No place I'd rather be

1. We've got 18ish inches of snow and it's still coming down.  Naturally, I am working from home today. I hope to use my lunch break to build a snow structure of some sort.

2.  I'm currently sitting in my PJs, drinking coffee and Kenny is making oatmeal.  Am cozy and happy.

3.  Eli is eating roughly 50% of his cheerios and giving 25% to Leroy and 25% to Jack.  That's only fair because...

4.  I took 4 pieces of dog food out of Eli's mouth this morning.  He somehow got Leroy to abandon his food and then kept putting another piece in after I got one out.  May not have been on my A game this morning.

5.  Eli is now standing and taking the cheerios out of his high chair seat to give to the puppies and eat himself.  

6.  How do people have babies without puppies?

7.  Life is very good. 

All the fun is about to happen!

Fridays almost feel better than Saturdays. There’s just so much hope and promise in a Friday. And there’s the jeans at work. It’s just a recipe for wonderful.

The second annual 3M conference is to be held in Chicago this weekend. The 3M conference has nothing to do with the people that make adhesives and such but everything to do with my Molly and Megan coming to Chicago where there's an eMoly. I’m almost too giddy to work today.

This year’s cast features two pregnant ladies with sciatica and muscle aches and one who is running a marathon next weekend. I’m pretty sure Molly usually snores and Megan wrote ahead to make sure she could have 5 pillows to sleep with—so they will most certainly have a great time sharing a bed. The last trip involved lots of wine drinking. Kenny said he'd make milkshakes for Megan and me while he and Molly took care of the wine drinking this year.

Regardless, it's certain there will be much estrogen, shopping and pizza had by all. I think Kenny is planning to immerse himself in projects involving power tools.

People who have wronged me

I always do this. I don’t post for weeks at a time and then I feel the need to post less than 24 hours later. Oh well. Here goes.

Lindsey reminded me that I neglected to mention the great injustice wrought upon the Kodkagel and Johnson households this weekend. A few weeks ago we discovered that Lindsey was to arrive in Chicago days before we were to leave Chicago. She has family in Rockford, IL see. There was great joy and celebration at the revelation that Lindsey could not only come by for a short visit—but that she could even stay overnight with us. Wine was stockpiled. The guest room was prepared. Her flight was supposed to get in around 11:00 am. I am sure you can see where this is going. Since she was both flying United and flying into O’hare (the black hole we call an airport) I was certain we could expect her around 4 or 5 that evening. The weather was mildly cooperative. Her plane was not. United kept my Lindsey on a play for like 4 hours and didn’t take her anywhere. They also wouldn’t give her a meal voucher, and I’m pretty sure they made unkind insinuations about her mother. They cancelled her flight and refused to bring her to Chicago until the following evening—completely cancelling what was going to be a wonderful visit. This is not the first time United has wronged Lindsey, but it will be the last.

Also, there is a bit of a blizzard going on outside the office windows right now. It’s gonna be a fun drive to St. Louis in a few hours! At least we’re not putting our faith in United to get us there. They would probably hold our puppies hostage and make us go to Cincinatti or something. I’m pretty sure they do that sort of thing.

What? I have a blog?

I think this whole remembering to blog thing will be on my New Year's resolution list. I have several important things to tell both of you.

1. It is very cold in this Chicago place. Also, Kenny and I are brilliant. We decided to wait until yesterday to dig our car out of considerable ice and snow. It was 4 degrees below zero while we did this.
   
2. Leroy expressed his undying love for Jack today. He gave Jack a thorough bath. Licked the inside of both ears thoroughly and then moved onto the nether regions. Jack seemed to either not mind it or enjoy it. Either way, it's a victory in Jack-Leroy relations.
3. In other news and evidence of our high intelligence--it did not snow today or yesterday. We are opting to drive to St. Louis tomorrow night during the snow and ice storm.
4. Happy Hannukah or Hanukkah or Chanukkah. The burning candles are among the few items keeping us not completely frozen. If only it were not merely the second night.
5. Kenny has both of the puppies right now. This is in clear violation of the rules attached to the thermostat agreement the cheap bastard drew up a few weeks ago. I still love him.
6. Monday night football is a crappy way to squeeze more unwanted football into my life.
   
7. I really don't mind cleaning up puppy feces as much as I feel like I should.
   
8. I might have to go see two movies on Christmas day in allegiance to both Brad and Jen.
9. Numbers are an excuse to not have to come up with cohesive thoughts or segues.
   

Kiss kiss.

Our life in Chicago, quantitatively speaking...

Between the visits that have already occurred and the ones planned through September we will have had

25 nights booked in that cozy guest room of ours
13 people stay with us
8 additional people who have visited but stayed elsewhere and
13 nights spent by Kenny and I in
5 other Midwestern cities

Also, as of today we have had

4 temp jobs
9 interviews and
0 full-time jobs

And we've only made

1 trip to the Magnificent Mile
1 trip to the Navy Pier
1 trip to the beach
1 trip to a concert
0 trips to museums
0 trips to plays (in Chicago)

But we have made

3 trips to the $3 movie theater
5 trips to Boystown
4 trips to the Cozy Corner Diner (home of the cheesecake stuffed french toast)
5 trips to BYOB restaurants

And we've been to

10 grocery stores
3 farmers markets
3 liquor stores
3 Chicago-style deep dish pizza places

The good stuff

I was at my last job for over a year--in some ways, I was there for two years. About a year and a half into the job I got my name put on a mailbox. The end.

After being at my new temp-to-perm job for two days, I was given a real-life-printed name plaque on my cubicle. Today I was handed a new directory with my name on it. I've met at least 90% of the staff and have had lunch with many of them. Many people stop working during lunch and go into a room that is completely separate from their desks. It's awesome. Also, we have free coffee, tea, soda, and the occasional goldfish snack.

In other news, we've lived here for about six weeks and have been visited on various weekends (plus) by my mother, my brother and his partner, a friend, and my father. The in-laws arrive in a few days. So this is what it's like to have a guest room...interesting.

All of these visits have forced us to get out of our house and do a little Chicago exploring. I'm starting to feel like maybe I live here, and maybe I'm not just a visitor. I still gotta figure out the good places to take people, but that takes time--it did in DC too.

For now, here is my top of list reasons why all of my friends should move here:

1) Better prices (groceries, restaurants, housing, airline tickets...I could go on)
2) Friendly people (cliche, but true)
3) BYOB restaurants
4) The flatness--it's incredibly easy to bike here
5) The spring/summer weather--I know a lot of people think the weather is a good reason to not move here (and yes, I know it's not winter and I will probably be singing a different tune then), but it's been so nice and 60s and 70s ish for most of the time we've been here. There's also been plenty of rain and thunderstorms. I'll probably eat my words, but man I love snow and I am looking forward to that too.
6) Pizza. It's everywhere--and not just deep dish. Oh pizza, I love you so much.
7) Water--we got a lake AND a river.

And the results are in...

Kenny wins the contest for fewest pairs of underwear in a round of laundry. In the approximately 2.5 weeks since we last did laundry, Kenny generated 6 pairs of underwear. I lapped him coming in with 12.

As you can tell, we've been up to all kinds of fun things around here. We experienced the magic and wonder that is Bubbleland. Actually, magic and wonder might be overstating. With a name like Bubbleland, I was ready for a room filled with soapy foam and furniture made out of bubbles and bubble themed food. This was not the case, but we did get our laundry done a million times faster than when we use the crappy machines in our building. Oh my, am I writing a post about laundry?

In other news, we encountered the Illinois DMV this week. We're all official now with Illinois plates and drivers licenses. The process was less painful than we expected and each DMV employee we encountered was...chipper. Each except one guy who saw that I was from DC and said eww. That guy was kind of a jerk, except not really (he was still friendly), but he was wrong. Kenny had an extraordinarily great time.

How Chicago is gonna make me fat

1. Stuffed french toast. A diner near our house serves a special french toast. A french toast stuffed with CHEESECAKE filling. You kind of have to split it with somebody or I have a feeling the waitresses would scold you.
   
2. Nachos. We had to go to a bar before we had internet at the house because Kenny was having a Lost meltdown. Our first unsuccessful cable appointment was on a Thursday and was supposed to work out perfectly so that we could watch the previous week's show before that night. Instead, we headed to a bar that had free wireless. We ordered our standard $2 PBRs and the waitress asked if we would like some nachos. They were on special for $5. A few minutes later we ordered them and she asked the awe inspiring question, "Do you want those with chips or WAFFLE FRIES?"
   
3. Fried mac n cheese bites. We were at a bar celebrating some friends' birthdays. The kitchen was about to close. I had two minutes to get my order in. I opened the menu and immediately saw them. They were as good as they seem like they would be and they came with ranch for dipping. This is something I had missed about the Midwest. Everything comes with ranch and if it doesn't, nobody looks at you funny for asking for some.