing and punching each other. Who does that? I mean, being rear-ended rarely has much damage, seriously, just get each others info and move on. It was bizarre.

So yeah, Yay Chicago!

Miss Pettigrew lives for a Day

Ok, I said I wasn't going to do reviews, but I'll do a mini review for this movie. Frances McDormand plays a down on her luck governess who kind of accidentally gets a job as the social secretary of Delysia LaFosse played by Amy Adams, who is a cabaret singer and aspiring star in 1939 London. She's torn between 3 men, Nick who owns the nightclub (and the flat she stays in), Phil, the son of a producer who can get her a part in a West End play, and Michael her piano player at the nightclub. Lee Pace plays Michael and is fabulous, and I'm a little in love with him now. Lee Pace is on Pushing Daisies on ABC.

The plot is cute and actually a little deeper than I was expecting. All the performances are great and the music (which I just bought) is a lot of fun. Oh, and the costumes and sets are a lot of fun too. So I highly recommend this movie (mostly to girls) either to go see in the theater or to rent.

The Cubbies

So apparently my geographical location + boredom + friend who is rabid Cubs fan (Kitty) = Me watching Cubs spring training games on tv. Never really thought that would happen.