This is my pumpkin.

This is a giant squid that works in my office.

This is a giant squid dancing at Kanga-Roo Park.

This is a giant squid sleeping on the # 6 bus.

Our night on the town

Here we are, in the night, on the town.  You can tell it's a big town because that yellow blur is a taxi.

Kyle secretly went hunting during our night on the town-- he slew this elephant made of bicycle inner tubes (with whoopie cushion trim).  This is, to my knowledge, the only such elephant ever, or at least so far.  So now they're extinct.

I think Kyle might give a speech-- he certainly appears to be in the line of speakers, doesn't he?  What do you suppose the title of his speech will be?  "How I eradicated the modern plague of inner tube elephants" might be appropriate, or "We are all wearing leis tonight, and you should wear one too" or even "An ode to lobster hotdogs." 

Lobster hotdogs... delicious.

Look who's in town... oh yeah, it's my brother, Dustin! I got to see him at O'Hare on Saturday. Yet another reason why it's so much better to live in the city, folks, because I got to see him before y'all.

P.S. The y'all is for Min. But the pics and the post are for one and all.

Filmed on July 24, 2010 by Gregg Schlie on a Super 8 camera.

a few notes about where we're from

Kyle is originally from Kokomo. I don't know much about Kokomo, but I do know these two things:

1. This isn't some island in the tropics, as the Beach Boys had led me to believe. Maybe there is an island called Kokomo, but it's something else. Perhaps even spelled differently.

2. Kokomo, if I remember correctly, is thus named because it was founded by three friends, Koko, Mo, and Forgetful Jojo, who kept forgetting that Koko and Mo already knew each other and thus he spent a lot of time re-introducing them, and was doing so when some conquistadors came strolling along, overheard them, stuck a flag in the ground and claimed Kokomo for whatever kingdom they'd come from. Often conquistadors change the names of the towns they "discover," but in this case they astutely realized that Kokomo has a nice ring to it, and left it alone (apart from taking over and planting flags and such). And isn't it nice for Kokomites everywhere that the forgetful founding father was Jojo? Otherwise the town might have been named Jokojoko (which is laughable as names go) or Mojojo. Or, more likely, some generic conquistadorean name.

I mostly grew up in Groveland.

Groveland was originally called Centrella, as it is found in the very center of Central Illinois. But its citizens were great fans of Grover Cleveland, and 2 years into his reign they changed the name of the town to Grovercleveland. After he left office, Groverclevelanders (as they were then called) lobbied loud and long for the former Mr. President to build his presidential library in their charming town. He rudely & callously dismissed their pleas as ridiculous and began instructing his secretary to return all mail postmarked Grovercleveland as "Return to sender, because sender is a dolt and addressee doesn't want to read his or her stupid letter." By the way, this is not normally a valid Return to sender reason, but the postal service makes exceptions for ex-presidents. Rightly outraged, the Groverclevelanders unanimously decided to change their name yet again. They couldn't go back to the name Centrella, as it had since been assumed and copyrighted by a distributor of inexpensive canned & boxed foods. The town French teacher suggested simply shortening the name to Gland, as that is the french word for acorn, and acorns are plentiful in the center of Central Illinois. For a few months, Gland was the name of the town, but nearby nemesis town Morton (which has been trying to annex Groveland for centuries) kept mocking the name and calling the town Sweat Gland. So the townspeople were frustrated and stumped, until a bright child suggested Groveland since it kept much of Grovercleveland (which had been a really fun & beloved name prior to the library fiasco) and accurately described the general landscape of the town, which is spotted with groves of trees, many of which, but by no means all, are acorn-producing oaks. And Groveland was a hit (plus the bright child's dad was the deputy mayor, and his mom was the head librarian of the town's nice-but-not-presidential library), and that is what the town is called to this day.

A few weeks ago Shannon found these ancient golden clippers on the sidewalk and immediately knew they belonged in a museum.  It so happens that one of the best museums in Chicago is just down the street from our apartment and its collection is made up of things found on the sidewalk.  For such a startling and important find I suggested we get it to the museum curator immediately, so we jumped on it; we photographed the clippers, wrote their history on purple paper, taped them both into an envelope, sealed the envelope and addressed it to the curator, took Roxanne for a walk, went to the store, made dinner, ate dinner, read for a bit, wasted some time on Facebook, did some laundry, washed some dishes, had ice cream, took another walk, brushed our teeth, put on pajamas, slept, woke, showered, made and ate breakfast, took Roxanne for a walk, worked all day, came home, put Roxanne on her leash, armed ourselves, and the three of us marched it right over to the museum in person.  And a few days later it went into the museum collection.  At least we assume so.  Sadly some inconsiderate thief (an assumption) wasted  no time in thieving them (another assumption) inconsiderately (yes, another assumption and yes, we saw it coming too).  So you can't see them in person and now this post will be all that we currently know about this rare and once again missing treasure.  If you would like to check out the exhibit minus the actual clippers, visit the Museum of Objects Left on the Sidewalk at 2-8-something-something West 21st Place (it's on the south side of the street much closer to California than Marshall).  Dogs are welcome.

Ramen for lunch sometime last week

Saturday night

Sunday afternoon at the Brink of Death

Kyle J. Schlie, problem solver extraordinaire,
Has been solving some problems with verve & with flair.
These problems are tricky, these problems are slyyyy,
But they're no match at all for this solvingish guy.
He whips out some velcro, he digs up a saw,
While me and Roxanne look on, all struckish with awe.
Ah, yes, just a typical night on 21st place,
Me, the dog, and the problem-dashing ace.

So here is what we had for dinner last night. I had never made lasagna before. Assuming it would be way too tricky & time-consuming, I'd resigned myself to a life of mooching off of other people's lasagnas, whenever they happened to make them. But! It's really not that bad! Kyle had made some before and assured me it was do-able, plus we already had a bunch of the ingredients (even real live basil growing in the backyard), and so voila, lasagna. We added mushrooms (because we had them) and a smashed anchovy for umami goodness; used diced tomatoes instead of crushed (because that's what was in the cabinet), cayenne pepper instead of red pepper (same reason), and sliced rather than shredded mozzarella... and didn't really measure very many ingredients. . It worked-- it's yummy and delicious, and now that I've finally finished eating my breakfast, I plan to have some for lunch... once I've waited a respectable amount of time.

Hooray for Kyle! An illustrious jury chose him as a finalist for Chicago's first annual Art Loop Open! See his work (and vote for him if you like) at the Hard Rock Hotel beginning the 15th of October. Click here for more info, or here for a sneak peek.