Cuckin' Fubs (I surrender)

Cubs are 0-2 at games I've attended. I'm not ready to jump off any bridges, just a little disappointed. It's a long season, but it's not going to be the romp through the NL Central that everyone predicted.

108-54

Mehhh, that's a little better. 2-1 after 3 games; we'll take it. Just keep winning series, and maybe the Cubs will win one in the playoffs this year.

162-0 *

*- With just 161 games to go, the Cubs are on pace for the first undefeated season in Major League Baseball history. Congratulations, men. Keep up the good work, and go Cubs.

Dude's Day

There's really not much I can add to this picture that you can't already figure out for yourself. Jarrod's wife and lone daughter were off visiting friends Saturday, so he and I had Dude's Day with his boys. The original plan was for me to come down on Friday Night, but Nora crashing her face into the sidewalk on Friday altered my plans. I drove to Peoria Saturday morning, and got Dude's Day started with a flash. I met another good friend for breakfast (3 eggs, hash browns, bacon, biscuits&gravy and toast. I even finished her breakfast....there's no shame in my game. I stopped at Hooters (aka The Hoot or Hoo Hoo's), and picked up some refreshments for the big day. I had a craving for chicken wings, and I didn't figure we'd be able to take the boys. However, when I got there, I learned that Peoria Hooters must be a family friendly place or something. 2 out of 3 tables had at least one kid under the age of ten. Who knew? Got the wings, and headed to the Stocks. Nobody answered the phone when I called. I figured they were out back playing. I walked around back and found no one. I rang the doorbell, heard little footsteps, then saw Michael's eyes peering through the window. Moments later, Jarrod, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, answered the door. We sampled the wings to make sure they were ok, did some catching up, and watched the rest of the race. At suppertime, we had Dude's Supper, complete with Dude Napkins (paper towels). There was some question over whether the wings would be for supper or to eat while watching basketball that night. Upon hearing there were 50 wings, we decided we could do both. Long story short, there weren't any wings left after supper. Who knew Michael could eat so many? We didn't take a picture of the bone plate, but you can see Andrew having Dude's Dessert (rice krispie treat). The girls came home, the boys went to bed, and Mama went shopping before hanging out for the end of the last game. She even got to hear the "Do It for Jarrod" story. Always good times!!! The wild party broke up around 10:30.

Dude's day was a success, and the next time we have it, there will be t-shirts with a slogan and everything.

Spring in Chicago

Ummmm, yeah. This is as of 11:30 the evening of 4/5/09. The White Sox cancelled opening day tomorrow. More pics here.

More Great News for the City of Chicago

My favorite Wrigleyville pizza place, Bacci Pizza, now has Sausage & Pepperoni pizza. Lemme explain. About 20 paces from the Wrigley Field el stop, there's a pizza place in an old brownstone. You can get a huge slice of pizza and a pop for $5, with tax. In the past, you had your pick of sausage, pepperoni, or cheese from pizzas they already had made. You can imagine my delight when I walked in today and saw they had added sausage & pepperoni slice to their pre-made lineup. It's on the way to Wrigley, and the fine folks in the Cubs organization will let you bring in outside food, so it's a good fit. In other outstanding news, Bacci had done away with their wax paper envelopes for carry-out, and come up with a slice-sized box. You can now carry your slice into the park and not worry about the ingredients sliding off while you're in transit. This is indeed a glorious turn of events.

I've been on vacation this week, and today was my last day with the girls. They like riding the train, so we parked at Forest Park and took the train(s) to Wrigley. We ate at Bacci, then began our annual "prayer-walk" around Wrigley Field. We stepped onto the block where the park sits and hadn't taken 50 steps and I hear a loud smack followed by much weeping and wailing. My precious little Nora had been skipping with her hands in her pockets and took a dive on the cobblestones. She was behind me, and I didn't see how bad it was. I gave her a cold bottle of water to put on it, and suggested we get on the train and go home. She wanted to stop at the souvenir store to replace the Cubs pin she'd lost. We stopped in there, it's across the street from the pizza place, and picked out our pins. (Nora is holding the water bottle to her face and weeping openly the entire time.) I'm paying for our stuff and took the water bottle away from her face to have a look, and there was a collective "Ooohhh!" from Maggie and Grace. Her face was swelling from just above her eyebrow to about the middle of her cheek. We high-tailed it out of there and got back to Bacci to make up an ice pack. There were 3 paramedics headed in for lunch while we were there. They looked her over, suggested we ice it down, and take her to her regular doctor (talk about providence, huh?). I take my still crying child on the train where everyone proceeds to look at me and speculate about what I might've done to my child. About 10 minutes into the train ride, I take the ice off, and she stops crying. We talk a little bit, she tells me it doesn't hurt, she's not scared, but she misses her cat. I figured she was doing fine. We got back in the car and headed to Naperville. I was in no mood to deal with the Peds office on Friday afternoon, and we've met the deductible, so we went to the ER. We've got a pediatric ER, and it's glorious. Cool docs and nurses, and we were out in 25 minutes. Nora had good pupils, movement in her eyes, feeling in her face, and her jaw was working just fine, so they said she was good to go. I forgot to mention that at that point, she was Chatty Cathy. Aside from the ginormous bruise on her face, you'd never know anything was wrong. We got home, and she and I had some serious cuddle time. I felt terrible for her, but she was happy as a clam. Now, I devote a fair amount of my time to Cubs baseball. I hope they don't win the whole thing this year; because I'd hate to have to take her back there next year and push her down to bring back the luck.

I Gues Alot of Bears Fans are Excited

Maybe I should be excited too. Da Bears finally have a franchise quarterback. Jay Cutler, who was unhappy in Denver and made everybody miserable in an attempt to get traded, got his wish and is now a Chicago Bear. And really, the Bears only had to give up their starting QB and 2 #1 draft picks in exchange for Cutler and a fifth round pick. Yippee. Hopefully, he's far away from whatever was pissing him in off in Denver, and he can get back to being the standout QB he was with Vanderbilt (SEC, BTW). A word to the wise....get Kyle Orton on your fantasy team, he's bound to do better in any other offense.

In other news, NASCAR is in full swing. Kyle Busch has won 2 races, and his Gibbs teammate Denny Hamlin is also planted squarely in the top 12. The girls are struggling with a new driver in the Home Depot car. They still want to cheer for Tony, so now we cheer for the Stewart-Haas Racing Old Spice Office Depot #14 Chevy Impala SS.

After a comment about Old KY Home clip, I did a little research. I had informed Int'l Mikey that we originally learned the words as 'the darkies are gay'. I went in search of the original lyrics and got a whole history lesson. I figured with KY's ties to the south that there were some slavery references in there, but had no idea it was so closely tied with "Uncle Tom's Cabin". Crazy. Take a look for yourself. It's a good read if you've got a sec.