Strange Sightings

OK so living in the city, I know you're supposed to see weird people all the time, but I feel like I see a lot of weird people/things that people do, like a lot. So I like to include some of what I see in these posts, e.g. the Sushi lady.

Sighting #1
I was waiting for the bus in the morning, when I saw a lady that had ridiculous hair that hung past her shorts. Good thing I was carrying my camera and could get a picture. I know it's hard to tell because she's wearing dark shorts, but believe me when I tell you the hair actually came down PAST the dark shorts, no, seriously, it did.



Sighting #2
Tom and I caught an 8:35 metra to the Botanic Gardens on Sunday (that story is TK in it's own post). We sat down in the priority seating because we had to stay by our bikes. We happened to be sitting next to three girls who had obviously partied a little too hard and were rewarding themselves with 2 for $3 sausage mcmuffins. We were all sitting peacefully as you normally would on an 8:35 train, when the girl closest to us, got up and told her friends to watch her stuff. When she stood up, not only was her underwear showing, but also her half her butt, because her underwear was halfway down her butt and her pants were halfway down her underwear, not cute. She went to the bathroom in the train (this is gross on many levels so I won't go into it, but seriously, the train bathroom?!), which was directly in front of us and proceeded to chuck her guts for like ten minutes. When she left, she didn't close the door. The whole experience was pretty gross.

Sighting #3
On our way to dinner after our long bike ride, we were waiting for a bus behind the Olgilvie Metra station. Suddenly, a girl who is barefoot comes running out of the train station, the back of her jean skirt was soaking wet. It was not wet like she spilled something, more like she peed her pants. Thirty seconds later a guy came running out and calling the girl's name. She had hidden in an area on the side of the building that was a little recessed and had some columns. We got on the bus, and as we were driving away, we saw that the guy had the girl's skirt in his hand and was waving it around. That was until he put it down and started taking off his own pants. All I can say is that I'm glad that the bus was driving away...

Date week -Thursday

Our date week began at Navy Pier. Tom took me to see Cirque Shanghai Gold, which is basically a Chinese acrobat show. We took a bus to the pier and walked to the beer garden at the end. We had some bar food and beers and watched a Latin band. They were quite festive.



We saw the beginnings of a pretty sunset and then we went into the show at 8pm. These people are crazy, I mean I know they're acrobats and all, but really, literally putting your butt on your head is just insane. Tom was cracking me up because he seemed like he was physically in pain every time one of them did a crazy contortion move. He kept saying "Oh maaaaan!" or "SHOOT!". One of my favorites was a guy who came out, with a big metal hoop balanced on his head. Inside of the hoop was a girl hanging from the top. If this weren't impressive enough, he started SPINNING the hoop. I guess if you're balancing a girl inside of a hoop on top of your head, why not add some spinning? Meanwhile she was flying around and doing crazy "butt on head" moves. It was highly entertaining.



Afterwards, on our way out, Tom asked if I'd like to go on the ferris wheel. Why not, it seemed appropó after the circus, plus I'd never been up before and the city was all lit up. It was quite pretty, but I don't know if I'd do it again for $6 a ride. The ride takes about 7 minutes, which means you're paying 85 cents a minute.



It may seem a little exorbitant to some, but to others worth it for the cheese and romance.

Busy Bees

Tom and I have been extremely busy this past week, we have a lot to post about. The festivities of the past 4 days are to come, stay tuned...

Bug Bites

This is directly quoted from a conversation with a friend.

It is attributed to none other than the fantastical, genuine, and true, Yasmine Yasmine Yasmine (who wrote that, is currently a camp counselor, and who also gave me permission to post this).

Yasmine: I need a pedi, and to pluck my eyebrows. And to be clean for more than 3 minutes at a time. And not smell like bug spray.
Me: Oh, you're making me miss my camper days.
Yasmine: And not have bites in my vag***. No, seriously.
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, I am at work, and I'm dying.
(this is where the convo starts to get really ridiculous. I should also mention that Yasmine has been very ill for 4 days, and thinks she may have Epstein-Barr Virus)
Yasmine: O M G. I'm serious. You don't have to be nakes. They'll bite through your freaking sweatpants. Which, when you're wearing them and being bitten in the vaje makes you feel uber sexy.
Me: Stoooooooooooop iiiiiiiiiiittttt.

At this point she really had to stop because I was at work, and trying not to fall off my chair. She went on to talk about a song involving crevices, but I think that's better left off.

71 years-old and crab cakes

On Sunday, at 5:30am, Lena and I got up bright and early to run the Nike Women's 5k. We ran pretty well, considering we woke up when the sun started to rise, and I haven't been running in 6 weeks. We finished in around 34 minutes. I was feeling pretty proud of myself, until we got the results of the race the other day. The top ten finishers finished in under 20 minutes. Not only that, but a 71 year-old finished around 30 seconds ahead of us. How depressing. (Below is the sexy picture I promised of Lena, I owe her for posting stupid looking pictures of me from when we ran the Run Hit Remix on Facebook)



After the race we went to Meli Café in Greektown for breakfast. To reward myself for running a whole 3 miles, I know I'm amazing, I ordered crab cake eggs Benedict. Lena got the strawberry and banana french toast. Overall it was delish, minus the guy at the table next to us with the annoying voice and those stupid J. Crew shorts with hula dancers all over them.

Flopping around like they own the place

When I was living in London the pigeons were out of control. They feed them birth control there to try and keep their numbers under control because their crap eats away at the famous landmarks.

One day my friend Mike and I were walking to class when we were dive bombed by a bunch of kamakazi pigeons rushing for a piece of food. They were all flapping around, my friend Mike got sooooo pissed and yelled "God those freaking pigeons flopping around like they own the place! They need to get those things under control".

Well, on my way home from work yesterday I felt that exact same sentiment. I stopped by the Jewel to get some milk, and walked out of the parking lot near an exit that's under the L. So of course, there are a million pigeons around, because under the tracks of a really noisy train is the perfect place to roost. Anyway some a-hole threw half a glass of water on the street, but it looked like he was tossing food or something so the million idiot pigeons flew towards it, thinking they were going to eat, directly in front of me.

I stopped and calmly waited, thinking to myself "Good thing I didn't walk through that mess, they probably would have hit me". Once they all passed by I started walking again, only to be taken from behind by a rogue pigeon flying the OPPOSITE way of the 'food'! It flapped me on the side of my head with it's WHOLE wing! It moved my hair across my face!

I thought I was going to throw up, I felt as though a rat had crawled into my bed and nested in my hair. The thought of all of the parasites that thing was carrying, crawling around on my head made me want to pee my pants. I shake my fist at the a-hole who threw the water, and I especially shake my fist at the fact that it's a crime to harass pigeons in Chicago, and I thirdly shake my fist at the city for not getting these damn birds under control and feeding them some birth control!!

P.S. I also shake my fist at my co-worker Heather who claims to have a bird phobia, but admitted to spending an hour on Saturday feeding a pigeon a chocolate chip muffin, because she thought it was funny that the bird picked the chips out of the muffin before eating it.

Tom Learns to Text

Tom was supposed to post this, but since he's being stubborn, I will try and break the ice for him. This week is a big week for us. Not only did we get new phones, but Tom, learned how to text!! I know, let's all welcome him to 1999. No but really, this is a major breakthrough and will save us lots of minutes since we have a sweet unlimited texting package!

We've basically spent the past two nights wasting time on our phones...well Tom spent the first night on the phone with customer service because they sent him the wrong phone. But 4 reps and 2 hours later, my phone worked and his new one was on the way. So after a slight hiccup, we are now both proud owners, here are the hot new pieces we got.



Update: I have received 13 texts from Tom since he got his new phone at 6pm on July 17th.

Parasites

Yesterday, I was sitting waiting for a bus, and minding my own business, holding my lunch, which happened to be some delicious sushi. When a seemingly pleasant older woman sat down next to me.

We sat there peacefully, minding our own business for about 7 minutes, when the lady, who had to seemed so kindly when she was quiet says, with some tone of disgust, "Is that sushi you have there?"

I replied "Um, yes..."

She says "Well I studied Parasitology and there is a very high incidence of parasites in Japan, because most people get them from raw fish. You should really think twice about eating that stuff." And then she added really emphatically, so emphatically that she spit on my arm, "Once you have a parasite, you'll NEVER get rid of it, you're STUCK with it forever!"

I said "I guess I'll just have to risk it today."

And then, finally, the bus came.

Apartment Hunting

Can I just say that apartment hunting might be one of the most miserable experiences one can have in life. It goes on the same list as, looking for a new job, getting a root canal and filing taxes. A necessary evil for those of us who are not fortunate enough to own yet. Well, to add insult to injury we had a HORRIBLE experience with a Realtor this weekend.

We met with Anthony Anderson, the agent who was meant to meet with us on Saturday morning, but canceled 30 minutes before our appointment with only an email and no phone call. We really wanted to do our due diligence and see some other apartments in the area, so we decided, hesitantly to reschedule for Sunday.

He met us this time, even if he was 5 minutes late. We saw 4 units in the building that we were most interested in. He then took us to a building a few blocks away. We were waiting in the lobby for the other agent to show us the unit, when the following altercation took place. I'm still not entirely sure what exactly happened, but this was one of the strangest experiences I've ever had, seriously, ever.

Random Guy says to our Realtor "What are you doing here?"
Realtor "What are you talking about?"
Random Guy "Should I call the cops?"
Realtor "I'm sorry, what?!"
Random Guy "You don't know who I am?"
Realtor "I have no idea"
Random Guy "Well, you're Anthony Anderson right?"
Realtor "Yes, who are you?"
Random Guy "Is it even legal for you to be here? I'm calling the cops, or maybe I'll just kick your ass right here. I can't believe you have the nerve to come into my building."
Random Guy turns to Tom and I, "This guy just got out of Cook County prison for stealing $3,500 from my girlfriend and I. He stole $35,000 from ten people."
Random Guy turns back to the guard "Don't let him leave the building, I'm calling the cops. Does he even have a license? Is it even legal for you to be showing apartments? I'm calling the DA."

At this point the security guard was getting riled up, telling them to take it outside because she didn't want to file a report of the resident got in a fight. And our Realtor, trying to maintain a "professional" appearance, I guess, asked the Random Guy to step outside. In the meantime the guy was still yelling at the Realtor saying "Do you even know what you did to Fabie and me? Do you have any fucking clue what you did to us?!!"

Tom and I sat there for a minute trying to figure out what the hell just happened. The guard tried to convince us to stay and let the owner of the unit know what happened, but we were too freaked out. We didn't have to have any kind of confrontation with this crazy guy who may have learned some mad fighting moves in prison! So we peaced out.

We went around the block the opposite direction of where they were standing and still arguing, went directly back to the building that we liked and filled out an application for the apartment we wanted in the first place. Screw that realtor, and screw due diligence. We are now the proud renters of a sweet ass, brand new apartment on the 31st floor, with hardwood floors, a balcony, and amazing kitchen. We move in at the end of August, sighs, the search is over and hopefully this will be the last time we EVER rent anything. But for now we will be happy in our amazing place.

(Our view is nicer than this because our unit is higher, but it's pretty close)

L.A.T.E Ride

Saturday was a pretty interesting day for us. After we tried to look at apartments in the morning and we were stood up, again, we had some donuts, because I like to eat donuts when I'm pissed. Then we split up, I went home, and then we went BACK to the same building for an open house. We found an apartment we really love, but more on that later. Then we went home for a nap to get geared up for the L.A.T.E Ride. We had some Mexican food at my dad's to get fueled up and then went home again for another nap.

Finally after a day of napping and eating to prepare, we left for the ride around 11pm. Needless to say we were there extremely early and waited for what felt like a million years. This is us waiting around.



They let us go in waves, we were the middle group, but we didn't even start biking until 1:55am! There were so many people there. The area around Buckingham Fountain was TOTALLY packed with people.



The biking part was really nice, because the weather was great for it. It was a beautiful clear night, and we even saw stars! They also had all the roads closed off for us, so we could zoom around and through traffic lights and everything, it was so cool. It was interesting to see a lot of different neighborhoods in the city, and hear all of the crazy people honking and cheering us. There were plenty of drunk people out too getting really excited about seeing all of the bikers. After the long ride, we both had sore butts, but Tom was ready to eat....of course, because that's what he does. All in all it was a fun experience, but next year, we would take more naps, and go to the race a lot closer to the start time.