Foam!

When you pour Harpoon Leviathon into
a small glass, you get a tiny amount of beer and a very large head.

Lasagna

This pirate makes very good lasagna, I guess she is Italian. Yummy.
Too bad we are busy cheering for the Phillies. They are down 6-3 so
far in game 3.

Don't tell pip

But i'm going out for Halloween. Don't tell pip. I'm not sure I'll
make it home tonight.

Inde and Lily

Inde and lily are so into the world series! They also made us lasagna
with red sauce from scratch. Yummy. Now, go phillies!

Hair Net or Hair Cut?

You know you are getting older when you start sleeping in a hair net. Just as they say in those State Farm commercials, I'm so there. Three or four days this week my hair has been totally out of control when I woke up in the morning. I feel like the lead singer from Missing Persons in that, or any other, horrible 1980s MTV video. The way I see it, I can either start wearing a totally sexy hair net or I can get a hair cut. I used to wear my hair a lot shorter, but I grew it out about three years ago. I got tired of being called "sir," and I was also preparing to look for jobs in the less-liberal south, so I thought it was a good move. But now I'm in the midwest in a fairly liberal big city, I still don't have any real hair skills of which to speak, I'm tired of looking like a washed up 80s rock star in the morning, and shorter hair would cut down on the time it takes me to get ready in the morning and be better under the helmet. I'll keep thinking about it, but it might be time for a change.

Where do I put it?

I'm walking Inde after work when she stops to go to the bathroom. Isn't it embarrassing enough that she has to go right out in public with no privacy? Being the law-abiding citizen that I am, I whip out a plastic baggy and scoop it up. I tie the bag and look for someplace to throw it away. Not seeing any convenient bins, I turn to head home. On my way,I see this garbage can in front of a building. I wonder, where am I supposed to put my disease-transmitting pet waste if not in the garbage can? Should I just carry it around until I find some urban compost facility? I'm glad no city officials have been following inde around because I think she usually poops about two to three times day, times 400 days (approximately) that she has lived in Chicago, times the $1,000 penalty equals $1,000,000 in fines for merely picking up after my dog! This all seems crazy, but wait, there's more! Although I have not included a picture here, there are other signs in my neighborhood that say, "Pick up after your dog. $400 fine." Okay, I get it, it's $400 if you don't pick up after your dog, but it's $1,000 if you do and then try to throw it away. In this economy, I'm surprised anyone takes the financial risk of picking up after their dog! Don't even start with the cat ...

Scary

This is the second time I have used a picture from this storefront on my blog. Last time, it was the neon cow. This is the Halloween display. I don't know about you, but to me, this is a little over the top. I'm okay with scary, but this is horrorshow scary. Maybe it's the clown masks. I think we all have some leftover nightmare about clowns from our childhood. There was a two-headed infant chucky-type thing in the window, but they removed it. Good call. Let me know what you think about this window display.

Overheard during the Phillies game

After telling the story about the ghost tour and the boy whose ghost comes out of the Chicago River when a woman who is: (1) pregnant or a mother; and (2) has a birthday in the third week of March walks by, one of my guests (who happens to be pregnant), says that she can't be our ghost tester because her birthday is in January. One of my other guests says, "my birthday is in March, but I'm not gonna get knocked up for this."

Game 1

Game 1! No Tastycakes, but lots of junk food. Go Phillies!

Collar!

Let me introduce KC, killer cat, duchess of fairmount, mouse killer
extraordinaire. You've already met the dog, it's about time you met
the cat. She just had surgery on her tail to remove a tumor. I took
the tape off tonight as instructed by the vet so the wound could heal,
but then she started to lick at the stitches, so she had to put on her
Elizabethan collar. You can't tell, but this is blue velvet and lace.
Pretty kitty. Pretty expensive kitty.

Phillies Phever!

Okay Cubs fans, we didn't struggle through 100 years of frustrating
losses, but we did have over 25 years without a major championship in
Philadelphia. So maybe you can understand my excitement that the
Phillies are back where they belong - in the world series! And against
the evil empire - the NY Yankees! I'm really excited about game 1
tomorrow. A friend in Philly sent some Philadelphia trinkets and
another friend brought Tastycakes (which inde devoured, bad doggy).
I'm expecting some additional love from Philadelphia from another
friend, just in time for the game. Fantastic! Go Phillies! And if you
don't have a horse in this race, cheer for the Phillies!!

Inde loves the Phillies

First, I must give artistic credit for this photo to a former Philly
friend. Not a former friend, just another displaced eastcoaster, sort
of (he's from the south east). Anyway, game 4 of the NLCS is tight!
The Phillies are down 4-2.

. . .

Okay, the game got too exciting and I had to stop right in the middle
of my blog post. For those of you who live under a rock, the Phillies
came back and won on a walk off triple by the much-maligned lead-off
hitter Jimmy Rollins. I apologize to J-Roll for all the times I have
picked on him. (Although some credit must go to inde and barley for
their rally caps!!). One more win. Let's go Phillies!!

Hipster - take 2

Okay, I'm not sure if I'm right about this, but I think hipsters
may also play games such as dirty bingo. Or maybe it's frat boys who
play dirty bingo. I don't know, so I'm looking for input here.

Hipster - take 1

Okay, so I didn't know what a hipster was until I moved to Chicago.
Now I live in this neighborhood full of hipsters. I've learned a few
things about them: (1) male hipsters wear tight jeans, sometimes even
women's jeans; (2) hipsters like to play board games; (3) hipsters
like to take square dancing lessons; and (4) hipsters weigh less than
I do. So, I saw this guy walking around down town and he is either a
lost hipster or a hipster in the loop looking for a real job. Check it
out - white patent leather shoes, super tight low riding dark blue
jeans, a shark skin jacket and that sashay. Oh, and he wasn't gay.

Tick!

This is Inde. She is tired from a long stressful day. She isso tired
that she doesn't know she has a giant tick on her belly. She is also
too tired to watch the third game of the NLCS. In the second inning,
we had a few opportunities to cheer and each time Inde was startled
awake, but not enough to move off the couch. Incidentally, I have a
friend at the game somewhere in the fourth row. I'm still looking for
him! Go Phillies!

Nice pin

Tonight I went on a walking ghost tour of Chicago. A guy in the tour
had this pin on his bag. I thought it was really funny so I spent the
first 20 minutes of the tour trying to get a clear picture of it. All
that time, others in my group were taking pictures near historic
accident sites and capturing small translucent orbs that are said to
be ghosts. All I got was this picture of a funny pin.

Piece!

One nice thing about having guests in from out of town - I can usually
talk them into pizza at Piece, a local pizza and beer joint. This is
New Hampshire style pizza and my favorite is a red pie with extra
sauce and extra cheese. Yummy! When you come visit, I'll take you
there, too! Oh, yeah, and they have good beer there, too.

Wasted opportunities

Just a few words of unsolicited advice - check your cable bill. You
just might find out some disturbing news. For example, my cable bill
went up by $15 this month, so I took a look at the bill details. Lo
and behold, I found out I was charged for Nuevo selecto / playboy (or
the Spanish channels plus the Playboy channel). Outraged, I called
comcast to find out what the deal was. Turns out that the "deal" was
that I had the Spanish channels and the Playboy channel for FREE for
the last 12 months and didn't know it! Are you kidding? Talk about
lost opportunities. In what will go down in my autobiography as one
of the greatest lost opportunities of all time, the Playboy channel
has been cancelled and the charge for the thirteenth month has been
credited to my account. The moral of the story is: channel surf! Make
sure you know the contents of your package or at least scrutinize your bill.

Sometimes it's the little things

Every morning on my way to work, I pass by the long lines at the
coffee joints and head to the 7-11 to buy a fountain Pepsi. I never
learned to like coffee, but I need my caffeine in the morning. So, I
get a big Pepsi and brace for the day. The other day I went to a new
7-11 and had two pleasant surprises. First, my drink was three pennies
cheaper than at my usual store. Second, the new store had this totally
cool high tech soda machine that looks like it could dispense any
beverage I could want. Awesome. But really, I'm excited about saving
three pennies.

Spider - take 1

So this is the beginning picture of the spider experiment. As you can
see, he is barely bigger than a beer cap. The package promised that he
would double in size. Sure, I think I've heard that before. I figured
it was worth the $3 to see if there is truth in advertising.