I've been a bad girl

And I have been scolded. It did not go beyond Jerry's notice that I haven't been blogging so much recently, and he teased me so relentlessly that I cried. Okay, I didn't cry. I laughed and promptly told him to shut his pie-hole. But I do really need to update my public on what's been going on with me. I know you don't want to find out from Perez Hilton.

I managed to snake the two days after the 4th of July off of work so I flew home on July 3rd to spend some quality time with friends and family. There was no traffic going to LaGuardia, I flew through security, got on a much earlier flight and made it home in time to see these:

YEAH!!! Chicago fireworks!! Sweet! Great show as always, I was happy to catch it. And I got to hang out with these two crazy love birds. You might recognize them as the people most recently seen in fancy clothes with lots of crystal and gift certificates.

I had a low-key 4th of July with the newlyweds, my cousin Tony, my Aunt Janye and Uncle Tom. We ate, gabbed and played the world's longest game of bocce ball. I also set Aunt Jayne up with her very first e-mail account... but I've received no messages so my guess is she forgot how to use it. I'll have to call to bug her about it.

On the 5th I spent the morning with my friend Jen who used to kick people with me (we took Taekwondo together once upon a time). I got to see the progress she and her husband Marshall have made on their fixer-upper house in Elmhurst. Then I headed downtown to speak to a class of students at my old design school. It was pretty fun to explain what I do for a living these days, and they actually seemed interested. I think their teacher Duffy, now a friend of mine, may have puffed my reputation up a little! After that, drinks with mom who had a bad day and needed a martini. Who am I to stop her?

On Friday Mom took the day off and we went through the entire house and I told her what needs to be thrown out, how to rearrange the furniture when it gets moved from the condo, and what she can do to make it easier to sell. After that we ran errands to pick up things to accomplish this task, and then got mani/pedis. It was really nice just to hang out. I miss being able to just spend time with her, and it doesn't have to be something special. We have fun no matter what we do.

Then I was off to Kristen's house to meet up with her, her date Ethan, and Harley where we took the el up to Wrigley Field to see a bunch of old guys...

Yeah, it was awesome. Kristen and I were trying to "go with the flow" and we planned to just show up and buy tickets that night. The word around town was that there was a glut of tickets people expected to sell at a profit and not only were they not moving, but the concert hadn't even sold out (Thursday night had, but Friday hadn't). So we got up there, got some dinner, figured people would be throwing tickets at us shortly after the concert started at 7 with the opening act. Um, yeah, not the case. Apparently everyone in the city had our same thought and by the time we got back to the stadium tickets for sale were going for double, and they weren't many of them. So at 8 we ended up buying tickets from the box office. Spent a little more than any of us wanted too, but we got in and the show was a lot of fun. I think we only missed 2 songs, but we heard them from outside the stadium anyway. Of course all this just affirmed Kristen and my firm belief that planning is always best! Can't fight nature.

Saturday was brunch with my friend Monique at Wishbone, Chicago staple. We met working at an Internet company when the Internet Bubble was still full of hot air. It burst, we both went separate work ways but always remained friends. I hadn't seen her since I left Chicago and it was wonderful to catch up. After that I went back out the burbs for a little outlet shopping with Mom and dinner with her and Homer. Then I somehow got my ass back in the car at 10pm to go back into the city to see Melissa and Scott. They had a wedding earlier so we had to hang late. I just pretended I was still on NY party time. Because Melissa and Scott are awesome we laughed all night telling stories and catching up. They are getting married in less than two months now and they aren't crazy at all. At least not any more crazy than they ever were. Perhaps they just hide it well...

Sunday morning I had brunch with Jeff, my ex-boyfriend from San Diego who now lives in Chicago again with his new girlfriend who we all used to work with together at the aforementioned Internet company where Monique also worked. PHEW, that was a mouthful! We are friends now, obviously, and enjoyed the opportunity to catch up. He may even play a little golf with Homer since they are both looking for new golf buddies. After that it was back out to the burbs to hang out with Mom and Homer, and their children, Duke the dog and Damon the cat. Mixed families can be difficult, but this one seems to be working out. Duke is as stupid a dog I've ever seen, and Damon is really smart. So you can imagine, the smaller of the two makes the rules in that house. And here is my big boy Damon, king of the house, hanging out on a lawn chair in the sun, overlooking his kingdom and his subjects.

Back to work I went on the first flight out Monday morning. Since then it's been a flurry of meetings and prep work for this one enormous client. In my downtime I've been painting my apartment, attempting to get back to some kind of regular workout schedule, and managed to sneak out to see Jerry and Jenna twice over the weekend. Oh yeah, and I spend a lot of time with my new favorite past time, complaining endlessly about the heat index in this damn city. It's unreal.