*sweat*

some of you may have noticed something resembling a heat wave sauntering through the midwest. unless you live in alaska or the moon, you are probably wishing for air conditioning or the sweet embrace of death.

here are the chicago weather stats as of 7:53pm:
temp: 91˚
humidity: 61%
dew point: 76˚

the humidity, as we all know, is the relative moisture in the air. the higher this number, the ickier it feels ("icky" is a standard weather term). the dew point is the temperature at which the said moisture in the air turns to water. many of you may not know this, but it is THIS number that makes this weather so motherf*cking unbearable. this is what makes you sweat when you aren't even moving. this is the number that should remind us that chicago was once a fetid swamp.

according to this dew point, if it were to drop down to 76˚ (and i hope it does that before i melt into a puddle), we would have fog. all of the moisture in the air would show itself. this is why when you wake up at 6am and go out to your car and it's all wet. i'd say something about having a wet lawn in the morning, but i live in the city and haven't seen a lawn in about 7 years.

we do not have central air. it's the sacrifice we made to the vintage apartment god that gave us cool things as radiators with a cool engraved design and vent-less, squeeky hardwood floors. our apartment is a sauna. i have a small window unit that is being employed in the bedroom full-time. today, i lasted about 2 hours in the uncooled living room before i had to get out and go to some air conditioned haven... target. but i could only stand stay-at-home moms with their spawn and the elderly for so long. so after that, i went to starbucks. ahhhhh. they set their AC to "meatlocker" and i love it. but i couldn't sleep there, which is too bad.

so now we're sitting in the bedroom, both with our respective laptops. of course, with the air on, i'm still sweating. i hate it. this heat sucks. i think i'm going to crawl into the oven to get cool.

donate

if you have a cat that you love, hell, even if you have a dog, donate money to a shelter or humane society. here is a list of places that need your money:

anticruelty society
harmony house no kill shelter for cats and kittens
animal house shelter not affiliated with the movie
american humane society

and don't forget about your local Humane Society chapters.
Illinois
coastal maine humane society
champaign (which i realize is in illinois)
michigan humane society
rhode island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

give money to help. because they can't help themselves.

the (not-so)year of the cat

another cat has died. this brings this year's total up to 5. first was sue's cat, of kidney disease, if i'm not mistaken (you may remember this post). second was Monty, annette's pride and joy. we think his demise was a stroke from being overweight (but another diagnosis might come later in the blog). then came sue's other, remaining, cat, again of kidney disease (the cats were littermates). fourth was a friend from Michigan, who's cat used to drool when pet (which my cat also does). this cat was older and her time was soon to come, yet it was still sad. and lastly, Checkers.

Checkers has quite a story. she was aquired in 1992, had resided in a crack house in the northwest suburbs. during a drug bust, she had gotten trapped under some heavy furniture and was left for a while before being saved. her right leg was damaged beyond repair and it and her shoulder were removed. she was a one-legged kitten in an animal shelter where my friend's mother worked. she was brought home as a pet for kristin. her fur was still growing back, but she had such a spirit. and man was she fast! she would fetch and she loved q-tips. kristin would come home and find her garbage can had been turned over and all of the kleenex and q-tips had been pilfered. Checkers had been across the country, from Illinois thru Colorado to California and back again. her best nickname is Tripod. she beat up her clawed, four-legged step-sister as often as she could and did a damn good job of it. she wasn't scared of anything.

but this weekend, kristin noticed that she seemed a little skinny. then sunday she was a little lethargic. on monday, Checkers started having seizures on Monday. she came out of each one, but they continued through the night. the vet said to keep her calm and quiet and that they'd have the labs back on tuesday morning. the last few seizures had caused Checkers to lose control of her bodily functions (not unlike monty). they took her back to the vet, where the seizures continued unabated. the vet said that her liver enzymes were extremely elevated and that she had hyperthyroidism, which was probably contributing to her seizures and weight loss. but they couldn't do anything for her. the vet suggested they put her down and that's what they did.

we will always remember you, Checkers.

i survived family camping

sorry it's been so long, i've been up to my ass in work, if you can believe that. no, really. it's true.

so i managed to get most of my weekend covered at starbucks, with the exception of sunday. for that, i swapped my morning shift for a night shift. the weekend went something like this:

friday, buttcrack of dawn: we get up and eat and pack some more stuff and get in the car. 800 hours later, we're somewhere in North KrautNaziVille, WI, home of the SS. along the trip, we manage to catch up to our coupled partners-in-crime, kristin and rudy (kristin has been subjected to my family reunion for the past 6 years). we manage to find the campground without much hassle and check in. it's hotter than christ outside and we know it's only going to get worse. we pitch our tents on a 15 degree incline (ah, the outdoors) and go and find other family members to complain with. we eat dinner pot-luck style in the pavillion (german for a bunch of picnic tables on a cement slab) after cooling off in the Black Falls River, that seems to have quite an undertow. and bugs. and tadpoles. and rocks. and clams. we go to bed sweating, but manage to cool off enough to require a covering.

saturday, buttcrack of dawn: i wake up 2 feet down from where i went to sleep. at least i'm still in the tent. we all get up and break out the propane stove to heat up some water for tea and oatmeal, the breakfast of champions. we head on down to my dad's cabin to get harassed by his wife for already eating breakfast and not saving room at 8am for her egg cassarole. it has whole sausages in it. it looks vile. the boys eat a little bit (because they have room for anything) and still get a "well, you didn't eat very much." then we get ready to go tubing down the river.

bathing suits? check. SPF 239846? check. hat? check. sunglasses? check. two and half hours with nothing better to do than float in a reflective puddle of river on the hottest day of the year? i probably would have thought this one out a little more had i known it would take so damn long. and the river really wasn't deeper in any spot than 4 feet. and for most part, i was dragging ass, literally. and about half way through, scott and i got so hungry that we were ready to pass out by the end. and it didn't matter that scott kept slathering on the sunscreen... he still got burned.

after that ordeal, we go back to camp and then go into town to get scott some flip-flops, his shoes having been left in a canoe that was somewhere down the crazy river (name that artist for a shout-out on my next blog). wal-mart, the last bastion of corporate greed and brutality, didn't have fucking flip-flops!!! WTF? but we manage to find a pair at a dollar store. worth every penny. then we eat at mcdonald's. i'm not proud of it, but it was that or burger king, and mcdoo's has better fries. i love camping.

but i really started to love camping when we found out that some of our family members had stormed out of their pre-paid, airconditioned, bathroom-equipped cabin and left for good. scott, rudy, kristin and i jumped on that and broke in and slept there that night. ahhhhhh.... it was awesome, considering it was about 85 degrees at 11pm at night.

sunday, butt-crack of dawn: drive home. 6 hours later, drop scott off, get changed, drive to work. work for 7 hours. come home. crash. wake up to oppressive heat monday morning.

welcome to hell: population, my family.

ps. i'd like to give a shout-out to my mom, who called today, worried that i haven't come back from camping, since i hadn't posted anything about it on my blog. now i bet she wished i hadn't. ;)

and to my boyfriend, who's birthday it is today. what anniversary is 29? it's the bollocks anniversary and i got him the Young Ones box set. i'm the coolest girlfriend ever.

family 1, starbucks 0

in a show of complete lack of pride, i begged and begged and finally got some people to cover my shifts this weekend. fear not, dear family, i shall be there to sweat and scratch mosquito bites with the lot of you.

of course, it's going to be hotter than hell with a chance of heatstroke this weekend up in Middle O' Nowhere, WI. i think it's the only time in the history of the world when it will be hotter up north than it is in Chicago. i asked my friend (who is "lucky" enough to have joined me at my family reunions thru the years), "well, our tents are air conditioned, right?" skot just said, "there are always hotels." not a bad idea.

but we're all packed, for the most part. now all we have to do is get up at the butt-crack of dawn and head out. and hopefully not spontaneously combust on the way up there. wish us luck! and there will be plenty of pics to post when i get back!

Illinois tollway without I-Pass: 80¢
fine for going through without I-Pass: $20
total bill for being impatient: $62.40

finally getting your car's photograph taken with violation enforcement camera: priceless

family v. starbucks

my dad's side of the family has a reunion very summer. they pick a campground and everyone brings their tents and RVs and we eat and talk and eat some more. they started it a long time ago, sometime in the 70s, and then it was discontinued when it was decided that everyone had better things to do. but it was resurrected by my dad's older sister, my aunt Judie, in 2000. until that summer, i hadn't seen anyone on my dad's side of the family in 15 years. that's a long time. in that time, my parents had gotten divorced, my sister had stopped talking to my dad and i had grown up and gone to college. but i was surprised to find out that they were, for the most part, funny, brilliant and nice as hell. so i look forward to going every year.

last year, i didn't go because i really wasn't getting the movitational push to go. Kristin wasn't going and i didn't think my boyfriend at the time really wanted to go. so i didn't go. this year, my dad is the organizer, so i'm required to go. he's already paid for my campsite. and i've known about the dates since february.

so why is it that i didn't request the time off from starbucks? only Satan knows the answer to that question. because, yes, that's right, folks... i have to work both saturday and sunday that weekend. so if anyone out there would like to pick up a few shifts at my starbucks on the 15th and 16th, please feel free to email me. i'd really appreciate it. what will happen if i don't find someone to cover my shifts? the consequences will be that i will probably be fired, because i'm not going to be there. at all. so cross your fingers that someone comes through for me, because if not, i might soon be no longer be able to call myself "barista."

it gets messier

so, yesterday i had an interview with that marketing firm and thought i was going to have a 2nd interview at the magazine today. but no. they called and now they want me to come in to do a freelance day with them, to see how i work. ok, so that's monday. then another design company i used to work with called and they want me to come in and do some work for them. that's tuesday. then the marketing firm (which i thought i had grossed out with my bleeding heels and unshaved legs. word of advice: don't wear new, $10 shoes to a job interview) called and now THEY want me to come in for a second interview. so that's on wednesday. SHEESH! enough, people! there's only so much of me to go around! actually, i'm always amazed when people like my stuff. i guess i've seen for so long, it fails to impress me. actually, it's always failed to impress me but i think, deep down, i'm just a lazy perfectionist.

today, i rode my bike to the south loop to work with my client (sounds so professional, doesn't it?) and we finished a newsletter, a remittance envelope, and an ad reply card. so far for them i've done 4 brochures, 2 ad pieces, ad rate sheets, an annual report and a newsletter. and it's totally awesome. one friend says i shouldn't give in to the corporate world, that i should stick it to the man. i guess i'll have to see how i feel next week.

coming next: the family reunion debacle

to job or not to job: that is the question

in the week that my computer died, i panicked. i felt like a useless lump on the couch with no internet and no hours billed. so i started looking for "real" work (once i got my computer back). and because my applying was a knee-jerk response to being idle, i got immediate responses. one from a monthly magazine and one from a marketing group. having been on the interviews, let me break it down in a list of pros and cons:

magazine pros:
it's grass-roots, paid for with advertiser money
laid-back atmosphere
perks, like free entry to fun-runs and free merchandise from advertisers
many things to do

magazine cons:
it doesn't pay a lot because it's paid for with advertiser money
it's a real 9-5 job, with maybe weekends
it's not easily accessible by public transportation, or "easy" as i've been used to over the years. it would require a train switch or *gasp!* riding the bus.

marketing group pros:
pays well
small department, it would just be me and the manager, who works from home 3 days a week
many things to do
close to train

marketing group cons:
it's a real 9-5 job
they have cubes
i would be the only one in the department, with exception 2 days a week

i'm going to go ahead and say that i like not having a real job. as annoying as it gets looking at these same white walls and those same fighting cats, they're MY white walls and they're MY fighting cats (actually, OUR white walls, OUR fighting cats). i can do laundry when i work on a newsletter. i can go to starbucks and do that flyer. the work i do is for ME, for clients i love to work for. i find the printers and the paper and the images. it's all me. and when it's done, i did it. it wasn't a department or someone handing me an assignment. i find a lot of satisfaction in doing this freelance thing that i haven't had in a long time. i guess i just worry that i'll never save any money to buy a house or ever have anything to retire on if i don't get my head out of my ass and get back to work. isn't that how we're all trained? i tell people that i'm unemployed, but i'm not really. i'm a DESIGNER, dammit. i can design anything i want! you wanna book? i can make you a book! you wanna sign? i can make you a sign! you wanna calendar with your daughter's picture on every month? i can make you that calendar!

maybe i should hold out for my freedom for as long as i can. any opinions out there?