My Kind of Town....

In my year and a half in the Windy City, I've seen some pretty crazy stuff just walking around the streets.

For example, more than once, I've witnessed a drug deal. The funny thing is, they do it exactly how you'd think a drug deal looks. Two men  stand really close together (first obvious clue), they'll look both ways, one will hand the other something, and then they exchange money. Duh! We all know what you're doing. (I'm thinking there are ways to make this less obvious. Maybe only look one way??)

Another time I saw a man either having a heart attack in the middle of the street, or he was just crazy and rolling around. Not sure...either way, 911 was called. The truly scary part--he was in the middle of the bus lane, so what was likely going to kill him is a crazy city bus driver, not clogged arteries. Those folks stop for no one!

Then there was this weekend when I saw a bum take off his shirt exposing his really large belly, and then he stood in front of the Potbelly's to show of his "physique" to everyone in the restaurant. Wasn't that nice of him?

Okay, so you get it. But truly nothing in the world could have prepared me for what I saw last week....

I was walking home when I saw three older women on the sidewalk. One was hunched over, and as I got closer, I saw that she was bleeding profusely on the sidewalk. (Like more blood than I ever saw at any crime scene or car accident I covered as a reporter.) She was dabbing her feet (which she appeared to have stubbed and cut) with a Kleenex, trying to get the bleeding to stop, but she really needed something the size of a beach towel. I offered to call 911 before I blacked out and nearly passed out. Isn't that crazy? My aunt, who's a nurse, says the woman was likely taking blood thinners, hence the Chainsaw Massacre scene. (Because that's the thing about old age...you want everything that's thick to be thin and vice versa.)

So when you walk down Oak Street and see what you think is a murder scene, I can assure you it's not. (And this also explains why I often see blood on Chicago sidewalks.)

Now don't even get me started on all the bums I see either singing/talking to themselves/or yelling expletives at me....

Blog Wars

As I've entered the fun and super fast-paced world of public relations, or PR, I've learned a few things about the media I never knew before. One thing I recently realized....everyone is a blogger.

You can find rantings or personal experiences on just about everything. Did you know there are actually blogs about the Muppets? Yep, there are several blogs dedicated to Muppet news...isn't that cute? I guess they follow the comings and goings of different characters and the highs and lows of Kermit and Miss Piggy's relationship. (FYI-I hear it's not going well. Kermit says he's looking for someone with a little less "junk in the trunk." Jerk.)

There are also blogs dedicated to everything geek. These bloggers describe ways to find your inner dork (they should just ask me how I did it for most of the 90's.) These blogs get huge readership too! (I guess not that surprising, because dorks are at home on the computer, not trying to get into Chicago's Paris night club. Hehe, see my last post.)

The biggest blog kick I've gotten is how many blogs are dedicated to breastfeeding. Breastfeeding Moms Unite! Mama Knows Breast! etc, etc. These women are keeping people educated on the fight to breastfeed. (I didn't know this was a fight.) They blog about things like the benefits of sharing breast milk with other moms (ew) and their right to breastfeed in public. Here's the things ladies...I don't think any of us care whether or not you breastfeed, we just don't want to see your boob while we're eating our pasta carbonara at Carrabba's. And we also don't want your kid to be so old he can walk up to you and ask for the boob, because that's just disturbing. 

I guess the moral of my story is to thank all of you for reading this blog. 86 confirmed followers and over 41,000 hits, score! (If you haven't officially "followed" me yet, what are you waiting for? It makes you smarter and better looking.)

I know you have a lot of choices out there, so thank you for choosing my blog which my brother describes as the "Seinfeld Blog" meaning it's a blog about nothing. Thanks brother (Side note: he wasn't breastfed long enough.)

Chicago's Paris Club: Major letdown

I started this blog about a year and a half ago as a way of describing what it's like for a small town girl living in Chicago. I try to explain, with some humor, my experiences on the L train (like ending up going the wrong way) meeting crazy cabbies (and having them explain their philosophical beliefs to me) and seeing some pretty crazy stuff (more on that later.)

But sometimes as a blogger, I just like to vent. To call out someone or someplace that did me wrong. Yes, to complain. So to you-- Paris Club in Chicago-- I'm calling you out right here, right now.

It's Saturday night and my girlfriends from Indy are in town, so we decide to get dressed up and hit the town. We have a rockin' sushi dinner, and then decide to hit Hubbard Street. I tell them we should go to the new hot spot, the Paris Club, because I haven't been there yet and I've heard it's fun. When we get there, the line isn't too bad, about 15 people deep (pretty standard on a Saturday night), so we decide to wait.

As we are waiting, we see 20-something girl after 20-something girl go to the front of the line, chat up the doorman, and then he lifts the rope and lets them in. We witness about 20 women cutting in line in front of us. Annoying, but not that surprising. Eventually, everyone in front of us has either gotten in the club or decided to give up, so we are next in line.

At last.

Just as we're expecting to get in, the 20-something doorman says to us with a snotty tone, "If you don't know someone inside, you might as well leave, because we're full."

Are you serious? Not only are we not getting in, I'm getting 'tude from a snotty kid making $9 an hour.

Now, take a look at this picture. This is what we looked like that night. Not bad, right? Sure, a couple of us are in our 30's and have rings on our fingers, but we're still fun! We can shake our tail feathers with the best of 'em. And the best part is? Unlike most of the 22-year old girls you just let in, we won't end up crying at the end of the night.

So to you Paris Club....when one of my girlfriends ends up being the CEO of her own company, or I get my first book published, we will not be celebrating at your establishment. And when someone asks me where they should go in Chicago, it won't be your club.

To the 20-something doorman who wouldn't even make eye contact with me: you'd better be careful who you don't let in, because she just might have a blog.




The Bachelorette--Where Do They Find These Guys?

Courtesy: ABC.com

The following blog post has been approved by my husband...

Tonight I put my hubbie through what can best be described as torture--I made him watch The Bachelorette with me.

I've told you before why this show absolutely fascinates me, and a few months ago, I blogged about the "Top Reasons I Could Never Be On The Bachelor" including,

"Sure I had a feeling Mike was 'the one' after our first date, but I kept that information to myself for oh, about three years, not two dates. In real life, those kind of love admissions get you dumped, not another rose."

The Bachelorette is even more entertaining, because the producers actually find 25 straight guys willing to talk about their feelings, even shedding a tear every now and again. Also, most are pretty good looking too! Where on earth do they find these guys? (I've never met one, so this apparently excludes Cheyenne, Laramie, Lander and Riverton WY,  Grand Junction, CO, Fort Myers, FL, Indianapolis and Chicago.)

I laughed and told Mike tonight, "You'd be terrible on this show! You hate small talk and never want to talk about feelings!"

Case in point: It took him a year and a half to tell me he loved me. Granted, he did it live on the radio when he worked at WINK-FM and I worked at WINK-TV in Fort Myers (Very nice touch and totally made it worth the wait), but still, can you imagine how frustrated the producers would be when they asked how he felt about The Bachelorette after week 2? He'd probably say, "She's okay" or "I'm feeling her out."

Another case in point: Whenever Mike's on the phone (which he hates and tries to end immediately), he's like a toddler only capable of one-word answers. Trying to get a soundbite out of this guy would be tough.

All-in-all, I guess it's good Mike and I met in real life and not reality TV, because I don't like doing handstands in my evening gown and he doesn't like to talk about his heart singing.

I love you honey!





Running outside=terrifying

In keeping with my 2011 goal of doing things that scare me, I did something the other day I've never done before for fear I would majorly suck at it: I ran outside in the heat with my husband.

Okay, okay, doesn't seem scary to you? Perhaps running comes naturally to you, but to me, it doesn't. In junior high when we had to run the mile in gym class, I lied and said I had asthma. I got an inhaler and everything. Truth is, I felt like I really had asthma considering running at 6,062 miles above sea level, your chest will burn to the point you think you're going to vomit your lung. I would huff and puff around the track, until I was the very last one to finish. (Even the fat kids lapped me.) You see, I'm that weird anomaly of being skinny but totally out of shape. When I walked to classes in Laramie, Wyoming (7,165 miles above sea level, mind you) I would be so out of breath after walking there, I would have to pause at the top of the stairs before entering Psychology, for fear the other students would wonder who this deep-breathing crazy person was.

The point is, I'm not athletic, and it's taken me years to build up to running. The thought of running outside totally frightened me, because I worried all the buff runners on the Lake Michigan track would laugh and point.

Well, they don't do that, but they do lap me every chance they get.

Mike and I took an evening run around the lake recently, and it was interesting. The ol' feelings of wanting to vomit a lung certainly came back, but something else happened that was totally unexpected. My face turned bright red. Cherry red. (See picture) I could actually feel the blood in my face. I realized I will never look like that graceful light-on-the-feet runner who seems like she could go on all day: instead I turn freakishly red, I sweat up a storm and I look like a wounded animal who's moaning and groaning because the pain of the bullet stings so much.

To add insult to injury: a few days after my run, I see this picture on Facebook. It's a picture of Kim Kardashian and Heidi Klum running on the streets of New York, and of course, they look beautiful. Bitches. I read later that they did 4 miles. Seriously?? They ran 4 miles and look like that?

So apparently reaching my goal of running outside is not enough, somehow I have to figure out how to look good doing it. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Anniversary Dinner or groceries for the week--you decide

Do you ever have that feeling of not belonging? The realization that you can't afford anything in the store, and you're fairly certain the workers are going to say, "We don't have anything that fits you" Pretty Woman style.

Celebrating our one-year anniversary last night, Mike and I decided to go to the very nice Spiaggia restaurant on Michigan Avenue. I looked at the prices online, and thought they weren't too bad. Pricey, but you'll never have a one-year anniversary again, right? (Well, let's hope not.)

We arrived at the restaurant dressed  in our finest. Luckily a friend warned us that Mike needed to wear a sports jacket, or they would have given him one that's been worn by a ton of people. Ew. (After working as television extras, we know borrowed clothing always stinks.)

We sat down and looked at the drink menu. The wine list was about 36 pages long and completely daunting, so I asked our waitress to show us the Cabernet section and she recommended a bottle for a cool $300. I smiled and say, "We're looking for something a bit cheaper." She then recommended the $200 bottle. Ouch.

I told her we would need a few more minutes to decide. When she walked away I told Mike, "It's okay, I don't need to drink." He insisted that we both would, so we finally settled on a half bottle of their cheapest wine.

Then it was time for dinner. I ordered a pasta and the server informed me that what I ordered is basically considered an appetizer that's really small, and if I wanted an actual dinner size portion, I would need to order from the other page, where meals are all $50-$150 each. Ouch. I told her we need a few more minutes to decide.

I said to Mike, "Let's just order something small, and then hit Chipolte on the way home." He suggested we order one meal and one appetizer and split it. Throughout the meal, I worried about what else was going to cost money. When a man came by offering table bread, I thought, how I can politely ask him what's cheaper, white or wheat? When the server started pouring us bottled water, she must have seen the look of horror on my face because she quickly said, "The water is complimentary."

All in all, I have to say, the food was really good. But the portions were small and I was still hungry when we left. Luckily we made a CVS run for some Haggen-Daz ice cream after we were done.

The good news? We had a very nice anniversary celebration. The bad news? We don't have money to buy groceries this week. But hey, all married couples struggle with money, right?