Friday, June 16, 2006

The Good, The Bad, and the Kitten

Mom and I had to be at the airport at 4:30am Thursday morning so she came over to spend the night Wednesday night. We headed out to take the dog for a walk and ended up running into some neighbors and talking for a few minutes. As we were talking we saw a kitten in the field across the street and realized that she was walking really weird. I ran over to find out what was wrong and found that her hind legs were mangled. She wasn't bleeding and didn't look like she had been attacked, but there was obviously something wrong. She was moving pretty well considering the way her legs looked. I didn't know what to do. I was afraid to pick her up in case she had any disease or anything, but she was really lovey. She kept rubbing up against me and was sweet as could be. I yelled for mom and she came over picked her up. Mom said that we should get her to a vet, that she would probably need to be put down. I of course start bawling and say I'll run over and get a pet carrier to take her. One of the neighbors said she had a carrier that she would get and I took Oscar back to the house and got the car. We called every 24 vet in the area but they were all going to charge between $75-90 just to look at her. Finally we found one all the way on the south side of town that said they would examine her for free. SO mom and started the treck to the south side (did i mention that the boyfriend had taken the night off work in hopes of actually spending time with me).

The poor little kitten cried in the whole way down to the vet. As we drove mom and I started noticing we were itching. GREAT!!! We finally get there expecting that they will either put her down, or say that she needs surgery which we obviously don't have the money to pay for. We walk in and they take her back to look at her. Mom and I ran into the bathroom and scrubbed our itching arms and faces. We came back out and one of the vet assistants walked out from the back and said, "The vet says she wants to thank you for bringing her in" then she turned to the other women working at the front desk who had just told us that she had 12 cats and said, "and you're gonna love this. She said we're going to find her a good home!" I of course start crying again as the woman explains that the problem with the cats legs is probably a birth defect. She said that there was probably an umbilical wrapped around the legs but that the kitten had lived with it her whole life so it didn't bother her at all, it just looked weird to us.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

The Best weekend that wasn't

I know most people don'’t consider Tuesday and Wednesday to be the weekend, but it was for me this week. And it was AWESOME!! Remember me telling you about this chick? Well, she was playing at a club in Chi-town. So I called a couple friends from up there who I don'’t see nearly enough and who are almost always up for just about anything. The show was Tuesday night so therefore Tuesday became the kick-off to my weekend.

I actually had to work until noon Tuesday morning (not the best way to start a weekend, I know, but trust me it gets better) I left work and headed home to pack and then decided I needed to grab some lunch before hitting the road. I decided that lunch had to be Cafe Patachou. Usually Patachou is reserved for Sunday morning brunch with Will on the weekends that I'm home. They have the most AWESOME omelets. Also, their fruit salads contain no nasty cantaloupe or honeydew melon! I had never had lunch there before and the waitress convinced me to try their chicken salad. As is everything else there... AWESOME!

I finally got on the road and made pretty good time until I hit I90/94. Unfortunately I just don'’t know the city well enough to have been smart and jumped off on Lake Shore like my friend who was driving up from South Bend (he was easily an hour behind me, but managed to make there only 15 minutes after me!) Eventually the 3 of us arrived at Beana's house (she was the last one to get there) and we set out for the show.

We were all hungry so we stopped a little Mexican restaurant that was right across the street from the club. We were running low on time so we all inhaled our food and ran over to the club only to find out that there was an opening band that was going to be playing for 45 minutes. Since it was standing room only and we really had no desire to see the opening band, we went back to the restaurant to try their self proclaimed, "Best Margaritas in the Town."” YUM!!!

FINALLY, it was time to go see Missy. The show was at a place called Martyrs'. It was a cute little place, good for bands because it had a nice size stage. Missy came out and played for about an hour or so I think. She was absolutely adorable and she sounded really good. She played a lot of stuff that is on the album that I have, as well as some newer stuff that she said she was testing out before recording a new album. It was a really fun show. She seemed to be having a good time talking to and joking with the crowd. It was a really small venue so the crowd frequently talked back which was entertaining. When people in the crowd asked when the new album was coming out she didn'’t miss a beat in responding in a snide 13 year old girl voice, "“none of your business!" She then proceeded to tell us that she was testing songs out on us and instructed us not to clap if we don't like a song. She asked if there were any other Australians there and got quite a loud response. She then joked that Australians are about 4 times louder than any American so there probably weren'’t as many as it sounded like. My favorite comment came when she was tuning her guitar and pointed out that she was only telling us this story (I don'’t remember what the story was about) to fill time while she was tuning, but that she was "Having problems talking because my belly is so full of pizza. It's BLOODY good here, you have to try it." Of course everything was in an Australian accent which was adorable, though she did take a moment to point out that she loved the American accent because it is so "round."” She then slipped into a west coast surfer dude accent which we all found VERY amusing.

She neglected to play my favorite song, which I was NOT amused by, but all in all it was a really good show. I really liked some of the new stuff that she played which bodes well for the next album. At the end she said she would be over at the t-shirt booth if anyone wanted to come say hi. So Beana took a pic of me with her, but I cropped me out of it because it wasn'’t cute (and Will said my boobs looked huge in it so that freaked me out) But here'’s the picture. Whose proud of me for being able to crop things using Photoshop?!?! I AM!! Oh yeah! Also had to use the red-eye reduction tool on this shot too! GO ME!!!

After the show we headed back to Beana's house and had a little bit of time to chat with her and her roommate before we all had to crash. The next morning I was off to ... You guessed it... IKEA!!! I heart Ikea. I managed to pick up a few things we needed for the house and then it was off to lunch. Gino's Pizza!! Best pizza ever! YUUUUUUMMMMMY! I was even nice and brought some home for the boys. There was just one more stop that had to be made before heading home. Luckily it was right across the street from Gino'’s. Jamba Juice. Best smoothies I'’ve ever had but of course we don't have one at home, we have to settle for stupid Smoothie King.... So not the same. But I got my Mango-a-go-go smoothie with a free immunity boost and was on my way home.

So to recap... Awesome Patachou lunch, great time with friends, yummy margaritas, awesome concert, Ikea, Gino's, and Jamba Juice... Seriously... it was the best weekend that wasn't!

Monday, June 05, 2006

i HEART her!!

ok all you complainers who have been whining about me not posting. Here's a post.

Isn't my new template PREEEETTTTTY?!?!!? Rica made it for me because why? Because she totally freakin' ROCKS!! I heart her!

Just a little fyi about the header of the pretty pretty template... All the pictures, including the one that makes up the background... are my personal attempt at pretending to be a photographer. How AWESOME is Rica for managing to create such pretty template that incorporates my photography!! again... I heart her!!!

More posting coming later. I'm working on a post about my trip to Florida... but it's very complicated. I'm hoping to have it up in the next day or so though... SO QUIT YOUR WHINING!!!