(our fourth of july party)

i didn't tell you about my fourth of july.

that morning, i attempted to get all my ducks in order so that i wouldn't feel so horrible about myself on saturday morning after what i knew had the potential to be a blowout evening. those ducks included taking branner to the dog park for his first multi-dog experience ever* and going on a long, long run, with the thought that if i still had any alcohol in my system from the ten days spent drinking in the mountains, this long, long run would get it out.

branner got his *ss whooped at the dog park for about an hour, during which he yelped once as an enormous mutt decided he didn't like pretty boys. it was all good...pretty soon everydog realized he was a bumbling idiot and humored his by play fighting.

the run was excruciating, which pissed me off because i was doing 4 to 6 miles a day IN THE MOUNTAINS for a week...chicago doesn't even have ant hills and i was unimpressed with myself. i hit about 6 miles and started thinking about beer so that was that.

on (at about 3pm) to the party jigglin was hosting on his rooftop in lincoln park**, where i literally walked up four flights of stairs, said hello, and found myself walking back down to go run errands with braden and jigglin. after costco was closed***, we hit up a grocery store where i was instructed to buy 25 oranges.

back to the condo where we dragged 20 oranges (braden and i compromised with jigglin on the final count) and 12 2-liter bottles of pop/soda**** up the aforementioned 4 flights of stairs to the rooftop where i planted myself for the next, oh, 10 hours drinking.

people started arriving around 6:30pm, which gave us some personal time with the four kegs and fully stocked bar and sunshine and appetizers...by about 7pm the main crew was well on our way and stuffed with snacks, but still eagerly awaiting the grillmaster and his disgustingly huge box of prepared meats.

of which i missed out on the ribs and don't wanna talk about it.

my sister came with her friends, hell everyone came except YOU*****, in fact even some randoms from the section 8 housing across fullerton made their way up late night, where they found the original crew from the 3pm set-up still mixing drinks and (embarassingly) dancing their *sses off.

it was all just as classy as it sounds.




*multi-dog experience sounds dirty.
**it pains me that fullerton and ashland is considered lincoln park. pretty soon roosevelt and state will be lincoln park. milwaukee, wisconsin will be considered lincoln park.
***good idea costco. close on the 4th.
****tomato, tamata.
*****and since i am sure i twittered an invite to the world, don't say you weren't invited.

(i have no plans)

so now that your holiday weekend's started, i'm wondering what you might plan on doing.

why, you ask?

because for the last month i've been planning a trip to new york and i never got around to thinking about this long weekend.

and i'm feeling like i'm out of the loop.

if you're not in chicago, i want to hear about what you're doing so i can live vicariously through you.

if you are in chicago, well, maybe you'd wanna celebrate our kickass independence with a local boy blogger?

(mother's day)

mother's day yesterday was another trip out to the suburbs with the pup in tow, followed by a lot of red wine and broken waterford crystal.

the red wine was for me, the waterford crystal saucer a present to my mother many years back. the curiousity about everything in my parents' house was branner's, and as he squirreled around a particularly wobbly table with said crystal and a frighteningly ancient china lamp on it i was able to jump across the room and catch the lamp as it bucked its perch.

the crystal hit the floor and shattered.

happy mother's day, love branner.

it was no big deal, and the day at mom's house with my sister and her dog was extremely relaxing once i decided that branner would in all likelihood not kill himself on my parent's first floor.

previously described damage aside, the afternoon passed without major consequence.

every few hours my sis, her boyfriend, and i took our dogs out back and let them sprint in huge circles around the luscious green early springtime yard, branner following in tow as shiloh bounded back and forth, easily faster and more agile than his younger cousin. branner took to head-on collisions to express his excitement, and more than once both dogs bounced off of one another onto their backs like furry trainwrecks.

as a gift to my wonderful mother i offered to set us up with a cooking class downtown sometime this summer. the two of us love to cook, and she's been so worried as of late about packing our house into boxes and the space she'll be giving up by moving into the city that i couldn't bring myself to give her more stuff.

she loved the idea, and were anyone to have a great recommendation for us i'd be much obliged.

we sat around the dinner table long after the food was gone discussing politics and theater. and family.

our family dinner and post-dinner discussions are among the most poignant fixtures in my life.

as such, i lost track of time and arrived back in the city as midnight approached and carrying an unconcious puppy.

how was your mother's day?

(save by a rebel)

friday and saturday both started with mayhem before i'd gotten out of bed.

thursday night, as i twittered, i stopped into the soft opening of rebel, the newest bar opened by our host with most*, danny latino.

needless to say, the vip treatment was wonderful, the bar was free all night, and we saw lots of familiar faces, including my brother from another mother, murph. murph and i went to school together...like...all of it, every year, until we stopped going to school.

seeing him out is always a blast, and within the confines of such a welcome scene even better. he'd actually invented two drinks earlier in the night, so we sampled what we could on the limited supply behind danny's new bar.

but friday, first thing, i woke up to crisis. fifteen thousand phone call four hour crisis.

which, you know, is someone's way of making me earn st. patty's day.

friday evening i tagged along with cha-rule and her boy to her little sister's birthday party at martini park. i suppose it goes without saying how much i love cha's little sister, based on the fact that i've known her since she was like three feet tall and she's as cool as her big sister.

and then.

saturday, bright and early, crisis!

this time it was a few kegs and no specialized tappers. we order guinness and harp for this particular holiday, each of which needs it's own specialized tapper (apparently), and since someone was making me earn my st. patty's day, jigglin had arrived at the liquor store to be told they didn't have what we needed.

and to come FULL CIRCLE.

guess who bailed us out?

that's right.

danny latino.

as you can see from the picture, the day worked out. my littest sis and i had a blast.

go to rebel if you get a chance. or if you find yourself stranded on clark street near wrigley...he'll take care of you, and he's one of the few people trying to run bars in this city that actually deserves our business.

so...what's up for the rest of march, people?




*the host with the most who hosted our chicago blogger meetup in february.

(i'm irish)

i'm not quite sure how long it's been since i blogged drunk.

but it's happening now.

seriously what's the rest of the world up to right now?

cuz i'm listening to promiscuous girl (i love nelly furtado) in the midst of fifty wonderful people drinking guinness and doing relatively frequent shots of jamison.

if you're not irish right now you should be.

(day drinking)

i woke up this morning to a phone call from jigglin in the process of attaining kegs of harp and guinness, ready to throw down with the liquor store manager who didn't feel it necessary to mention that he couldn't provide the specialized tap for use with kegs of harp and guinness.

at 9am on st. patty's day, you'd think the guy would have tappers for his harp and guinness kegs.

you'd also think the guy might know this information would have been useful, say, yesterday or the day before yesterday, because RIGHT NOW isn't the best time to be looking for taps for IRISH BEER.

but don't worry.

we'll be fine.

i'm 100% irish, so i'm pretty sure even without beer i'd progressively just get drunker as the day wore on anyway. that is how it works right?

what are you doing for st. patty's day?

(monk email)

for those of you bloggers for whom i was able to track down an email,

the valentine's monkey i sent to your inbox was supposed to convey a message of adoration for your blogging skills.

apparently it didn't work for some of you.

which means that monkey i hired,

is a bad monkey.

BAD MONKEY!

happy valentine's day, ya'll.

love,
d(blogged).

(sacrifice and pancakes)

this morning i stopped into my favorite local bakery, alliance for a cafe au lait and found mayhem.

it's a busy coffee shop, because they create masterpiece baked goods, but this was unusual.

i stepped up to the (rather cute) girl behind the counter and she took my order. i threw a turkey and swiss croissant in for good measure.

during my order, three people asked her if they had pancakes.

pancakes?

and her response?

she told them they'd sold out of 800 pancakes about an hour ago. which means it was in the first hour of business.

i had a confused look on my face.

do you?

cuz if you don't, that means you know it's pancake day.

and maybe you'd forgot it's fat tuesday?

and apparently the two of them are related, and it's traditional to munch on some pancakes today in many countries around the world, as part of the celebrations prior to tomorrow's ash wednesday and lent kick off.

lent!

during which i'm going to make some sacrifices:

1) i'm not going to hit snooze in the morning.

2) i'm going to stop after one cup of coffee.

3) i'm not going to drive to my downtown office unless it's unavoidably necessary.

this should all benefit my health, wallet, and general progress in the coming few weeks, and at the same time make me acceptably miserable here and there (mostly in the morning).

i'm not content with this list though.

what are your seasonal sacrifices? what changes are you making these days to get things rolling?

okay, so the delay last night was annoying, as any stint in an airport new york tends be, but it lasted about an hour and i slept most of that hour.

waiting for my luggage was actually the worst long moment of my trip home...took an hour in and of itself, and that was just long enough for me to start doubting myself and thinking i'd missed my bag or they'd lost it which more than once caused the words "okay now i'm pissed off" to scroll by on my screensaver.


but i'm home.

new york was extremely tiring, but it was also everything seeing my family always is...my cousins and their parents are the funniest, craziest, most random people i know, and the group is so homey and so familiar and such a rewarding place for me to be.

even if i did end up with a pretty un-exciting grab bag gift despite my advantageous draw number. next year candles and picture frames are banned.

i've got so many stories and observations to share with you dear readers after the last month of shotgun parties, trips, people, and the rest that i'm going to have to babystep through it all. i hope you'll be patient with me.

i also have an interview for ya'll that i know will be interesting if the interviewee will let me interview her and publish it here...lex, if you're reading, say hello to the crowd. crowd, all together now..."LET D INTERVIEW YOU, LEX!".

on tuesday night i went to my first holiday party of the season.

it was an event for yelpers, hosted by yelp, at an irish bistro on the north side of chicago.

yelpers use yelp to yelp about places and services. i'm mildly obsessed with using it to figure out where i'm gonna eat or get something done.

which is a relative term. you may have never heard of yelp, and the amount i use it and write my own reviews might surprise you.

but if so, you'd be AMAZED at some of the major hitters over there. i swear some people write ten reviews a day.

i love the site because it really is real people giving their honest opinions on restaurants and such.

anyway, i was one of the fortunate yelpers to be asked to join their 'elite' club (shortest midget kind of thing) and thus was treated to two extra hours of HOLIDAY CHEER on tuesday.

CHEER meaning FREE WINE and appetizers. i didn't have any appetizers.

this irish bistro obviously pulled out all the stops. which i think you'd agree was probably a good idea...they'd just invited 250 people into their establishment who were going to go home and WRITE A REVIEW of their experience.

i honestly think if i'd taken off my pants and climbed on the bar to crowd surf, the manager would have been the first person chanting 'JUMP, JUMP'.

there's about three hundred pictures of the event here.