Garden makeover

when we came back to chicago, after three weeks away, i was very sad to find my glorious garden in this shape:


we DID ask the neighbors to water it from time to time ("what, we did water it, twice!" one of them said later...)
i gave it a week, watering it and loving it, but it seemed like garden is really dead. i saved the dried basil leaves in a container for future use, and started the garden over... i know it's unorthodox to sow seeds at the end of summer, but, what the hell- our apartment is a good enough greenhouse, i'll give it a shot.
it seems to be doing very well, especially basil, to which i designated its own pot, so that it doesn't take over everybody else.

here it is this morning, basil on the left, parsley in the middle (it took longer than the other guys to sprout...) and dill on the right.

it's kinda awesome to see it grow from day to day. i especially like those first leaves that break through the dirt, and look nothing like the ones the plant will finally grow.

Cubs and Bad Burritos

Last night, Chicago Cubs fans edured yet another disappointing end to the Cubs' season with a 5-1 drubbing at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks. This game was the last of the first round of the playoffs of Major League Baseball. The culmination of the playoffs is the World Series, which used to be the pinnacle of American sports, but has since been knocked of its pedastal by the Super Bowl, at least in my opinion.

We joined some friends to watch the game on TV on their deck down in Wrigleyville. They live about a block north of the stadium. Here's Wrigley Field in the picture to the right. Their house is about 100 meters from the left edge of the picture (North of the Stadium), so you can't quite see it, but it's close enough to hear the boos of the fans. [For reference, you can see the Red Line train at the top of the picture, at the Addison stop].

My impression is that it's kind of cool to be a Cubs fan, mostly because they're a hard luck case (read about their rich but sad history here). The short of it is that they haven't won a World Series since 1908; 2008 will mark the 100 year anniversary of futility. Many of the residents of Wrigleyville are young professionals with roots all over the world, but they are all united in their unconditional love of the Chicago Cubs.

[For the record, I grew up (and still am) a Detroit Tigers fan, but the Cubs were always broadcast on WGN (with Harry Carey), the Chicago superstation, which we got on cable in Michigan, so I always pulled for the Cubbies when we couldn't watch the Tigers.]

Regardless of the outcome, we had a good time watching the game on their deck, and being part of the downtrodden atmosphere that is fostered by Cubs baseball.

The brings me to part two of the night, which would break my heart more than any baseball game could ever have done. As usual, I had a craving for a burrito. Several people recommended El Burrito Mexicano (see some reviews here; maybe these folks caught Mexicano on a good day), a little joint just east of the tracks on Addison. Burritos are probably THE only food I consider myself anything of an expert in, so I'm always keen to sample something new (see my forthcoming Midwest Burrito Review).

It had the makings of a fine establishment: white, brightly-lit, mostly undecorated greasy walls, no air-conditioning, drunk baseball fans lined-up out the door, and 4 guys working their tails off behind the counter. Definitely my kind of place. In great anticipation, I ordered a pork burrito with sour cream and a pork taco with sour cream for Keren.

I would soon realize the error of my initial assessment on the first bite: the tortilla was dry and bland, and sat in my mouth like soggy cardboard. As I gnawed through it, I reached the iceberg lettuce garnish, whose flavorlessness could only be outdone by the hot, dimsal filling that could only have been the ground pork and bean-like vegetables. Because there are people starving in the world, I finished this abomination in great despair. I later expressed my displeasure to Keren in broken Hebrew (ze lo tayim. ani lo ohev ha'burrito ha'ze ha'charrahee.) I went to bed that night with a stomachache, not from undercooked meat, but from a broken heart.

I'm always ready to give a place a second chance. So many positive recommendations from so many people. Maybe I didn't ask for enough toppings. They must have hot sauce, beans, cheese, and jalapenos somewhere - many of these things are standard at most places. Maybe it was a Cubs game so they didn't have time to give their burritos enough love. I need you now more than ever Big Ten Burrito! It will be a long healing process, but someday, I will give El Burrito Mexicano a second chance.

Gray's antinomy

gray had a rough week, and it's only wednesday.

he usually knows when he's doing something wrong (like climb on the counter, or on the window), and runs away shamefully when we say "NO!" or "DOWN!". but he's also a pig, and apparently for some things he doesnt mind the punishment... as long as he gets what he wants.

for some reason, only since we came back to chicago, he's been coveting Black's food. he would finish his own dinner at the speed of light, and then start eating from Black's plate. Black, on the other hand, is truly his grandma's grandpet, he enjoys every bite, eating slowly (first he licks all the gravy off the plate, and then eats the chunks of wet food one by one). he normally takes 4 times as long to eat his dinner than Gray.
anyway, Gray's piracy is unacceptable, and since Black (for some reason) isn't being assertive (he used to hiss at him, now he doesn't anymore), we take the law into our own hands and smack Gray on the head when he's being bad like that.
he got smacked on the head so many times this week... (he must be thinking, "damn, this food gives me headache"). we know he associates it with dinner, but not sure that he understands the boundaries that well. we know he understands he's being bad. he only forgets.

last night, poor Gray was buzzing around the house pretending to be Michael Schumacher (one of his favorite time passing -- playing Nascar), and jumped all the way from the floor to the window, momentum and everything, and slipped, fell back, and while struggling to catch himself in the air his poor foot got stuck in the window frame. i ran to the rescues, but in the 2.5 seconds it took me to release him, he yelled in pain/hysteria, shooting arms and legs and claws everywhere. my heart was pounding like crazy for a long time afterwards. this is just what we were afraid of, with his eagerness to climb up those windows all the time. well, we are more afraid of what would happen if he falls to the OTHER side of the window.
it doesn't seem like he hurt his toe too bad (he lets me touch it now, nothing's broken), he limped for a while, and wanted to be left alone, but today he's back to his normal behavior.

we had already planed to build him a special shelf that he can sit on, over the opened window, and enjoy the fresh air, and not scare us to death. detailed plans will follow!

broken husband

my poor husband is broken. he helped his boss move some heavy stuff out of his apartment on sunday, and pulled something, and now he's walking like an old guy :(
i wish there was something i could do for him, seeing him in pain makes me sad :(

Toronto

We went to Toronto last week, for a 3-day collaboration meeting. Back on August, without thinking about it too hard, i said that i would come too. Actually, i was confused, and thought it was a totally different collaboration that was meeting there. and i didn't count on arriving there a day early and leaving a day late... Anyway, we DROVE out there, with Ben's boss and two other students. It was a loooooooooong drive.
it makes a lot of difference if you drive with friends/family, or with "colleagues". the former is a lot better... with work people, you get to talking about work most of the time, and when not, you learn about your co-workers things that you don't necessarly want to know.

Toronto itself wasn't that much fun. well, besides the meeting, that was sort of boring after the first day, we felt like we need to be "colleagueal" (is that a word? i learned it from ben), and followed other people to their choice of restaurants. that's how we ended up in an Ethiopian restaurant one day, an eclectic Italian the next day, and when we somehow escaped from everybody we ended up in the worst, most terrible, burrito place known to man.
Frankly, the only good places we found food on were a hot dog stand, an awesome sushi restaurant (too bad we found it only on the last day) and of course --- Tim Hortons. can't resist the maple dip donut... mmmmmmmmmm. it almost made the trip worth while. almost. not really.


the one half-day we had for some exploring, we wanted to go up to the CN tower, the tallest self sustaining building in the world, or something. unfortunately, we found out how much it cost, so we ended up just walking around. at least the weather was nice.


well, i sort of wish i didn't go, but at least i made it a little bit easier for poor ben, who also had to drive at least half of the way there and back.

I like the other Canada so much better!

The new place

it's pretty at 9D :)

here are a few pictures from our new apartment. we moved into it the day after coming back from israel (we were supposed to have a day's rest before, but our landlord asked that we move earlier...). moving wasn't that bad, considering that we only had to take everything 4 floors down in the same building (didn't even pack!), and almost all our furniture are from ikea, making it easy to take them apart and re-assemble in the new place, when they didn't fit in the elevator.
the new apartment has 1.5x the footage of the old one, but really feels like at least twice as large. there's room for everything, room for more than one person in the kitchen, and room for a proper dining table :) it faces south, west and east (yes, shlosha kivuney avir!)

above, an unsuccessful try to make a panorama view of our living/dining room (it's really too large for this kind of photography...)
there's our new view to the east, in daylight and during sunrise (yes, i was jet-lagged when i took that picture!)

our new dining table, kitchen, and the scroogim's bathroom (yes, they get their own closet! that's how much closet space we have now!)

i finally got a frame for that picasso poster i bought more than 2 years ago at the norton simon museum :) and i think there's some room for more art ;)

back to "normal"

it's been a week since we came back from israel, but it seems like a month. in the 7 days that passed we squeezed in so many things, that the trip to israel seems like a far, wonderful dream.

arriving home was exhausting for both of us. i had to pull my heavy suitcase through the airport and two trains, this being the first time ever that ben isn't there to drive me back from the airport, or at least take the train with me :)
ben, on the other hand, had to drive back from michigan, which isn't recommended if you had just landed after 15 hours in the air and a killing jetlag.
we arrived home almost at the same time, and happily found the scroogim to be very well taken of (and a bit fatter...).

the next day we had to move our apartment (see next post), cause our landlord Stella asked that we move one day earlier. that worked out fine for me, i was in no shape for concentrating on my work, but moving stuff doesn't require concentration... at least most of the time...

the next few days, i could enjoy the best view in our apartment -- jet lag had me waking up way before sunrise, which is just awesome. i missed this big orange blob over a large body of water (sigh. autumn sunsets from my 4th-floor TA apartment...). but i won't be doing the wake-up-before-the-sun thing for very long, at least until the sun decides to sleep longer hours.



the rest of the week isn't very memorable. things sort of blend into each other, naps taken at weird hours when my brain just shut down, and early mornings which are not in my nature... we went to work, drove to the suburbs to ikea and meijer to stock up, met friends, fell asleep on the couch twice during the same movie, cooked in our new kitchen, went for a run/walk on the lake, petted the scroogim. yawn. need to get over this jetlag!


p.s. we WILL blog about the trip to israel. it's just that there's so much to tell, so many pictures to sort through, that i'm now thinking to dedicate a webpage to the trip. Gary and i planned to do it together at israel, but there wasn't any down time there :) seems like we were doing something all the time!