Happy wedding shower day to Cristin. Today I was the proud winner of bride bingo. Okay, well, I tied with soon-to-be mother-in-law, but I called it first and ran with the prize bag and a small fight broke out when she tried to steal it from me. 
110 stories, 16,100 windows, 1,450 feet tall. (Tallest in the world until 1998.) In the skydeck, on a windy day, you can feel the building sway (no thanks!), and on a clear day, you can see Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Frank and Jim both know how to fly now, but they spend much of their time cowering behind this poopy flower box. Like chickens. They stare, stink, and make noise. I think we can all agree-it's time they moved out.
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
but I totally spaced off a blog post yesterday. I sat straight up in bed at 5a.m. this morning and ran to my computer and blogged about Max and went back to bed, I'm not sure what this accomplished except that I think I managed to make it just in time for a couple of the Aleutian Islands to still be experienceing 11:30p.m.-ish Saturday, August 23. Part of me thinks that this gets me off the hook and another part of me thinks that I need to start over on that year-long blog goal. We'll shall see. Let me think about it.
All I can say as we pack up our bags to head home to Chicago, is that Nebraska has gotten pretty cute.
My sister Katie has taken up photography with her new camera and I must say, she is a talent! Here are a couple of my favorite photos that she took around her home.
I've been golfing once in my life and it was in high school. It was a disaster. I went again today and this is proof.
And this is my ball ON the green and my golfer brother's ball OFF the green after tee-off. (Is that what you call it?)
Well we have a big project cut out for us tonight. I was sitting here doing work real innocent like, when I heard an enormous crash. I was sort of scared that it had to do with the construction right outside our third floor window. But, in actuality, it was the entire insides of Eric's closet. The whole shelf/hanging thing unit just collapsed and everything that was once involved with it is either scattered across the floor or hanging in crumpled bunches off the crappy wire rack. (For the record, every time we look at a house or town house that is new or gut rehabbed, my biggest pet peve, my deal breaker, is if they used crappy wire rack in their closets. No self respecting developer or renovator uses crappy wire rack in their closets. Including whoever renovated this condo fourteen years ago.) Now I know with certainty that my instincts were right and I stand as justified as ever. Not that anyone was arguing with me. But you might as well feel good about something when your closet falls apart just 3 days before your open house and 45 hours before you leave town.
They've put up fake owls at the South Street beach in Evanston. There's a bit of a seagull problem. They usually cover about half of the beach. People cover the other half. They stuck three plastic owls out on sticks in the sand and it cracked me up because at first the gulls were just floored and the skeptical ones floated around in the water (tons of white dots on the waves) keeping their eyes on the situation, the other half, the go-with-the-flow types, simply moved to the people side of the beach (and the people moved to the plastic owl side of the beach). But now, after a couple of days of careful watch, they all know that those owls won't blink an eye at them and the universe of the beach is all back to normal and balanced out as it once was, with the addition of three plastic owls for the gulls to catch some shade under.
Today, while walking Max, we saw the world's largest caterpillar. When it comes to be cocoon or pupa time, whatever comes out will be the size of an eagle. We also came across a paper bag farm, that we just couldn't make any sense of. We assume that they are very rare and so are worth reporting right here.
This is an artistic rendition of Eric's dining experience with me throughout our marriage. It's called "Jessie spills something at every meal."
The mother and little ones seem to be doing well, but no one's getting any prettier.
O That Summer
That famous duckling has nothing on these guys. The poor things are UGLY! I wouldn't blame her if mamma pigeon, somewhat embarrassed, quietly sneaks back off to find her friends, pretending that this whole thing never happened. If she doesn't, well then, the situation just got more piteous. And I just won't be able to stop watching.
