Merry Chrismukkah!

Wooo hooo Chrismukkah officially started yesterday evening! I cheerfully, with the assistance of Shaun, got the apartment into full Chrismukkah mode last night. If these pics don't get you into the Chrismukkah spirit, I don't know what will!

Here is the banner I made a few years ago:

This is our tree:

And the menorah with some ornaments on the mantel:

And here's me, Miss Chrismukkah:

And what better way to get into the holidays than a Santa Beer Bong? My friend, Cassie, made this brilliant invention when we lived together in grad school:

Are you in the Chrismukkah spirit yet?! I know I am!

Merry Chrismukkah to all and to all a good night!

My Weather App is Judgmental

Here is a standard excerpt from my weather app on my Droid:

“Showers likely and a chance of thunderstorms in the morning. Unreasonably warm. Highs in the upper 60s. Southwest winds 15 to 25 mph. Cloudy with a 50 percent chance of rain showers in the evening, then clear after midnight.”

Weatherbug looks all cute and innocent but
it is judging the weather ...and you.

Unreasonably warm? It's Chicago, we all know that a lot of the weather is unexpected. Droid, who are you to say it’s unreasonable?

Ok, so my weather app actually uses the word “unseasonably” but every single gd time the app uses “unseasonably” I read it as “unreasonably.”  My brain just does not want to process the word “unseasonably” so instead I’m left feeling like I need to defend the weather to my phone. Or maybe I should just learn to read.

Fainting LOL Cats

Back when yours truly was a Junior in college, a lot of  unsettling events were taking place: SARS was running rampant, Johnny Cash died, Iraq was invaded, and Avril Lavigne and Stacy's Mom were at the top of the charts. We were all in need of something magical to lift our spirits. We got just that when Chubtoad and myself were channel surfing and happened upon a story about these fellows:



It was pretty life changing and I still laugh really hard every time I think about those poor little goats getting startled. I would trade my your first born for a chance to meet one in real life and scare the shit out of it. Many, many times.

Then, a couple weeks ago, Chubtoad sends me a link that is even better than the goats: pathetic, helpless kittens with fainting goat syndrome!!!!!!!!1! OMG. If you don't LOL while watching this video then you most definitely have zero emotion and no sense of humor and you are in fact a robot. Actually that's not even true. I showed this video to my robot pals and they laughed so hard they cried. And then they rusted. Then they died. It was actually kind of a tragic event and I'm really not over it yet so thanks for bringing it up, jerkface. Anyway, just watch this video because it is incredible:

The Origin of Branchie

A few months ago, bar hopping with Roommate on a Thursday night, we never thought we’d meet our new apartment mascot. But, on that magical night, it happened. And it was glorious.

Folks, let me introduce you to Branchie:



Isn't she great?



As we were stumbling walking gracefully down Wrightwood from a bar on Halsted headed over to Clark Street, there she was. The branch we had been waiting for all our lives. I was the first to spot her and quickly picked her up so that no one else could get to her first. When Roommate gave me a quizzical look, I announced “We could use this later.” And with that, she was our 3^rd musketeer.

I carried her down the street and we arrived at the next bar. As we entered, Roommate put her arm around Branchie and reassured the entire bar “Don’t worry, she forgot her ID, but she’s with us.” We took our seats at the bar. The staff did not seem pleased that we had brought a very large tree branch into the bar. It didn’t take long for a staff member to escort Branchie out of the bar. A good friend would have gone after her, but mine and Roommate’s priority at the time was beer.

A few sips into our drinks, this guy approaches and says “Let me buy you girls shots for bringing a whole fucking tree into a bar.” We accepted and were very pleased with ourselves for being so incredibly awesome. Things were fun until 2 seconds after our shots the guy says “So do you girls do coke?” Inappropriate and weird. We hurriedly finished our drinks and exited the bar. We were ecstatic to see Branchie was waiting for us in an alley right outside the bar.

No surprise, we swung into Weiner Circle for 2 orders of cheese fries and then made the short journey home with our new BFF. Branchie stayed in our living room for a few days …but then I got worried a bunch of ants or spiders or something would start crawling out of her so I moved her to the back porch. She’s been a fantastic 3^rd roommate ever since.

Bus Stop Enemy

I have a bus stop enemy. I don’t know who this guy is, I’ve never spoken with him, but we are definitely enemies.  It’s like in college during lecture at the start of the semester. It didn’t take you long to pinpoint your classroom enemy.  You’ve never interacted with them, had no idea who they were, but you just knew that you didn’t like them and they were destined to be your nemesis for the semester.

Every morning I walk over to the bus stop and like a normal person I get in line behind anyone who is already waiting. Then my bus stop enemy (let’s call him BSE for short) gets there, walks right past everyone else to the front of the line and stands right under the bus stop sign. WTF.

This is me

Who does he think he is? Why does BSE think that he is so important that he doesn’t have to follow the rules of a line? I didn’t hear anyone offering him cuts. And anyway, we all know that at the bus stop it’s no butts, no cuts, no coconuts.  Why does he believe he’s more entitled to a seat than anyone else? Did he fail bus stop etiquette class?  He must be a complete idiot because bus stop etiquette class is super easy, I got an A++. I cannot figure out why BSE completely ignores the already formed line and believes he should be the first one to enter the bus. He’s not disabled, he’s not elderly, and, as far as I can tell, he’s not a pregnant woman.

I understand that the busses in Chicago blow. There have been many a time that the bus arrives already crammed to capacity and only one more person can jam in and I have to wait for another to come. It sucks. But if a bus comes, and only one person can squeeze on, it should be the person who got to the stop first, not freakin BSE.

There are other things about BSE that make him the worst ever as well. Many times he has coffee with him. Which is cool, coffee is a necessity for me too in the morning. What’s not cool is that he is a mouth-breather. With coffee breath. And the bus is crowded and I don’t like strangers breathing on me as it is, let alone with nasty stink breath. Oh, and BSE wears a ring. Annoying, right? It’s not a wedding ring because it’s an ugly wide silver ring that he wears on his middle finger. It has a black tribal pattern going around it. It’s terrible.

He also may or may not be stalking me. As much as I try to leave for work at the same time every morning, it just doesn’t happen. But no matter if I’m early or running late, BSE gets on the same bus as me almost every morning. Clearly he is hiding out, waiting to see me approach every morning, and then walks over and does his douche move to the front of the line. So on that note, if I disappear please let the police know that the primary suspect is male, probably in his late twenties, has complete disregard for lines, has horrible breath and a dumb ring on his middle finger. They should be able to track me down in no time.

I Like This Day

Even though I'm at work until 8pm tonight, it's been a pretty great day. I'm also in a good mood because I've got plenty to look forward to this weekend as well. I'm feeling a lot like Jessica today:

The I Like Girl

Lauren's Likes For Today:
* I like sleeping in and not having to be at work until 11am
* I like getting a seat on the bus
* I like gyro day in the cafe
* I like my popularity skyrocketing (on the internet not IRL) (Totally kidding, I'm way popular in real life too)
* I like tons of Halloween candy brought in by my coworkers
* I like going to Champaign tomorrow
* I like open bar at the wedding on Saturday
* I like the good kind of daylight savings this weekend
* I like Starbucks giftcards sent by Gramma
I CAN DO ANYTHING GOOD!

Hope you're having a stellar day too!

It's a Free Cat Kind of Day

I'm not even really sure what a free cat kind of day is ...but this is probably my most favorite thing on the interwebs. Ever.

It's a classic. If you're ever exchanging funny emails with friends/coworkers, this one will win the prize every time. Trust me, I know. And I'm not having fun unless I'm winning. It also may most definitely will result in your pals assuming you are deeply disturbed. But who cares, you will be Champion of the Internet and cats are dumb anyway. Am I right or am I right?!


Happy Wednesday!

Halloween: 5 Years in Review

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I absolutely love thinking of creative costumes even though I usually get very stressed out -- thinking of a memorable costume is a lot of pressure! It's always a blast being out in costume and I really enjoy seeing what others came up with. Also there's a lot of candy involved, which helps push this holiday to the top of the list.

I'm quite proud of my last five costumes (I also only have digital photos of the last 5 years) so I thought I'd share some of my previous masterpieces.

Halloween 2006: Snakes on a Plane

This movie had come out that year. I was stumped for a costume until I was at the costume shop and saw flight attendant costumes. Then it hit me. So we wore flight attendant costumes and I sewed different size plastic snakes all over our outfits. Look closely, the snakes are a little easier to see on Kirk's outfit.

Halloween 2007: Bikers

I had been holding onto this idea for a while and in 2007 it came to fruition. Everyone knows that Super Troopers is one of my favorite movies. There is a hilarious scene where Foster and Ursula meet up for dinner in disguise since they are secretly dating. Ursula had told Foster to come as bikers. Ursula is decked out in biker chick gear: black, leather, big teased hair. When Foster walks in, he is dressed as a cyclist and says "Ohhhh biker. I'm an idiot." So here are Kirk and I as bikers:

Halloween 2008: Lion Tamer

Definitely not my most creative costume ever but it is really cute. The stuffed animal lion accessory helped take the costume to the next level. I did a lot of taming that night. Mostly I would throw the lion on the ground, whip him, and yell "Be tame!" at him. However, I also tamed my roommate's cat, a yellow lab, and several other animals.



Taming a ferocious lion.



Halloween 2009: Space Chimp

This is the first Halloween that Shaun and I were together. Shaun had been an astronaut every Halloween in recent history and was planning to be an astronaut again. I asked a bunch of friends what I could be that would go with an astronaut. Surprisingly, a very common answer was 'monkey.' I guess because they send cute little chimps into space. I bought a child's monkey costume from target and transformed it into my space chimp costume.

Halloween 2010: Moby Dick

Shaun really likes nautical things and (not so) secretly wishes he was a sea captain. While we were brainstorming costume ideas, I jokingly said we should be Captain Ahab and Moby Dick. And that was the end of brainstorming; Shaun was dead-set on that idea. We picked up most of Shaun's outfit from thrift stores. It's hard to see in the pic, but he also painted brown tights to look like wood for his peg leg. I wore all white, sewed myself a little whale tale, and found some whale socks because obviously whales wear whale socks. The part that put this costume into a league all its own is the fully functioning blowhole. I used a trick flower that clowns have that sprays water, removed the flower part, ran the tube up my arm and and up my back so that it came out right at my neck. Then when someone asked me what I was, I could spray them and say "I'm a whale!!" I did get a few dirty looks from the bar staff for spraying water a bunch of times. Oh well, totally worth it.

 

Moby Dick and Captain Ahab

 

Getting harpooned







It's going to be extremely hard to top these masterpieces next year...



I Guess I Have a Blog Now

So I’m not sure if I’m interesting anymore. I hate when I’m catching up with someone and they say “So, what’s new?” and I give a lametastic and horribly generic answer like “Oh, you know, work and just hanging out.”  I mean I’m having a lot of fun all the time, I go out and do things, my life doesn’t suck. But then why do I find myself giving this sort of dull answer? It makes sense if I’m talking to an acquaintance that I don’t know that well – no one’s going to launch into a long story or personal details with someone they hardly know.  But giving this type of response to long time friends and family members? Totally unacceptable.

Thus, this blog is mainly for selfish reasons. Right now I’m feeling like I need some reassurance that I have important things to say and that I can be fascinating. Hopefully I can also entertain some people along the way. I absolutely love telling stories (and think I’m pretty good at it <<pat on the back>>). I love captivating people’s attention, and making them laugh. For me, one of the best compliments I can receive is to be told I’m funny.  I’m not sure if I’ll be able have the same effect through writing, but I’ll give it a go. I just want to tell some of my favorite stories, share some thoughts, and have a creative outlet in my life.

I should probably let you know why my blog is called And Then I Ate Cheese Fries. First, just like thinking of an awesome trivia team name which is so often my job, thinking of a blog title is hard and there's a lot of pressure. So lay off. Second, basically anyone who’s anyone knows I love cheese fries. Third, if you add “And then Lauren ate cheese fries” (feel free to sub in pizza rolls, or taquitos, or a cookie cake) to the end of any story I share on here it will be 100% true.