But Black Nails Are In

Three weeks ago, after finding Vamp (my Fall nail polish staple for the past 12 years) sold out at the Chanel counter, I purchased a bottle of Black Satin, their limited edition black nail polish. I'm not delusional when it come to my age and I fully realize I'm not as cool as I used to be (although I do still throw the nose ring in on occasion) so I waited until this week to try it out. I figured I could play it off as part of some elaborate Halloween costume, just in case it looked a little too Hillary Duff.

So basically what I have to say about the black nails is this: When you are 20, or an Olsen twin, black nails are edgy and cool. When you are 32, not so much.

So Damn Cute

Abby Loves The New Rug

15 minutes after we put it on the floor

Paul: 1 Rosemary: 9,999,999

My husband was right and I was wrong. It was totally worth the $100 we saved not to have the home delivery. We brought the sideboard up from the sidewalk and into our dining room without injury to self or sideboard. I suppose an argument could be made that taking a half day from work, carrying the sideboard up the stairs ourselves, dismantling the obscene amount of packaging and huge wooden crate in the hallway, carrying the sideboard into the dining room, breaking down the packaging and crate and dragging it out to the dumpster, and then vacuuming our building entryway, hallway and stairs wasn't worth $100, but you wont hear it here. A counter argument could be made (and is probably raging in my husbands head as he reads this) that with me for a wife every $100 counts. But you won't here that here either. Doesn't our new sideboard look nice?

Just Another Night In Lincoln Square

Went to the Brauhaus with Paul and our friends Meegan, Tom and Jim. Some drunk dudes bought Meegan and I jaunty felt hats (on sale at the bar in celebration of Oktoberfest) with feathers on them. We rocked them all night even though we looked like a-holes. Meegan and I asked for a table and were told the wait was 2 and a half hours. Tom asked for a table - in German - and we were seated right away. I think they kicked peeps out to give us the table, but I don't know for sure. Drank enormous beers (except for Meegan who almost got us booted from the bar by ordering an Amaretto sour). Ate enormous pretzels. Sang many german songs while hoisting our enormous beers. Threw quarters at the tuba player who was wearing leather leiderhosen. Stole the Brauhaus Oktoberfest flier for the sole purpose of scanning it up to the blog (we'll bring it back next week). Took many grainy pictures with our camera phones because everyone forgot their camera on the best picture taking night of the year. Was one beer away from dragging Paul onto the dance floor when we realized it was 2:00 am and we were all going to turn into pumpkins. On our way home we ran into the gay superheros from Saturday night live and a guy dressed up as a fat lady who sat on her dog. I wish it was Oktoberfest year round. Grainy camera phone pictures below.

We're Racking Up The Visitors

Not so long ago I was lamenting our lack of visitors. Since then we've doubled our visitor scorecard from 2 to 4. It's true, one of the visits (my parents) was a repeat, but it's no less exciting. My brother was here on business Tuesday night and stopped by, in fancy salmon shirt and matching suit pants, to meet Abby and sit on our new couch.

No. Seriously.

It's snowing today in Chicago. Snowing. On October 11th. Oh and it's freezing.

It might be the end of times.

Always Thinking Of Ways To Improve Fall Extravaganza

I'm having t shirts made for Fall Extravaganza this year. I'm taking slogan suggestions from all the smart asses who leave comments on the blog. As my friend Sonya says, "Whatchu got?".

Here's some of my ideas so far:

My wife went pumpkin picking and all I got was this stupid t shirt

Fall Extravaganza 2007 - Don't Hate, Participate

Nice Pumpkins

I figure Paul will be all over this since he still has all his "pig roast" and "rose formal" fraternity t-shirts from college.

I Think Macy's Has Last Season's Merchandise In The Window

A word of advice. When you buy something new - say, a plaid cashmere wrap, for example - and try to pass it off to your husband like it's from from last season and has been in your closet all summer, make sure it's not SO new that it's still in the godamned window at Macy's. This way, when you are walking past the store, and just happen to match the mannequin, your husband doesn't say - "hey that's your shawl". If this should happen to you, I'd advise the following response "I can't believe Macy's is displaying last years merchandise in the window, they must have run out of clever display ideas". And keep walking.

Housewarming

When you have an Italian mother you don't get a bottle of wine or a plant as a house warming gift. You get a gallon of extra virgin olive oil (the good stuff that comes in a can and costs $50 at the supermarket) and a pound of italian cookies. My mother also asked the people at Modern Pastry how they ship their ricotta pies. When they told her they freeze them for a few days before shipping them packed in ice, my mother figured she could do the same. She bought pies on Monday, froze them until Wednesday and then packed them with ice in a styrofoam cooler for the 13 hour drive from Boston to Chicago. I've found a lot of deprived individuals who do not know what a ricotta pie is. I'd love to show you with a picture but we ate them. All of them. Maybe next time.

We did manage to hold onto a few cookies, so just in case you are also unfamiliar with the Italian cookie assortment, here's a shot of the scraps. It's not much, but you get the idea.

Val and Gerry's Big Adventure

My parents visit to the Windy City was AWESOME! They road tripped it out from Boston with the Durango loaded down with the last of the wedding goods (and a bunch of stuff that had nothing to do with the wedding, like a kelly green and purple paisley scarf from '86 and a necklace I remember buying at a Yankee Homecoming craft booth -- nice try mom). We did all the touristy Chicago stuff like Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain, the Lakefront, The Art Institute and steaks at Gene and Georgetti's, plus managed to squeeze in lunch at The University Club, dinner at Cafe Selmarie, a visit to Evanston and The Ba'Hai Temple, a cooking lesson, and beers at the Brauhaus. I planned on taking a family photo in front of the bar at The Brauhuas, but it was so crowded for the kick off of Octoberfest, that I couldn't even get my arms up in front of me to get a photo. It was that crowded. I did manage to get one picture of my parents holding up very large beers, but as you can see above from how big their heads look, I'm practically standing on top of them.

Here's some more photos:

The Bean



Posing In Front Of Buckingham Fountain



Me and Dad In Front of Lincoln

The Furniture Delivery Shakedown

I'm no expert on the freight business, but was caught a bit off guard when I called to arrange the delivery of my new sideboard and found out I had to pay an extra $100 (in addition to "tax", an "oversized item fee" and a "truck delivery fee") for "Home Delivery".

"Home Delivery" is exactly what it sounds like. They bring it into your house. "Truck Delivery" means they leave it on the street. Swear to god. Who would ever opt for this "Truck Delivery", I thought? Who the hell is going to order a big ticket item and then not get suckered into the extra $100 when the alternative is your enormous new piece of furniture is left on the sidewalk? We are.

Every other month or so, like clockwork, Paul freaks out about our "cash flow". It's usually, but not always, tied to a major expenditure. The last meltdown occurred just after we purchased our new condo, while I was trying to hire a dog walker and I was only able to negotiate a once a week visit on Abby's behalf, even though she specifically requested a twice a week dog park visit and our dog walker only charges $10.00 a day(Paul: What?! Twice a week is over $1000 a year!).

The timing couldn't have been worse for this latest episode during which Paul refused to pay the extra $100 for "Home Delivery" (Paul: What?! 100 bucks for them to bring it up the stairs. Hell no, I'll bring it in myself). My mother made a good point that $100 was a small price to pay considering the alternative possibility of Paul pulling his back out (I suspect she was also imagining a busted up sideboard, but didn't say it), but Paul's been having night sweats about all the money we've been spending on upgrades to the apartment and furniture, so I didn't argue.

The sideboard comes on Friday. So far I think the plan is for Paul to lift it up on his shoulder and carry it up the stairs, but I'm not sure. All I know is we saved 100 bucks for Paul to figure out how to get it off the street and into our dining room, so I'm sure he'll make it happen.

Abby Loves Her Pheasant

Either that or she's wishing Daddy would spring for the twice a week visit from the dog walker....