Monday!!

I'm uploading a bunch of movies onto my YouTube account right now, mostly to get them off of my computer's hard drive before it crashes. Old Dell Inspiron 6000 has been doing pretty well lately...only freezing if I have a ton of windows open and occasionally overloading and shutting down. But everytime I turn it back on it starts without a glich. I feel that sometime very, very soon I am going to come home from work, open my computer, and find myself computerless.

Today I hung out with Jenny, I have the next two weeks off and am using this week to relax and clean before my sisters come on the 21st. Jenny was nannying for this cute family with a boy about Alex's age and we took the boys on a walk to Trader Joes because it was 65 DEGREES OUTSIDE!!!

I always forget how much I like Trader Joes. Really cheap prices on food that's healthy and yummy. I bought enough ingredients to make portabella mushroom, white-clam alfredo pasta for dinner tomorrow. I'm pretty excited about the sauce, it looks delicious AND it's been forever since I've had clams. They are really expensive here. In Washington state you can get a combination fishing and clamming license for what, $15? In Chicago, clams cost .59 cents each...and who only eats one or two clams in one sitting anyway?

On Saturday we headed downtown for the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Apparently, St. Patrick's Day has turned into one of the biggest drinking holidays of the year. It was a good time, we ran around the city with Jerry and his girlfriend Kate and their friends. Jerry even had a wheelchair so that he wouldn't have to get around on crutches. Drunk people pushing a wheelchair is one of the most awesome things I have seen in a very long time.

We didn't watch too much of the parade, there were too many people already crowding the street by the time we got down there. There were thousands of drunk people falling over themselves and green everywhere you looked. We all got hit in the face with green beads thrown by party trolleys and some seriously decked out bros. People were selling shirts that said, "Irish today...Hung over tomorrow" and cops were walking the streets drinking cans of Busch and Bud Light.

While we were waiting for Jerry and Kate, we met up with Homer for a while and took photos and videos. G noticed a girl who was having a huge problem standing up, she was slouched between two of her friend's arms. We watched her for five minutes or so and eventually she went completly limp and just laid stretched out on the sidewalk. We ran over and asked them if they needed any help, only to find out that they were a bunch of highschoolers who were convinced she was okay because "her boyfriend was coming to pick her up any minute". They attempted to cram crackers down her throat, but she was so blacked out she couldn't even swallow them. Her eyes were open and completly milky, the scariest thing I think I have ever seen. We called an ambulance for her and they arrived to pump her stomach and rushed her to the hospital a half hour later. It gets more disgusting, but I'll spare you the details. The whole thing really grossed me out, I couldn't stop thinking about her for the longest time. I hope she was okay....

We were probably the only people not wearing green:




G, Kate, Aimee, and Wheelchair Jer:




I think he was saying, "Hustlin', hustlin'"

Just a Random Post Because I Haven't Written Lately...

Monday night I was walking home from work just as it was getting dark out and I noticed an unusual amount of cops driving around and parked on every other block. We live in a pretty safe area of Chicago, usually the only cops I see are parked at the 7-11 down the street, reading magazines and eating sandwiches (does that tell you how safe our neighborhood really is?). In a 15 minute walk home, I must have seen about ten cops. It weirded me out pretty good, I felt like every time I walked by one of their parked cars, they were checking me out to see if I fit the description of whoever they were trying to catch. Don't get me wrong, crime does happen in our area. One time I saw a 30 year old man steal a shirt from the Gap down the road. Oh, and there's this guy who tags "T-REX" on all of the churches around here.

This story doesn't end with any gun shots or convicted felons, so if you think this gets more exciting you should probably just skip this post. When I got home, I heard sirens so I went up to our roof to try and see what was going on. It was then that I noticed there was a cop car parked in a every visible alley surrounding our place too. All of the street lights outside our apartment aren't working, so everything feels really creepy as well. After I realized that I could be up there for a while and most likely nothing would happen, I decided that it was a calm enough night to sit up on the roof for a while. I'll never know who of what they were really looking for, and that kind of bugs me a little bit, but only because I'm such a snoop.

I crouched down in a corner and just listened to the city. It was a really clear night and I spent a long time looking for stars. I hate that you can only see a few stars in the sky here. I miss laying outside in my parent's yard, watching meteor showers and satellites with a pair of crappy binoculars. I miss feeling so small and insignificant and full of curiosity about space. In Chicago you are lucky if you can see the Big Dipper in the summertime. I always think of all the awesome science activities I could construct for the kids if only they knew what a bright star really looked like.

Slim Dixon is playing a show tonight, actually they're playing pretty soon. I'll write more later. I have the next two weeks off!! Time to get stuff done, explore, create, and find more schools to apply to. I'm only really excited for three out of those four opportunities.....

Updates.

I found some old photos and videos and just updated my Flicker account. This week is flying by which is pretty exciting because I have the following two weeks off. It's hard to believe my sisters are coming in just a couple weeks. Yesterday it was 62 degrees and rainy...something about that kind of weather puts me in a great mood. Woke up this morning, however to the usual 20 degree day :-( I'm headed out the door soon, but here's a few of the photos I found.

Critical Mass outside our apartment:


Summer 2008:


Our apartment:




Here's a video of G attempting to kick some yogurt and then catch it. What happens instead is pretty awesome....




I have more videos and photos on Flicker. The webpage is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/allieinthecity/. You could also just click HERE.

Happy Wednesday!!

Written by my Little Sister Carly:

Carly wrote this when she was seven years old, it's one of my most favorite stories ever. She is a talented writer, even to this day. You probably don't even remember this story Car! Love you!

Hero Goes to the Moon!
By: Carly Hall (pen-name: Reba B. Doodle)

One day there lived a handsome monkey named Hero. He had a monkey dog named Musket. He lived in a zoo. One day he got a call from his nice friends. They wanted him to escape from the zoo!! Hero asked, very curious, why? His friends said, because it is Chip and Dill's birthday!! "I don't think I could make it," said Hero. His friends said, "Just try! Please, please, please, just try, just try, just try, just then hero said, "o.k. o.k. I'll try!"

All of his friends shouted, "hurray, hurray!" Hero asked, "When should I go?" "Right now!" said his friends. "Why so fast?" asked Hero. "Because we are having a surprise party!" "Oh! I will hurry!" said Hero. So he called his dog, and said, "Lead me to the big rocket ships! Right away!" For Musket could know where anything was. So they quickly hurried out of the cage.

It wasn't easy getting out to go to the rocket ships. They got put back so many times, that Hero lost count. But soon they quietly got to the rocket ships, and at that very moment, Hero saw a rocket ship that said, "GO TO THE MOON WITH THIS BABY!" When he saw it he said, "Hop in Musket." So Musket hopped in and they took off. But first they put on their moon helmets.

When they got up to the moons, it was full of moons! "Which moon?" Asked Hero. Musket said, "To the moon below the blue cheese moon." So that's when they crazily landed. But he landed very hard because he didn't know how to drive it, so he just pressed the land button and some other button. There they had the party, and Hero didn't want to go back to the zoo! So he lived there with all of his friends, and had a great time.

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Be Cool About Fire Safety.

Today I was attempting to teach a four year old about fire safety. On a bike ride to the park we chatted about forest fires, smoke detectors, and fire extinguishers. I asked her what to do if you ever have fire on you (assuming she'd say, "stop, drop, and roll").

She looked at me like I was crazy and said, "you RUN!!" :-)

I Love This....

Good Luck G!!

So G left today for Savannah, Georgia. He comes back pretty late tomorrow night. It's been really strange not having him around and it's going to be even weirder sleeping in our bed tonight without him. I hate it, but I have really loud thoughts and I really only notice them when he is gone.

A few nights ago on the news, they ran a pretty long story on bed bugs. Apparently there is a huge outbreak of them in Chicago. This really grossed me out so of course, instead of just forgetting about it I stayed up super late Googling and Wikipedia-ing images and information. I used to think that these things were microscopic....turns out they are visible bugs, sometimes even bigger than fleas. They feed off of our blood and dead skin cells. I'd rather not say when we washed our sheets last so for the past week I have been going to bed terrified and itchy all over. Not that I'm actually being bitten...it's just once I'm thinking about something so gross, I let my imagination go a little crazy. I'm sure internet researching the issue didn't help either. SO, today I broke down and went to Target and bought all new sheets AND pillows and washed all of our blankets and towels. Washing that boring stuff is something I've been meaning to do for a while (all of that costs about $10 to clean!!) I'm pretty excited to sleep with new sheets and pillows tonight...although without my Garrison, who knows how much sleep I'll really be getting.

Here is G's fancy-boy outfit as he was heading out the door for Georgia this morning at 6:00!!


Bunz was sleeping like this today on the couch, the thunderstorms are finally not scaring her!


Here's to a good week....

Some of My Favorite Artwork in Our Apartment:

By my sister Lindsey:

Screen print from the art gallery down the street:

By G:

G:

My sister Carly:

My sister Megan:

Our friend Dylan:

A velvet painting from a discount art store:

By Me:

TGIF

I should probably make it clear that the gun my creepy little brother is holding in the picture below is an air soft gun...there's no way my parents would let him have anything other than that (even though I'm sure he wouldn't mind). Yeah, we live in the country...but really.

It is 11:30 in the morning and already 60 degrees outside. I've been sitting on the roof, reading, and drinking Gatorade before work and it is NICE. I actually had to take off my sweater because I was getting too hot. Everyone is in really good moods and walking around...the city is waking up!!

Thanks S for suggesting Day Frog...I checked out the website and it looks pretty awesome. Fantasy Kingdom is pretty cool, I think their problem is the space is too small and too many kids go there (especially on yucky Chicago days). I'm glad the girl I watch is finally getting old enough to hold her own against the big guys....We'll definitely have to check this out!

I found out that I am not accepted to one of the schools I applied for...SO FRUSTRATING. That means I only have two more Chicago schools left to hope for, and they were kind of my random picked schools. :-( I have the feeling a lot of people are applying for schools right now so of course that makes it harder. Keep your fingers crossed!

I don't work until 1:00 today, so I'm going to go ride my bike around and soak up this sunshine....

Hope you all have a great Friday!!!