goodbye lunch for auntie lore

...i think i've mentioned that ted's little sister lauren ('lore', 'orangeloren') is embarking on a new adventure and moving to sweden to be with douglas, her boyfriend of 3 years. after my statistics exam on friday, we met up with lore and dave and becki at victory's banner in roscoe village for a goodbye lunch.

...oh, the other big news is that dave and his girlfriend becki are now ENGAGED! i think it's okay to say that here, since we told yia yia last sunday, and i doubt grandma carol has internet access. anyhoo, yup, it's true, and we're very excited! so now becki is auntie becki, and i'm very glad because we are going to miss auntie lore when she's far away in sweden, and auntie ali is far away in seattle.

...anyhoo, lauren and her one way ticket are leaving on a jet plane to lund, sweden on tuesday. i personally cannot imagine moving to another state, let alone a whole other COUNTRY on a different CONTINENT. mainly because i can barely get myself to pack for a mere vacation, and when i do actually move residences, i end up with a ton of stuff thrown into about a dozen miscellaneous boxes at the 11th hour, and i can't imagine they'd let you on a plane with that many miscellaneous boxes without charging you an arm and a leg and a bubbo (cadencean for 'elbow').

...hopefully, lauren will be back for one of the holidays later this year, so she won't miss all of cadence's toddlerhood. and if i ever get up the nerve to fly across the ocean with a preschooler, maybe we'll go visit her in sweden. but cadence would have to become a lot more docile for that to happen and for some reason, i have my doubts about that...

...in other news, we have a new addition to the family. becki's mom sent a gift for cadence, and it happens to be a very life-like dolll. it's not 100% lifesize, but the details are amazingly accurate. i just hope this doesn't cause cadence to start asking for a brother or sister. hopefully, this doll will suffice for now.

...i love this picture of cadence giving her uncle dave a smooch! ha ha. i think it's the best photo i've gotten of her smooching something or someone.

...man, what a cutie. yeah, she can be a screaming terror at times, but usually she really is this adorable.

well, my birthday was yesterday. i can't believe i'm 34. my brother says i'm in my mid-30s now, but i'm gonna stick to the notion that i have one whole year before i have to admit to being in that demographic.

my cousin kris and friend connie came over for dinner last night. ted cooked a fabulous dinner of tilapia with tomatillo sauce, avocados with creamy maque choux (corn and peppers) and margarita granita. the menu was from rachel ray's 30 minute meals2 book, but i would have to say that this was more like a 2 hour meal. it was definitely worth the wait though. everything was sooooo goooood. it was great seeing connie and kris again, and i think ted had fun playing chef, bartender, brewmeister, and host.

now i have to get back to my reading while cadence is still napping. ted got me 3 books off my amazon wishlist for my birthday, and one of them is margaret salinger's 'dream catcher', a memoir about life with her dad j.d. salinger. and y'all know how i feel about the J.D....

dream about bob dylan

...so i had a dream last night. in it i'm my younger self, maybe around 18 or 19. and in my dream, bob dylan lives in my attic. not only that, but in this dream, bob dylan is my dad. he also has a friend named pete who speaks with a cockney accent who's always hanging around him. so anyhoo, also in my dream, dylan (a.k.a. 'dad') is NOT the huge success he has turned out to be in real life. in fact, he spends most of his time in the attic sulking about the music industry, with his friend pete trying to cheer him up. he looks much younger than he does now, and he is definitely sans moustache.

this wasn't a long dream, but at one point, i find myself in a church, and there are people i know from my old church at the evanston vineyard, and then someone gets up and starts talking about what they believe as fundamentalist christians (note: evanston vineyard is NOT a fundamentalist church) and i feel like i'm in nazi germany. then i storm home, stomp up to the attic, and i say to my dad (bob dylan), 'dad! you know what? i like god. i like jesus. i like the holy spirit. but i CAN'T STAND THE CHURCH!!!!!' and i seek comfort from him as his intellectually, spirutally, and emotionally wounded child, but i don't really find any that i can remember. he just gives me this look like, 'uh, okay, and what do you want me to do about it?'

and that's it. what a wacko dream. happy birthday to me, i guess.

in other news, i celebrated my birthday today by taking a statistics exam as part of the certification program i'm in for work. i am happy to report that i somehow aced the exam. or at least i think i did. i either aced it or i have deluded myself into thinking that i aced it.

anyhoo.

birthday feast

...so our combined birthday dinner party for ted's siblings jason, lauren, and myself on sunday was a smashing success. we had a veritable mediterranean feast! everybody fit around our dining table, and it was like a greek thanksgiving in may. FYI, ted' grandma sophie is 100% greek, which means that cadence is korean-greek-polish-ukrainian, and i'm honorary all-of-the-above.

...ted's mom made this gorgeous and huge 3 layer cake. i think it weighed about 50lbs. but since there were 3 birthday people, i guess the occasion called for a hefty cake.

...we were glad grandma sophie (a.k.a. yia yia) was able to come and see our place for the first time. unfortunately, grandma carol couldn't make it.

...cadence was happy to have so many people around to play with. she got to sit in uncle dave's lap and read to him...

...AND she got to read with uncle jay and auntie lauren too! she was soaking up all that attention, believe me...

...by the end of the day, i was totally exhausted. i had to do a lot (ok, some) of the cleaning because ted was so caught up in making falafel. it ended up being a bit more complicated than expected, and i realized that if i didn't start cleaning, it just wasn't gonna get done. i had to sling cadence to be able to vacuum, and my back is still hurting. the good news is that cadence now has a play room with lots of space for, uh, playing. and it gets really gorgeous light in the mornings, so it'll be a good place for photos.

...and here she is, little miss 'dances-with-foot-massager' in all the glory of the morning gloaming...

all in all, it was a great time of just eating yummy food with people we love, and really, what more could you ask for to celebrate your birthday?

the adventures of binary girl

...this is my cadence joy...for the past i don't know how many months (like 5 or 6 at least) she has been able to count to two. one-two, one-two, one-two. that's how she counts the stairs. that's how she counts her cheerios. that's how she keeps rhythm in her daily life, simply marching right along. she has no interest in learning three, or four, or five. one-two. it's that simple. it reminds me of the time my dad, the computer science geek that he was, sat me down and taught me the binary system. i thought it was ridiculous then, but thanks to cadence, i have a new found appreciation for the binary system. ok, i realize that the real binary method uses a zero and one, but hey, it's close enough for me...

...cadence also loves to remind me over and over again every single day where her nose, eyes, and teeth are. and she loves to point out where mine are too. i just love it when she pokes me up my nose or in the eye or on my teeth. i'm surprised i haven't gotten sick yet with all those germs being spread around my various orifices.

...but she sure is cute, no doubt about that. i know that it won't be long when i'll look back on these days with great fondness. one of these days, i'll wake up and she'll be counting to 100 and pointing out her fibula, and i'll be overcome by nostalgia and pine for these simpler days...

...in other news, ted and tim painted our foyer a couple days ago. the color is called sangria, and i love it! i always said i wanted a red room, and although the foyer isn't exactly a room, i'll take what i can get.

tomorrow, we are hosting a birthday party for ted's twin siblings lauren and jason and for me too. our birthdays aren't until the 26th and 31st, but this happened to be the best weekend to have the party so we're celebrating a little early. it's just going to be ted's family--his mom, dad, dave, dave's girl becki, lauren, jason, grandma sophie and hopefully grandma carol. we'll be putting the extra leaves on our dining table and getting out our finest (read: only) linens. it will be a middle eastern theme for the cuisine, so it should be yummy! ted made baba ganouj from scratch, and he'll be doing the same for falafel tomorrow. dave's making hummus, ted's mom is making tabouleh and meatballs and cake, and grandma sophie is making dolmas and baklava. it should be quite the yummy dinner, and i'm getting hungry just thinking about it...

mother's day

...happy belated mother's day to all my mama friends out there! we celebrated mother's day at our place with my mom, my bro, and take-out thai/japanese food...

...most relatively new moms are congratulated on this day by their own mothers who are usually proud of their daughters' attainment of motherhood. not my mom. for the 2nd year in a row, my mom forgot that mother's day applies to me too, not just to her. she said maybe next year she'll remember. i'm not holding my breath though.

we went to see our friends at wicker park grace in the evening, where they were having a spoken word event on the theme of 'hospitality'. i spent a good deal of time keeping cadence from going haywire, but it was still great to see g-dogg and nanette and the others. i also got to meet one of my latest flickr contacts in person. oh! and g-dogg got cadence this great book on skateboard monsters! not only that, g-dogg also brought the best coconut macaroons i've ever had, from artemios bakery (sp?). they were like the size of cadence's head!

yum...