brunch & uncle ryan

we had such a great time brunching with uncle ryan at publican, we thought we'd go for a repeat, but this time at the girl and the goat (top chef peeps, that's stephanie izard's restaurant. season 4. she was there, and very hands-on running the line in the kitchen).

girl and the goat is only open for dinner, but on super bowl sunday, offered brunch instead.

reservations win.
thanks ryan!

blurry

BRING IT

you didn't think she'd actually eat her food did you?
btw, yes that's what her hair really looks like: long scraggles in the front, short in the back.

she's picking up new tricks at daycare -- standing on her own.

sheesh, pipes!

and she has eyes for the valet guy at g&tg

but she's been seasoned in flirting for awhile now.

sidenote: but ... she's also smitten with this guy.

if you don't know keenan cahill, click.

(he's tight with katy perry, chelsea handler, and fiddy)

great brunch idea, uncle ryan!

brunch & uncle jamie

mr. jamie kanter was in town on business [school] and we were lucky enough to get to see him.  he joined ryan, wendy, patrick, piper and me at publican for sunday brunch.  a very delicious sunday brunch.  come back soon jamie!  and bring your wifey!!

i'll think i'll have the giraffe

or maybe i will just throw it on the floor

believe, the food was better than that giraffe could possibly be

poor baby

after an evening of piper coughing in an increasingly alarming choking manner, in a way that started to scare the bajeezus out of me, we were up all wednesday night with a poor little baby crying in pain. we finally ended up talking to the on-call pediatrician at 6am, like first time parents do. of course this was the day after the ped office had been closed for a day and half due to the blizzard, but we were able to get a 2:45 appointment later that day.

i kept waiting for the city to plow our street.
looking out the window, "is it plowed yet?"
all morning.
nothing.
afternoon.
nothing.
but it looking like other cars had eventually been able to pass through.

it was 8* and i didn't think i should take a sick baby out to wait for the north avenue bus.  it's nice that our doctor is just a couple blocks off of the 72 bus line, but not nice enough when it's 8*. 

and we've had weird luck with calling cabs lately.  and i didn't want to miss our doc appt.  and mid-day cabs on our main street aren't the best to leave to chance for a successful drive by hail.  again, too cold anyway.  so i reeeeeally wanted to drive.  also that way i could stop by the pharmacy if need be. 

eventually the time came to leave the house, with the bus being my backup plan. a bundled up piper and i headed to my car. 

we pulled out of the garage up the slope, which was freshly cleared by esteban, our building maintenance guy.  yes!! but once i got to our little street, thick snow still coated the ground. 

i turned onto the road, and stopped because the at&t van that was attempting to pass was stuck and spinning out like crazy.  i watched the huge van struggling, tires unable to grasp the ground, and spitting out snow instead.  i wished i hadn't already turned onto the street. "you can do it," i chanted in my head.
almost 10 minutes later, he made it to the main thouroughfare and turned onto the plowed avenue. 

that took forever

he made it.
so i took the plunge.
and attempted to move forward.

CRAP.

stuck.
ugh..

forward. spin.
backward. grip.
forward spin.
back grip.

i started backing up to where i started.
and i contemplated turning the other way on the street. 
the snow didn't look as deep.
i started turning the wheel the other way.
when esteban popped his head next to my window.

"no, don't go that way, you'll get stuck for sure."
"really?"
"ya, nothing that way is plowed at all.  your best chance is to follow the way the van went."
"you think?"
"ya, i think you can do it."

so i tried again.
damn it.
stuck.
umm, again.

i kept the window down and esteban started talking me through it.
"forward.  back.  forward.  now back.  no, don't turn your wheels like that.  your tires need to be straight."
"they're not?"
"no, look."
"oh."'
"now GO!"
spin.
spin.
grasp.
spin.
"i'm going to push you."
forward.
forward.
spin.
for ...
... ward.
spin.
forward, forward!

esteban pushed me all the way down the street, to the plowed avenue. 
which isn't that far.  but he pushed me there
i really thought i was going to get stuck, have to abandon my car in the middle of the street, and carry my baby to the bus.

thank you esteban!!!!

***

a couple hours later, after the doctor and the pharmacy, the street had a better path for cars:

looking back the way i had come from

it's okay piper! we made it!

miss piper has two ear infections in addition to her cough.  and you know what? amoxicillan tastes EXACTLY the same as when i was a kid!

make that : TWO snow days!

it certainly turned out to be a nasty storm. so much so, that not only did my office close early on tuesday, and shut down on wednesday, but we were closed on thursday too.

and ohhhhh i so badly wanted to go play in the snowy aftermath on wednesday and thursday.  it's no secret that I LOVE THE SNOW. but piper was sick, and getting worse, then she got a fever, and we had a high of 15 degrees forecasted for thursday. not only all that, but i took the "working from home" thing seriously.  though it felt like some of the office didn't (potentially not their fault since not everyone has a laptop with access to our servers)!  so now - grumpily - i regret it. 

at least i got homemade waffles on wednesday.
and *maybe* a mimosa. 

patrick and piper in the background.

then after brunch, all i could really do was yearn longingly out the window as the snow still fell, thinking of the fun that could be had running around in it.

***

here are few pics of the blizzard of 2011, scraped off the internet. there are more dramatic ones out there, but a few of these really reminded me of what we saw (though we didn't see lake shore drive in person).

what it looked like when i left the office on tuesday afternoon.

hundreds of abandoned cars on lakeshore drive.  my old boss from my former job did not heed warnings on tuesday, and did not close the office early.  said former boss got stuck on a stranded cta bus on lake shore drive until after midnight.  possibly the abandoned bus pictured above.

and this is what our street looked like. 
i.e., NOT PLOWED!!

don't you want to play in it???

pretty much what the cars in our neighborhood looked like on thursday.
before i lived in snow, i'd think 'no big deal'
but now i know what a pain must be to dig out, only to go nowhere because the street isn't plowed. very glad we have two indoor parking spaces right now.

looks like they plowed downtown!
what a mess!

Chicago Residents Call "Dibs" On Dug-Out Parking

by The Associated Press

In this Feb. 4, 2011 photo, chairs are placed to mark parking spots for those who shoveled snow off in Chicago. A blizzard that dumped nearly 2 feet of snow has revived a longstanding Chicago tradition: Break out the patio furniture. Or, if none is available, suitcases, garbage cans, strollers, bar stools and milk crates work, too.

Associated Press In this Feb. 4, 2011 photo, chairs are placed to mark parking spots for those who shoveled snow off in Chicago. A blizzard that dumped nearly 2 feet of snow has revived a longstanding Chicago tradition: Break out the patio furniture. Or, if none is available, suitcases, garbage cans, strollers, bar stools and milk crates work, too.

 A blizzard that dumped nearly 2 feet of snow has revived a longstanding Chicago tradition: Break out the patio furniture. Or, if none is available, suitcases, garbage cans, strollers, bar stools and milk crates work, too.

All these items are frequently used by Chicago residents in a time-honored yet controversial system of preserving parking spots, known as "dibs."

In an urban version of wild animals marking their territory, residents use chairs and other objects to tell anyone who passes that someone has taken the trouble to dig out enough snow to park a car — and that person expects the spot to remain available when the vehicle returns.

"It is an unwritten rule of etiquette," attorney Chris Sheaffer, 34, said as he was about to place a bright blue folding chair on a spot he'd dug in front of his North Side home. "And you bear the consequences if you break it."
Actually, the city has an ordinance covering dibs, and it's illegal.
But one look at block after block lined with markers ranging from a simple cardboard box to elaborate barricades of chairs, ropes and bright ribbons, and it's clear the law gets the same kind of compliance in Chicago that Prohibition once did.

The practice is so ingrained in the fabric of the city that almost immediately after the blizzard ended, the candidates running for mayor were asked where they stood on the practice. Three told the Chicago Sun-Times they were in favor of "dibs," while one was noncommittal. The retiring Mayor Richard Daley dances around the issue, but he has made no secret of his sympathy for people who spend time digging snow only to lose their parking spots to someone else.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=133524803

snowwwwww day!

snowmageddon.
snowpocolypse.
snow2k
snoverboard.
s'no joke, it's a BIG storm. 

we don't know what the extent of this storm will be, but for safety reasons both my office and patrick's office closed at 3pm today. and they're both closed tomorrow. it doesn't exactly mean it's a party though.  in fact, if patrick and i are both working from home, and if piper is here (miss amanda's will likely be closed too), it will probably be stressful between trying to get work done and take care of the baby at the same time.  things like, "your turn, no your turn."  poor pipes is going to hate not having undivided attention.  but we'll be home safe.  even if it does kind of sound like our roof is ripping off right now.

so tonight, as the storm is taking effect, it's windy and it's cold, and there are white-out conditions.

we've hunkered down, with blankets and slippers.

and had a pizza party. 

with champagne.

and piper had some banana.

and in the morning, we'll see just how much snow this storm really drops!