gnat incurs an unexpected amount of muscle soreness

i am not an athletic person. by the time i hit high school i had tried and sucked at just about every sport there is, at which point i gave up and became a theater kid instead. by this point in my life i have made peace with the fact that i possess the coordination of a drunk ostrich (i have no data to support the assertion that drunk ostriches are uncoordinated - this is purely conjecture) but at the same time i tend to shy away from opportunities to showcase my profound lack of sporting ability.

this is why several months ago, when zain first tried to explain to me how badly i needed to experience the phenomenon that is whirlyball, i was completely closed to the idea. had he thoroughly explained what a game of whirlyball actually entailed, i might have been more amenable to it.

basically you take ten of these:

ten of these:

and ten of these:

and play a game somewhat akin to basketball.

my passing and shooting abilities were, predictably, nonexistent, but i feel my aggressive LA driving skills offset my other weaknesses. action shot!

...sort of.

i woke up the next morning with a surprising amount of soreness in a surprising number of areas, considering i had played a game throughout which i remained seated. this is, i suppose, a testament to how out of shape i am. i blame winter.

whirlyball wasn't invented in chicago, nor is it unique to chicago, but i had never heard of it before moving here. in fact there are only 17 whirlyball venues in the world, none of which are in california. (chicago has three; kid rock's house in the suburbs of detroit has one. the rest are mostly in places to which there is no reason to go except to play whirlyball.)

my apologies to zain, who for several months attempted to introduce me to something excellent and was met with nothing but staunch resistance. whirlyball is awesome.

gnat complains

the phrase "april showers bring may flowers" has never made any sense to me. in my experience by the time april rolls around the flowers have long since appeared, the rain is long gone, everyone is in shorts and sundresses and my spring fever has kicked into high gear.

not so, in chicago! it's been 45 and raining for weeks, and weather.com seems to think it's going to go right on doing so through the end of the month at least. upon returning from california after spring break i somewhat triumphantly put my sleeping bag coat in the back of my closet... last week i had to pull it right back out again.

(side note: i always thought spring fever referred to a warm weather induced upswing in mood and crazy increase in energy, a phenomenon that inconveniently struck me, without fail, during finals week of winter quarter every year throughout college, causing me to spend more time at the beach than was probably prudent right before exams. as it turns out, spring fever can also mean a feeling of low energy and weariness that occurs with the onset of spring. in german it's called "frühjahrsmüdigkeit," which according to wikipedia translates to "spring tiredness" and which i have been attempting unsuccessfully to pronounce for several moments now.)

so, i have spring fever, and not the fun kind. this, in combination with mcat studying and subsequent attempting to catch up on all the things i wasn't paying attention to while i was mcat studying, has prevented me from having exciting chicago adventures to tell you about... sorry.

april sucks.

gnat celebrates the american pastime

do i look like a convincing baseball fan or what?

last saturday sarge, harmony, and taylor took me to my very first baseball game. yes friends, i made it 24 years without having ever been to or even watched a baseball game. what can i say, i have foreign parents. baseball is not a thing we do.

baseball is, however, a thing chicago does, which is surprising considering the cubs haven't won a world series since 1908. in fact, they haven't even appeared in a world series since 1945 - the year the curse of the billy goat was placed. according to legend billy sianis, founder of chicago's billy goat tavern, was ejected from the park with his goat murphy (for whom he had purchased a box seat ticket) because of its offensive odor. sianis, a greek and therefore a lover not only of goats but of ominous superstitious things, declared on the spot that the cubs would never win a world series again. since then numerous attempts have been made to break the curse on chicago's "lovable losers," most of them involving bringing goats to wrigley field.

well, the cubs didn't get a goat last saturday but they did get a gnat.

sarge, harmony, and taylor, all lifelong baseball fans, were extraordinarily patient about explaining some of baseball's complexities to me, as well as amused by my complete ignorance of the baseball-going experience. for example, i always thought the seventh-inning stretch was... ok honestly, as i write this i realize i had no idea what the seventh-inning stretch was, but i definitely would not have guessed it meant that everyone in the park literally stands up and stretches.

as we left i got a picture with the statue of harry caray, (only slightly less ridiculous than one i have tucked away somewhere of me with the actual han solo frozen in carbonite prop) who only now after reading his wikipedia bio do i know anything about beyond "hey! would you eat the moon if it was made of ribs?" in fact, i tried to emulate will ferrell's harry caray in this photo... let's not talk about how widely i missed the mark.

there were no peanuts and no cracker jacks, but there were hot dogs and beer and i had a great time.

since then i have been camped out at elly's (remember elly's?) furiously preparing for the mcat, which i am taking on saturday. not only do they have marvelous pancakes but they are an excellent study venue! i know what you're thinking - "gnat, saturday is not very many days from today. shouldn't you be studying right now instead of blogging?" and you are absolutely right, here i go. wish me luck!

gnat blogs from SPACE!

ok, i'm not in outer space, but i'm about as close to it as i am likely to ever be (barring the occurrence of any of the dystopic future off world colonies described in many of my favorite books, or, way more unlikely, me becoming an astronaut).

i have nothing chicago related to say, except that i'm on my way there! currently cruising at 7,000 feet over (probably) nebraska... it's looking pretty flat down there. for some reason screwing around on the internet up here is approximately nine times more exciting than doing it at sea level.

one hour and 49 minutes to chicago!

gnat (begrudgingly) catches up

i am experiencing writer's block.

gnat's chicago experiment has been m.i.a. for a few weeks now, and not owing to lack of material. i keep opening blogger, staring at the empty white box for several minutes, getting disheartened, and giving up in favor of stumbleupon or something else that requires no creative input on my part. sadly even now i'm having trouble coming up with exciting things to say about the exciting things i've done since my last update. you'll have to bear with me.

so yeah... st. patrick's day happened.

every year chicago dyes a stretch of the river green in celebration of st. patrick's day. (los angeles, which lacks both a river and a sufficient non-brown population to be very interested in recoloring it, dyes a few pints of miller lite green instead.)

...gross.

the previous weekend i tagged along with taylor and eileen to st. louis for mardi gras (another holiday los angeles is completely uninterested in) where i enjoyed gumbo, beverages in squirt guns, and entertaining encounters with fellow fat tuesday revelers in the streets of historic soulard.

here's a picture of some beads in a tree. i have absolutely nothing clever to say about them.

before leaving st. louis we stopped at the arch, where taylor and eileen (former resident and frequent visitor, respectively) sat looking entertained as i frolicked in the grass and took pictures from every possible angle...

...including the obligatory "pushing on the arch" shot below.

en route back to chicago we stopped in springfield, the capital of illinois and my former place of residence! also the home of abraham lincoln and one of the stranger sandwiches i have encountered in my sandwich eating career: the horseshoe.

two pieces of toasted white bread, topped with a hamburger patty and a handful of french fries and then drizzled with cheese sauce. i don't know who thought these four food items would go well together, nor am i sure it can really be called a sandwich. mostly i am mystified as to why it's called a horseshoe. (wikipedia offers no guidance on this issue.)

also in springfield, my old house!

yep, that's where i lived when i was three, during gnat's illinois residency round 1. the walgreen's around the corner that i used to ride my red tricycle to is still there.

i've been spring break-ing in california for a little over a week, but will be returning shortly to chicago for more adventures. here's to hoping the blogging deities bestow some fluency upon me between now and my next update.

gnat gets iced

thanks to taylor and eileen, another of my chicago wishlist goals came to fruition last sunday night: a chicago blackhawks game!

it was my first chicago professional sporting event and i didn't have any appropriate gear, so taylor was nice enough to lend me a shirt:

she was also nice enough to explain it to me - jonathan toews (pronounced "tays," or i guess "taze" is more appropriate in this context) is team captain for the hawks.

hockey is more exciting than i thought it would be, but the highlight of my blackhawks experience was definitely the opportunity to casually throw around the word "zamboni" in conversation for three hours. do me a favor and take a moment to say zamboni a few times out loud. i guarantee it will brighten your day. zamboni. zambooooooooni.

the hawks won in a shootout, which, because my only previous experience with hockey consists of a teenage obsession (fine, continuing obsession) with the mighty ducks movies, is how i'm pretty sure all hockey games end. right?

thanks, girls.

coming up next time, gnat's chicago experiment goes on the road. get excited.

gnat says OPA!

chicago is a huge center of greek diaspora. (according to wikipedia so are new hampshire and florida, who knew?) i'm 1/4 greek, so it's a little bit unacceptable that i've lived here for eight months and haven't been over to greektown to visit my people.

instead, because the end of the quarter was looming and i had papers due left and right, (and because you can only cook tacos so many tuesdays in a row before it gets really boring) i decided to throw a GREEKSTRAVAGANZA! on monday.

before you can throw a greek dinner party you need greek ingredients, some of which are basically impossible to find in your average run-of-the-mill grocery store. aleck (a fellow greek and chicago native) was kind enough to poll his relatives about their preferred food shopping location, and the overwhelming consensus was:

fresh farms market! way out in the northwest suburbs of chicago. lucky for me, taylor was as excited about the prospect of a grocery-related field trip as i was, so on saturday we embarked on a mini road trip to niles, IL to get all of the goodies on my list.

so, fresh farms market is my new favorite place. i'll spare you a detailed description of our time there, because odds are we will be going back and it will get its own post. despite my giddiness throughout the shopping experience somehow i managed to exhibit a tremendous amount of restraint and only left with things on my list.

...it was a long list.

my menu was pretty ambitious, so i began to prep little by little on saturday and sunday.

by the time guests began to arrive on monday, i was greeksuited up and in the last stages of cooking.

there was a veritable smorgasbord of all my favorite foods to cook and eat: dolmas, moussaka, tsatziki, greek salad, lemon chicken, spanakopita, shaareya and tabbouleh, the last two of which are actually egyptian but shhhhh.

side note: smorgasbord is a swedish word for a buffet type food situation. unfortunately, extensive google searching (and mother phone calling) has failed to turn up a greek equivalent.

the most exciting food item by far was the saganaki. saganaki is a hunk of kefalotyri cheese that's been floured, egg washed, floured again, pan fried, soaked in booze, then lit on fire. that's right - cheese on fire. saganaki isn't actually traditonally greek, but originated in a restaurant right here in chicago's greektown.

a lovely little greek lady at fresh farms market told us to use sherry, but after several failed attempts to light the cheese we resorted to vodka. even so, the cheese was not as on fire as i had hoped it would be.

next time we'll use bacardi 151.

also notable, although probably to nobody but me, my first truly successful baklava making attempt. it turns out the secret is to use a loooooot of butter. i won't tell you how much.

we wore laurels and togas, we listened to greek music, we wined and dined. we GREEKSTRAVAGANZA!d, that truly is the only word for it.

once the guests had gone i promptly passed out on the couch.

throwing a GREEKSTRAVAGANZA! is hard work.

the next day, because it was tuesday and there was a downright disgusting amount of leftover food, (and because i was in the midst of far less fun than GREEKSTRAVAGANZA! excessive procrastination induced paperwritingstravaganza) i had greek tacos for dinner.

don't be fooled, they may look cool but there is a reason that greek tacos are not a real thing.

one of these days i will make it to actual greektown. in the meantime, i am up to my ears in enough leftover dolmas and tsatziki to keep me fed through the remainder of paperwritingstravaganza.

OPA!

gnat is reunited with an old friend

that's right everybody - my girl guy is back.

he's been on hiatus since december, so when i felt the little tug that told me he was out there (a little bit like the spidey sense, except it goes off for imminent loud redundant singing instead of danger) i thought i must be wrong. still, i peeked out the window and sure enough, there he was.

now i've had the winter blues all week, so i perked right up when i saw him. i snatched up my scarf and coat and ran downstairs to introduce myself. unfortunately my excitement faded quickly and was gone by the time i made it over to his corner.

i think the following photo, taken by a passer-by, speaks to the emotions i was experiencing as he continued right on singing about his girl throughout our encounter:

that, my friends, is an unsuccessfully suppressed grimace.

i have no idea whether the groundhog saw his shadow last week or not (or even what it would mean either way... groundhog day isn't really something we pay attention to in california). what i DO know is that it's starting to get warm enough out there that my girl guy can comfortably stand outside and sing for hours on end, and for that i am definitely grateful.

gnat reflects on her URL

it's snowing, again. usually snow makes me feel giddy and child-like, today it's only making me frustrated and homesick.

some days i get this gut feeling that i am in the wrong place. it's as if the magnetic dipoles in my sinuses are misaligned... my body senses my longitude and latitude and for some reason thinks that they are incorrect (and tells me so, with a sense of urgency).

actually, i think that only happens in birds, but you get my point.

maybe i'm just tired of winter. after all, by my standards it should be just about over... at the moment it's not looking like that's going to happen any time soon.

i'm going outside to eat some snowflakes and see if i can get excited about them again.

gnat survives the snowpocalypse

let me preface this by saying that of all the chicago adventures i have had thus far, snowpocalypse has been without doubt my absolute favorite.

it all started on monday morning when i had the following conversation with my mother:

ma: tomorrow and the next few day there will be a blizzard storm you need to go get food to store

gnat: i went today

ma: candles there might be power outage

gnat: but the store is very close

gnat: a blizzard?

ma: i am telling you whats on the news

gnat: in chicago?

ma: yeah all over and they said chicago. the next few days worse on tuesday and wednesday

ma: just check it

ma: go to walgreen get a couple of flash lights and a lot of batteries

ma: you dont want to find yourself alone at home pitch black

ma: your stove is gas?

a quick google search turned up a story from the chicago sun-times with the headline "'life-threatening' blizzard on its way to chicago area."

naturally i did what any scared californian who had never lived through a blizzard before (and who had a fear mongering parent sending doomsday messages from the other side of the country) would do - i prepared for the worst. over the course of monday and tuesday i amassed a respectable collection of candles, flashlights, snacks, and water in anticipation of the impending snowmageddon.

what i forgot to get (and what would later prove essential) was wine. by the time cara and i realized the omission, the winds had picked up and the "falling" snow was flying horizontally. we suited up in our snowpocalypse survival gear and trudged through the abandoned streets to the nearest trader joe's.

our provisions:

we dined and caroused with our taco tuesday guests (because i wasn't about to let the end of the world get in the way of taco tuesday, and neither were they, although we ate slightly more blizzard appropriate foods) and then somewhat foolhardily headed out to experience the storm.

it was chaotic. frenzied. helter skelter. really the only word for it is apocalyptic.

the next morning (my first snow day!) we examined the aftermath of the storm. things i found buried in the snow included my street,

a fire hydrant,

and (probably) a bicycle.

we snowball fought - well, i attempted rather pathetically to snowball fight and the andrews pummeled each other with continent shaped chunks of snow,

and i made my first snow angel, which is truly as satisfying as all those little kids frolicking in the snow on tv make it look.

snowpocalypse is, sadly, over, and it's sunny and beautiful (albeit really, really cold) outside, but the streets and the sidewalks are still piled high with snow. i'm not sure how long it will stick around, the snow plows have been at it outside my window since about six o'clock this morning. thanks, assholes.

(side note: perhaps due to the sun coming in through the windows and the garbage-truck like beeping of the snow plows i woke up thinking i was on kelton, that it was wednesday, and that i was late for work. i even strained to hear if patty had beaten me to the shower.)

there's a small part of me that wishes it could be snowpocalypse every day.

well, not every day.

gnat revisits al's (and gets it right, this time)

it's the end of the month and as of yesterday i had only completed one item out of five on my january chicago wishlist. totally unacceptable! not wanting to close the month with a dismal 20% success rate i crammed two more items from the list in at the last possible moment.

first, my triumphant return to al's beef:

i first visited al's with jalees and nicole back in august. i didn't find out until months later (thanks, man vs. food!) that REAL chicagoans get their al's beef "dipped" - the sandwich gets dunked into the vat of juice the beef was cooked in, because it just isn't messy enough to be worth eating otherwise.

so of course, i went back. i asked the guy behind the counter twice to make sure he actually dunked my sandwich this time, because it didn't look quite mushy enough to my untrained eye.

it was dunked, all right. as soon as i picked the thing up to get a picture it unleashed a greasy stream of liquid and i narrowly avoided a lap full of beef juice. the following is an actual look of shock and dismay captured by cara:

if you should ever find yourself at al's #1 beef, do yourself a favor and get your sandwich dunked.

this morning i walked down to navy pier to check out the snow sculpture competition at "snow days chicago." (see? i DON'T just write about food.) because i was feeling exceptionally touristy, i walked the scenic route along the lake. last time i was at this "beach" it was 95 degrees out... not so much, right now.

the snow sculptures were, predictably, completely awesome. i took a moment to discuss the ones i liked best with comedian bob newhart, a chicago native.

(just did some research. evidently this is his character dr. bob hartley's psychoanalyst couch from the bob newhart show.. for the purposes of this discussion i would like to pretend instead that i am on some sort of bob newhart talk show discussing snow sculpture ratings and how painful sitting on frozen metal couches can be.)

this wasn't one of my favorites but the others weren't quite as imitable as cranky captain america.

except maybe the medusa, but nobody was standing around to get a picture of my interpretation. it won first place!

my favorite was the second place winner. it's called "hommage a duchamp no. 2" and it's based on a marcel duchamp painting called nude descending a staircase no2.

i also liked this one, "that's a moray." yeah, it's actually called that.

an exhibition piece done by the team that won last year's competition. zoom in and look at the wrinkles in his face... that's all made of snow.

i'm not even certain i'm capable of putting together a half decent snowman. i haven't tried yet, but we're supposed to get a blizzard this week so there should be some prime snow frolicking days coming up.

the last two items on my list were a visit to the field museum and to go to a blackhawks game. both have been postponed (one due to a total fail on my part, the other completely zain's fault, or really zain's knee's fault) but by no means forgotten!

gnat goes to white castle

i went down to my old hood (south loop) last night with taylor and friends to see a concert at reggie's music club, which happens to be about an inch and a half from a real life honest to god white castle.

the band that opened was excellent, but the "headliner," ekoostic hookah, was underwhelming at best. we slipped out in the middle of their set for some sliders.

taylor insists that this was the worst white castle she had ever been to and that we have to try a different one before i can pass judgement - i'm going to write about it anyway.

we got tiny little cheeseburgers and crinkly fries (and chicken rings, whatever those are...), which we ate while huddled around a trash can because there were no tables and it was 11 degrees outside. i don't really have anything else earth shattering to say about the experience, so without further ado here's an incredibly awkward photo of my tentative first bite:

the verdict: white castle isn't half bad. i wouldn't go on a zany late night misadventure in pursuit of it (unless neil patrick harris is involved, then i'm definitely down), but it wasn't bad at all.

on second thought, i have been known to instigate spontaneous outings in search of strange foods at ungodly hours on a pretty regular basis, so yeah, i guess i probably would go on a zany late night misadventure in pursuit of it.

i had a katy perry induced moment of intense homesickness on the train this morning. my pod was on shuffle and "california girls" came on, and i looked out the window at the snow, and i counted all the items of clothing i was wearing (leggings, jeans, two pairs of wool socks, undershirt, sweater, scarf, sleepingbagcoat), and i got a little choked up because all i really wanted from life at that moment was to be driving up PCH in santa monica with the windows down. and maybe a cheeseburger animal style with fries and a diet coke from in-n-out.

oh yeah.

gnat girds her loins

according to the weather channel, when i wake up in a few hours it will be 8 degrees outside. with the wind chill, it will feel like -22 degrees.

i am officially terrified.