What do an Eagle, Mr. T, Pirates and Ivy have to do with each other?

Last night, I had quite the inaugural Bleacher experience.

It started with me cranky and tired (as I am most days). Sunday, I spent too many hours drinking beers and cheering for the losing Blackhawks. Sunday was a perfect Memorial Day weekend. Crisp, sunny, full of sloshed jackasses (me included). But Monday, Monday I was exhausted a bit hungover and outside it was soggy and grey. Not a day (or night) that you want to sit outside and watch a baseball game. The kind of day when you want to sleep in and watch Tivo’d Hills episodes.

I was hoping the game would get rained out and that my girlfriends and I would grab a great dinner and drink a bottle of wine instead. Somewhere inside, where’s it’s warm.

But we dragged our cranky selves, complaining about the weather and commenting on our attempts to layer up and (for me) the decision to forsake fashion for warmth.

Living near Wrigley is both wonderful and horrific. When you want to go about your day and do simple things like walk up the street to a friends house or go shopping, it’s horrific to have thousands of drunk assholes from the ‘burbs crowding the sidewalks and the streets, vomiting on your doorstep, screaming to each other (or crying) on the corner. But, when you are in the mood for the game, being a part of it, it’s pretty great to walk only four blocks to the world’s largest bar, Wrigley Field. And let me be honest, I have been that drunk asshole crowding the sidewalk, yelling at my friends (maybe even crying on the corner). But I digress.

Wrigley, well, it sucks you in. We walked in the gates and Darcy said, “I wasn’t going to drink, but now that I’m here…” Yep, that’s Wrigley for you.

Here’s what was great about it:

· It was Memorial Day. I get a bit teary and emotional during the national anthem. Well it doubles on Memorial Day, especially when you throw a bald eagle into the mix. There was an Eagle named Challenger. During the last verse of the National Anthem he started a few rows behind us in the bleachers, circled the pitcher’s mound a few times and landed on the arm of his handler. I’m an emotional dork. I got teary eyed. It was pretty awesome.

· After Challenger’s performance, seagulls circled the park and Darcy said, “I know they are going to shit on me.”

· Mr. T threw out the first pitch. Mr. T. Seriously, Mr. T.

· The drama. Oh the drama in the bleachers. Overheard conversations: one woman telling another man that he and his wife should become swingers, another woman telling her friends that she connected with a former student on facebook and they are now dating.

· There was a couple making out. I mean full on sloppy drunk making out. Then they left, and ANOTHER couple sat in the same spot, and proceeded to make out. Oh and they also were kind enough to stand up at one point while they were making out, so that everyone could see better.

· British and Scottish Soccer (or in their words, football) players dressed in kilts with their faces painted. They were all ruckus and drunkenness, hitting on all the girls around us.

· Kelly kept mimicking and repeating the British phrases. She’s going to speak “British” this summer. I told her I think that’s “brilliant.”

· Mr. T sang the 7th inning stretch, finishing with “I pity the pirates.”

· The cubs lost, but that last inning they ALMOST had it. It was exciting. Except, well, they still lost.

· On the walk home, a driver in a car at the intersection of Sheffield/Clark/Cornelia was singing Opera, top of his lungs, full on Susan Boyle enthusiasm to himself.

Did I mention that I ate a hot dog and drank some beers? I maybe a vodka girl, but sometimes a beer is what’s needed.

Blagorageous claims of the day

He's being impeached because he tried to get pap smears for women.

He is the reason some kid got a new kidney.

He could have saved the housing crisis, but The House stood in his way (and made things worse), so you know, blame them if you lose your home.

He has a Poem of the day desktop calendar.



and I'm just curious about this sentence:
"...let me close by doing something that I probably won't do much after this, but I feel like doing it again since I did it not too long ago"
What?

[Sweet blog - Suntimes]

Making Noise in Public Library

I had to watch a lot of Sesame Street when my brother was young. Which is fine, except that we are eleven years apart in age, so when he was 2 and I was 13 I was watching a lot of Sesame Street. There was one bit that I remember with Grover. He was sitting on a mountain top wearing lederhausen and calling out "Echo" and listening to the return "Echo, echo, echo." During this time my dad was working at the American Embassy in Rabat, Morocco. We had a great Moorish styled home with tiles and marble and echoing hallways, as well as critters you find in a Mediterranean home. Especially gecko's. Not so cute as the Geico one when it crawls out of your bath tub spout. My brother, a fan of Grover (and his own voice) would sometimes sit at the bottom of the staircase and call up the marble stairs and the echo'y hallway "Gecko, Gecko, Gecko." Loving the sound of his voice bouncing around back and forth.

So, I'm back at the Public Library today and in the midst of the seemily normal people surrouding me who are also working on laptops or reading books and newspapers, there is a man standing in the staircase making "MMMHHHMMM" noises, listening to the acoustics and the sounds he can make.

I'm coming around to this whole Public Library experience. It is entertaining.

Roland Burris takes a break from the 3rd person

This is what unsettles me about Roland Burris, he kept beginning sentences with "Roland Burris."

I just have a hard time taking anyone serious who speaks in the third person.

The other thing, and well, this is bigger, he appears to be surprised that anyone would have issue with him accepting the appointment. If he had acknowledged that there is validity to everyone's concerns, it would almost feel OK to accept him as the appointee.

But maybe that's starting to crack a bit for him, today standing in the rain, he actually didn't seem surprised that he wasn't being sworn in, and for the entirety of the "press conference" (which was really more like a scene from Law & Order, with black umbrellas, rain and press surrounding the man on the steps of the gothic looking Capital Building) he didn't once refer to himself in the third person. So there's that.

Here's the thing, this is what I've been thinking about this fiasco:

There was an episode of Scrubs where Turk wanted to give Carla a gift, something personal to show her that he cared and that he got her, except he was a resident or an intern or some sort of quasi doctor and working all the time so he never found the time to go out and buy her a gift then he came across the Lost and Found box and inside among other random items was a pen. A beautiful expensive fountain pen. Carla liked writing letters so the pen was THE gift to give her. And she loved it and she loved him. Except one thing. After giving her the pen and her loving it, he discovers the hospital doesn't have a lost and found box. The hospital has a It's Been Removed From Someones Butt box. The pen doesn't seem so nice anymore, does it?

That would be the obvious reaction to the appointment. At least to me.