Seen on a bus ad for Wisconsin: "If Ferris had the week off, he'd come to Milwaukee."

Best football (global kind, not ours) coach name ever

Nigeria's coach is named Lars Lagerback.

Yeah, I know. So awesome.

Awesome hats I've made... and lost.

One time*, I made this really awesome hat, and I wore it around Chicago, smug with my warm head. Then I left it in a cab. So I had to make a replacement one. I am still bitter about losing the old hat, as evidenced by my terse sentences. However, the new one kicks at least 3 kinds of ass, and will pick up a further 7 types of ass-kicking once I sew a fleece liner into it. Boo yah.

*early last winter

Here's the first awesome hat, as modeled by me. That's Chris, as you may know by now (wearing another hat I made, what do you know?) and Sarah Marie, who visited us pretty much for the opportunity to eat at Hot Doug's, which Funundrum highly recommends. This was somewhere in the middle of our 1.5 hour wait for encased meats. Mmmm. I am sad to note that the large button on my awesome hat is only partially visible. I assure you, it was a really neat button.

And the new awesome hat, modeled by Shannon at our mid-May Cubs game. Why is it always so damn cold when I get to go to a Cubs game?

I haven't yet lost this new hat, nor am I planning to, but I figured now was the time to immortalize it on the internet. Just in case.

Wow, yeah, how does that work?

Who wouldn't want a massage fort?

Vince Vaughn's "Cheaters" filming on my street!

Our neighborhood blog, aka the "Busybody Blog," tipped us off that Vince Vaughn would be filming a movie on our street today. Sure enough, on our way to work, we saw some traffic cones, yellow tape, and a security guard in front of a restaurant that has been closed since we got here. We peeked inside, and saw the whole place done up all tacky 70s style. I took this picture from the El station when I got home. Sadly, the action had long ended -- I hear they've moved down a couple of miles to the infamous Wiener's Circle hot dog joint for filming overnight. All this picture really shows is the yellow and green "Chi Thao Massage" sign they put up in front of the filming location. Get it? "Chi-town?" I thought it was pretty clever. We'll probably have to see the movie just to see how seedy they make our hood look.

Anyway, movie stars aren't that impressive -- especially not Vince Vaughn, who is a card-carrying walrus now -- but what is awesome is stuff happening in my neighborhood.

I'm a-runnin'.

Remember when I said I had started training for a 5k? Of course you do, because you're one of my two readers. Congratulations on having excellent taste and good short-term memory!

It's two months later, and my "race" is tomorrow. It's a 3.5 mile charity run benefiting a food drive, and I put race in quotes to indicate that the likelihood of me being able to gear up to cruising speed in a crowd of a brazillion people is, well, unlikely. The important part is that I get a t-shirt, and an official number with a little timing chip in it, and Chris' company (with whom I am participating) is feeding and beering me afterwards. Yay!

Even if I don't get to run the whole way due to other meatbags being in the way, I am happy knowing that I can actually run 3.5 miles and have been doing so for a couple of weeks now. The awesome podcasts I've been using to train also has programs for 8k and 10k, which is kind of tempting. Kind of. Running sounded a lot more fun when temperatures were in the 60s, which was right up until three days ago. So I don't think it will become a new hobby, but we'll see.

Photos of me with my official timing chip number thing will be uploaded as soon as possible.

Attention parents: click on the map and it will open bigger, allowing you to better see my race route.

Update: I ran! I managed to keep up a jog the entire time, though the massive crowd of 20,000 people did slow me down a little. It was really cool running through Grant Park, past Buckingham Fountain and the Art Institute. The President even flew by in his helicopter and backup auxiliary helicopter! He was coming home for the weekend. How is this not the greatest city ever?

Ephemera

We made these awesome bowls out of some old "learn Spanish" records that belonged to my Grandpa Gil. My dog destroyed them less than two days later. I'm starting to think that carpe diem is Latin for "this is why we can't have nice things."

Ms. Payton's Lion

Months and months ago, our good friends Andy and Jennie "Carpet Angels" Paulsen decided they were going to have a baby. I, being a good friend and a good knitter, naturally wanted to make a Birth Day gift for the little one. I heard that Jennie wanted a lion. Cool, right? But of course! One lion, coming up! I bet I'd even have my choice of a very natural, lifelike pose, or more of a fun cartoony option, right? Patterns galore for something as awesome as a lion!

Aw, hells no. There are no lion patterns on all of the intarwebs. Okay, there was one vintage one, but it had the all-too-common disease of Ugly Vintage Knitting Pattern. I don't know what they were thinking back then, other than that knitted clothes may have been more of a necessity than now, so toys were low on the priority list.

At any rate, I found an adorable pattern for a kitty, and decided it couldn't be all that hard to make a kitty into a lion. It even came with a dress pattern! Which in the interest of Gender Equality and Better Gift Giving, I decided to do regardless of the eventual boy/girl situation.

The Paulsen's baby girl, Payton, was born while we were in Ecuador, and when we got back, I finished up the lion and his dress (yeah, a boy lion, and his dress -- grow up and let him be) and sent him off to the verdant fields of Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Jennie reports that Payton loves little Lionel (named by Andy) and his beautiful blue tunic (also named by Andy). Huzzah for every baby getting one toy that's life-size at birth!

Easter chicks

I made these for my niece and nephew for Easter, and am mighty pleased with how the showcase photos came out. I wonder how long these tiny eggs lasted before being lost forever under my sister-in-law's refrigerator.

Happy 5th Birthday, Funundrum!

Five years ago today, I was wedged into a tiny couch in TinyHouse(tm) by the beach in San Diego. I thought it would be fun to have a blog to write all the ridiculous things that popped into my head during my day job, which was to write ridiculous websites for plastic surgeons and lawyers. It was fun. It was fun all the way through:

5 adventures in Latin America

2 interstate moves

2 new jobs

1 engagement

1 wedding

some guy's entire MBA program

2 wedding anniversaries

at least 4 new hobbies, 2 of which have stuck

1 crazy HypnoDog

1 evil squirrel

more bad copy than you can shake a stick at

And it's still fun. I may go through periods where it feels like a chore, but all I really want is to write something that makes me giggle when I read it back. I hope I've made you giggle a couple times too, because I'm going to keep doing it the best I can. Five years is a long time in Internet Years. I'm kind of proud of that.

Funundrum -- the circus gets on the crazy train.

Wow, so five years (!) down the line, the world is finally starting to sit up and take notice of the finest non-word ever created. I was googling "funundrum" one day (who doesn't?), and...

...this came up. What. The hell. Here's what I get for not copyrighting the Finest Non-Word Ever Created (tm). <-- Maybe it's not too late to start. So, yeah. The biggest circus in America, not counting Congress, has up and usurped my blog name for the purposes of shilling their little dog-and-pony-and-sweaty-clown show*. My favorite part is how my browser shows two tabs, both alike in dignity, with the same name but incredibly different outcomes.

I'm putting this out there, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Wait, no. First of all, you win today's Bad Copy of the Day award. Who gets off using "and" and "&" in the same name? Shame on you. Okay, so now I'm putting this out there. I loved the circus as a kid. I loved just about all of it, including the motorcycle guy inside the big steel cage, which doesn't make much sense, looking back on it. I'd still like to love the circus. I'm just finding it a little hard, on account of y'all taking off with the Funundrum thing without so much as a howd'yedo. So maybe someone in marketing is reading this, as they undoubtedly first did when they did the initial search on Funundrum. If you are, marketing people, the circus is coming to Chicago in November. I'd love to be there if you could arrange it. I'd review it for the blog and everything. I bet, if you've got a decent PR guy, you could even get some sort of media exposure out of it. Just putting it out there, with this link: Funundrum does Funundrum.

Update upon re-reading this post: Holy crap, that tiger is actually riding the crazy train.

*Let me tell you my Sweaty Clown story. When I was about four, my parents took me to the circus, which I always loved, so thanks mom and dad. But that time, they decided it would be fun and cool and a great childhood memory if they volunteered me to go out there and sit on the clown fire truck as it drove around under those hot lights in the third ring. I was pretty excited until I actually got up there. Once I was squinting up into the face of the clown sitting next to me, I realized he was sweaty from jumping over barrels in the cowboy clown skit, further overheated inside his polyester costume due to the clown car incident, and probably already well looking forward to his first post-show beer of the evening. I'm not saying that I wasn't treated with kindness and respect, because I was, but I just want to go on record that Sweaty Clown Fire Truck is by far the best method for terrifying an otherwise laid-back four-year-old.

Mystery Envelope Thrilling Conclusion! AAAAHHH REALLY THIS TIME

But first, the thrilling conclusion of my butter-intensive German chocolate cake.

Now, on to the letter:

Hello Elizabeth! Thank you so much for returning the notecard you found in Knitting without Tears. I checked the book out a few months ago (January maybe?). The card was a thank you note to my aunt for the Christmas gift she sent to my young son. And you're right...at the time I was racking my brain trying to remember where I put that card. After about a week of searching high and low, I just wrote another one. Still don't remember, but I think I must have put it in the book intending to look up my aunt's address while I was at work.

Mystery solved! And what a great story to tell.

BTW - I am a knitter, still consider myself a beginner. I love Elizabeth Zimmerman's writing. I think she is so funny and has been so helpful with little tips here and there. I'm on Ravelry (do you know about this website?) and have a couple of finished projects posted if you are interested in looking. [username]. If you don't know about Ravelry.com, you should check it out. It's an online knitting community, very addictive and so inspiring to see others' work.

Thank you again.

Best,
[awesome mystery knitter's name that starts with G]

So, yeah! Very, very cool. And oh my god! I just looked her up on Ravelry (of which I am, of course, already a devoted member), and her favorite color is green and she seems cool. But then again, all knitters are cool. Have you ever met a mean knitter? I mean, aside from people who are mean because they're old which really means that they've been mean all their lives but feel like they can show it more now that they're old. They probably didn't knit when they were younger anyway, they probably learned just to spite someone.

What do I do? I haven't written her back or anything, because it seems weird. Yay for the city!

Seen in the city

We were downtown yesterday, outside the historical and ridiculously sumptuous Palmer House hotel, when we stumbled upon a group of musicians setting the scene for this resplendent groom, waiting to ride up to the front on his horse. In my mind, he took that thing right into the main lobby. Not sure how a horse gets through revolving doors, but they can train them pretty well these days.

There's a fire-gutted building on my street that's (finally) getting rebuilt. I guess the Chicago Iron Workers Local 1 got burned somehow in the process, because they're out picketing today. Complete with a huge inflated rat rearing out of a pickup truck. Where did they get such a thing? Union supply shop, or a regular inflated-stuff store? If the latter, who else might need a huge rat? It's not exactly gonna sell a lot of used cars, you know? Maybe an exterminator. . . My point is this: that's a damn robust union you've got there, with some good organization to boot. Good luck lads, I hope you're able to squeeze triple time out of the general contractor, or whatever it is you're angry about.

I was on the train this morning, watching a woman learn the hard way not to read the end of "The Great Gatsby" in public.

Mystery Envelope Thrilling Conclusion! AAAAHHH

Oh my god oh my god oh my god! My mystery envelope owner WROTE ME BACK! This is quite possibly the most Only Happens In A Movie thing that has ever happened to me. Now if I find out that this person is living in the past, or in another dimension, or whatever the setup was in that shitty Sandra Bullock movie, I'll be equal parts amazed and disappointed in the pedestrian nature of the cosmos. I mean, come on, email from the past? Stay out of it, Keanu Reeves.*

As I am in the middle of making a labor-intensive butter sauce for a German chocolate cake, I will tell you what it said in another post.

*If you watch The Soup (on E! at 9pm Fridays), you just got done saying, "Stay out of it, Nick Lachey!" If you don't watch The Soup, you should.

Mystery envelope update

I've just packaged up the card I found at the library last Saturday. I included the unopened envelope, as well as a hand-written letter:

Dear G.,

I was in the downtown branch of the public library this weekend browsing the knitting books, and this card fell out of "Knitting Without Tears." I don't know how long it's been in there, but if you're anything like me (and you must be a little like me, if you're a knitter), it drove you crazy that you lost that card to Mary before you got to mail it. Now you know where it went! Thanks for letting me carry around a little bit of a mystery for a few days.

[my name and email address]
(in case you want to let me know what was in there... or not. Just in case.)

That last bit felt so much like writing to a pen-pal for the first time, all sweaty palms and "please write me back, I'll be ever so glad! Please tell me about where you live and whether you have any pets!" Kind of goobery. Can't help it. This is fun. Updates as they come. If they ever do. This may very well be the last I see of my mystery card.

Today on the train: how is it that I was home sick all day yesterday, and it's only just now, on a massively crowded train, that I have an eye-watering urge to cough? Doesn't this cold know that the key to getting spread around is flying under the radar, rather than alerting all the meatbags around me what's up?

I might be a stalker!

On Saturday, Chris and I went to the massive main library in Chicago, downtown in the Loop. We had to pay some fines give back to our community, then found ourselves browsing for more books to take home. Chris was lost somewhere in the music section, which is conveniently on the same floor as the knitting books. As I was leafing through "Knitting Without Tears," a small sealed envelope fell out.

*DAH DAH DAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!* <-- That there is supposed to be thrilling denouement music. MYSTERY ENVELOPE!

It's got a full return address on it, along with the name "G. Van Moer," and is addressed to a "Mary Chesebro." It's a small card, perhaps of the thank-you variety, and I can't tell much through the envelope other than it's got an illustration of some leaves on the front. Clearly, Ms. G. (I think it's a woman based on the writing) wrote the card and put it in this book, intending to carry it with her until she got Mary's address. Unfortunately for both G. and Mary, due dates are a bitch.

I will find far more enjoyment in sending it back to G. Van Moer than in opening it, so I'm going to mail it in a larger envelope, along with the story of how I found it. I think I'll even include my email address, in case G. has anything interesting to communicate back to me.

Stay tuned, 1.5 readers.

Horto in Urbs (in Horto)

Chicago's official motto, in Latin, is Urbs in Horto, or "City in a Garden." One of its unofficial mottoes, of course, is Daniel Burnham's "Make No Little Plans." I would further like to submit for consideration "Don't Make Any Plans If You're Waiting for an El Train Outside of Rush Hour" and "Make Plans Only if You've Paid Mayor Daley's Plan-Making Tax of 12%."

Anyway, we started our own little city garden here in the Sky Palace today. We planted bell peppers, roma tomatoes, chives, cilantro, and sweet basil -- all from seeds. I'd really like to do hops, as well, but I don't think they're suited for our enclosed deck because 1) I think they need deep soil, rather than containers and 2) they kind of grow really really tall. But I can dream, can't I?