Best Shot(s) and Other Shots Monday--Smorgasbord

It's been a busy week photo-wise, so I'm going to have to incorporate my Best Shot(s) into a blog post to get caught up. Some of the photos below I would consider part of my best shots for the week, and others just part of the story. You can see other folks' best shots for the week at Tracey's Picture This.

My friends Yvonne and Justin and I get together on a regular basis to talk photos and take photos. We call ourselves the Photopeeps. Last Wednesday, we did a little photoshoot at our place with Yvonne's dog Barko and Cadence dressed up in costumes. Cadence barely fit into her catsuit, as this would be the 3rd year of her wearing it, but she was really into pretending to be a kitty. More like a little lion, perhaps...

I have to say, though, she makes a pretty cute kitty.

She's starting to look like such a KID. I mean, just look at that hair. She actually has enough for it to be blowing in the wind. She was such a bald baby for so long, I didn't think this day would come.

Saturday evening, Ted, Dave, Cadence and I headed to University Village for a Half Acre Beer tasting at Lush Wine and Spirits.

[For those of you who haven't heard, Ted is now a resident small batch brewer for Half Acre, which is a new Chicago beer company that just put out a lager over the summer. It's available in a bunch of places in Chicago right now—some liquor stores, a few Jewels, a couple 7-Elevens, some Whole Foods and other specialty grocers, especially in the Bucktown/Wicker Park area. If you like interesting lagers, you should check them out. Andrew Huff, the editor of Gapers Block has given it his seal of approval. Go to Half Acre's website, and you'll see a plug for Ted's brew blog in the right hand column.]

Dave's best friend (and Ted's former roommate) Keom met up with us at Lush. We went to Pompei for dinner, which is an old favorite haunt of Ted's from back when he lived at 800 South (the apartment where he and ALL his brothers lived at one point or another, as well as some close friends).

Keom's one of my favorite people. For one thing, we share a love of some of the same bands and we always talk music together. He's also fun to banter with on just about anything.

After dinner, we stopped in at Keom's new apartment in Pilsen. Cadence was delighted to find that a kitty lived there too, although I don't think the kitty was too happy about Cadence. Poor kitty…

Speaking of poor kitty, we (including Dave) went to Ted's parents' house in the burbs on Sunday, partly to deliver some framed photos of Sniper, the family cat, who died two weeks ago today. Sniper lived a long (16 years?) and happy life, free to roam and hunt in the woods on the property. Cadence was quite fond of Sniper, and I'm not sure she understands what's happened. She knows that he's not at Grandma and Grandpa's any more, but she did ask for him when we visited.

Another reason for our visit yesterday was to attend a bike race in Carpentersville that our friend Dave Norton was competing in. Since it was unseasonably warm out yesterday, Dad and (Uncle) Dave took a ride to the race in his Cobra. Dad took the long winding scenic route, and it was just lovely. I happened to catch this shot of Dave with his arms in the air. With the pretty fall foliage all around, it was quite a pretty drive indeed.

The race was just about to start when we got to the park, and all the riders were bunched together just waiting for the signal to start. This race is part of the 2007 Chicago Cyclocross Cup which will culminate in the final race in December at Montrose Harbor in Chicago.

We located our friend Dave amongst the crowd of cyclists. He looked pretty calm to me while waiting for the race to begin.

Cyclocross racing looks really challenging, as it requires not just cycling, but a variety of terrain AND dismounting and carrying your bike over obstacles at certain points. I think doing this for one lap would be more than enough for me. I don't know how these folks do it lap after lap.

We cheered for Dave whenever he passed us. Unfortunately, we were too far from the finish line at the end of the race so we didn't actually see him finish. In fact, HE didn't even know the race was over and thought he had another lap.

Cadence wore her cycle shirt for the occasion. Maybe watching the race will inspire her to be a cyclist someday. Her name would fit right into the sport, as 'cadence' is a cycling terminology.

Cadence fell asleep soon after we drove away from the bike race, and since Dundee has two microbreweries around the corner from each other, Ted and Dave decided to stop for a pint, while I stayed by the car so Cadence could keep napping. We parked facing the Fox River, and I took some photos of the seagulls soaring over my head. The sky was so blue, and the white birds literally glowed in the late afternoon sunlight as they would catch the wind in their wings and soar higher and higher [yikes, that sentence sounded way too much like a Bette Midler song!]. Watching them, I had to conclude that flying probably never gets old, even for a bird.

We went back to Ted's parents' house to have a little afternoon tea and cake (or limeade for Cadence) before we hit the road back into the city.

Cadence of course wanted to see the neighbor's horses, so we had to stop on our way out by the little pasture. Unfortunately, the horses were in the stable, and we could only see the baby horse's hindquarters.

Oh, the photo above? Cadence's finger was in her nose just moments before it was taken. For Grandma's sake, though, I waited until she took her finger out before I pressed the shutter.