Tennis is More Dangerous than Motorcycles

At the end of July, two of Cary Anne's old college roommates, Laura and Allison, came to visit us in Chicago. It was kind of a spontaneous trip. Laura and Allison were two of the people we were able to see when we went back to Kentucky for the 4th. (Before that, we hadn't seen them in a year and a half.) Then, about 2 weeks after we returned to Chicago, we got a text asking if they could come up for a few days. By that time, Cary Anne and I were on different work schedules (since I had started working evenings at Target and Domino's), so we had fun showing them around town separately. Cary Anne took them to the Lincoln Park Zoo, and I took them up on the Navy Pier Ferris Wheel (which I hadn't been on since my 8th grade class took a trip to Chicago back in 2001). Luckily, we didn't have some time where all four of us could hang out together.

At the beginning of August, Cary Anne and I took a free motorcycle safety course offered by the state of Illinois. We figured the course would help us be more comfortable on the Vespa, and if we successfully completed the course, we would get our motorcycle license without having to take the test at the DMV. Neither of us had our full motorcycle license (only permits), despite the fact we had already owned the Vespa for over 2 years. The course was 24 hours of training over 2 weekends. It involved classroom time and riding time. I was hoping our experience on the Vespa would give us a little advantage, but motorcycles with clutches and gear shifts are quite different. There were a number of wobbles and spills throughout the class. At the end, there was a skills test, which was rather nerve racking. Luckily, CA and I both passed, and we now officially have our motorcycle licenses. We celebrated by going to get ice cream.

Cary Anne's birthday was in the middle of August. Part of her gift from me was a tennis racquet because she had been talking about how she wanted to learn to play. We started spending a lot of our free time at the court. Sadly, on our first outing, Cary Anne managed to injure herself. She was collecting a ball that she had hit out of the court and stumbled into a pothole. I laughed a little because I thought she had just tripped, but she had a pretty good scratch on her knee and her ankle had twisted, so then I kind of felt like a jerk. Thankfully, it was only a minor setback. Within a week or so, she was ready to get back out on the court. While the weather was warm, tennis kind of became our go-to date, which was a nice break from dates like eating and going to the movies where we just sit around.

At the end of August, our friend Lisa came back to visit from the west coast. Lisa was one of the first people we met at our church, Community Edgewater, when we moved here. Sadly, about a year ago, she moved to Seattle, but she still returns from time to time to visit. This time, she convinced a friend of hers to host a rooftop party downtown. So for a few hours one night we got to live up on a swanky high rise. It was a pretty good way to end the summer.

Anniversaries and Reunions and Robots

Cary Anne and I have now lived in Chicago for over a year.

It's weird to think back on our life in Lexington, wondering what it would be like here and if we'd be able to survive on our own. Making the decision to come here was easily the most exhilarating and terrifying decision Cary Anne and I have ever made as a couple, and has been extremely rewarding. There were certainly low moments, including weeks of unemployment and battles with a bed bug infestation (just to name a couple), but there have also been incredible highs. God has provided us with good jobs, He has given us the opportunity to pursue our passions, and He has brought us into a church that has truly become our Chicago family. Without a doubt, moving here was risky, but it was mine and CA's first real step in becoming our own family, in leaving our parents behind and holding tight to one another. The past year has definitely been the most rewarding time in our relationship.

But that's not our only recent anniversary. Last month, Cary Anne and I celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary. It was a relatively low key celebration, which consisted of us having dinner at a nice restaurant in Andersonville, then grabbing a movie from Redbox. (We're clearly a very exciting couple.) That night, we also built our 1st fire in our new fireplace. We've become gatherers in that every time we walk home from somewhere, we often collect sticks we find on the ground along the way to use as firewood. We are loving our new place, and it's starting to come together nicely it terms of decorating and organizing.

Fall here in Chicago has also been great because over the past several weeks I've have the opportunity to reunite with several old friends. Last month, my friend Rose, who served as a leader with me in the Christian organization at Pace U during my time in New York, came to town for six weeks as part her medical school residency. She stayed at a swanky hotel downtown and spent time serving in a south side hospital, but luckily there was time in her schedule to occasionally grab a burger with Cary Anne and I and explore the city a bit. It was great catching up with her considering before last month I hadn't seen her in over 3 years. Before she left, we promised to get together again before we're 30.

Then, just a couple of weeks ago, I got to spend a little time with some old high school theater friends of mine. Jesse and Casey recently moved to the city, and our friend Sean decided to come up for a week to check things out since he's planning on moving here next summer. So late one night, I met them all at a bar down in Lincoln Square. Like with Rose, before this, I hadn't seen them in years, so it was great to reunite and reminisce. Hopefully, now that we're all in the same city (or soon to be, in Sean's case) there won't be years between visits anymore.

Halloween was also a fun time here in the city. Our church, Community Edgewater, decided to volunteer with the 48th Ward's annual Halloween Festival. Some people painted faces, some people led games, and then some of us wrote and performed short children's plays. It was a bit hectic and unorganized considering there seemed to be little infastructure. In fact, we didn't even see the space we would be performing in until about half an hour before the show started, and when it was time to start, we basically just hopped on stage and started talking, with no cue from any sort of official organizer. But overall, it went as well as could be expected. The kids seemed to have a good time and I even got to wear a giant cardboard robot suit.

Now we're starting to ease into the holiday season and Cary Anne is already busy making sketches of how she wants to decorate, and the girls are talking about us dressing in matching outfits and sending out a Christmas card. Maybe this whole living in community thing was a bad idea...

"It's Gonna Be Legen- Wait For It..."

Back in the spring, about half a dozen of us from CCC Edgewater got the idea to move into a community house together in the fall, once our leases expired. Though we did some looking and planning, in the end, things kind of fell through. Our friend Lisa moved off to Seattle, and our friends Ben and Sam decided they just wanted to room together on their own, as two bachelors on the prow, I suppose. So that left Cary Anne and I and our friend Kelly. Last month, we started looking at 3-bedroom apartments together in Edgewater, and soon we put a down payment on one. 

Back at the start of October, several of our friends from church were generous enough to help us move all of our stuff. For CA and I, it meant saying goodbye to our studio in Roger’s Park and for Kelly it meant abandoning the 1-bedroom place she was living in only a few blocks south of our new place. Getting furniture up the stairs to our new 3^rd floor walk-up was about as fun as going to the dentist, but we did it (with a lot of help) and we managed to only break one bookshelf.

As you can imagine, Cary Anne and I super excited to be living in a place that is more than just one room. Our new place has a dining room, a living room with a working fireplace, a balcony, a sun room, and a washer/dryer in unit. It’s basically a palace compared to where we were living, and we’re very thankful to have the opportunity to upgrade. We’re also thankful for our new roommate Kelly who is the Ted to our Marshall and Lily (for you “How I Met Your Mother” fans). Kelly is a night nurse at a local hospital, so sometimes it feels as though we don’t have a roommate at all, but we’re excited to have her as a larger part of our life when she is around and awake. In fact, she has already started trying to pry us into renaming this blog “Two Gingers and the Things They Do Together…with Kelly.”

There has also been a recent change on the job front for me. As many of you know, since we moved to Chicago, I’ve been working at a restaurant called Cosi, taking orders, making drinks, and serving food. I was also helping part time at Cosi’s corporate offices in the suburbs, taking care of some clerical work that no one else seemed to have the time to manage. Recently, the corporate office lost their receptionist, so I applied, and I now work there full time. It’s great to finally have a “real job” with benefits, and for the first time in our marriage, Cary Anne and I are on the same basic work schedule so we’ve been enjoying our evenings together.

Not too long ago, we spent one of those evenings at our first Cubs game together. Cary Anne bought the tickets off of a co-worker, and I was excited to go because the Cubs were playing the Reds. Though the Cubs fell behind early on (surprise, surprise), they did make a comeback and tied things up by the ninth inning. After that the Cubs had multiple chances to win and blew them all, CA insisted we leave when it was after 11pm and the game was about to enter the 12^th inning. Though I was sad to go without seeing the end, it was OK, because the Cubs ultimately lost by a single run.

For now, we're excited for the future: a new place, a new roommate, and a new schedule. So stayed tuned to this blog...now with more Kelly!

From Chi to KY

A couple of weeks ago, Cary Anne and I had the chance to travel back to Lexington for a long weekend. Though we travelled to Kentucky back in May to spend Memorial Day with our friends Chris and Hannah, we hadn’t been back to Lexington specifically since Christmas, so I was excited…and CA seemed mildly amused.

I was determined to jam in as many visits as I could during our short time there, so on Friday afternoon we headed to my old high school to catch up with my old English teachers, Mr. Egan and Mrs. Wilkinson (though I guess now that I’m an adult, I can refer to them as their real people names- Gary and Tara). We told them all about our lives in Chicago, and they told us all about their continuing adventures in teaching and how Tara taught on a broken foot for half a day when she stepped off a curb wrong, but refused to admit it was actually broken. Apparently she gave her Creative Writing class the exercise of writing short stories explaining how she broke her foot, but soon realized that was a bad idea when half of the stories she got back began with, “Mrs. Wilkinson was so drunk…”

After that, we hopped over to see my old co-workers at Geno’s Formal Affair. It was great catching up with everyone. Since my departure, they’ve hired multiple new people, 2 of which are local beauty pageant winners, so Hunter made sure to inform me I’m not pretty enough to work there anymore anyway. We also caught up with Jordan, who we know from college and who has been the Assistant Manager at Geno’s for a couple of years. She and her husband, Tyler, are planning on moving to the Big Apple next year (unless we can soon convince her that Chicago is infinitely better) so Jordan can pursue a career in fashion, so we shared our knowledge of living in a tiny apartment in a big city. In fact, Jordan recently launched a new fashion blog and you can check it out here.

That night, we grabbed dinner at Waffle House with Sharonda and her boyfriend, Jay. Waffle House is a place of nostalgia for Sharonda and I since we spent many late nights there during the summers I was home from college, and Cary Anne and Jay like greasy breakfast enough to tolerate our insistence that we eat there. Neither Sharonda nor I are great “phone people,” so it was great to hear all about what they've been doing over the past several months.

On Saturday, we drove down to London, because our old college friend, Cam, was getting married. This was the highlight of the weekend because it allowed us to see so many of our old friends from University of the Cumberlands (most of whom we hadn’t seen in over a year). The ceremony was beautiful and simple, and was followed by a reception at a local country club. There were vases of water beads on every table, and many of us UC people sat in the back and tried not to make a scene as we took turns bouncing them and throwing them at each other. The older people around us kept staring and frowning; I don’t know why.

On Sunday, my whole family got together to celebrate my brother’s 29^th birthday. He was a bit predictable in his selection of a Mexican restaurant for dinner followed by frozen yogurt from Orange Leaf for dessert, but I’m not complaining.

Overall, it was a great weekend back in south.

Who Wants to Have an Adult Sleepover?

Summer is coming to a close here in Chicago. The past several months have been packed with all the things you'd expect from summer in the city: we had the chance to take in some "Shakespeare in the Park," we enjoyed some local outdoor festivals (where we tried our 1^st bacon doughnut), and we grilled out at the community garden.

A few weeks ago, we even had a chance to see by brother, Jon, and his wife, Andrea...for about an hour. It was rather unexpected. They were flying back from a mission trip in Haiti with the youth group from their church, and they were supposed to catch a connecting flight home to Kentucky from O'Hare. Because of a delay, they ended up missing their flight and made the decision to “sleep” at O'Hare. So Cary Anne and I drove out to meet them, and we spent about an hour catching up and hearing about their trip.

A couple of weeks later, CA's birthday rolled around. After she opened her gifts, we decided to head downtown to eat at an Irish restaurant Cary Anne wanted to try. Sadly, as we were walking out, Cary Anne shut the door before turning to me and saying, “You have keys, right?” I did not. So CA managed to lock us out. Luckily, since it was just the push-lock on the knob, we were eventually able to successfully McGuyver our way back in to our own place. (You can read about the whole ordeal over on my comedy blog.) So we ended up at dinner at The Kerryman about an hour later than we anticipated. It was actually a really nice night, and we got to dine out on the patio. The food was good, and we were endlessly entertained by the people next to us who were far too old to be having a conversation sprinkled with gems like, “In a decade, I don't think people will be getting married, because if I like a guy, I just want to have sex with him, not fight with him about loading the dishwasher” and “You can come over to my place tonight. My wife is out of town. I mean, we're not gonna do anything; just an adult sleepover, you know?”

Around that same time, I had to venture out the DMV to register our car here in Illinois. When I walked in, I was “greeted” by a large, older man on a chair wearing the lifeless expression every DMV worker has in TV sitcoms. He handed me the proper form to fill out. About half way through, I realized that the title was solely in CA's name , and she was supposed to be present to sign the form. I looked down at the fine print and saw that forging someone's information on the form could result in a $10,000 fine and up to 5 years in prison. I walked back to the large man and asked him for advice.

“Couldn't you just sign her name for her?” he said, barely looking at me.

I looked back down at the fine print. “I could...I guess?”

“Well, geez, that's what I would do,” he said, looking off in another direction to inform that the conversation was over. In the end it didn't matter because CA ended up having to fax her ID and written permission to add me to the new car title. Overall, the whole process was about as painless as you can expect from the DMV, and now were legitimate Illinoisans.

Lastly, here's our 5 seconds-a-day footage from July. Enjoy...

A Mile High Get Away

If you follow this blog with an regularity, you may remember that Cary Anne's brother got engaged to his girlfriend on a year, Makenzie, shortly after CA and I moved to Chicago, and just a couple of weeks ago, it came time for us to fly out to Denver for the actual wedding. Our friend Ben drove us to the airport, and he brought along with him a mix CD he apparently used to use to get pumped during his 45-minute drive to Six Flags when he used to work there a few years ago. Surprisingly, it was largely U2, Coldplay, and show tunes. He cringed when a Gin Blossoms came on, but CA and I just laughed and proceeded to sing along. Our flight to Denver was pretty uneventful, except that we sat next to an old woman with a dog under her seat, and I kept trying to get Cary Anne to let the things loose mid-flight. She refused. CA's parents picked us up in Denver, and took us to the hotel. It was nice to see them considering we hadn't since they visited Lexington back in May of last year. The drive was a bit bizarre, coming from a metropolis like Chicago and being transported to a place where flat land stretches for miles until the mountains rise up to meet the sky. 

Cary Anne was actually in the wedding so when she was involved in wedding activities, I was often running on the treadmill at the hotel. Therefore, I let her give you the run down on the actual rehearsal and wedding itself (since it was her brother and because she rarely contributes to “our” blog)...

"I was incredibly blessed to be asked to be Makenzie's bridesmaid, which came with additional responsibilities (unbeknownst to me at the time of acceptance) such as lip-syncing a song and dance organized by Aunt Summer at the rehearsal dinner, which naturally turned my brother the most flattering shade of red you've ever seen on a man his age/size. After we were all rehearsed and ready for the impending ceremony, I was able to sit and hang out with family and friends from Virginia and just reminisce about our time together there (I haven't been back since I got married almost 2 years ago).

The ceremony was gorgeous. I don't think you could've asked for more perfect weather or flowers or venue… We were up in the mountains on a deck that overlooked the valley. It was beautiful during the ceremony and after when the sun went down and you could see all the lights. Makenzie didn't want the bridesmaids to match (other than in color scheme) so I made the mistake of  decided to make my own dress. Needless to say, the weeks prior to the wedding were full of sewing and avoiding sewing and nervousness that the dress would look awful and wouldn't match… but it all worked out fine and I was fully clothed walking down the aisle and I have to say we bridesmaids looked pretty good together. The reception was fun and I danced my heart out, which didn't take much, the thin air up there is no joke!

  

It was a fantastic wedding and I can't believe my brother is MARRIED and I HAVE A SISTER! (can you tell I'm still super pumped about it?)"

The day after the wedding, Cary Anne and I had the chance to meet up with my friends Hunter and Ashley. I lived in a beach-side hotel with Hunter and Ashley back in the summer of 2006, when we were all part of a Campus Crusade summer project. Hunter and I were accountability partners, and we would often spend afternoons at In-N-Out, eating burgers and talking about Jesus and girls. In 2008, CA and I went to H&A's wedding in Kansas City, but we hadn't seen them since, so it was great catching up. We were actually crashing the 1st birthday of their daughter, Lily, who apparently had no interest in taking part in our photo. 

That evening we caught a flight back to Chicago with Cary Anne's parents since they had were planning on visiting for a few days and learning about our lives in the Windy City. But more on that in our next post...


Meanwhile, enjoy our 5 seconds-a-day from June...

Summer School, Sunday School

Life has been progressing as normal here in Chicago since Memorial Day Weekend, with both Cary Anne and I continuing in our theater endeavors. CA recently finished running sound board for a show at a theater only about 3 blocks from our apartment. Though I thought she was going to take more of a break after her last show, she decided to work on this one since it wasn't a huge time commitment and she even got paid a little. I also recently completed level 2 of my improv training at Improv Olympic. This class was a little more calm than my last one, probably because we met on Sunday afternoons rather than the evening, but it was still a good time. A lot of this course focused on group work and collaborating as a team, so it was fun bonding with my classmates for 8 weeks.

Also, our church, CCC Edgewater, recently changed it's worship location. For the past several months, we were renting out a small, single-room art gallery every Sunday evening, but the space was starting to get a little tight and we worried that an evening service with no child care wasn't an ideal, welcoming environment for families. (Though it was perfect for us 20-somethings who enjoyed getting to sleep in, then going to grab a drink at the bar around the corner after worship.) So for the past couple of weeks we've meeting in the mornings in the auditorium of George R. Swift Elementary School. It has lots of space, and the walls and curtains are a wonderful powder pink. (During announcements recently, I made fun of the place by calling in “Barbie's Dream Theater” and saying, “These walls are so pink they should call this Taylor Swift Elementary”.) But despite the odd color-scheme and fact that I'm still mourning my loss of lazy Sunday mornings, the move has been great, and we're already seeing some new faces.

This week Cary Anne and I went on a date night to Skokie Sports Park. I discovered the park when I drove past it on my way to somewhere else and immediately got excited because I'm a huge fan of miniature golf. In Lexington, there was a Biblical themed mini golf course (which we kindly refer to as “Jesus golf”) that, despite the cheesiness, was actually pretty good. We played there multiple times every summer. The Skokie course is supposed to be like an adventure around the world. You start off putting around the Sears Tower and Statue of Liberty, and soon you're golfing through the coral reefs of Australia and under the Great Wall of China. Overall, it was an entertaining course, and I think we had as much fun posing with the scenery as we did actually golfing.

After the golf, we walked over to the batting cages. The only park with batting cages in Lexington closed over 5 years ago and I don't think I had been in one since. CA told me she had never been in a batting cage. “Never? What have you been doing with your life?” I asked. "I'm a girl! And I'm worried I'm gonna get hit...in the boob." Luckily, that didn't happen. We basically stuck to the slow pitch softball cages while the 10-year-olds gearing up for little league laughed at us from the faster baseball cages. Overall, it was a fun evening.

Later this week we'll be flying out to Colorado to see Cary Anne's brother get married. As you can imagine, we're pretty excited. CA is a bridesmaid in the wedding and much of her time lately has gone into making her own bridesmaid dress. I'm always impressed by her ability to create stuff like that. I took the easy way out and just went to the store to buy new khakis and a tie. After the wedding CA's parents will be hanging out with us here in Chicago for a few days. I'll be sure to share details from our trip on the next post. 

"I knew the years would move quickly, but never quite as fast as this." -DCFC

Somehow I convinced myself it hadn'tbeen that long since I lasted updated this blog. Apparently it's beentwo and a half weeks...which is quite a while in blog time. So whathaven't I talked about yet?

A few weeks ago, CCC Edgewatercelebrated it's first Easter service, and we did so by gathering onthe beach at the shore of Lake Michigan. It was a great time. Thoughthe weather had been pretty cold the previous week, it was quitepleasant that morning, and I was almost hot in my button-up andsweater. We all spread out on some white tarps that were nailed intothe ground, and for about an hour we sang and listened to Rich preachas sea gulls called to each other down by the water. Afterwards, weall walked back to Rich and Dori's apartment for brunch.

About a week later, “Blue Like Jazz”the movie hit theaters. BLJ the book is a set of spiritual memoirs byDonald Miller that has meant a lot to me. I was given a free copy bythe Christian Fellowship at my school during my first week of collegeat Pace University. The concept of spiritual memoirs had never evenentered my mind before, and reading the book is what made me switchmy major from Theatre to English. The next year, I became a leader atPace's Christian Fellowship, and I had a great time handing out thebook to everyone, telling them how it changed my life. We would ordermini versions in bulk and carried them around in big mesh laundrybags. People on the subway would give me weird looks, and I wouldoffer them a free copy. As you can imagine, I was excited to see thefilm. We went on a Monday night with our friend Lisa. When we firstwalked in, the theater was vacant but a handful of others filtered inbefore to movie started. Overall, I really enjoyed it. Despite thelow budget and the complexities involved in turning a set of essaysinto one continuous plot, the movie was an engaging and earnest lookat faith and, in a larger sense, becoming an adult. Go see it if youget the chance.

After the movie, we all went and ate atthe Ihop where our friend Josh recently got a job as a server. Lisahas been on a vegan kick lately, so when we were all talking aboutwhat we wanted, she said, “I can't eat anything with a face.” SoI said, “I guess you can't eat this, then,” pointing to the kidspancake in the menu that was topped with strawberries and whip creamin the shape of a face. I thought that was hilarious, but apparentlyno one else did.

The next night, Cary Anne and I wentwith a couple of friends from church to see Death Cab for Cutie playat the Chicago Theater downtown. I noticed that our concert-going ismoving in a circular pattern. When we were dating, we saw DashboardConfessional, Avett Brothers, Death Cab, City and Colour, and TheSwell Season. Now, since we've been married, we've seen Dashboard,Avett Bros, and Death Cab. Music has always been a big part of CA'sand my relationship, starting with when we used to trade mix CDs backwhen we were just friends. On this night, DCFC was playing with theMagik*Magik Orchestra, which was particularly amazing. The stringsbrought so much emotion to the music, adding a deeper sense of sorrowto songs like “What Sarah Said” and “Tiny Vessels” while, atthe same time, adding a greater sense of joy and beauty to works like“Soul Meets Body” and “Passenger Seat.” One of favorite partswas the fact that they played some of my favorites from their mucholder albums, like “No Joy in Mudville,” “Tiny Fury Bugs”(which includes a nice Chicago shout out), and “Army Corp ofArchitects.” Even the stripped-down, orchestra-less encore of“Steadier Footing” was great. All-in-all, it was easily one of myfavorite concerts I've ever been to, like discovering Death Cab forthe first time.

There's more to catch you up on, butthis post is already getting a little long, so I guess it will haveto wait until next time. Hopefully it won't be another half a month.

Celebrations (all of which involve food)

The great thing about moving to Chicago is that it has given Cary Anne and I a chance to pursue our dreams; the bad thing is that so much dream-pursuing has resulted in limited "quality time." Cary Anne has been working on shows for weeks on end, and when I'm not in improv class, I'm out trying to hit local open mics. Luckily, we have been able to squeeze a date into our busy schedules every now and then. A couple of weeks ago, I was able to see Cary Anne's show, "The Sea," and it was highly entertaining. I'm so proud of her for being a part of it. Afterwards, we walked down to a new burger joint of Belmont called Indie Burger, which combines great food and great music. The place had only been open for 3 days when we went, so everyone was extra nice and eager to please. It definitely has the potential to become a hipster hangout with all organic food and walls lined with concert posters. And since we discovered it so early on, we're like hipsters at the hipster place. Hipster Inception. However, we're not always so hip. Sometimes we just go to the Dunkin Donuts with a Baskin Robbins attached and eat with all the other fatties.

That same week end, we had a cook out at church. Three of our members were having a birthday during the following week, so after worship, we pulled out some tables and set up a feast. We probably should've started the cooking a little earlier because everyone had to wait and graze on pita chip while Zach cooked the meat (slowly) on a small grill by the parking lot, while Sam & I alternated holding the flashlight. Eventually, everyone got stuffed on burgers, brats, and chicken, and the board games came out. I passed rude, intimidating notes to the other teams during Cranium, and Cary Anne got way to into Apples to Apples. Later I created some racial tension. We started cutting and distributing the cake when Lisa came back with a slice and said, “Darius doesn't want his. He doesn't like chocolate.” Across the room I yelled, “Darius! How can you not like chocolate? You are chocolate!” He pretended to be made and flip a table. While I'm excited for our church to grow, right now I'm enjoying looking around the art gallery filled with 30 people, knowing I know everyone's name.

Then, on Monday, UK played Kansas in the NCAA Championship. I was hoping Cary Anne and I could  go to The Pony Inn for the game since it's the official UK alumni bar here in Chicago, but Cary Anne wasn't crazy about the idea since we went to the The Pony for 2 other tournament games and it was absurdly crowded. Luckily, our friend Josh called ahead. (Josh also moved to Chicago from Lexington. During the years I was working at Krispy Kreme, he was working only a few blocks away at the Movie Tavern.) The Pony informed Josh that there had been a line of UK fans waiting to get in since 4pm, and they were gonna stop allowing more people in over an hour before tip off. That successfully squashed that idea, so instead Cary Anne and I met up with Josh and his roommate, Courtney, at a surprisingly quiet bar in Wrigleyville. In the end, we all enjoyed watching Kentucky beat Kansas 67 to 59. Cary Anne kept rolling her eyes as I took to the streets yelling, "C-A-T-S! Cats, Cats, Cats!" No one joined in, and even the homeless people tried to avoid contact with me.

"Feel the Illinoise"

Big things have been happening in Chicago lately. Last weekend, the city turned a whopping 175 years old, after officially becoming a town all the way back in 1837. Then, Monday was Chicago's annual Casimir Pulaski Day, where on the first Monday of March the school system shuts down so all the kids can stay home and listen to that depressing Sufjan Stevens song. (Actually, Pulaski was a hero of the American Revolution. Shame on you, if you were unaware.) So how did Cary Anne and I celebrate these momentous occasions? We splurged on the more expensive ice cream at the store. Seriously.

Actually, things in our life have been fairly busy. First, my level one improv class at iO came to an end. For 8 weeks, I had the opportunity to bond with about 20 of the kindest, funniest people I've ever met. My 3 hours with them every Wednesday night was easily one of the best parts of my week, and I already miss getting up on stage and playing with them regularly. (Luckily, I succeeded in getting everyone to sing Vitamin C's "Graduation Song" during our last class. It really wasn't hard after 8 weeks of of being told "Support your partner(s)" and "Look for the pattern and join in." Seriously, just go into an improv class and start singing anything. If they're any good, they'll join in.) The class was a great growing experience, and I can't wait to get some more money saved to sign up for level 2. Cary Anne also recently finished the first play she was volunteering with as a stage hand and immediately threw herself into another production, this time as an assistant Stage Manager. Though the work consumes a lot of her evenings, she says it's worth it to be back in the theatre world. However, I know she's ready to take a breather once this show comes to a close. 

With Cary Anne working a full time job while helping to put up a show and with my sporadic work schedule while trying to pursue some comedic endeavors, it's not always easy for us to spend quality time together. Luckily, last week, we both had Friday night off so we decided to plan a date night. I found a small, cheap bowling alley not far from us called Timber Lanes. I didn't realize just how cozy it would be until we walked in: 8 lanes and no computer system. Every ball in the joint was inscribed with a name. I used a shiny red one called "Rat Boy," and Cary Anne used a blue ball named "Penny." For about an hour we played, continually hoping our Wii bowling training would somehow come in handy, but it didn't really. Without a computer system, we had no idea what our score was, so we just wrote down the numbers and resolved to Google it when we got home. In the end, I think we only played slightly worse than the group of elementary schoolers who were using the lane beside us. (Though, in our defense, they were relying on the bumpers pretty heavily.) Overall, it was a lot of fun, and it was so nice to find a simple, old-fashioned alley tucked away into the glitz and noise of the big city. Cary Anne and I have already told multiple other couples about it, and they're all demanding a double date sometime in the near future. Though I'm not sure they can compete with our sweet 120 average.

Creativity & Cupid

Our friend Kelly recently landed her dream nursing job, but the program she got hired for doesn't start up until March, so she basically ended up with February as a month of vacation. After a week of sitting in her apartment and blowing through several seasons of Parks and Rec, she decided to actually get out in the city and do something. So she planned a day trip to The Art Institute of Chicago and invited all of us from church to come along. Luckily, it was on a day that I happened to have off, so a few weeks ago I met up with 5 others from church, and we took the Red Line into downtown.

The best part was the Institute was offering free admission for Illinois residence. Considering most of our church consists of 20-somethings working weird jobs to get by, that made us all happy. When we first arrived, we wandered downstairs through the miniatures exhibit and took in some photography. One of my favorite works was an entire wall of close-up photos of pennies in various states of corrosion. I came across one penny where Lincoln had a large divot in his temple and said "That seems insensitive." After that, we walked around the Renaissance wing, where the walls were lined with mammoth, colorful paintings. I like to think of myself as a person who enjoys and appreciates art, but some things are difficult not to mock. Sam and I would giggle like immature kids when we found something odd and amusing.

"Hey, look at this one, Sam. This guy was like, 'I want you to paint my portrait as I wear my bathrobe...but I also wanna be holding my big sword.'"
"Haha. Yeah, and look at this one. I think I'll paint two guys in a boat whispering while they look at woman trying to breast feed her child on the shore."
For some reason, the older curators stationed in each room kept giving us stern looks.

After that, Sam, Josh, and I split off from the girls to check out some of the more modern art. We found ourselves in a room with over half a dozen completely black framed photos on the wall. Upon reading the description of the work, we learned that the artist had used one of the most powerful telescopes in the world to look out into space, and instead of photographing anything interesting, decided to capture images of the deepest darkness. "She probably just forgot to the lens cap off and didn't want to admit it," someone said. So we headed back to the Eastern art room, where the artifact were much more interesting than black photos.

Intrigued gentlemen

Sadly, Cary Anne had to work during our trip to the museum, but luckily the Art Institute is only about 3 blocks from her office, so we were all able to get lunch together.

A week later, Valentine's Day was upon us. I generally have Tuesdays off, so I was able to take the day and plan things for when Cary Anne got home. Since we're on a relatively tights budget, I thought I'd make dinner for us, which is kind of a scary idea considering up until about year and half ago heating up frozen mozzarella sticks was basically the height of my culinary skills. I settled on a menu of grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, and salad, which I figured would be pretty hard to screw up. But then I remembered another obstacle. When we made the move to Chicago, we sold our dining room table set since we knew we wouldn't have room here in our new place. I ended up pulling our desk to the center of our apartment and throwing a bed sheet over it. We only have one desk chair so I had to borrow a folding chair from our church pastors, Rich and Dori. When I picked it up, Rich and I laughed about how it was one of those classic newlywed Valentine's Day that you look back on with nostalgia in a few years, "Remember when we didn't have any chairs...?"

Luckily, I was able to mask the less-then-classy table accommodations by placing tea candles all over our apartment. While it provided it a nice ambience, it certainly made cooking more of an adventure. All-in-all, I was able to successfully surprise Cary Anne with an intimate meal when she got home, and I managed not to catch anything on fire (including the food). Earlier, we had decided that our Valentine's gifts to one another wouldn't be the traditional flowers or candy, but Cubs gear instead to make us feel like true Chicagoans. Don't we look great?