Garfield minus Garfield

I have some huge deadlines coming up for work so I've been trying to find anything else to do but my work. One of them is reading this great tumblr that Eric pointed out to me called "Garfield minus Garfield." It's quite possibly my favorite thing on the internet at the moment. It's just as it says, Garfield comics without Garfield which results in a sad, delusional, schizophrenic and desperate Jon Arbuckle. It's not very nice to laugh at sad, delusional, schizophrenic and desperate people, but it's okay this time since he's a cartoon. Here are a few of my favorites but visit the blog garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com for a daily dose of fun.

Shamrock Shuffle

Well kids, I did it. On this cold Chicago morning Eric, Chris, Stacy, Tom and I ran the Shamrock Shuffle, the world's largest 8K race. I beat my goal of 55 minutes (by 15 seconds). Eric left us all in a cloud of dust and finished at 42.30 minutes. Shoo-wee.


Eric would like you to think that after the race I was double fisting it and that I helped myself to more than my fair share of beer tickets. But as you can see I was only holding Chris's beer as he warmed his very cold hands. Yes, it may seem that we are lunatics to wake up at the crack of dawn on a weekend, take an hour long train ride, stand around in the cold and drizzle for over an hour, run five miles, stand some more in the freezing mist and drizzle, drink a beer at 10:30 am, and then take an hour long train ride back home. But this is what we call fun.


Of course, my favorite part was hugging this very happy Shriner's hat. We were wearing the same outfit.

Navy Pier

We had to stop by Navy Pier last night to pick up our race packets for the Shamrock Shuffle (tomorrow). The pier used to be called Municipal Pier until after World War I when they renamed it to honor Navy veterans. During World War II, the U.S. Navy used the pier as a training center and afterward, the pier became a campus for the University of Illinois (1946-1965). It wasn't until 1989 that the pier was polished up to become a place to keep the tourists at arms length from the city. (Seriously, there's a trolley that loads 'em up and moves them out there and then doesn't show back up for hours and hours). Besides being home to Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Chicago Public Radio (okay and maybe the architectural boat tours), Navy Pier is mostly for kids and suckers.

Candles

So I meant to have a post about these the other day when they came in a fun package in the mail, but I am easily distracted. Eric's sister, Miss Sarah Huls, made these candles with her own two hands and sent them to us, all the way from Idaho. She buys the wax (and from what I understand, she found a deal online so now has four truck loads of it in her living room) and then somehow, magically melts into it various scents. We got Cinnabon and Strawberries and Cream or if you're me and you burn them at the same time, you have strawberry cinnabons with cream. Sarah says that they even have scents you can order such as "monkey farts " and "butt naked." Sounds sick and wrong right? Whatever. I'm curious. I totally want to smell those. And you know you do too.

Bikes that fly

This morning when I was out walking Max, I saw this man riding his bike. He kept skidding to a stop right about alongside where Max and I were walking. At first I wondered if he was trying to be silly. I mean, I'm real cute first thing in the morning with pillow creases across my face, pajama pants four inches too short, my hair falling out of the do I fell asleep with. He could very well have been flirting. But the third time he slid to a halt, he got off the bike, picked it up, and THREW it about forty feet. It took every last ounce of my self control to not take a picture of him pulling the bike out of someone's bushes. Instead, I turned the corner and turned my thoughts to biking this summer. I can hardly wait-but I have to until I have the chance to go buy a bike. My spiffy mountain bike that I bought in college got stolen, but that's okay, I was constantly worried about that happening, so I guess now I can stop. I'd been hoping to swap it out with an old used street bike that no one would want anyhow. So on to an old ten speed this summer! Though, I'll make sure it works better than my friend's from this morning.

Better Macaroni and Cheese than you have ever dreamt up in your wildest dreams.

Thanks Steph for giving me this book. Thanks Amy Sedaris for putting this recipe in your book. Thanks Jennifer McCullen for giving Amy this recipe.

Heighten Frighten

That wicked tooth actually gave me heebie jeebies before I started laughing and rolled down my window, camera in hand. Just so happened that I had a couple of my senior citizen friends with me in the car (we were (seriously) on the way to Denny's). They laughed and decided that kids these days will take a picture of anything. And then one of them told me that "hessberger" is German for "mountain climber." Not sure if that's true or not. Or if it matters. It's just what happened.