Overall this weekend didn't suck

Bingo and Beer, what could go wrong?

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This weekend started out a little rough but ended on a very good note. My sleep patterns have been out of whack for the last several weeks and it finally took its tool. I didn't get up Saturday to join the CARA marathon training group. 

Since I'm only leading a half marathon group and anyone who runs at an 8:30 mm pace is going to be fine running with the marathon group, I didn't think it was the worst decision I've made recently. Still, I felt guilty because I can use the mileage.

Instead we slept in and then hit the neighborhood yard sale. We got out of the house much later than I wanted so we probably missed out on any super awesome finds. But we did manage to score an electric lawn mover which may or may not die after a few uses for $5. I also scored this peg board for $2 which went up in the garage and now holds as many rakes as it possibily can. Cannot recall whatever we bought but we definitely did our part to spread the wealth we don't have.

These will eventually live on
our front porch

We checked out BBQ fest for about 30 minutes on Saturday and happened by a resale shop that had some wicker chairs Nightingale liked enough that we purchased, after getting the owner to drop the price a bit.

Saturday evening we went to Logan Bar to watch the blackhawks game with K&J. Originally we were supposed to have a picnic in Pritzker Pavilion but J wanted to see the game and K&J have already done several of those this week.

What was an otherwise pleasant evening out with another couple was somewhat marred by the waitress coming back to our table and outright asking if we stiffted her on the tip because it was short $20. First we didn't stiff her. We put in a 20% tip but when she brought back the check, a $20 appeared to be missing. Did one of us forget to include it? Or did waitress pull a fast one and make an extra $20 off a table that was there all night?

Our back door had come off the hinges in two places. This seemed to occur the exact week that I happened to give two separate people spare keys to our house. However, it looks like the culprit was the small (1 inch) screws that whoever installed the door used.

I went to the local hardware store and got some 2" screws. I wanted to get enough for the door hinges as well as the part that attaches to the doorway, but the 2" is apparently too big for the jam, so we are sticking with the 1" for now.

We also invited some friends over Sunday to check out BBQ Fest and hang out at our place under our new deck umbrella that we had to buy because the sun beats down on our uncovered deck like no one's business.  Nightingale wanted to get people to come spend time and perhaps a little money at a fest in our hood in hopes of increasing it's draw power.  I figured this is a good beta test for a what a bigger scale cookout sometime this summer.

Scenes from Portage Park

Saw this on the way back from BBQ fest yesterday

Two Weddings, Two Communions, same God

We went to two wedding in one Saturday a couple weeks ago and I suppose I should say something about that. Because we made the effort, the first party sat us at their table as guests of honor, which I believe was quite classy, if rather unnecessary.

This photo is aligned right just like the groom's politics

This of course had the intended benefit of us staying a little longer than planned such that we got to the second ceremony just in time to receive our second communion of the day.

We were seated with Sabrina who was one of the few single women there so she got a lot of attention from a couple of the single guys. Never got the 411 on what happened though there was a FB post later that evening showing everyone having a good time.

While that picture was being taken, we were at the second reception, sitting with a group of the bride's coworkers. They were a nice friendly enough bunch to get through the evening with no expectation of long term bonding. The gentleman next to me was excited because he and his son had run the SF10 together. I mentioned that I had run it too but didn't share my results as that would have seemed like boasting.

The reception was at a golf club on the south side and it was a dated but elegant club. Couple two hired a live band from the Red Hat Piano Lounge and really wanted people to come out and dance so we obliged.

We made a short term friend at this wedding who was interesting to talk to although I cannot remember her name. I guess that term ended.

I should say something profound about these couples getting married relatively later in life than they had hoped.  Indeed, I'm all out of profound these days.. So how about this instead. 

How a Runner Packs for a Trip

We are out of town visiting the SIL and staying in her new house in The South.  She works in Memphis and therefore, like many of that town, bought a home in nearby Missisippi.  Hernando, MS to be specific.  We got to see the new house and meet the new boyfriend.   The house is cute and the BF on good behavior, nothing wrong with either at this point though we aren't looking very hard.


Note the running clothes get their own section of the suitcase



We've had our own rough month with the basement flood and some more financial drama in my mom's world that is impacting us.  We just cannot seem to catch a break.  So I would say a short trip away from it all is just what the doctor ordered.  The weather here is mild for this time of year but much warmer than the Chicago weather we left.  When we leave, they will get their hotter temperatures and Chicago will hopefully be done with the cold and rain for a while.  Everyone wins except my waistline since the food here is delicious but not remotely in the zip code of healthy especially the mass quantities I have and will ingest throughout this trip.

What I don't think that doctor ordered was an additional side of Getting to the Airport Drama but that is life with Nightingale.  We couldn't get our act together and make the bus to the El station, so we had to drive nearby and park the car on the street.  Hopefully it is still there when we get home, unticketed at all.

I didn't ask my mom to drive us because the last time I asked her to take me to the airport, I almost missed my flight to Hong Kong.  She didn't understand that when I said I needed to be at the airport two hours early for an international flight, it wasn't me being anal.  That is the Airline Industry and Federal Government's own specific brand of home grown stress for the modern traveler.  Even though that was four years ago, I'm still afraid to take that chance.

Anywho, I've probably shared too much especially since I think some of my actual relatives have started to read this blog occasionally.  Therefore I will just leave with another picture, this one of me culling the Skeet population which grew larger than average thanks to a mild winter. 

Soldier Field 10 Miler and Memorial Day Weekend Recap

My mile splits weren't pretty, but they were under 8mm: Ran a faster time (1:18:31) than last month's LF10 (1:24:27) and also much improved over last year's SF10 (1:23). Also made my goal of being under 200 lbs for the race. Not sure how much lower I can feasibly achieve with cookout season starting and I'm not willing to give up my adult beverages.





Two good looking geezers

  The race itself was quite good. My friend THS caught up to me around the 1.5 mile point and ran with me until the turn around. At which point he surged ahead by about a tenth of a mile. He remained in sight until we had about 3 miles to go and then somehow I managed to shorten the distance between us by half. I think it was when he tried to go around some runners and went to the outside and I was on the inside (picture a track though this was just part of the lakefront path that curves). eventually I caught up to him and he faded back. Somehow I stayed in front and finished a few seconds before him (timewise) though I didn't see him until a minute or two after I crossed the finish line.

When THS caught up to me at 1.5 miles, he said that he misjudged the start time and got to the race as the gun was going off. This is a common theme with THS. At first I thought he was gonna run with me for a bit and then take off, but he said he wasn't in top shape. This was a ruse of course but a good one because it seems his goal was to keep me running at my top pace. If I wasn't running with him, I probably would have slowed down a wee bit. We managed to keep under 8 mm for many of the miles. In fact I think there were only two miles that lapped at 8 minutes and I unintentionally banked time for the rest of the race.

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Better Planning wouldn't have made a difference:  In some ways this was a lot like last year's Memorial Day weekend. Friends were in from out of town.  We ran the SF10 and we enjoyed beverages afterwards.

In other ways it was vastly different. For one thing, we had guest staying with us. DrDrea and her husband were in from Houston and Jema came up from St Louis. We have our old queen bed in the guest bedroom which the couple got and we made Jema pay the Single Person Tax by sleeping on the air mattress in the office.

In my head I thought we'd have a nice pre-race "slumber party" at our place. I'd grill some chow, we'd drink on our deck or in the basement, enjoying the bar. Then we'd go to sleep get up early for the race, hang out there and then come home, shower nap and repeat.

Unfortunately, life got in the way especially since I didn't make much effort to co-ordinate or plan things. I didn't want to be the planner.

First, our basement flooded on Wednesday. I'll cover it in a separate post, right now I'll just say that there wasn't much in the way of damage but it was still an expensive cleanup. Our basement was unusable for three days because of these hugh fans and humidifyers that had to run in order to dry out the dry wall.

Second, Jema had her own agenda. She understandably wanted to get in as much visiting as she could. and she really wanted to go to her old haunt, the Daily Bar and Grill and hang out with Magenta, who didn't run this year. Since the weather was sucky and we couldn't utilize the basement anyway, it kinda made sense to go there for dinner.

Third, my cousin Wednesday had a birthday party for her 1 year old on saturday and she lives in BF-Iowa. It's over an hour drive in the best traffic. When I called to RSVP I meant to say we'd be a maybe but I ended up saying we would come just late. I should have realized that we could have come much later and I could have got my nap in. 

Maybe next year will be better organized.  Or maybe we'll all be at another stage of our lives and won't be able to hang out together, perhaps only sneaking in an appearance at the SF10 like Na did on a secret visit to Chicago for her Birthday. 

What I save in work, I spent in gas

 

Before: a mess



Before: hard to get to the recyling

A couple weeks ago, Nightingale and I found ourselves in Schaumburg, at the WoodField Mall.  Our financial advisor Martin was having a client appreciation event at Maggiano's in Schaumburg.  Note:  Martin picked this place to placate his suburban clients and even though he lives in the South Loop it apparently never occur to him to find a place in Little Italy that could handle such a crowd.

When Martin sent out his initial email outlining all the client appreciation events for the coming year, I skipped this one for the obvious reasons: 1) it's in Schaumburg and 2) it's at Wood Field Mall.  However, he was on the hook for 30 seats and had barely filled 20.  So I asked my cousin -- who loves all things suburbs -- and his wife to join us so that we could have a pseudo family gathering on Martin dime.

I got there a little early because for some reason you can make it from OBT to Schaumburg in half the time it takes to get from OBT to Portage Park even though it's twice the distance.  Fucking Suburbs.

To kill time I stopped by my new Opium Den favorite store Home Goods.

Saw this at Home Goods

Nightingale wanted a sofa table to put behind our kitchen sink.  We have this gap of about 4 feet between the island and the wall.  Why they didn't put it against the wall when they re-did the kitchen is kinda a mystery to me but these things are usually can be explained at the intersection of time and money.

I showed the picture of the above to Nightingale and she thought it could work even though the shelf was twice as deep as we thought we would require.  However, it is a nicely put together table and I certainly couldn't build one like it for less than the $125 asking price.

Becuase I didn't have the presense of mind to buy it right then and there, I had to make a separate trip out there the next day.  Fortunately my GPS said I could make it there in 20 minutes or home in over an hour so it was a no brainer.



Now it's pretty

And I can get to the reycling

The other thing I've learned about shopping at Home Goods is if you see something you like, you should grab it because it will be gone quickly.  I was at Home Goods a couple months ago and saw this shelf pictured below.  It would have made a nice addition to this open space we have in the kitchen above the radiator.  In my hesitation to buy something I was uncertain of, it was gone within a day.  Lesson learned, hopefully.



Wish I had grabbed this last month

Another bad couple weeks for blogging

Lots of stuff going on, some good, some not so good.  All very time consuming.   I hope to get back to a regular posting schedule soon.  Until then, some photos.



Breakfast for our out-of-town guests





The cat keeps moving