Posted by shana on Mar 13, 2009 in
Friday Gold Stars!,
making friends I don’t know if we’ve mentioned this before, but Rohn (né Julius) was a rescued cat.
We got him through Feline Friends, a really great cat rescue organization in Chicago with volunteer foster families that take care of the rescued cats until they get adopted. I dare, dare dare you to click on that link and then not get a kitty. They are so cute, so completely, captivatingly, heart-breakingly cute.
We spent a lot of time looking at this website, and Mac spent a lot of time on the phone with Toni from Feline Friends (they’re pretty much bffs now), to find not only the perfect cat, but the perfect match for our little family.
And we found him:
Those eyes, that face… and when we met him in person, we knew, because wow, what a personality. And over the last two months he has proven to be exactly everything we ever hoped for. Even Amarok would have to agree…
buddies
We’ve often wondered, though, about Rohn’s past. Amarok is also from the streets, and was rescued as a very tiny kitty at a very very young age – we’ve often thought of this as a good bonding point for the two boys. Unfortunately though, we don’t get in on these conversations, and we’re left to wonder, Where did our little Rohny come from? How did he come to be abandoned? How was he rescued? What was he like, in those early days?
So imagine our surprise and our delight when we awoke this morning to an e-mail from Catherine, our new friend and Rohn’s Choice for this week’s Gold Star… because Catherine was Rohn’s rescuer.
In a brief e-mail, she told us how, with a just-rescued dog already in the car one day on the West Side, she first spotted Rohn:
Yep. That’s sounds just exactly like our little guy.
In fact, it sounds so much like him, that we’ve already adopted that phrase for every day use. For example, “What? I jumped in the sink!” Or, “What? I’m playing with pink feathers!”
Yes, the Gold Star this Friday goes overwhelmingly to Catherine, both for rescuing Rohn so that he could eventually come to be part of our family, and for sending us this e-mail so that we can know a little more about our little guy.
This post is a glut of pictures of Rohn in honor of her receiving this prestigious award. Congratulations! 
Tags: cats, friends, photos
Posted by shana on Mar 12, 2009 in
Chicago Thursday I’m just going to hit you with it, this morning’s top headline:
sinking in yet?
no?
Built in 1973, Chicago’s iconic Sear’s Tower stood as the tallest building in the world until 1998 (damn you, Petronas Towers!) – that’s a run of twenty-five years, an admirably long time, considering that the six taller buildings in the world have each only held their titles for a couple years. The poor Shanghai World Financial Center was tallest for only a few months in 2008. Bummer. To this day, at 36 years old, the Sears Tower remains the tallest sky scraper in the entire western hemisphere.
Here’s a look, by the way, at the most recent and impressive action in skyscrapers lately:
The red buildings are the ones currently under construction – at this point, the Russia Tower is barely getting started and the Chicago Spire, as I understand it, is mostly just a twinkle in the eye of a newly bankrupt developer… the Burj Dubai actually is that tall, and was scheduled to be done in November 2008 but now they’re shooting for July. You can watch a (pretty creepy, actually) video of it here. It’s the music, really, and also, there’s no way the UAE has that much green space… Also, as you can see, the Sears Tower’s antennas remain the tallest of existing, completed skyscrapers, though the Burj kind of blows everything out of the water. Thirty-six years though…
I’ve been pretty obsessed with skyscrapers, particularly this recent rush of supertalls, like the Burj Dubai and the Chicago Twinkle – I mean, Spire. It all started back when I was just a little kid, and my dad took my sisters and I to climb to the top of the Sears Tower. Never had I seen such a structure, neither in my suburban Milwaukee hometown, nor in our frequent trips to upper Michigan. Never had I been so high up in the air. Never had I felt so close to the heavens. It captured my imagination for years to come – thereafter, any drawing I did of a city skyline (and there were many) included a building that looked roughly like this:
actually drew this one just now.
I haven’t been to the top of the Sears Tower since then, but for the rest of my growing up years and through college, any time we drove through Chicago, I’d always take a moment on the end of the Kennedy Expressway to stare out the window with reverence and awe. The Sears Tower.
Of course, as much as no one saw this coming (just last week they were talking about painting the Sears Tower silver! forget that!), there’s also nothing we can do about it. The real question is, how will these Willis folks train Chicagoans (and, indeed, the world) to start using the new name? Flashing signs? Ads on el trains? Millions of tiny implants around the city that deliver a small electric shock to anyone who uses the word “Sears” in conjunction with the word “Tower”? Cash prizes to those who do it right?
Thus far, Chicagoans (at least, Chicago Tribune readers) are adamantly against it, not at all surprisingly:
It will be interesting. This beacon of innovation in America’s heartland, source of identity and pride as the tallest building in the tallest city in the world, bought and renamed by some guys from London. We’ll see how it goes…
This would happen on a Thursday.
PS…
Shana: Can you believe they’re going to change the name of the Sears Tower?
Mac: Well, Sears hasn’t actually been there since 1992, and they gave up their naming rights in 2003, it was only a matter of time.
Shana: Yeah, but that’s not the point. I mean, you wouldn’t rename the Empire State Building, would you?
Mac: Is Empire still in the building?
Shana: But you wouldn’t rename the Burj Dubai!
Mac: Well that’s brand new.
Shana: Yeah but I’m sayin’…
Mac: (quiet, then…) I miss the Chicago Spire.
Tags: Chicago, skyscrapers, wikipedia THIS
Posted by shana on Mar 12, 2009 in
Wednesday Bites … yesterday, of course.
And what I have to offer today is this:
wow, it doesn't even photograph well
Not as traditionally “pretty” as some other things Mac has created for us to eat, I’ll agree… but once you’ve had a bite of this gooey brownish-orangish stuff, you’ll start to believe that the sweet potato is the most beautiful thing in the world… especially the way Mac makes them.
Mac is famous (you know, like, to me) for slow cooking sweet potatoes in a barely hot oven all day long, wrapped only in tin foil, to produce a deliciously soft, sweet and tender, fall-apart-in-your-mouth meal-in-itself. This time, however, he spiced it up a bit (no pun intended), by coating the sweet potato in a brown sugar/butter paste, accented with some spices (allspice and cloves, I think I recall?), before wrapping it in foil and slow cooking it in a barely hot oven all day. The result? Oh my god. The picture doesn’t do it justice. Even an on-time blog post wouldn’t do it justice. I could’ve spent all day picking the candied sweet potato juice off the bottom of the pan… is that weird?
Tags: food
Posted by mac on Mar 10, 2009 in
Tech Tuesdays,
blog status “What if we were to advertise this humble little Chicago blog?”
That’s a question I’ve been pondering lately, and I’ll address it shortly, but first, allow me speculate a bit on why we blog.
We started sharing all these stories, photos and randomness from our lives mostly for the benefit of our family and friends. I think it’s fair to say that maintaining this blog helps us, and reportedly our readers, feel a bit more connected. My father lives in Portland, OR and my mother in Washington, DC. We talk on the phone with a healthy degree of regularity but being able to share all these photos and thoughtful stories seems to really deepen that dialogue. So, while it’s a whole lot of fun for both Shana and myself to work on this blog, I think the real reason we continue doing it, everyday, is because we receive such positive feedback from all of you.
Now, let’s talk about “gas money” (just bear with me here). I don’t know about you, but we could use some extra “gas money” now and again. I use the term “gas money” loosely because we don’t actually have … a car … per se … but it still seems like the right metaphor because we do have bicycles and I sure have felt a bit low on fuel lately. This is where that whole advertising idea I mentioned early comes into play. The basic idea being that if we could drive enough traffic to our site and gain a wide enough readership we might be able to slightly augment our income. It wouldn’t be much, but we wouldn’t be looking for much — just a little gas money.
Finally, to get to my point in all of this, I really like the idea of this blog getting more exposure, but I don’t want to change the way we write posts, or to feel like we need to censor the photos we share, or otherwise suck the life out of what we’re trying to do here in an attempt to accommodate a more generic readership. This blog is for you — not some generic “everyone.”
It’s with that balance in mind that I created our first ad (you might need to refresh the page to watch the animation!):
We are probably going start advertising the site and trying to bring in more readers, but we are not going to betray our original and intended readership–our friends, our family and, perhaps most importantly, our cats.
P.S. The banner ad above was made using a brand new SaaS (Software as a Service) application called BannerSnack. It takes all of the work out of creating cool flash web banners by providing a easy to use point and click design interface as well as generating all the code needed to share your new creations with the world. And with that now said, I’m totally counting this as my Tech Tuesday post.
Tags: blog status, cats, spreading the word, technology
Posted by shana on Mar 10, 2009 in
didn't know this about me did you I know that when you all saw this headline in the Chicago Tribune yesterday, you probably immediately thought of me:
In fact, it was someone else. I know, I know, and it’s not that I couldn’t have won, it’s just that I actually didn’t compete, see, because I think you had to have been a barista for more than like a month and a half… anyway, congrats to Mike Philipps, the owner of Intelligentsia, a fantastic coffee roaster and cafe in Lakeview, for actually winning. I’m going to work on my cappuccinos, and get ready for next year, not that my cappuccinos need work…
Tags: wishful thinking
Posted by shana on Mar 9, 2009 in
Monday Product Endorsement Specifically, car sharing.
But first:
Remember when driving was fun? When we lived in places with wide open spaces and scenery and no stop lights or cars in your way? Corn as high as an elephant’s eye zipping past at 55mph? Before the guilt of superfluous carbon emissions took some of the joy out of a joyride? Before we moved to Chicago?
I remember. (Those of you who didn’t actually move to Chicago with us probably remember even better.) Me and Daisy, my little (“little”) Eagle Summit Wagon, zipping around Iowa, downshifting to make it up the big hills by the river, eating pie in little towns 40 miles from anywhere else, pulling over on the shoulder to take pictures of the sunset…
those were the days
I remember, but barely. Here, driving is a nightmare. It can take an hour to go the three miles needed to get to the freeway on a Saturday in December, for instance. A really, really hellish hour. There’s traffic, traffic traffic traffic, all the time! No left turn arrows, lots of people running red lights (not that I blame them, it’s sometimes a matter of survival) and parking, oh sweet Jesus, Chicago just leased its parking meters to a private company (for the next 75 years, ???) in an effort to make a little money, and this private company went bezerk on fees: instead of paying a quarter to park for an hour at most meters, starting last month parking rates doubled, tripled and quadrupled, with meters in the neighborhood downtown where I work now demanding 14 quarters for an hour. That’s $3.50 (or two full loads of laundry, depending on the specific value you place on quarters).
At any rate, there are a million reasons not to drive, not the least of which is that it’s just not necessary. Usually. The vast majority of the time, even. Of course I endorse biking, and public transit, walking, and good ol’ fashioned staying in your own neighborhood – no need to drive 40 miles for pie anymore when our neighborhood is so inundated with delicious bakeries…
But every now and then, you craigslist an end table from 2 miles away that would be just a bit too much to carry on the bus. Or you need to make a run to Hobby Lobby in the suburbs, the dead zone of public transport (alternative solution would be getting a Hobby Lobby in Lakeview, now wouldn’t THAT solve all our problems?!?!), or you’re closing at the cafe on Saturday night but your dad is speaking at church up in Milwaukee at 9 on Sunday morning, and between midnight and 8 there just aren’t any greyhounds, amtraks, or metras going your way… it’s times like this that you maybe do need a car, but not to own, just to share.
Enter I-Go Car Sharing, its fleet of cars waiting in strategic locations around the city (one right across the street from our apartment!), its array of flexible and affordable monthly/yearly plans, and its super helpful and friendly staff, on call 24/7. It makes a lot of sense: I only “need” a car for, say, 5 hours in an average month. So why not let other people use it for the other 715 or so hours instead of having it just sit there, expensive to park and a risk for break-ins and accidents?
I can reserve a car months or minutes in advance – there’s almost always one available nearby – and I don’t have to worry about paying for parking, insurance, or, get this, even gas. It’s all included. And sure, I can’t store my umbrella and my lunch leftovers for the last couple weeks in the back seat, but with so many cars to choose from, it’s kind of like I own dozens of cars… I’ll say to Mac, “do you want to take the Civic today, or the Prius?” Or the Honda Fit, or the Honda Element? The silver Civic, or the blue one? So many choices!
You may have perhaps heard of Zip Car, a national car sharing program that works similarly. We also have Zip Car in Chicago, and I do support their mission as well, but we chose I Go because it’s a non-profit, and because it’s Chicago. Their goal is to make car sharing an integral part of the public transit system, and to that end, they work with neighborhoods and with the Chicago Transit Authority to ensure that people can get around to wherever they need to go, whenever they need to go, without having to own a car. They’re also interested in turning the freed-up space and resources (owning a car can cost up to $7300/year in Chicago, I Go membership starts at $50) to foster growth in Chicago communities. Says their website, “We expect that lower car ownership would free up resources that could be used to increase home ownership and business development in our region.” Talk about big picture dreaming, hey? I like big picture.
I really do strongly believe that the freedom to live without having to own a car is a birthright. Furthermore, life without a gas and money guzzling weight on your shoulders shouldn’t seem impossible, it should seem normal, and it should definitely seem liberating, particularly in a big city like Chicago. I Go Car Sharing is making that dream of not owning a car a reality for us and hundreds of others. For that reason I heartily endorse them this Monday afternoon, for that and for the little glimmer of a thrill I get on those rare occasions when Lake Shore Drive isn’t so crowded after all and we’re flying on down the lake, faster than the busses… it does feel good. I remember.
Tags: biking, Chicago, wishful thinking
Posted by shana on Mar 9, 2009 in
more random than usual I’m so excited to endorse things today! But first off, I want to follow up on last week’s endorsement, for the pure and simple reason that this morning I saw a picture that’s tangentially related to it and I really want to share that picture with you all because it’s hilarious.
Here’s the picture:
somebody's excited
And the tangentially related follow-up is that the real Iditarod started this weekend, which is to say, the dog-powered Iditarod, not the human-powered one. Apparently it’s going well so far, at least for this guy. The human powered Iditarod, the Alaska Ultra Sport, which I endorsed last week, faced some of the worst weather it’s ever seen – while Chicago has been flirting with the idea of Spring, Ultra Sporters had fresh snow up to their waists at points! Whoa baby! Sometimes stranded, frequently pushing/carrying their bikes, it’s taken them a lot longer than previous years to reach the finish line, but they started rolling in on Saturday and are continuing to roll, ski, and walk themselves into the finish line even as this guy is just getting going…
As far as the dog Iditarod goes, I’m of course rooting for Martin Buser, who named his son after a checkpoint (and we named our cat after his son). But your actual Monday endorsement is still to come. I just wanted to post this picture.
Tags: biking, photos
Posted by shana on Mar 8, 2009 in
wedding
Firmly now within the 6 months-to-go mark, Mac and I decided to sit down yesterday and sketch out where we’re at in the planning process:
Shana's sketch
As you can see, we’ve got a nice big area outdoors with a hill and a sunset and picnic tables and a playground. The guitar represents where the band will go, and the two concentric circles just above the “lodge” area represent a frisbee. One of my buddies at work yesterday suggested that if we can get Parks and Rec to let us have a bonfire (not likely at all but would be SO awesome!) we should give out s’more kits as favors. Whoa.
Mac made a sketch as well:
Mac's sketch
His sketch is similar to mine, except that there are more guitars, and also, his is actually a drawing of an alien. Helpful in its own way, of course, but if there are aliens on the guest list, we need to get their addresses for the invites and let the caterers know…
Tags: art, wedding news
Posted by shana on Mar 8, 2009 in
oh delicious 
Coconut French Toast with Strawberries
Hello, Saturday Morning.
If you want details on how they’re made, you’ll have to talk to Mac. If you want to know that I’ll be drooling for weeks just thinking about them, well, I can tell you that part. Click on the pictures, they’ll blow up really big. Now tell me you’re not drooling too.
Whoa.
Baby.
Tags: food
Posted by shana on Mar 6, 2009 in
Friday Gold Stars! It’s finally, here, that most anticipated day of the week, Friday! And what better way to celebrate our happiness than to recognize someone else who makes us happy by bestowing upon them the most honorable of all honors: an imaginary gold star.
We know you’ve been waiting eagerly all week to hear who the first recipient will be, and Mac and I have considered the issue carefully. We’ve decided that as much as we’d like to give gold stars to each other (ha), and as much as we’d like to give gold stars to both of our cats (though they’ve been kind of high maintenance drama queens lately, they put up with all the picture taking pretty well), that that would be a poor decision for our first awarding of Friday Gold Stars. We’ve decided instead to award Gold Star two others, yes, two, who also feature prominently on our blog, though not because we post funny pictures of them every other day.
This week’s Gold Stars go to…
Jim/Dad, and
“Cowboy’s Mom,”
for being the only ones to ever comment on our blog.
Congratulations!!!
And thanks! We love getting comments! It makes us feel special and appreciated. :)
Should this post inspire all the rest of you to start leaving comments as well (you don’t have to be one of our parents to do it!) you just need to click on the little yellow posty note by the title of the post and have at it.
Happy Friday!
Tags: friends
