Sock Monkey Socks

Today I went kayaking for the first time, and all I can say is how did I live all these years without doing it before? Now I love canoeing, but kayaking is even more fun. You're closer to the water, and you get more water on yourself while paddling, and best of all, you don't have to cooperate with anyone. (I must not be a cooperator by nature.) I went with a friend who owns two kayaks, and we paddled around a lake which some of my nuttier religious acquaintances insist on calling Angel Lake, with bluffs looming on either side. It was a perfect Memorial Day, and then we had lunch sitting on a patio overlooking the river, which was even perfecter. I'm sure the crowd biking out to Mount Horrible didn't mind that I blew them off for a better offer (sorry, but water sports are always a better offer), since I was then not along to slow them down.

Anna Banana II had a date this weekend, and he bought her monkey socks, which sounds kind of charming. It also got me to thinking: there are monkey socks, and of course there are sock monkeys, but where are the SOCK MONKEY SOCKS? That's what I'm talking about. This must now be added to the list of things I wished existed, like the Hawaiian shirt sweater and the "piso mojado" tent and the word "cardinary." Perhaps there are sock monkey socks out there somewhere. If so, feel free to leave me a comment about them or, better yet, send me a pair. I promise to put them on, take a picture of my feet, and post it on this very blog.

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Famous Hat at Brat Fest

Yesterday I asked Hardingfele if she and Rockstar Tailor wanted to go to the Farmer's Market, and she suggested we walk, which in theory was a really good idea since it is about three miles round trip. In practice, since it was about 115 F and 238% humidity (or at least that's how it felt), Tailor and I thought we were going to melt, but Hardingfele (in her usual sympathetic manner) called us both wusses. We did manage to survive, and after only five gallons of water and six hours of rest, I was ready to brave Brat Fest.

Brat Fest is a very large festival in which people eat brats and drink beer and stand around right in my way when they are not bumping into me. There are a number of stages about twenty feet apart, each one with a very loud band on it, and Hardingfele's husband played guitar on one of them so we watched him for a little bit. Someone sitting at our table knocked over a beer, so Hardingfele cupped her hands, caught the beer running off the edge of the table, and drank it.

"See?" she crowed. "I got my beer!"

I did what I came to do, which was eat a brat and have some Brat Fest ice cream, which is bright yellow and red colored and cookie dough flavored. A guy I work with said his band was playing, and I saw them, but someone else was drumming for them. Hmm... Rockstar Tailor wanted to go on some rides, but by then Richard Bonomo had joined us and he had no interest in rides, so we headed back, picked up Kathbert, and blatted for awhile at Rich's house. Then I went home and read a very dangerous book recommended by Banjo Player: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Warning: This book may cause you to literally stay up all night reading.

Since I never went to sleep, I didn't have to get up for Mass - I just went. After brunch with the choir, I came home and napped until having dinner at a Mexican restaurant with Jilly Moose and OK Cap, who both asked for the address to this blog so maybe they are reading it. If you are, hello, ladies! Now I am at Rich's house blogging while he and Kathbert are talking. Tomorrow they are going to take a long bike trip to Mount Horrible (which lives up to its name), but I am going to wimp out and go kayaking instead.

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A Purely Hypothetical Scenario

This is a purely hypothetical scenario: say there were two dames working in an office, and one was the department secretary but the other had a higher level job. Now say the secretary left and was replaced by someone really smart, who did a much better job, so she was asked to do more. Now say this dame got sick of the place, but because she had been doing more, they reclassified her job so that the next person was at a higher level. But, hypothetically, if the new dame were not as smart as the dame she replaced, she would be making more money for doing less.

(Remember, this is all purely hypothetical. I’m not saying it has anything to do with Toque McToque and Light Bright.)

Okay, now imagine the new dame is confused by her pay stub and asks her office mate to explain it to her. Remember, this office mate has a higher level job, but to her shock she finds the new dame is not only making A LOT more than the previous dame, she is making more than the office mate! At a lower grade level job? This does not seem very fair, especially if the office mate had hypothetically been in the system for years and she had hypothetically been working previously as, say, a barista.

Of course, even hypothetical worlds can, in theory, have karma, so hypothetically the new dame might end up not getting that big fat paycheck because she could possibly do something like staple her time sheet to a reimbursement form she is preparing for someone else, and so instead of going to Payroll, it would go to Accounting. In theory she might not even notice this until Accounting calls to ask why she sent them her time sheet. Just sayin’ it could happen, not that it necessarily did. Or that the previous dame practically wet her pants laughing when she heard about it theoretically happening.

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My Cousin's Wedding: Part Three

At the reception for my cousin's wedding, which was inside the country club, Tiffy and I were assigned to the "Buster" table; each table was named after one of my cousin's many cats, her brother's cats, or her friends' cats. My parents, one of my uncles and his wife, and a photographer also sat with us. Dinner was fine, and the cake was fine, but I was really happy when the music started because apparently my cousin likes hip hop as much as I do. So there I was on the dance floor with the bride and bridesmaids, who were all in their early 20's, and I knew all the songs as well as they did. When I finally sat down (after the requisite dancing of the "Cupid Shuffle"), my mom asked me in surprise how I knew the words to all those songs. I shrugged and said, "They play them on the radio all the time." My only disappointment was when I asked the DJ if he had "Pon de Replay" by Rhianna and he said he did, but he played every song by her BUT that one. Small disappointment, I know, since I LOVE LOVE LOVE the song "Rude Boy." And to be fair, maybe he played it after I left at the early hour of 11:00 pm. (Things went on for at least another two hours, from what I hear.)

The next day we had a picnic in a nearby park, with Danish treats, leftovers from the rehearsal dinner, two kinds of potato salad made by the bride's brother, and Dora the Explorer cupcakes. One of my uncles wore a bright red shirt and bright yellow baseball cap, so he matched the red and yellow plasticware perfectly. Then Tiffy, my parents, and I went to the Lincoln Park Conservatory, got separated while desperately searching for a parking space, admired the tropical blooms, and met up again unexpectedly right outside the conservatory. My parents were staying in Chicago another day, so they headed off to have dinner with other family members. Tiffy and I had sushi and then drove back to her house.

Sunday was Pentecost, and my choir director had begged me to come back because they were singing a Schutz piece he knows I love. Part of my brain must have wanted to, because I woke up very early to get back on the road, but then some other part of my brain must have wanted to keep sleeping, because then I dreamed I drove home and went to Mass, but things kept getting weirder and weirder until I really woke up... and by then Mass was long over, never mind that I was two hours away. It was a hot day, and Tiffy and I lazed around until I headed back to town, arriving just in time for 5:00 evening Mass. (They didn't do the sequence - bummer. But I have only myself to blame, because both my church and the Lutheran one did the sequence.) Then my OTHER choir director had Rich, Kathbert, Cecil Markovitch, the still-single B-Boy, and me over for a delicious dinner made of food he had bought at the Farmer's Market the day before, and we hung out on his pier until the sun was setting and the bugs started to get too bad. Then we went inside and had rhubarb cheesecake. A wonderful weekend!

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My Cousin's Wedding: Part Two

So here Richard Bonomo and I sit outside a bookstore/cafe with free Wi-Fi, since we got here two minutes too late to get inside. (Rich really wanted some hot cocoa.) He just finished fixing my washing machine, which is currently doing a load of laundry, and I took him out to dinner to thank him, and then we were going to stop by the cafe, but unfortunately it had just closed. Fortunately it is a beautiful late May night, so we can just sit out here using the Wi-Fi.

Here is a picture of me doing my civic Illinois duty by picking up a piece of trash while wearing my "Service Day" T-shirt (and holding the dressy duds I changed into for the wedding). Tiffy kindly took this picture of me volunteerin.'

Five, Six, Pick Up Sticks (in Illinois)

This is a picture of the petals one of the flower girls "scattered." As you can see, she wasn't completely sure of the concept, so she just dumped them all in one place and then proudly told her mother, "All gone!"

"Happy Wedding" Pink Flamingo

Cake #1

Cake #2

(Please don't submit these to Cake Wrecks! They are homemade!)

Romantic montage assembled by Tiffy

Not choklad? That's funny, it tasted like it!

This was a Danish chocolate nut bar from the picnic the next day. The groom is from Denmark, so his family brought some Danish treats for us to enjoy.

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Oops! Too Many Pets! How'd THAT Happen??

Since I still haven't downloaded the photos from my cousin's wedding, and since Hardingfele really wanted me to blog about this, "My Cousin's Wedding: Part Two" will just have to wait. This is apparently something Hardingfele found on Craig's list. She says:

Not sure what is more pathetic, the fact that she is rehoming by the weekend or the fact that this woman is functionally illiterate. I mean what is a purebread cat, wheat or white?

And here is the text of the ad:

2 year old persian cat

150$ must find home by the weekend she is so sweet but the land loard says she must go i have 3 cats and can only have 2 her name is bea she is a purebread. and the is not a big rehoming fee.

I don't know about you, but I am not sure I believe this is a purebred Persian. (Or a purebread, for that matter.) Her fur doesn't seem quite long enough, and there isn't a good shot of her face to determine if she has the classic flat face of a real Persian cat. Anyway, it does seem that if you are going to ask someone to pay you $150 to do you the favor of taking your cat off your hands post-haste, the least you could do is use some correct grammar and remember to turn your spellcheck on. Remember, "the" is not a big rehoming fee, though I'm not sure anyone ever said it was. One hundred fifty smackaroos, on the other hand, that ain't chump change. And how did this person end up owning three cats if she knew the rules indicated she could only have two? One can only suppose her math skills are as keen as her spelling skills.

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My Cousin's Wedding: Part One

I am safely back from Chicago and have only one thing to say about the traffic down there: whiskey tango foxtrot?? Where are all those people going all the time? And almost all the cars had multiple people in them, so can you imagine if they drove one to a car like the fools around here? Of course I don’t have one of those I-passes, since I’m not driving on the tollway that often, so I brought a roll of quarters and a roll of nickels and had basically used them up by Saturday afternoon. Almost every toll herded us non-I-pass peons to the furthest right lane, but of course there was one toll where cash users were supposed to go to the left, and by the time I realized it, there was nothing I could do. Fortunately the state of Illinois is so generous as to allow you to pay your missed tolls online.

The wedding was very beautiful, and I have lots of pictures but haven’t had a chance to download them off my camera yet. It was in a gazebo behind a country club, and my father, who is an Anglican minister, presided over the ceremony. Tiffy was laughing through his entire sermon, and afterwards she said, “I ought to have your dad do my wedding if I ever get married!” I cannot remember the entire thing, of course, but I will try to reproduce the highlights here:

He talked a good deal about my cousin’s genealogy, and how if our rich British ancestors hadn’t sold their property on the North Shore, we’d all be millionaires today. Then he said he knew nothing about the groom’s family, but since he was from Denmark, my dad assumed he had the same qualities of “Minnesota nice” that Norwegians and Swedes do. He said in the Victorian era, blue was the color of purity rather than white, but people don’t worry about that in this day and age (and I heard Tiffy make a little gasp because my cousin is expecting), but that they should have spiritual purity. Maybe Tiffy can remember some more of the sermon. It left me wavering between squirming in embarrassment and trying not to burst out laughing.

Since it was an unpaid day off of work on Friday, and they had strongly encouraged us all to use the day for volunteer activities, I wore the T-shirt they had given me and had Tiffy take a picture of me picking up a piece of trash. In another state! Where there are actual Bears fans! Am I a good Samaritan, or what? (At the rehearsal dinner I had commented that I was probably the only Packer Backer and the only Papist in the room, but one of the bridesmaids said she is Catholic too.)

This post has gone on long enough, so I’ll continue tomorrow, hopefully with some pretty pictures.

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