A Long Weekend, But A Great Weekend

I've been moving and shaking all weekend long. I wasn't even home long enough to sit down and put together a blog. I know my next couple of weekends will be busy as well, so perhaps I'll write blog posts ahead of time so I'm not going days without posting. Here are the highlights from my weekend:


Friday:

• I went over to my grandmother's house to do her hair. She needed a touch up to her relaxer. Hilarity ensued. She also asked a million questions about Easy, but I think she ended with a positive opinion of him.
• Friday afternoon I caught up on missed episodes of TV, specifically Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice. Those episodes were really something. I was so sad Addison wasn't pregnant, you know?
• Friday night, I went bowling for league night. I bowled my Dad's team and they almost beat us. But I managed to pull out an amazing last three frames; and I bowled my first Turkey!! That's three strikes in row. My team ended up getting more points than his, yay!

Saturday:

• First thing in the morning, my Dad and I got up and headed to Aurora, IL for his very first bowling tournament. He did very well and I'm super proud of him.
• We went to lunch with his bowling team and those people were funny. One drunk woman, a joke so funny it made a grown man cry, my Dad booby-trapping the ketchup and squirting our waitress, and a whole bunch of bacon. Who wouldn't want that?
• Saturday afternoon we headed to our church district's mission festival. Soo much blue, and fancy church hats, that's about it.
• Saturday evening I went out with some friends from church and the bowling league. It was one guy's birthday. I had fun, but having given up alcohol for Lent, it was less fun that it could have been. I felt also kind of old. I'm only 26, but apparently the height of my club days are behind me. I just missed clubbing in college and how much fun I always had with my friends. I'm hoping I can capture some of that when I go visit Florida next month.

Sunday:

• I got home super late (like 4 am), so I was very sleepy. I didn't wake up to go with my Dad for the second day of the bowling tournament. But I maintain he didn't try hard enough to wake me.
• I also missed church. It's happened before and it will happen again. It's hard to get up without help sometimes. I'm just not a morning person.
• My grandmother's 70th birthday was today. All her children and grandchildren and great-grandchild(except two) were there. We brought dinner and cake and hung out with her all day. We laughed and talked and played with the baby and had some great family time. I really love my mom's side of the family and it had been so long since we all hung out.

Anything exciting or interesting happen in anyone else's weekend?

Creating Things Day Fifteen - A Better Tasting Fuzzy Navel

Easy and I went out late Saturday night to this wonderful place in St. Louis called "lola.".

I really liked the atmosphere of this place and I would recommend it to anyone in St. Louis looking for a place to hang out where there is good music, good food, good service, and good company.

When we got there, there was a band playing live music and we watched them for a bit.

Then we went to get a drink from one of the bars.

I know they make strong ass drinks in St. Louis, so I ordered one of the weakest drinks I could think of, a fuzzy navel.

Peach Schnapps and orange juice, how could you make that too strong?

Plus, it was very late at night and I didn't want to be getting drunk at 1 in the morning.

But I was wrong, the bartender made it too strong. She filled the cup 3/4 of the way with Peach Schnapps and then filled it up with orange juice.

The bottom 1/3 of the cup was still completely clear because there was so little orange juice in the cup.

I didn't even bother tasting it, I immediately asked for another cup of orange juice with no ice and an empty cup.

When Easy and I found a seat near the live music, I began making my concoction.

First I poured all of the fuzzy navel into the empty cup, leaving only the ice in the cup. I tasted the drink and it waaaaay too strong.

It didn't even taste like a fuzzy navel. It just tasted like a shot of Peach Schnapps.

So I alternated pouring the pure orange juice and the fuzzy navel into the now empty cup with the ice until it was a proportion I much preferred to drink.

It tasted much better, and I ended up with the volume of two drinks instead of one.

I learned a while ago that they makes drinks super strong in St. Louis. That's great for getting your money's worth, but bad if you want to enjoy the taste as well as the effect of your drinks.

New Year"s Day

All of 2010, except for Thanksgiving, we did the holidays really low key.

Not nearly as much food or guests over has become the norm.

It's just nice because there is much less stress about getting everything ready.

I think for 2011, I'll be ready for more fuss and fanfare again, maybe.

But today, I'm enjoying the relaxed nature of the day.

No waking up early to help set the table because there was no 8-10 person table to set!

That makes me particularly happy because I didn't get in until 4:30 am this morning.

I really had a lot of fun last night, see?

What did we end up doing? "We" is me, Michelle, Bad, and Jordan.

Well, first we went to this lovely restaurant for tapas.

We also ordered a great bottle of rose cava to do our toast with plus we got complimentary glasses of champagne.

And the food was fantastic. My favorite was the steak with bleu cheese.

Then we picked up one of Bad's best friends and his cousin and the party continued.

The only thing I didn't want for New Year's Eve was driving all over the city. But I wasn't driving, Bad was.

And to make things even better, it was soooo warm here last night. It was above 50 at one point.

So, there was no scary ice and snow out to confuse all the drunk happy people.

We ended up trying about three different bars before we found one that was open late enough and free (for us) to get in and the DJ was in a festive mood.

We ended up dancing for a couple hours and just really having a good time.

I even ran into an old friend from high school that I see every couple of years out at some club around downtown Chicago; it was nice seeing him again.

All in all, it was the perfect new year's eve.

I actually got the grown-up Chicago-style New Year's Eve I wanted. So unexpected, but definitely appreciated.

I Will Have A Social Life! I Will Have A Social Life!

So, I'm doing more than just saying it to myself over and over again. I'm doing something about it!

Today was a great day so far. The Fall Festival of Fun at the church was a pretty good success. We gave those kids so much candy! I feel sorry for those parents. If I had kids coming from that party, they would be required to jog around the block three times before coming in the house. I would need to speed along that sugar crash, ha ha.

And as a side success, everyone loved the pamphlet I put together with the information in it about all that my church has to offer children and teenagers. Individuals actually sought me out to tell me so. That makes me feel useful and appreciated.

But as far as a social life, it's been difficult to have one outside of dating. All my close guy friends have girlfriends they're super serious with. All my close girl friends live outside the city or have demanding kid/job/school. Once I get some of those things for myself, I'll be right along with them.

For now though, it would be nice to have someone to hang out with at the drop of the hat. I was starting to feel like maybe a thriving social life just wasn't going to happen. But then I realized I had to be more proactive. I try not to just let life happen to me.

How did I remedy this situation? I realized I missed Bad and I haven't hung out with him in forever. I haven't seen him since our birthday and that was at the beginning of the month. So I asked what he and Jordan were up to tonight.

And voila! We are going to a party at Shrine tonight. I figured I should put my costume to good use. It's not much of a costume. I still can't even be sure what it is. I've got a black velvet cape, a catsuit, a sequined silver belt, and black peep toe pumps. I'm like a rock star/diva/superhero/evil fill-in-the-blank hybrid.

But I will be hanging out with friends tonight and enjoying myself out on the town because I'm in my 20s damnit! I guess that's not a good reason because I don't intend on becoming a hermit the day I turn 30. But I'm heading to Bad's and Jordan's apartment now, so good night blogosphere.

Being Bitter Against The Opposite Gender

So in an effort to not admit complete defeat and give up and by eight cats, I came up with another plan. I decided I would still embrace my bitter. I would expose my bitterness all over some unsuspecting man. I have been blessed to be able to attract men pretty much where ever I go. But this was going to be a problem seeing as how I am anti-party for now (met PT at a Halloween party; met Easy at a wedding reception).

But my girl Michelle is in town for Labor Day weekend, so of course we had to go out. She went to a party thrown by R Kelly on Friday. I'm not saying anymore about that except to say that I wanted to parts of anything to do with R Kelly, so we didn't go out til Saturday. Camille didn't join us cause she has to split up her limited time now that she's a law student (sooo proud of her). But our other friend, who I'll call Gloria, came with us.

We couldn't decide on a place to go, so we ended up going to and leaving Tantrum, Plush, Club Rednofive, and then finally just going to Bar Louie and having a Sex and the City moment with martinis (though I never saw them getting down on loaded fries and buffalo wings).

But when we were leaving Plush this man stopped me by grabbing my hand. This is a brief summary of our conversation.

Him: "Wow, we are matching from head to toe, except for the pink purse. We should really stop and talk to each other.

Me: "Oh wow, we are matching. white shoes and all. You didn't have to mention the purse though. It was a given, I'd hope."

Him: "But no, you're really something. We need to be talking right now."


Me: "Let me save you from yourself. I just got out of a thing and I'm really not in a good place. It won't end well for you."

Him: "But I'm not him, you gotta be able to separate that."

Me: "Oh, but I can't. You know resolution? The ability to see two points as different? Yeah, I've got no skills in that area right now. Seriously... Run."

Him: "Nah, I can't run away from you. Maybe we could just be friends."

Me: "I have enough friends. And I don't want anymore."

Him: "Well, we could just speak casually until you were ready for more."

Me: "Casual fucking sucks. I don't want no parts of casual."

Him: "Well how about--"

Me: "Let me ask you some things. When is your birthday? How old are you? And do you have any kids?"

Him: "I'm a Pisces, I have an eight year old. And I'm 29."

Me: "Oh hell no! I'm over men with kids. I'm over men pushing thirty. And I've been over Pisces' crazy asses since I was 20. I really don't understand why you're still standing here trying to talk to me. Hasn't my bitterness, or my rules, or my cursing turned you off yet?"

Him: "Honestly? No. But if you really aren't interested right now, I guess there's nothing I can do about that, huh?"

Me: "Sad but true. You have a good night."

Michelle and Gloria were cracking up for the next 10 minutes. First, at what I was saying. Second, at the fact that he fit all the things I'd been saying I was "so over'. And third, that he stuck around as long as he did and walked away with a smile on his face.

But at least I got some of my bitterness out.

I've Finally Had Busy Day

Since I withdrew from medical school, my life has been uneventful. This is sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad thing, depending on how I'm feeling on a certain day. But I do know that it finally felt good to have more things than I had time to do today.

I had to be up at 8:25 to get to a hair appointment by 9 am. I've been waking up in the 8 o'clock hour the last couple weeks or so, but having to get up is different from waking up and just turning on HGTV until I pull out my laptop and begin applying for jobs. I get to my hair appointment around 9-ish and I get done around 1-ish. That is a long time, but it's because of my hair. I'm growing dreadlocks and my hair is kind of thick, so it takes longer to tighten my locks than it does for some people.

At 1, I ran some errands and picked up lunch. My keychain is now heavier because I've got spare keys to my great aunt's house now. I'm imagining the extra duties that will come with that... Then I came home and got ready for a trip to the beach. I joined my girl Michelle at her job and we headed to the beach as soon as she got off work.

We had fun at the beach making the world's whackest sand castle (definition of whack; it's #2 and #3), but at least we had fun doing it. We left the beach and went to pick up food for a meeting at our church. After the meeting, Michelle headed to choir practice while I went home to pick out clothes for our night out. I still hadn't decided by the time choir rehearsal was over, so I just headed to her house so she and our other friends could help me choose my outfit.

Then we headed out to this great spot in downtown Chicago called the Fit. It's a rooftop club at the Doubletree Hotel on State & Lake. Great atmosphere, pretty good crowd, ridiculously overpriced. But I recommend it if you pre-game first. We had fun talking, laughing, and people watching. I texted Easy to crack a joke about drunk-texting (he was amused, thank goodness). Turns out he played at the Fit last month sometime. Must've been one of those random gigs he went on that I heard about in passing. That definitely would've been one I would've wanted to attend.

I finally got home about 30 minutes ago. I had a 17 hour day. I haven't done that since early April. I must admit it feels good. I'd love to have days that are busy more often. But instead of hair appointments, errands, and hanging out, I'd like all of that to be spaced out over a number of days and to be stuff I did after work. Oh, if only I had a job to go work at, stupid Chicago unemployment.

Want To Go Bowling? Of Course You Do

I love bowling. I always have, but most of my friends don't, so it hasn't been a big part of my life since I was with my high school sweetheart who was on the school bowling team (and who left behind a bowling ball, thanks sweetie).

When my parents joined the church bowling league, I wanted in, but I was away at school. Now that I'm back in Chicago, I have the time and availability to join the league. So I'm in. My father goes to practice with some people from our church and I've started going with him occasionally to step my game up. Where do we go? Dolton Bowl, in Dolton, IL. I like this place for a number of reasons.

They've got free parking (I'm looking at you entire north side of Chicago). They've got great prices (I'm looking at you entire downtown of Chicago). They also do a lot of Professional Bowling Association (PBA) stuff that I'm just now learning about. Things like oil patterns that help people train for tournaments and stuff like that.

But they know their crowd. They also turn the bowling alley into a club at 10:30 pm. I believe they do it everyday in the summer, I can't speak for the rest of the year. The place gets overrun with people who can't legally drink yet and the music is sooooo loud. But we still bowl with deeper concentration.

They have food, the simple stuff you can get in a rec place: nachos, pizza, ice cream. They have a small bit of alcohol. They have friendly employees. Because this is Dolton though, the crowd is, in a word, ghetto. If that doesn't bother you, this is the alley for you. They take really good care of their alley lanes, computers, balls, even their bathrooms. Grab some buddies who like to pretend they don't need the bumpers and work on your game.

Places Mentioned In This Post: Dolton Bowl
Neighborhood in Chicago Area: Dolton, IL
Recommendations: 1. if you don't like all the noise, go before the teens show up at 10:30 pm.   2. Eat before you go, the food isn't that good.   3. Ask about the oil pattern on the lane. If you want something special or something normal, you'll want a specific lane.   4. Don't be afraid to switch balls if the one you have isn't working.
Who To Do This With: Friends or on a date