Back On The Horse

Darrick and Nancy gave us some canvases and brushes and some paints a couple weeks ago. I think it's got to be the definition of diehard to get out this gear under the circumstances and get painting ha ha. I think a lot of people would use many words to describe me,....and one of them is "intense". Sometimes being intense has it's benefits...it gets you back out there with dogged determination lol.


Stagg saw me doing a bunch of paintings on the floor so in the morning when he woke up he started making some paintings too. A couple of them are gifts that his family asked him to paint. Might as well get on them right?

Thanksgiving Uncut

How lucky can a girl get to be surrounded for a whole day by such great hot sexy men! It's raining men! Jason and Mike hosted an incredible Thanksgiving feast and we had so many laughs and good conversation that day. We covered a lot of topics from art marketing, to Margeret Visser, anthropology of food (Jason and I have a lot of books and reading tastes in common)to high school sweethearts to art shows to Real Housewives of Beverly Huills we stayed over night too and watched Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (awesome movie I am going to buy I loved it so much!!!) I took lots of pictures of all the food Jason singlehandedly made...it was MINDBLOWING! We brought a few bottles of wine but it sure seemed like we got the best deal...note one of the bottles of wine we got was called "Pure Evil" above...Yummers!

Weekend With Family

We've been so lucky the last few weekends...first we had Andy come in from Wisconsin and then weekend before last Adam and his gal pal arrived from Toronto. I know Adam through my family FRIENDS jILL AND sCOTT. wE WERE ALL AT yORK uNIVERSITY AT THE TIME AND AFTER SCHOOL aDAM AND sCOTT STAYED IN TOUCH THEY USED TO WORK AT A CAMPUS PUB...AND THEN THEY WORKED DOING ROOFING. aCTUALLY ABOUT TEN YEARS AGO sCOTT WENT BACK AND WAS WORKING WITH aDAM AGAIN NOW. Opps I totally didn't mean to put capitals here...but can't take tiome to go back and lower case them...sorry about that...anyways...I used to babysit Adam's kids when they were wee babies. We all go WAY back. So Adam had already planned to come into town that weekend...and ha...I had even offered them to stay with us. good thing they booked the hotel huh? But what amazing timing to have them be in town recently. Our spirits were again rejuvenated. It felt so great to be with familiar faces.


Adam ordering insane amounts of food and drinks...twist my arm!




Too hot for the club...Adam and Stagg..

Adam and I...somehow we found a nightclub after supper. And I am sure to the utter horror of the young people there we even got up and danced after that huge meal.

Me and Ali in the nightclub...

Stagg and Ali on the street...

On Saturday we met up at the Billy Goat Tavern.





After the Billy Goat Tavern we went to Kingston Mines and saw Big James in one room and in the other Joanne Conner. We've seen Joanne Conner there many times. We had ribs and collard greens, mac and cheese and all was delicious!



We hung out in the beautiful park outside the Art Institute...



We had to make sure Ali and Adam tasted deep dish pizza so we went to the Exchequer Pub after the gallery. Then we did some shopping for the kids.



We met at the Art Institute on their last day and then didn't know what else to do and we realized we were close to the Palmer House Hotel (where we had met Jason and Mike a month earlier for his mural being in a big show installed in the lobby of the Palmer...pics blogged here earlier) So we were able to grab a beverage and relax before Adam and Ali got their flight home. And it was sort of historical...



Okay...tomorrow Thanksgiving pics...

Thanksgiving

Hey Jason uploaded some pics onto Facebook so I was able to post this one here...that Rick, Izzo, Jason, Stagg and me...taken by Mike...and I will get my pics up here in a couple days...yea, thank you for friends! We had the best Thanksgiving day...I love these guys...

Whew...

Whew...this is officially the longest time I've gone without making a blog post since I began blogging five years ago. And you know what I really miss blogging! We are still in limbo but in response to the wonderful comments I read below in previous post...we do try to focus that we have each other. Staying at the suburbs without a phone and internet is taking its toll some days. Which is weird but you know how sometimes people say "the world is changing" well it isn't changing it changed so long ago...it really is almost impossible to get anything done without internet...including apartment hunting, job hunting, staying in touch with people, researching for decision making etc etc. I mean grandma's house didn't even have a phone book...but what the heck...who actually uses phone books anymore? Don't most of us go to a computer if we need anything or want to know something?

We have had a very busy time since I last posted here. We had friends from toronto in town last weekend. I took tons of pics which whenever I can I will post...it was so awesome to have company in town and they took us out for an outstanding supper last friday night. And on Saturday night we went to Kingston Mines and the Billy Goat Tavern. The Billy Goat Tavern is my favourite bar in Chicago. Our friends Adam and Ali really loved Chicago...especially the iron works and structure of the city. Adam really freaked out about how cool Chicago looks with the Lower Wacker Drive. (seen in Batman motorcycle chase)

This past holiday weekend we went to Thanksgiving at Jason and Mike's. I also have pics of that but I forgot my adapter to download pics on this public computer so I will post a bunch of photos in a few days. Jason made the most incredible feast of stuffed turkey breast, a sugar topped like apple betty but on a sweet potato...it was NUTS it was so good and lots of other foods. And we landed up sleeping over at their place because it was too hard to travel on CTA to suburbs and it was just a wonderful visit and evening. So thankful for friends and family.

This weekend we are working on a 2011 vision board and a 100 days vision board. Our last vision board was of course lost...but one thing we have remembered to be grateful for is that over half the stuff we had put on that board two years ago all manifested! Including the Blackhawks getting the Stanley Cup ha ha! We really are fighting the feeling of being in limbo and we might also see if we can track down a shared living situation temporary with a room in a house say, with phone and internet...for a week or two. We are waiting for a couple places to call us back tonight or this afternoon. My friend Zandra got me super inspired to do a vision board...and she gave me the idea of making one for 100 days (which makes a lot of sense in our present situation) and one for the coming year. In the past our vision board was kind of just wide opne...I really like the idea of getting it focused on coming year.

I don't know what else to say at this point and I don't want to spend too much time on a rented computer. I promise I will catch up with e-mails in the next few days...say, when I'm at a library or more relaxed less time pressured situation online. In the meantime, just checking in...

Wills And Kate

We've had a pretty good week around here...we now have cleaned all the stuff we could from the fire and re=packed it which feels really good. We saw our apartment and it is cleaning up really well. We had such an awesome weekend visit with Andy I felt like completely rejuvenated. I also have some really good friends coming down from Toronto this weekend. We plan on taking them around some of our favourite spots in Chicago...and again, we are beside ourselves anticipating fun and good company. I am still using an internet cafe...I don't have a keyboard or mouse yet so until we get settled and with our own phone lines and internet again I will just wait before we get new parts.

Guess what? Stagg and I dug out our cart and went into our basement storage space at the apartment today and got all kinds of paintings so we could busk this afternoon. Can you believe it? I can not even begin to tell you how good it felt to get our busking kit together and fill up the cart with some surviving paintings. Stagg is already out in andersonville and he dropped me off at our favourite internet cafe where we load up on coffee and I check here at my blog. I'll go join him after I post this message in a minute.

This reminds me of something sort of funny. My sister called a couple days after the fire to say that she recived two medium sized paintings in the post. I had utterly forgotten about these paintings that I mailed. My bgrother-in-law comes on the phone and he says"Hey I love the painting" (I sent one for his office and one for my sister) I said" Well do you realize you have one of the few surviving works from the Candy Minx archive?" He says"Wow, maybe they're worth nmore!" Oh man...we were howling with laughter at this on the phone.

Yesterday I had the tv on mute at Grandmas...and the news was on...and I saw Prince Wills and Kate...now, Vanity Fair just had a massive article on the dating royal couple so I suspected maybe they might get married one day...but was quite surprised at seeing them in an interview. And like I said, I had the volume down...and there was a caption "engaged". Gee, that's awesome I thought...then the camera panned down to her hand and I saw the ring. I immediately felt totally gutted and started crying. Stagg...was like waht? I choked out..."It's Princess Diana's ring" Now, he's not into monarchy or nothing but he knows I loved Princess Diana...and we right away thought my sister might call. When the biggest craziest weeding of last century occured ( the wildest crazy wedding of this century was, of course Stagg and I) my girldfriend who was from the U.K. were living in victoria B.C. (which is jokingly referred to as more English than the English) and we set our alarms and got up in the middle of the night to make tea and toast and watch Princess Diana marry Charles. What a spectacular dress, what pomp and circumstance, what a beautiful bride etc etc. I was at my sisters in Vancouver when her and my bro-in-law came home and mentioned Princess Diana had been ina car drash. I was like, what?! She wasn't declared dead as yet...and so we turned off the tv. My sister had friends coming over and she didn't want the tv on...but I found out they were Britisish so as soon as they arrived with their new baby to show off...I announced Princess diana was ina car drash. They also hadn't heard the news...and I knew they'd want the tv on (Yes, I am a shit disturber ha ha) So when we put the tv back on...it was announced she was dead. My brother in law to this day says and teases he had no idea what a crying machine I can be...I was inconsolable...and insisted on holding these peoples new born baby while I watched the news coverage. Well...our dinner party was kind of spoiled as we all ate and visited watching the unfolding story all night.

So...I was terribly moved when I turned on the volume yesterday and tried to watch every news coverage I could of the engagement.
oOther than that...not much else to say today...the roller coaster ride of the last three weeks keeps us on our toes and we are hanging in there...okay I am off to join Stagg busking cheers!

Quick Note

Hey sports fans...geez, I am on a public computer and it looks like I've made some kind of booboo with embeding videos. Will correct it when I get a bit more time. I still don't really have time to get much email done. I've only spordaically checked my email in the past three weeks. If you have written me sorry for not responding. Renting computer time or borrowing a friends computer time is better utilized by posting here rather than writing screwy emails. We're still staying at Stagg's grandmothers...and don't have any hard plans at this point...still in limbo and trying not to get whack. I've had a lot of bad dreams and will probably track down a consellor to talk to next week. The experience has triggered a few childhood trama memories and abandonment issues in me and some days I have a fragile set of nerves. But mostly we are doing really good.

This weekend....I am so grateful...our freind Andy drove into town from WI. I have felt so lonely and homesick for friends and family and that has been the biggest weight on me taking care of all the things we have to do. Going to see our friends D and N and Jenny (we babysat their kids last week) have been profound contacts and I am more grateful than ever for the friends we have here and far away. Missing my peeps these past couple weeks and feeling so lonely has been a struggle. I have really really felt pain being so far away from family and friends. Andy showed up last night and we sat around talking till the wee hours and poor Andy...he was such a rock because Stagg and I totally vented and let go of a lot of pent up stories. andy cracked a bottle of wine and we just let it rip. the funny part is I had been texting my daughter saying we were so excited for him to arrive...and my daughter texted back saying DON"T TALK TOO MUCH< LET HIM BREATHE...Stagg and I pledged we wouldn't fall apart when Andy showed up...but I totally fell apart. Well first Stagg talked his ear off, then I had a go. But you know...it was long overdue because we had been holding our shit together as per possible and "being strong" for each other...mixed in with snapping at each other with short nerves or being fragile or jumpy. All of these things are associated with what we've been through and you just have to process all the feelings and triggers. The thing is, we spent most of this time cleaning and clearing out stuff and re-packing and being exhausted...so I think it's natural now that things have leveled out to some degree feelings we put aside are surfacing....and we need to talk about them. For me, having friends far away has compromised my usual form of processing. We both really needed to let go and vent. And as i said, I am going to track down a consellor next week seeing as I have had some nasty bad dreams (circus perfomers in beautiful costumes catching on fire and no one stopping the show...what a metaphor for life huh?)

Anyways, we got up pretty decent this morning and are renting some tools and doing a bit of work at our apartment, sorting out some stuff....we've stopped at an internet cafe to print out maps and we're having coffee and laughing and just it is such a beautiful thing to have friends and levity and lighten up just a bit with good company. We havea family bd party early evening and then Stagg is going out to see some bands with his pal Jim and Andy and I will get into sme trouble around the city. Coffee good...venting good...friends good...all is good...Andy has us laughing and is driving us around and we have a bunch of errands and a bunch of fun things lined up....back in a couple of days...

Kids These Days :)

Always new pop songs huh? I thought this song was kinda clever actually...very dirty too...

uh huh, whip it up,
lick it up, suck it down
uh huh, drink it up
(ooh i think she likes it)
uh huh, whip it up,
lick it up, suck it down
uh huh, drink it up
(ooh i think she likes it)

Good Story

Vanity Fair has a great issue this month. The interview with Cher is one of the best cover interviews since jessica Lange ( a long time ago). The story about a violent crime in Miami a few years ago is so good...highly recommend this mystery of "the vanishing blonde"...seriously great story!

A Couple Faves

Serenity Now...

I do not feel stress, I do not feel stress, I do not feel stress...in the words of Lisa Simpson, calm blue ocean calm blue ocean calm blue ocean...

Two Movies

I really really hope that you will consider seeing the movie Jo Jo Baby.Stagg was supposed to meet up with Jo Jo a local artist with a well recognized apartment in Wicker Park...two days after our fire, but he couldn't get to his appointment. What we landed up doing was going to see the premiere of the Clive Barker produced documentary about Jo Jo this past weekend. It's so very wonderful...and I'd like to leave itr at that for now...just please watch for it and try to see it if you can...an incredible window into the life of an artist...10/10. I always loved Clive Barker...but he is a trooper for thinking of making this movie. We saw the film makers at the premiere the other day...and side note of excitement to me one of the directors used to work on Survivor...awesome!


We went to see Due Date yesterday and we just had so many laughing fits...aty one point Stagg and I had tears dripping down our faces...and there are tons of great one lines we've been saying to each other. "So don't take me to a waffle house!" One thing I really liked about the movie was that it starts out as kind of dark portrayal by Robert Downey Jr's "straight guy" role against Zack Galiniflincos' comic study. These two guys are really in deep to their characters and this makes the relationship really build up with slight bits of humour at first until about halfway through when the sickly ludicrous action just broke down my resistance and I was lost in laughter. I really really wish Zack would get an Oscar nomination for this part...it's unlikely but he really had some amazing moments...serious and really damn funny. I totally loved this buddy flick. 10/10. Yes, it has similar flavour to "Planes Trains and Automobiles" in laughs, plot and heart...all good reasons to see this one.

Odd Photos

In no paerticular order are the following pics that were just building up on my camera so I downloaded them here to post at once. Above when we went downtown last week all these pigeons were snuggled hiding from the wind it was kind of bizarre. The rest of the pics are out of order buut here they are for shits and giggles...








Mark the Knife...



This is the night we met up with Derek and Nancy and stayed over at thier place and went to see "Mark the Knife" who balances a lawnmower on his chin while the audience throws lettuce at him. Awesome. You can see the bar "Cigars and Stripes" offers delicious home bbq chicken wings, the bbq has cadilac wheels...all thats missing is nitrusoxide and it wouldn't surprise me if he didn't have some nitro hooked up to that sweet bbq ride...Nancy and Derek were great kept us laughing all night and made a beautiful brunch the next morning.






We met our friend Jason who had a mural on display at the lovely Palmer Hopuse Hotel (it's featured in the Chicago scenes of "Boardwalk Empire") We had delicious dirty martini's and tons of appy's and one of the best evenings of discussion. We are going to meet up with Jason and Mike for Thanksgiving next week...