Trainwreck Sue

So one day Mike comes home and mentions that we are invited to a going away party for one of his fellow controllers. Naturally, I am excited at the opportunity to get out of my house and immediately agree to attend. He then told me it is at a French cooking school downtown Chicago. Now, agree or disagree, that's a strange place to have a going away party, but I was intrigued and we decided to attend.

We made arrangements to ride the train downtown with another couple and a psuedo couple who both single and work at the center. Mike and Ryan (single psuedo couple member) decide to get a couple giant soporos for the ride down. Other member of the psuedo couple, "Trainwreck Sue" (real name protected for obvious reasons to follow), also brings a mixed drink on the train.

Here's some background on Trainwreck Sue. I have only hung out with her a handful of times, but everytime I see her she is a. fall-down-drunk and b. with a different guy. That is until she had a baby. Now every time I see her she is just fall-down-drunk. She had a DUI and therefore always tries to pawn rides off people. She is very loud, very argumentative and very annoying. Needless to say I was jazzed that she was along for this evening. Ok back to the train.

So Trainwreck Sue proceeds to get drunk in about 30 seconds. She is screaming a story at us the whole train ride downtown. She is also very upset with Mike, Ryan and I for not coming to pick her up. It should be stated that she didn't call for a ride until 20 minutes before we left the house, and we don't live next door if you get my meaning.

Two very headache inducing train rides later, we arrive in the French Food School neighborhood, about 45 min. early. Natch, we head to a bar to tie one on before cooking time. At this point, Trainwreck Sue, who is also from MN, decides to have a discussion with me on why the Timberwolves suck so much. And by "discussion" I mean lecture and by "with me" I mean I was present being yelled at.

Fast forward to the cooking class. We meet up with the rest of the couples and start cooking. People are having fun, catching up, paying attention learning to cook and taking some pictures. Trainwreck Sue thinks it would be a great idea to hold up some rather large butcher knives to people's throats for some awesome pictures. Of course the people with knives being held to their throats by a drunken crazy are less enthused.

Despite her loud and intrusive outbursts, the rest of the cooking goes fairly smoothly, that is until one of the sous chefs clanks on a pan and alerts the entire group (who included about 10 random strangers) that she caught someone smoking in the stairwell and there is absolutely no smoking in the Frenchy Food School. Did I mention Trainwreck Sue likes to smoke?

So we sit down to eat and the Brie tort with leeks and bacon is to die. I could have done with out the salmon stuffed pastry dish but that is neither here nor there. Someone starts talking about a previous dinner party that took place about 2.7 years earlier right after Mike and I were married. Trainwreck Sue looks at me and starts yelling, "I remember that you were SO pretty and SO thin THEN." Over and over. Awesome.

So it's time to go home and everyone who has separte transportation gives us the "good luck" face. We decide to take a cab to our second train rather than wait out in the cold for the first train. The cabbie has to pull over twice because Trainwreck decides to light up in the cab after repeated warnings from everyone in the cab. We get to our train home and approximately 10 min in T. Sue is transported to another car because she is yelling at a boy across the train that she will "fucking choke him" because he was smiling and laughing. The "train police" tells us that if she comes back to sit with us she will get kicked off the train. If we try to sit with her, we will get kicked off the train. No problem there, we tell ol'train cop. The entire car watches and reacts as she falls flat on her face exiting the car to her "jail car."

10 min. later she's back in our car and we are all pleading with her to go back to where she was. She sits on the lower level and starts chatting it up with some creepy stranger who, against all odds, is trying to get in her pants. Miraculously, she does not exit the train with him and we make it back to our stop.

You may think, man crazy night, glad it's over, but you'd be wrong. We are saying our goodbyes and Sue starts stumbling to her car. She is so drunk at this point she can barely keep her eyes open. We convince her to ride home with us and come pick her car up with the morning. The whole car ride she is prattling on about how no one would come pick her up and what horrible people we are blah blah. Then, halfway to her house she says, "Oh, we've got to go pick up my son." REALLY? I protested because I obviously don't have a car seat in my car, she she says, "It's no problem, when I take a cab I just hold him in the back seat." Awesome.

Turns out it is only two blocks from the sitters to her house. We get to her house and I am amazed that she can even walk while holding her baby. I am panged with terrible guilt for even leaving her alone with her kid at this point, but what do you do? She is so pissed at us for not picking her up she is screaming at us and then just stumbles into her house. Sweet, see you again never.

Until...I get a message the next morning that she left her purse in my car with her keys and phone in it. Reading between the lines, I figure out that I am supposed to bring it back to her. Not wanting to risk another back seat baby ride, I convince my friend, Jon, to come with me to drive her car to her house. When we arrive she's all smiles. No recollection on what a huge douche she was the night before. I say a quick "you're welcome" and get the hell out of there. On the way home, Jon looks at me and says, "You Nordic people are weird."

Annnnd Scene.

a ha ha

Thoughts of the day:

1. I miss Minnesota. This past weekend was spent in Minneapola-ha-ha with some dear old friends and my family. We had drinks, laughs, sang songs and watched the Minnesota high school dance and it was fantastic. On the non-fantastic side, my Grandma Doris had a health scare in the form of a blood clot near her heart. They have since dissolved the clot, but the doctor said if she wouldn't have gone into the hospital, she would have died. Needless to say, that was not fun to hear and caused us all to have a little aneurysm ourselves. This whole episode reminded me all the more of how hard it is to live far away, yet made me very grateful that I was around my family when it happened.

2. In less depressing news: I got a new account today! This was by far my easiest sale yet. The wine guy, Paul, contacted me. I brought him in a shiz ton of wine which he did not even taste. Then he purchased five cases. ACES!

3. I love sloppy joes. Mike made them last night out of a recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (aka Mike's cooking bible) and they were indeed tasty. Bet you wish you had a husband like mine, eh?

4. Sven is learning to be better behaved. Happiness ensues! Mike insisted that we needed to get him a choke chain to help him learn to heel. I was against this, having lost a dog in a choke chain related incident as a child, but inevitably relented. Now mark your calenders, but Mike was right and I was wrong. He is learning and rarely chokes himself, so bravo, Mikey!

5. My bracket for the NCAA tournament is effectively fucked. I thought Gonzaga could do it. Mostly because I like to say their name. Amazing logic defeats me again :)

aaaaaaaaaand that's all she wrote. Happy, Jim?
cheers!

Birthday Achoo's

I am still sick. I was sick on my birthday and sick all weekend and I am over it. Sven loved it because he was able to sleep by my side for days on end. Three highlights:

1. Ms. Sara Zidon was in town and the sisters and Jason and I had dinner on Thursday night. I love baked potatos. Alex, how jealous are you right now? Two Zidons in one weekend.

2. UNO SPIN!

3. With Heather's help, I found some tall black boots (f*&$ing boots, if you will) that actually fit over my cows.

now I will continue to work on being cured so that I can write a more interesting post.

xoxo c.

the freakin weekend

Here's what happened over the weekend:

Friday:

Katie, Jason and I went to buy "supplies" (read: liquor and beers) for the big joint birthday party on Saturday. A mass amount was purchased and we were exhausted from all our exuberant frolicking and decided to decompress with dinner at my new favorite restaurant: Quigley (Down Under) Irish pub. It was everything you want in a restaurant: good atmosphere, great food, cider on tap and waitresses dressed in plaid skirts (I like my wait staff suited up). I will return to this eatery soon, perhaps on Thursday...

Saturday:

The day of the big party. I cleaned for the majority of the day and was quite pleased with my progress. I decided not to super wash my floors because of the heavy foot traffic, and as it turned out, great decision. The tonic waters loved to explode when opened and there was more than one spilled drink. Highlights as remembered include: the return of Jason's awesome Pico as well as a smorgasbord of frozen foods and strawberry shortcake, a late night oldies sing and dance off, watching in amazement as Jason polished off a bottle of Tanqueray largely on his own accord, Katie and my utter failure in our attempt to recreate the Blue Moose's legendary spinach dip -- we blame faulty instruction, and the first time in who knows how long that I stayed up til 4 a.m. A good time was had indeed.

Sunday:

Couch day 10,000. So sleepy. Subway, cleaning, cuddling with Sven, who also made it to 4 a.m. Saturday night. Grammy's. Bed. Boring.

And now for the Birthday Girls!

I am going to try to blog again...problem being, I don't have much to say. However, I am going to challenge myself to blog 3 times a week from now on and see how long it takes for anyone to recognize that I have started up again. First person to comment gets a prize!

So things I have been thinking today:

1.I wish I were a better housekeeper. I did a lot of dusting today and thought, WOW, I should really do this on a regular basis so the dust doesn't come off looking like Little Debbie swirl cakes.

2. Why can't Sven use the toilet? It's cold outside and he is very particular in finding a place to relieve himself.

3. I love Portillos hamburgers and I want one RIGHT NOW. But, I am on an "eat more fruits and veggies and less red meat and bad for you things" diet, so I will resist with all of my will power and will strength.

4. I am not a very good sales person. Too bad 99% of jobs (including mine) are sales related.

5. I wish Cash Cab would come to Chicago and on a day where I ventured downtown and got into a taxi. I love Ben Bailey and quiz shows.

I think that's good for today.

cheers!

All Hallows Eve

This being our first Halloween in a neighborhood, I was VERY excited to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters and subsequently bought a giant Halloween themed bowl and massive amounts of candy to fill it. This also being the first year I've had a puppy, I was very excited to dress him up and show him off. You can imagine his excitement. So in preparation for the many trick-or-treaters I was expecting, I chased Sven around and finally wrestled his bee costume on him and settled in with a glass of vino and waited. and waited...and waited. I got 5 trick-or-treaters. Needless to say I was displeased, so I proceeded to have multiple glasses of wine and was half in the bag when my friend, Michelle, came over to get dressed up to go out.

My costume was not very inventive. I was unwilling to spend money on a costume as we had no concrete plans and I am cheap, so I squeezed myself into an old pair of overalls from high school and went as a farmer/gardener. I have no pictures, sorry to disappoint. Michelle and I met up with Alex and Jamie and went over to Payton's Roundhouse for a monster bash. Turned out it was a metal band dressed up as skeletons who were not very good. We exited at 11. Pretty weak for Halloween night, but by that point I was feeling fine. In fact, I was nursing my drink at the bar so much that Jamie's friend went and brought me a sippy cup to illustrate my incompetence.

I was saved from hangover by late night taco bell. Thus marking my first Halloween where I got tanked and didn't throw up or have a hangover. I was pleased ten thousand.

In other news, I can't WAIT for the election to be over. I've got my voting shoes on and I'm ready to hit the polls (and be done with political ads). I'm nervous, but excited and hoping to be downtown Chicago celebrating our new president.

i'll get you for this...

as of late.

After a long absence from blogging, I thought I would give a quick recap from my last few weeks as some thins have happened.

a. I enjoyed a trip to the Riviera Maya in Mexico for Sam and Heather's wedding. A good time was had by all, but let's face it, who can't have a great time with beautiful views, great food, fine friends and endless drinks? I also found a new hangover cure as a happy accident on the trip that I will share with you now: sparkling water and guacamole. Mexico is officially the only place I find it acceptable to eat chips and guac in the morning, but boy can I not wait to go back and enjoy that delicacy again.


The newlyweds.

b. I am employed. Celebration ensues. I am now working as a sales representative for August Hill Winery located approximately one hour west of Oswego. Basically I will be trying to convince liquor stores and restaurants in this area to carry the Illinois wine. Perks of the job include new wine tools and extra wine leftover from tastings. It has paid off in spades so far. I am, of course, willing to share with those who enjoy to come to Chicago to visit.

c. Disappointment ensues when the Cubs failed to make it past the first round of the playoffs. Consequently, Jim feels it unnecessary to visit with the prospect of baseball fun is negated. Hope is alive for Alex's visit at the end of November and with promises that a new trip will be planned.

d. Mike preps for a trip to Las Vegas. I was not invited due to my recent international travels. Here's hoping he wins more than he loses.

and that's all she wrote.