First of all (say this Rosie Perez style), its been a busy week and a half here in El Dugan world.

My dear friends, the Waffles (aka Meredith and Ben) got hitched this weekend. My new friend Margaret and I drove up to Rochester, MI for the festivities, and festive they were. The happy couple was radiant and everyone had a great time. There was a CANDY ROOM at the wedding. That’s right, a room full of candy for the guests enjoyment. Check it out:

Is that not the most beautiful thing you have ever seen? Apparently, its what all the cool weddings are doing this year. I only took pictures of the candy room. I am looking forward to Noola’s pics from the rest of the wedding. I only had my camera phone and didn’t feel like I could do Merry’s elegant and simple dress justice or the look of supreme happiness on Ben’s face. I also ate my weight in prime rib. These people know how to have a buffet! The drive there was great and Margaret and I make a good driving team. Her car is a stick so I had to navigate, not having driven stick in nigh on fifteen years.

Then I went to a three-day off-site for work, it Lake Forest. We didn’t sleep there, but we might have well have since it was like 8am-9pm three days. Oye! I am one tired little hombre (yes I know this means “man”. I like how it sounds). And I got to drive my co-workers around in a KIA minivan. I was so suburban.

And in the meantime, I found out I may have a cyber-stalker! People find this website many ways. Once, someone got here by searching for “aerobed sex”. I haven’t written about that particular topic, but apparently neither has anyone else since that search brought whoever it was here. But the search terms that are bringing someone here include my name and my ex’s name. Weird. I took all versions of his name off the site to avoid just that type of thing, but alas, there is some residual left on the net. In addition, I signed up for this thing: http://www.zabasearch.com/ It shows you who has been searching for you. It shows A LOT of information about the people who have been searching for you. Like the Google map picture of their block. It is freaking me out. You can find seriously scary things out. So, it emails me once a day and shows me where people live who are looking for me. I think I have to drop it because it is making me very paranoid.

And now life is settling down again. Gym and friends and writing and whatnot. More later.

I watched some Olympics tonight. Some swimming and some women’s gymnastics. I’ve read and heard a lot over the last week about how the Chinese athletes might be too young, and how these girls sacrifice their youth and their bodies for this sport, etc. I’ve never been a huge gymnastics fan but all I could think about was Stick It. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a pretty bad gymnastics movie, oddly, with the The Dude (Jeff Bridges). But there is this part where the athletes protest the archaic and politicized judging by scratching or performing rebel routines. This was my favorite (skip ahead to 2:33 if its too long):

Wouldn’t it be great to see one of those little Chinese girls do this? Or even smile? I know they are athletes and this is important to them and they are serious because it is a serious event. I even understand, in part, the physical and emotional sacrifice of being an athlete. I ate, breathed, and lived crew for 3 years. And it was amazing. And it changed me and my body forever. And at one point, I would have done just about anything to be better at my sport. To win. I practiced and competed injured. I over-trained, and all that resulted in two knee surgeries, many many scars, and a sense of myself that I could never have gotten any other way. I think it was true for all the women on my team. And we went back and asked for more. Because it was awesome.

And it was terrible at the same time. It hurt. A lot. And everyone was injured at least some of the time. Frankly, we weren’t that good, or at least because of the way we trained and the resources available to us, we had no chance to be good ever. My grades suffered from getting up at 4 am every day, working out for two hours, then lifting weights later in the day and having a job. A lot of the Olympic athletes work and train. There were fairy tales of rowers going to the Alaskan pipeline for a year and working so they could get enough money  to train full time for two years. And all of that doesn’t even scratch the surface of what these girls do. I am not comparing my little athletic aside in college to what these girls do. I know it is not comparable. Crew is the only frame of reference I have that makes what they do and what they have given up make sense.

The Olympics are wonderful and inspiring and thrilling to watch. But I can’t help but feel guilty for even watching the women’s gymnastics, and listening to the quiet judging commentary makes me feel dirty sometimes. So check out Stick It and maybe it’ll erase a little of the taint. It did for me.

I need a pedicure in the worst way. I have been wearing these Old Navy flip flops pretty constantly since I got them two months ago and they are not holding up, but I can’t stop.

I love them. Like a woobie. The left one is all smushed down weirdly because I think I walk much heavier on that foot (the one that I had surgery on in January) and over the course of the summer I started to walk normally but now my foot just slides into the weird smushed part. These are actually good flip flops since they have a little lift and that is actually easier for me than flats. But they leave a dark brown residue on my feet that, in the words of Doc Waffles, makes my feet look “gnarly”. And now this residue is deeply embedded in my feet, and has stained the bejeezus out of my tub (that would be the giant jacuzzi tub that made me take the apartment in the first place). No matter how I scrub or with what, this dark brown ring which is actually plastic or dye or something, but not dirt, will not go away. Doc Scooter, whose house is not what the kids call “clean” by her own admission, took the opportunity to tell me to clean my tub. That’s just bad. I DO CLEAN IT! You could eat off that damn tub. That would be gross, but you could. The cats like to lick it. And that sentence makes me take the previous one back, about eating off of it. Damn you flip flops! Maybe the solution here is getting new flip flops? I’ll think about that.

But I am going to get a pedi on Friday. Why Friday? I HAVE THE DAY OFF! Oh, happy day. So today is my Friday, suckos. I was going to go to the wedding of Doc Waffles and Mrs. Waffles in Michigan on Friday and then I had to work and then I didn’t and then my ride said she didn’t want to leave on Friday either, so now I just have Friday off. So, my tootsies will be clean and exfoliated and perhaps French pedicured. We’ll see. But I am so excited about having a day off, where I am not expected to check my email or write anything about the affluent or even travel anywhere or do anything with anyone. I am going to get the aforementioned pedicure, perhaps buy a used book or two since I have run out of reading material AGAIN, and then I will have some lunch not at my desk, and go buy some groceries and other sundry and then I will maybe go to the beach or if it rains, watch Veronica Mars all day. So HA!

Dammit, I totally forgot the point of my post. Its that I always feel a little guilty getting a pedicure and there is a place where they smack you around a little (you know, for “circulation”) but these place is really kind of rough. But it makes me feel less guilty. Oh white guilt!

There are many parts of professional sports that I love. The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, if you will. Watching a diving catch and double play in a baseball game is thrilling. And I got to do just that on Monday.

Doc Scooter and Danimal and I went to see the White Sox get spanked by the Red Sox. It was not pretty. The WSox fell apart at the end. There were no fireworks (sniff), but that didn’t stop the Chicago fans from acting like teenagers, insulting the teams and each other. I know the fans are part of the whole experience but surrounded by grown men yelling homophobic insults at a player whose name, unfortunately, rhymes with “gay”, left me wondering why. Just why.

I had a blast at the game. Doc and Danimal are the perfect blend of interested in the game:

And interested in chatting and amusing me:

We had fun and ate our weight in junkfood, but the fans truly reminded me why I stopped going to baseball games very often. But I would go back. Anyone got extra tickets?

This morning a young woman, mid-twenties maybe, got on the bus while talking on her cell phone.

I hate that. People have loud, personal, and more importantly, boring conversations on their cell phone on the bus in the morning. If you are going to talk that loudly, couldn’t you at least be saying something interesting? But no, not usually. Its usually something about how the kitchen contractor fucked them over and now they have to use the off-white grout on the fake Italian marble instead of the…..zzzzzzz. Oh sorry, I fell asleep. I just want to be entertained if I have to listen to other people talk at 7am in the morning. Is that so wrong?

Anyway, this woman was mostly uh uming. Not really talking. Sometimes she would say something like, “Right, of course” but clearly she was listening to a monologue. About five minutes into this she says, “I know. Mom, I gotta go. I love you, Mom.” She said it really loud. Not just the I love you part but the whole thing. But there was something in her voice. You could tell her mom was exasperating her a little, or that this is not the first time she had had this conversation. And that she really really meant it when she said I love you Mom. There was just a wonderful warm tone in her voice.

As a unit, everyone I could see on the bus turned to look at this girl. Most people smiled. Some of them with a full smile, teeth and everything. Some with just a bemused look on their faces, a little smile. One guy kind of smirked like it was all so amusing. And then the girl smiled at the phone and hung it up. You could see from her face that her mom said, “Honey, I love you too.” or words to that effect. She just stood there, not really noticing that the whole bus, which was crowded but not packed, was staring at her. She looked at her feet and grinned a little. Slowly everyone went back to what they were doing before; reading, staring into space, crossword puzzle, whatever. And everyone knew that girl had a mom and that she loved her mom and her mom loved her too. I liked it. It was a nice bus moment.

I really am a soft touch these days.

This dating thing, its crazy. And stupid. And annoying.

However, a cool thing happened. Another guy I have been talking to online stepped up, just a little. We got to the point where we were going to call each other and set something up, and I said I would call him…and HE CALLED ME. Wow. Seriously, after the crap I have been dealing with, you could have bowled me over with a feather. He just called. And we are going out. My expectations have been brought so low that these two facts are impossibly cool to me. It doesn’t matter much at this point if it works out or not. I mean, it would be great if we clicked, yadda yadda, but it feels good that someone just called.

These online things haven’t panned out in the past but I am game to try again. My new plan is to say yes to everything (within reason). So, yes I want to go on a date. Yes, I will try online dating again. Yes, I will go to Dating for Nerds and speed dating and I will meet your friend Burt (made-up name). Yes, I will go to that show. Just, yes. Yes opens doors. No closes them. I want the doors opened!

Update: We had to reschedule the date, but he said “You are too interesting not to meet” and my stomach flipped. And then he called me cutie. And I GIGGLED. I am not a giggler. So, gentlemen, if you want to break a date, this is the way to do it.

Taking into account that I am A) very emotional these days and B) sleep-deprived, and C) an animal person, this post on DadGoneMad.com made me weep. At my desk. At work. Ugh.

If you don’t want to click through, its about Danny’s family trying to decide if it is time to put down their dog, Rusty. OMG, just typing that makes me cry.

When my parents got divorced, my little baby dog Heather [pic coming soon!] (who was about eight at the time of the divorce) went to live with my mom. I am not sure why my mom and not my dad got Heather other than mom loved Heather to distraction and had more free time. Dad loved Heather too and he certainly missed her. I had already gone off to college at this point. I missed Heather when I left, but it was different.

Heather was supposed to be my dog. We got her when I was ten at a breeder in Lockport. She was a Scottie-Poo (they now call them Scoodles) and she took on all the wrong characteristics. The scottie hair and the poodle feet. The poodle tail and the scottie face with mustache and beard. She was perfect for us. I was supposed to take care of her, and you can imagine how well that went. It went medium, if you can’t imagine. I walked her the minimum amount. I played with her the minimum amount. I was entering the awkward pre-teen phase when really all I wanted to do was be alone and feel dramatic about something. And talk on the phone. But she was a great dog, a good companion and she made us laugh everyday. It was nice to have some comic relief in the last few years of my parent’s marriage when there was not much talking in the house, let alone laughing. Mom had to put her down two years later, when she got some kind of stomach ailment that was only treatable through invasive surgery that probably wouldn’t have helped anyway. It was crushing. I got to say good-bye, not that it mattered to Heather, but it mattered to me.

When I decided to get a cat, my sweet Piggy, one of reasons I held out was that I didn’t want to have to mourn another animal. I read somewhere that sometimes its easier to love animals than people, and therefore easier to mourn them with no mixed emotions. Sometimes the people in our lives are complicated and our relationships are even more so, and grief gets all mixed up in guilt and sadness and anger and ambivalent feelings. When you lose a pet, it is a more pure grief, this article argued. True, pets can be annoying and troublesome but there is usually less ambivalence about how owners feel about their pets. Losing a pet is not the same as having someone in your life die, but it is a grief of its own. There is something about the dependence and trust of that relationship that lends that grief a special flavor.

I didn’t want to do that again. And when you get that animal, its almost like a countdown to when you won’t have them anymore. I watch Piggy and Simon for signs of age; stiffness walking, bad teeth, stomach problems, and less ability to fight off little infections. Piggy has what can only be called a sickly constitution, so I am all over any little sniffle or sneeze. Not that it should be surprising, but I am a better pet owner now, than I was at ten. I am not trying to borrow trouble, but I want to be ready. Its my nature to plan for the worst; to imagine the worst possible scenario and be ready for that, so regular life seems okay by comparison. Piggy and Simon are five and four this year. They will be with me for a long time. Heck, maybe another decade. But I am ready. I am ready for that blow. It’s the only way for me to live with the fact that I will have to decide to “put them to sleep” someday, most likely.

But that thought doesn’t scare me so much anymore. Its part of the deal I made with the cats. I will take care of you and your needs and make sure you have enough food and water and love, and you will entertain me and make me laugh and feel better and think about something other than me. Part of taking care of them is making sure they aren’t suffering so when the times comes I’ll be fine. I would even get a dog and another cat if I didn’t live in a 3 room apartment. I would take on that much more potential grief, so great is the reward for me.

Since my heart has been banged around this summer, I have felt very protective and tender about the cats. It does me good to take care of them and myself at the same time. I bought the furminator, and have been taking Simon out on his harness for walks and spending lots of time with Piggy and the featherstick toy thing he likes. I feel for Danny’s family, and for everyone who has to make that decision and deal with that hole in their lives.

Tonight the boys will have tuna for dinner! Tuna for my men! And beer for my horses.

I have this sad little patio area in front of my apartment. It’s not big enough to house a grill and a little table but I did stock it with terracotta pots for flowers. It’s pleasant looking. Nothing spectacular.

I planted tulip bulbs last year, but this year I never got around to it. I love tulips. They are my favorite flower. And my landlord put up a weird little fence so you can’t just walk onto the patio; you have to swing a leg over this fence thing. It’s not hard but its a pain and for anyone with shorter legs than mine, it could be a real pain.

This year money has been tight because my bills are coming due from my ankle surgery. Insurance covered most of it, and of course there is a lawsuit pending, but there are expenses I have to pay. They are wreaking havoc with my finances. So I couldn’t justify spending the $50 it would cost to buy flats of flowers at Home Despot and plant them. My solution? Seeds.

I bought $4 worth of seed packets at Walgreens. I bought two of all the flower seeds they had. They also had vegetable seeds, but I don’t want to grow cucumbers in my little pots. I bought things like marigolds, bachelor buttons, and a plethora of other choices. I sprinkled them indescriminantly throughout the half-dozen pots, not really thinking they would grow (I’ve tried to grow from seeds before with no results). Well they did grow. Albeit a month later.

After a month of sitting out on my patio, surrounded by pots of what could be weeds with no flowers to speak of, a few flowers have finally poked out their heads.

Its nice to see that it all wasn’t for naught. Unfortunately, the weeds are also thriving. I need to go out and clear them. Again. For the third time this summer. And where there are weeds, there is morning glory. Oh my I hate this stuff. I know the flowers are pretty, but it is an insidious weed.

I have to cut it back several times a summer, and when I say “cut it back” I mean hack at and fill a huge garbage bag with it. And it just comes back.

I’m pretty good at plants. I might have inherited my mom’s green thumb. I have about 20 houseplants and they are all thriving. I have to upgrade several of them to bigger pots soon. If I get organized, I’d like to grow roses in my pots out front but thats easier said than done.

But I am happy that now, when I sit on my little patio, I can look at some flowers instead of something that may or may not be a weed.

The maxi dress is one of the big fashion trends for the summer. For those uninitiated, they look like this:

They are just long dresses. Maxi as opposed to mini. If they had anything on top, they would look like something from Big Love, but since they are skimpy on top and voluminous on the bottom, they just make women look like Doric columns. You know who looks good in a maxi dress? Heidi Klum. That’s about it. I’ve seen little curvy women workin’ them, and they work the hell out of them but mostly these look best on tall willowy model-types. And if you did indeed succumb to this trend, next year your closet will be full of maxi dresses and they will be out of style again. For some people, I know this doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that much to me, but it does matter some. I don’t want to have things in my closet I don’t feel comfortable wearing for just one year. I have not purchased a maxi dress this year, even though I am tall enough to pull it off, but not anything even approaching willowy, because I don’t want to look through my closet next year and think, “Ah shit, I can’t wear that thing again. The mini/bubble/tie-dye/whatever is in this year.” The ubiquitous (at least in Wicker Park/Bucktown) maxi dress has made me think of the other trends to which I have fallen victim and how it is an experience I don’t want to repeat. I have been a fashion victim in the past; both the near and the distant past. Here is some of my sad fashion history:

1) The Y Necklace:
These were SO HOT about 1994. I had about 400 of them. They became less popular but never really disappeared from view altogether. Unlike…

2) The Urban Poncho:
You couldn’t swing a dead cat and not hit an urban poncho in 2005. They were very popular. Easier to master than a Frenchified neck scarf, less work than a real shawl, and fairly practical for a climate like Chicago where it does get chilly at night. They could be professional and casual. I still have four of these wretched things in my closet. And they pop up in all knitting books and classes even though they are wildly out of style. They are easy to knit. But that is no excuse.

3) The Royal blue shirt and black pants/skirt combo. This was popular about the time I started working in an office and everyone wore this; men and women alike. It was great and you still see it sometimes. Now I think it is blue shirt dark brown pants more. I had four of these shirts during this trend. I don’t think they were all at once.

4) The over-sized sunglasses. Ah, fooled you! This one is right now too! I acquired one pair of the Jackie O type glasses on my vacation this year to Sanibel. A bought them for me in the Sanibel 7-11 after listening to me bitch about how my current sunglasses pinched my head. They are particularly awesome sunglasses for having been purchased in the 7-11. (Don’t mind the scowly picture, I was trying for serious, but I think this photo says ‘her puppy just got ran over’ instead). I bought myself another pair at Target (with Ilana, see who the common link here is with Target purchases?? Hmmm??). They are the last unicorn of sunglasses because they are so amazing and hard to find. But, alas, next year the big sunglasses will be out of style again and I will return to Ray-Ban like tortoise shell frames that don’t take up half my face.

5) All things grunge. Lord how I miss the plaid shirt, white v-neck, cut-offs and hiking boots look. As Doc Scooter proclaims, I was a Grunge Princess. Of course, no one wears plaid anymore. Not even frat boys. Yet my closet still holds one perfect plaid shirt. Just one. So soft. So casual. So what I long to wear again. Someday…

6) This was an odd one; three-quarter sleeves came back into fashion in a big way the same year capri pants did, so if you combined them (as many many many did) it looked like all your clothes had shrunk. This was like 2001ish I think. Both of these are still wearable now, but not together. Please, not together!

7) Low-rider jeans. I have no waist for which them to ride low on. This was a horrible mistake.

8) Big chunky heels. I still see these and sometimes they work but heels have slimmed down quite a bit. They made me look like a yeti because of my size 11’s.

There are so many more: the dark lipstick regardless of skin tone (circa 1993), big hoop earrings, all gold jewelry (the 80’s and early 90’s), and a plethora of others. Some of them are more classical and can be reused, like the big hoop earrings. Some, like plaid flannel, not so much. I fear the maxi dress will go the way of the urban poncho and jelly shoes. Be careful with your fashion choices and learn from my mistakes.

Today Scrabulous was unceremoniously yanked off of Facebook. I am upset. There is some kind of anti-trust brouhaha but I don’t really care. I loved Scrabulous. There is still www.scrabulous.com and you can play there and on email, but Scrabulous was the only reason I went on Facebook. So Christopher J., Aaron, Ross, Star, Elizabeth, Joy, and Nat and I will have to find something else to do with our time. Word Twist anyone?

And then I found out Bennigan’s filed Chapter 7 and closed their 300 doors. WTF? Bennigan’s can’t close! Don’t get me wrong, I know Bennigan’s kind of sucks. It’s a chain. (at least it isn’t Applebee’s) But I have many great memories from Bennigan’s. And they had a pretty good beer selection. Personally, I think based on the Monte Crisco alone they should have some kind of national momument status.

When I lived in North Liberty, IA, there was no where to go at night, so we went to the mall and drank at the Bennigan’s. They knew us. We entered some kind of drinking contest thing where you drink like 100 beers or something. We treated it very seriously, as only the truly bored and understimulated can treat a stupid contest you end up paying a lot for. I also outed Glen in the Bennigan’s in Cedar Rapids. I was a tool.

My mom used to take me and a friend to the Art Institute and then to Bennigan’s for lunch in high school. We saw someone get their purse stolen and then watched the theives get tackled and beaten. It was a very “city” experience for a young 14 year-old. And all the cool art.

And when that building caught on fire at school and the whole loop was an f-ing mess, I went to Bennigan’s and had some brews with Merry and Rick and we felt like survivors of something.

I know Bennigan’s sucked but I will miss it. And Scrabulous.