i'm pretty sure he's messing with me, because if not, my brain will implode

"Yeah, I don't think I'll be coming over Friday night."

"Why? Are you going straight home to suburbia?"

"My flight gets in at 4:00 and Dad gets off at 4:30. He's coming to pick me up."

"You realize that Dad works in the far northwest suburbs and it will be like 6:30 before he gets anywhere near picking you up at that time of day, right? You should just take the blue line from O'Hare downtown and have dinner with me and H. It's not like you're going to have any luggage; you're just coming home to drive your car back to Alabama, right?"

"True, but I might have to check a bag."

"Why? You won't even be in town for 24 hours!"

"I'll be carrying liquids—shampoo and stuff."

"Okay. Let me get this straight, you're coming HOME for LESS THAN A DAY and you need to bring SHAMPOO? You're coming HOME! Not some cheap motel with no complimentary cleansing products! HOME!"

"I need it."

"Can't you just put some into a smaller less-than-3-ounce bottle and carry it on?"

"I don't have a little bottle."

"Can't you GET ONE?!"

"No."

"Okay,  you know what? Just sit at the airport and wait for Dad. You could be enjoying dinner and perhaps the new Batman movie with us, but whatever."

"I did want to see that movie... Let me get back to you. I might come downtown after all."

on a first date, it's probably not a good idea to say you get relationship advice from your sister

"Hey, I have a question. It's a girl question"

"Yes?"

"So I've been talking to this girl for awhile and we both like soccer. A few days back I had said we should catch a game sometime, and today she emails me to ask if I'm watching the Portugal vs. Germany* match. "

"And?"

"I said yeah, but I didn't know where and she said we should watch it at the bar for lunch, since she has to study all day. Is this a date?"

"You were there, what do you think?"

"I didn't think so, but Mark said 'Dude, you're going on a date!' So now I'm nervous."

"Well, you suggested hanging out for a game sometime and then she offered up a specific date and time. I'd say it's a date."

"Crap! So do I offer to pay or will that be weird?"

"Hang on, let me take a poll...My consultants say that you should offer, date or not. Why don't you just say 'I got this' when the check comes. It'll be casual, but nice."

"But what if the server asks at the beginning if it's one check or two?"

"Geez Louise, why are you THINKING SO MUCH? Just say one. You're going to screw it up if you overthink it. When is this non-date date, anyway?"

"I'm driving there now."

"Hang up with me and focus on driving!"

"Okay...So do you think I should pull her chair out for her?"

"Good Lord! I don't know about all that Southern Gentleman stuff. Guys don't really do that up here. I say don't. Keep it casual. Dude, it's not like you haven't been on a date in a decade or something."

"Well, it's been four years."

"You'll be fine. Let me know how it goes."

"Okay. Thanks."

[five minutes later]

"Oh man, I just screwed it all up."

"Why are you calling me? Aren't you supposed to be on your date?"

"Yeah, I got here and I wanted to send you a text asking if I should get a table or wait for her, and instead of you, I ACCIDENTALLY SENT IT TO HER."

"That's it. You are now banished to the Friend Zone. Maybe now you can actually enjoy the game?"

"Oh my god, are you serious? Now what do I do?!?"

"RELAX! And be yourself. But I'm warning you: if you call me from your date again, I'm going to tell Mom."

*Obviously I wrote this a while back and didn't have time to post. The non-date–date went well, he paid, she said she'd pay next time. I think they're still cool; I haven't heard any updates.

streamlining

As you may know, my condo is on the market. And while it's not exactly going excellently (still isn't sold), we've had pretty steady potential-buyer traffic and a few offers, ridiculous as they were (If a buyer can only afford to pay 93% of his/her cash offer up front and promises the last 7% in five years, why the hell wouldn't s/he try to buy a home that's the 7% cheaper outright instead of toying with us?). We love the place; it's small but cute, and located in the juiciest, most touristy section of downtown Chicago. It also happens to be across the river from my former employer. The reason we're selling is because it is no longer affordable—three layoffs between the two of us, working part-time, taking a less-lucrative chance on a startup that will hopefully pay better later, the craptastic job market, the even more craptastic housing market and starting over across the country has put a pretty ginormous crack in the old nest egg. And from what my realtor says, the reason it's having any trouble selling is because people could get more space for the same price if they're willing to travel about 2 miles out of the way. So much for that awesome return I was expecting on the prime location.

So we're biding our time. And streamlining. Cutting nonessential expenses, being extremely choosy about attending events and cooking every meal at home. It's going pretty well, but tricky when you don't have an extravagant lifestyle to trim from and are fussy with your spending habits to start with. Of course I'm sweating over it—worrying is my favorite pastime, after all—and obsessing about streamlining takes up all hours not spent concentrating on work or watching several episodes of The Office in a row (Thanks, Apple, for making Netflix's View Instantly unlimited). 

This streamlining business has spilled over to all other aspects of life: cleaning out the pantry, tearing out what's interesting and recycling old magazines, storing work files in a more efficient way and reorganizing email labels in my five accounts. That last one includes all the posts I had up before Blogger labeled posts/comments emails with the post title, so I have hundreds of them personally tagged with titles. Getting rid of them one by one is making my head spin, but it takes my mind off the worry. In the process, I get to look back over all the stuff I wrote back when my life was so completely different, consisting of searching for parking (don't even have my car anymore), commuting three hours a day (now it's a 15-minute walk), talking on the phone with H (now he's usually in the same room) and not having a social life (well, not everything has changed very much).

Looking back at two tons of comments over the years is a reminder of  how supportive you guys are and that you always give great advice. Got any tips for streamlining/putting my mind at ease? I found a gray hair last week, and I could really do without finding any more.

Somebody let the Auntie Patrol into Ogilvy & Mather

Check out this commercial*, Kabhi Kabhi Pyar Mein, for Pond's "whitening" cream featuring Indian actors Priyanka Chopra, Saif Ali Khan and Neha Dhupia. It's the first of a several-part "novella." Here is the entire commercial series (as configured for another region in Asia).

I remember Aunties suggesting we use Fair and Lovely "fairness" cream in junior high so we wouldn't get "too dark" from hanging out in the pool. That stuff is just jasmine-scented sunscreen/moisturizer, but I bought into the hype back then. I feel lame about being shamed into using it. 

Sadly, this prejudice is still going so strong that they have entire soap opera about how much harder life is for the "darker" girl and how unfair it is. My mom watches it. While it's good that people in India are being shown how backwards and archaic these stereotypes are in mainstream soaps, it's sad that this kind of stuff is taking place in present tense.

*via the comments to a post about something even more ridiculous on sepiamutiny.com.

nothing says "Good Luck" like Underoos

As you may recall, a month ago my brother came home for a visit. He's decided to stay in Alabama, and he started his first *real* job last week. (Kiss those long school holidays goodbye, kid!)

While he was in town, my parents threw him a graduation dinner at a local pizza joint. To be perfectly honest, I think it was more of a party for them; the guest list was severely tipped in their favor. However, my brother got to choose the invitations, which he picked up at the party outlet store, that read COME TO MY LINGERIE PARTY!

I didn't make that up.

We had about 50 people on the list, most of whom are colleagues and friends of our parents (and some of whom are on the Auntie Patrol) and they each received a hand-written pink invite in the shape of a lacy camisole. My brother is the only person I know in real life who can get away with shenanigans like that. He will shrug his shoulders, smirk and hand you a card that says HAPPY BAR MITZVAH for your birthday or one with LA ABUELA MÁS FABULOSA on Father's Day. Somehow it works for him; people find it absolutely hilarious. I couldn't get away with it. I guess that charm gene must have skipped over me and given him a double dose.

So what did the guests do when they got those invites besides laugh? Poetic justice: They brought him skivvies.

There were Jockey shorts, lacy panties and even a sparkly thong with rhinestones that spelled out "Fabulous." And my mom's friend made a delicious half-chocolate/half–vanilla-and-strawberry cake in the shape of a bra and panties in my brother's school colors. But the best gift of all was from his long-time nurse, who has seen him through various surgery recoveries since he was in junior high. She made a long trip to be there and brought her four-year-old son. And she presented the new grad with a tiny pair of Underoos and a card estimating they're probably pretty close to my brother's size with a post script apologizing because they are used.

My mom gave a sweet speech in which she named nearly everyone in the room individually and thanked them for being there for us all these years: canceling work meetings to come and donate blood for my brother's surgeries, bringing food and hugs and prayers to the hospital, picking up slack for her so she could stay with him in the hospital for weeks at a time and letting her cry on their shoulders. She had nearly everyone in the room wiping their eyes.

It was a lovely party. We all felt pretty proud of the kid and I think all the guests had a good chuckle watching him open package after package of ridiculous underwear. But don't feel too bad for the little brat—along with all the undies, he got a fancy used car from my parents.

catching up with cadiz: wrigley field

For those of you wondering where the heck I've been, I apologize. Things have been mighty busy, and there have been dozens of posts that have been drafted and dumped because they didn't get posted in a timely manner. Here is one I thought I could salvage, even though I don't remember a lot of the details now. More posts to come, hopefully soon.

When my brother was in town (at the end of May, which feels like a million years ago), H and I took him and his roommate, Mark, to Wrigley Field for a tour.

The marquee (I remember it best from that flashback in Sleepless in Seattle).

The view from Waveland, near where everyone stands around in hopes of catching a ball.

The Chicago Bears played at Wrigley until 1970 and it's been used for soccer (Chicago Sting), concerts and they even had a ski-jump competition.

Originally it housed 14,000 fans and now can seat up to 41,000. We were a little mesmerized about how weird it looked all empty like this.

The place was the first to have an organ (the original is now in the Hall of Fame).

It's also the first baseball field where they allowed fans to keep foul balls as souvenirs.

No one has ever hit the scoreboard--with a baseball. Sam Snead hit it with a golf ball, teeing off from home plate.

If you look closely, home plate and the pitcher's mound don't line up with the "400" sign in center field. When they wanted to add seats, they cut left field and rolled it all back. The pitcher's mound now is where home plate used to be.

AC006299: "After Championship, it's been zero years since their last division championship, it's been 62 years since they won the pennant and it's been 99 years since they last won the World Series. The latin roughly translates to "Let's go Cubs."

People hang out on rooftops during games, too. Sometimes they light up that spinning Harry Caray wheel.

We got to sit in the pressbox. It's a real nice view.

Radio booth, where they might possibly sing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" during the seventh-inning stretch. Or not. I don't remember.

We got to go into the locker rooms. This one's for visitors.

This is how you're supposed to wear the uniform.

Don't forget your bats, either.

Professional athletes need a LOT of products to look good on the field. And this was the visiting bathroom.

Squint and you'll see a wedding party. Apparently people like to have their photos taken at Wrigley. (Sounds like something my brother would want).

We went on the tour right before the Dodgers/Cubs series at the end of May, and we went to a couple of games. H got a bunch of shots of himself with this dodgers round identifier thingy. It's huge; this photo is from the pressbox. (And I've been informed that it's called the "on-deck circle.")

When we were at the game the next day, these cute old guys would entertain the crowd with their impromptu band.

H caught Derrek Lee's home run. (In fact, he took most of these photos--the good ones, at least.)

Personally, I go to ballgames for the hot dogs and beer. And the peoplewatching.

The Dodgers didn't fare too well in that series. They got swept, and Murphy's Bleachers rubbed it in. Sorry, H. But at least they made a grammatical mistake in their rush to gloat.

The famous ivy.

3!

Part of dinner the other night.

It's amazing that even after three years of talking for hours on the phone (and now in person) every single day, we still haven't run out of stuff to say.