wanted: photos of ukrainian havoc squad

we're back from the fourth annual hnatusko family reunion in gainesville, ga, and this is the only photo i have to show for it. here's otto at takeoff, snuggled into the sling with his woobie, ready for some sweet, sweet mi-mi time.

see, i've never been a picture-taker. the only reason i have a camera at all is because the one i have i gave to my husband who ended up giving it back to me once he got a fancy-schmancy one. having a camera with a bonafide neckstrap is a declaration that you are hereby the family historian. it's likely that any pictures he's taken will be posted to his web gallery, but if there are any family members reading who would like to donate your photos to posterity, please email them on over.

little people, big mistake

oh man. i just saw that matt roloff, the dad from the TLC show, "little people, big world" was busted for dui... from a friggin' field sobriety test. ridiculous.

here's what i don't get: for one, why would you submit to a field sobriety test, like, ever? it seems to me to be about as subjective as judging a dance routine. some people just aren't coordinated enough to walk a straight line while sober. when my sorority president was arrested for driving drunk, she did a mandatory seminar for the house on the topic as a form of penance, in which she instructed us to always submit to a blood or urine test and eschew the dodgy field sobriety and breathalizers.

two, how on earth could this guy be evaluated in such a manner -- he walks on crutches! poor little dude. his smile makes me sad.

the cousins outing: ravinia

last friday, i met up with my sisters and some of my cousins [i'm greek -- i've got a lot of cousins!] at ravinia. the shots are few but poignant. check 'em out. click to enlarge and view in their full splendor:


this is me, pre-ravinia, looking very aggro. note the corrugated brow. i called a cab from my house to the ravenswood metra stop at 5:15 to come at 5:45 -- the cab came at 5:20. because i am just that way, i declined the cab and called back at 5:40. that one never came [they sure showed me!] and so casey and otto drove the CR-V dukes-of-hazzard style uptown to the station. i leapt from the car and ran like a total freak, pushing people out of my way, to the platform, only to discover that, not only was the train ten minutes late, i would have to wait for the next one because there would be no more room on the one i wanted to get on. neato. in retrospect, at least the ride ended up being free.



here are more people who were left in the dust as well. why are they so unruffled? many of them had coolers with actual cold beers nestled inside.



here i am with my lovely sisters dina and nicole, looking far more pleasant. in my hand is a drinking receptacle fashioned, again, á la dukes-of-hazzard with a plastic knife and an immutable desire for a cold, alcoholic beverage. despite the fact that my gracious cousins brought practically anything that anyone could have ever needed for a fabulous picnic including a sundry wines and cocktails, cups were accidentally forgotten. i was not to be deterred. having taken the train with my cousin, dena [we have a lot of denas in our family -- did i mention that i'm greek?] from kenilworth, my sisters were already in a fun-loving mood.




much later in the evening, my cousin elizabeth stuck her pert bottom in a pre-surgery-kenny rogers look-alike's face, seated in the yellow and white chair. that's cousin dena [the dena from before, not another dena, although i do have another cousin dina but she lives in new zealand now... have i confused you yet?] laughing into her sangria with her long, flowing locks in the foreground. pictured in the background is my cousin-in-law, greer.

caption: "yooolikeit? yooolikeit!"



at the close of the evening, long after the throngs of wasted north shore teens had staggered from the park, we are packing up in the dark. pictured is dena and elizabeth, attempting to shove a jampacked picnic basket into my late yia-yia's shopping cart... for the third effing time! each time, the basket falls out along with a cascade of plaid cloth napkins and tealights, and each time, we bowl over laughing. as you might expect from a mass of messed-up multiparas, incontinence is not far behind.

caption: o chichonia! [only in my family do we make allusions to rocky and bullwinkle's fractured fairy tales cartoons.]

can't wait for another get together soon!

grosse pointe beckons

i spent a large part of yesterday in pursuit of justice to be meted out by our fair city of chicago. you see, in a nutshell, my true love was summarily duped into writing a check to a child who told him that he was trying to raise money to afford to attend northwestern. you can see the actual scam in action online. casey's a musician and, having attended berklee college of music, felt for this schlubby city kid trying to realize his dream.

after calling 311, getting transferred to 911, being referred to area 5 detectives, then being referred to a police station that ended up being the wrong police station, only to call another station to then be referred right back to 311, i have determined that no one in this city really cares and casey and i should go knock over a bank.

then later, once otto was snug in his happy little bed, the garden variety car alarm starts going off. right in front of our house. and doesn't stop. casey remarked that it was like the gods were yelling, "OT-to, OT-to! WAKE up! GET up! PACK up! GROSSE pointe! MOVE there! GO now! HUR-ry!"

today was more of a pro-chicago day. the weather was fresh and lovely. the cubs fans crawling down addison were spirited. i truly did enjoy running a few quick errands to my local target, cleaners, and whole foods without driving a ton in preparation for tonight's kintonis cousin's outing to ravinia to see the steve miller band. i'm certain an idyllic evening there on the north shore, so very accessible via the metra, will put a few more points in the "stay here" column...

... until the elotes cart ladies come peddling their goods, honking their bike horns like mad in the street tomorrow.

mean girls: the update

just when i was convinced my email was relegated to spam hell, i received a reply from my friend whom i'd written [see a few messages back]:

oh my gosh!!!! what a surprise and a thrill to hear from you!!!!! what on earth got into you? :) first let me say thank you for the kind words, it touched my heart to know you think that of me after all of this time. secondly, apology accepted! you have to know how much i have adored you ever since we pledged chi omega! good lord, everytime i hear "groove is in the heart", i think of you and our ridiculous dancing at frat parties! i don't remember what i said to you back 6 years ago, i do remember being pissed off and hurt....and yes you did let me down quite a bit, but we all do stupid stuff and the years have taught me well...

funny that she mentions the ridiculous dancing: we really did make supreme asses of ourselves back then and i kinda smile and cringe at the same time. she goes on a little more to say that she's recently had a baby and that we should catch up via the phone sometime soon. phone calls are challenging for me but i will, in the name of rekindled friendship, give it the old college try [no pun intended]. so, um... yea for friends! woot!

dwell = porn

awwwww yeeah... sock it to me!

at the end of a long day of huffing litterbox fumes; contending with old, leaking windows; and the conundrum of how else, if at all, can our living room furniture be arranged, i wash up and retire to the aesthetic sanctity of our master bedroom. with its vaulted ceilings, clean lines, and muted greens and greys, this is the haven to which i retire... to seethe greedily over a magazine.

i'm not ogling famous beefcake or poring over a tome of sartorial splendor. through clenched teeth [don't wake the baby] i mutter to casey, "oh my god, will you look at this friggin' spread? shit, crap, and dammit, that's so awesome. grrr..." i slide my modern design magazine across our blanketed laps to he can get an eyeful of a fantastic home. on each delightfully matte page of the chunky issue, we drool and moan over fabulous prefabs, immaculate rehabs, and damn-sexy bathrooms... and then we jealously curse the homeowners. "fuckin' assholes," murmurs casey.

whooda thought a bathroom would be sexy? mmmmosaic tile... sssssizzling saarinen womb chairs! ahhhhlessi kitchen accessories!

got any unusual trigger-trippers?

my college experience in a nutshell

here is a picture that best depicts each year of my college experience. enjoy!


freshman year:
holy mackerel, can you say wasted? horrifying. note the standard anonymous cup of random booze featured prominently in true amateur fashion. i think the most appropriate caption to this would be, "boys! whee! drinkies! whee! having access to wardrobes that don't include smocked empire waists and lace peter pan collars! wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeaghagggppppppfffuugh..."






sophomore year: here i am posing with another dance teamer from my sorority before a football game. i was as pumped up this year as my hair [the broccoli bangs, paired with red lips, are still in effect, but only when dancing]. i was struggling to bring up my abysmal GPA, but hey! i was on the dance team and... not kicked out of my house. goody!





junior year: this was as good as it got. i would leave class to go take step aerobics, then motor my scooter across the river for two hour practices, then run five or six miles, then enjoy a hearty meal of a glass of milk and a red delicious apple with the marlboro girls on the sun porch outside my window at the house. i actually had the clout by then to not have the room with the beds that share the same wall as the toilets. i was so effing fit, i kept getting mistaken for a fieldhockey player. everyone was talking about them then because they were big ten champs or something and also happened to be all hot blonde... lesbians. [pause] at this time, i myself was single and dating loads of guys. life was swell.


senior year: not pictured. i was a prisoner. i was living in an apartment with the mean volleyball-playing blondes, miserably single with acne, and the captains of my dance team who were juniors jointly decided we were not going to nationals so i had given up on dance team as well as working out. i never even went to drown my sorrows in free alcohol i could legally drink at fraternity parties, either. i think i went home every weekend i could get a ride. blahhhh...

oh, the humanity!

mean college girls

preface: a few years ago, i was talking with one of my sorority sisters, and we got to discussing our house. she hit the nail on the head. in the most straight-forward, unapologetic yet unoffensive way, she said she hated it. she said everyone was so cruel, that they'd pick someone out of our friend-group and target them with abuse, and she doesn't feel anything positive about her affiliation anymore. at the time, i think i was a little hurt, partly because she and i were honestly really close [when we'd go to parties, we'd tell guys we were twins], but mainly because i knew that sometimes i jumped in line to pin the proverbial tail on the donkey... when i myself wasn't designated the ass. i tried weakly refuting her claims, but i couldn't really change her mind. she didn't seem mad about it anymore; she was over it. anyway, our friendship officially ended a little later in a huge, vicious argument about her sending me endless political propaganda emails, and me getting tired of deleting them. it was the ugliest, meanest phone argument ever, and that was that.

the other day, i logged on to our national website and got her email address. here's what i wrote, saved for posterity in the event it never reaches her inbox.

---

dear sister-in-the-bond,

hello, there. it feels like an extremely long time since we talked -- six years i think -- and i hope that you are enjoying your summer. how's matt doing? do you still have that beagle? any little babies?

you're probably wondering why i'm writing, but i woke up with an overwhelming compulsion to get in touch with you. over the course of a few days, talks i've had with family and my husband have made me think a lot about friendship. to make a long story short, my thoughts inevitably turned to our sorority experience, and i remembered what you'd said a few years back and how i disagreed with you at that time. i just wanted to tell you that i have thought a lot about it and i know now you were right. especially with our group of "friends", there existed a pretty overwhelming mean girls ethos. i think about how ruthlessly people picked on others and made people feel small. i think now about how that experience shaped me, how i interact with people, the way i treat people, and i have to say it was kinda scarring.

the saddest part is, looking back, you were probably the only person within that clique of people that i can honestly say was genuinely kind and giving of yourself. i realize this is probably worth nothing now, but i apologize if i jumped on the bitch bandwagon and was less than appreciative of your friendship. since the start of college, you and i had a natural affinity towards one another, and though we live really far apart now, i can't help but be frustrated that things fell apart. as i recall, we don't necessarily agree on all topics, but i thought we were pretty close friends with a lot of fun memories and i'm sad that our connection doesn't exist in any capacity anymore.

i'm not really sure how to close this email. i just feel very relieved to tell you that it's taken me a long time, but i now see the light. i do truly hope you're well and that we'll get in touch again sometime.

have a wonderful summer,

p

classmates

i've found the supreme timewaster... friggin' classmates. good lord, what a guilty pleasure. it's so addicting to just look people up and see what they've got going on. i have literally found myself jarring awake in the middle of the night, thinking, "mary! must... look up... mary.. and see what she's doingzzzzz...and danny! miss my buddy danny p..."

i've looked up college friends and high school friends, old chums and ex-beaux. it's fascinating. each time i've gone back to the site, they want me to fill out more, more, more about myself. some people have full bios, all questions answered, and are even brave enough to have recent photos posted.

it seems to me, however, that very few people ever seem to connect with anyone using the site. there is even a question asking why you've come to the site and most profiles i've peeped have the bashful "i don't even know how i got here" or "just curious" answers. heaven forbid anyone admit they actually want to reunite with high school friends. gawd! the database serves as a veritable lurker haven of sorts, like perez hilton for the layperson.

have you entered your profile on classmates? ever get in touch with any old friends? anyone reach you via the site?

have a happy meme-orial weekend

i got an email from my cousin, elizabeth, with this meme and i immediately thought, “blogfodder!” feel free to answer these questions yourself in the comments or on your own blogs… especially if i’ve tagged you.

three things that scare me:

1. cockroaches [totally irrational fear]
2. mascots/characters at amusement parks [i run into both all the time, thanks to my job]
3. the constant concern one has as a parent that anything will befall your child

three people who make me laugh:

1. casey
2. my dear friend, jeannine
3. my cousin, elizabeth

three things i love:

1. our cute little family
2. being on a plane, reading a beautiful magazine and listening to “shopping music” on my ipod
3. duh! my toothbrush! [see the post from a few days ago]

three things i hate/severely dislike:

1. insecurity [wreaks havoc on anyone upon whom it preys]
2. olives [good god, you put that in your mouth?]
3. pushy stage parents

three things i don’t understand:

1. religion
2. money
3. politics [it’s a good thing for me that it’s not polite to discuss any of them!]

three things on my desk:

1. la croix raspberry seltzer
2. my non-returning customer list
3. five paperweights [yes, I still collect them]

three things i’m doing right now:

1. watching otto play with blocks
2. trying to breathe again after having run on the treadmill
3. figuring out what to pack to bring to detroit

three things i want to do before i die:

1. perform again [i miss dancing]
2. have another even easier pregnancy/childbirth
3. go back to kaua’i! waaaaah!

three things i can do:

1. make a mean linguine primavera à la da eduardo’s
2. sew babyslings
3. help make people feel included

three things i can’t do:

1. play sports
2. lie
3. listen to country

three things i think you should listen to:

1. ben watt – buzzin’ fly vol. 1-3 [total summer music]
2. public radio
3. your intuition

three things you should never listen to:

1. the fashion mags
2. people who bitch about their kids all the time
3. a dog barking at 6:50a… if i have anything to say about it, damnit.

three things i’d like to learn:

1. japanese
2. how to be a better friend
3. midwifery! [if i can get past all the blood]

three favourite foods:

1. mexican
2. thai
3. anything from green zebra

three shows i watched as a kid:

1. tom & jerry
2. m.a.s.h.
3. the benny hill show

three things i regret:

1. letting people i thought were my friends in the past abuse me
2. not getting right back into working out after the baby [as i sit here unable to breathe]
3. that’s about it: i try to live with as few regrets as possible

three people i tag:
people that need to post on their rancid, rotting, stagnant blogs already:
1. jess
2. scott
3. my mom

today my horoscope read...

daily sagittarius forecast:
today you'll be happy to sacrifice any short-term gains for long-term growth.

well said.

i can't get enough

so, yeah, i think i am addicted. i knew i needed a new one [my old one was pretty worn out] so i picked up another just yesterday. i just grabbed one that seemed soft enough without any concern for color. i just wanted to make my transaction and get away quickly.

i took it home and put it away until the evening. last night, alone in the bathroom, i peeled back the wrapping with anticipation and examined my new purchase. hmmm... the handle has a nice little spot of squishy silicone to soften your grip. fancy! i gave it a liberal squirt from the tube in the drawer and thought, "here goes nothing!"

that's when i knew i could settle for no other. the working side, if you will, has multiple textures to really help get the job done. the other side, however, is blessed with a pad of glistening blue jelly with a nubbly texture to really add to the sensation... it felt like millions of tiny little fingers giving an invigorating massage... where you wouldn't expect it! like nothing i had ever felt before! just amazing! i was in there for a good five minutes, really exploring the possibilities with my new find until i finally felt i was totally finished. whoo. i think i might need to use this little gadget, like, three times a day or more!

yep...

mmm-hmm...

this new toothbrush is the greatest!

can i rock this haircut?

cast your votes. [that means you, too, lurkers.]

mothers' day debunked

you can call me a whistleblower, that's fine. no, i'm not going to out santa or the easter bunny or even the tooth fairy. i've just experienced my first mothers' day and, for those who have not yet or never will be a mama, i am here to expose the ugly truth, pull back the scrim, and let in the harsh light of reality. here it is:

it is just another day.

nothing will be different or special. in the end, you are the only one who can do what you do, so guess what? you are going to keep doing it. all day. just like yesterday. just like tomorrow. your lovely burgeoning bundle of joy doesn't know what day it is either, so he's not going to give you a break. in the end, there are lunchboxes to pack and toys to remember not to leave behind and diapers to be changed and cribs to be curled up in and you, my dearest, will be the one doing the doing. after all, mothers' day falls inauspiciously in the heat of probably every playoff season except football. you will be left holding the bag. the cruelest part of the joke is that the folks that will really want to take good care of you that day will be other mothers, but they'll be so busy doing their own mothering, they just can't stop to shoulder any of your load.

the truth is, i think they're busy earning their points. from what i can tell, it seems there is some frequent mothering program and as a new mama, you're a brand new cardholder with a big fat goose egg on your annual statement. in time, you'll receive some meager paybacks in the form of construction paper and glitter cards, followed by popsicle stick jewelry boxes, then quasi-edible, child-prepared breakfast in bed and so on. whee. alas, lovies, it does appear a little grim at first, but i reckon you can expect to see some change in your status once your small ones can largely fend for themselves. you'll know you've reached that coveted gold status when you're taken out for brunch by your adult children, awarded a pretty darn nice gift, and allowed the lion's share of your day to do what you want to do unfettered. the prestigious platinum elite members get it all, including the chance to actually relish time with little ones [grandbabies] on that day with little muss or fuss. membership does have its privileges.

i think the truth of the matter is we should all just cut to the chase and call it national greeting card day. those bastards make out like bandits.

giving vegan parents a bad name

can someone send a copy of this to prison for these dummies to read?

just got done reading this article and i'm just sad and frustated for the baby and other veg parents as a whole. the bottom line is these folks were just plain ol' not qualified to have a baby on the grounds that they are dummies.

run, big girl, run.

nothing quite like that first time working out. i think the last time i set foot in the gym was july and i was almost 9 months along. i'd just go and walk on the treadmill, my heartrate soaring, and then stretch and stretch and stretch. some woman came up to me and said, "i recognize you from the stretching room. good god, honey, you'll have no trouble giving birth." what a great little vote of confidence. i mentally opened the olive green tinted glass door of my bubble of peace after that one [it's a hypnobabies thing].

i think the capper to any further expenditure of energy was when i had my fetal non-stress test. i laid there, counting everytime i felt otto move, and watched the pen recording it bop and jive on the strip of paper. there was another pen that would draw its own giant hills on another line. i didn't really pay too much attention to that until one of the midwives came in and said, "can you feel that?" i told her no. after the next mountain, she asks, "does that hurt?" nope, i told her. i was having contractions every 3-5 minutes. after that, she said, "yeah, you need to chill out and take it easy." after that, i signed myself up for the roma-bark and lemonade diet and lived in the blowup pool in the yard, reading palaniuk.

now, i have what we used to call "dancer tan" in my dancing days [sigh] when your face gets brutally red from exertion... only i wasn't dancing [just schlumpfing on the treadmill] and this one is going to linger for hours like the mark of shame.

enano-nanoo

"shazbot! i'll never marry you because you're not [burp] catholic..."

after i moved to the city, i dated this little drunky irish guy who's name, when said very fast, sounds a little like "nanoo-nanoo", as in the trademark greeting of mork & mindy's mork. nanoo-nanoo is now the name my sisters and i use when referring to him. you see, he was short, with a big mardi gras head, a barrel-shaped torso, and little limbs. he would toss back a few too many and just be one of these mean, grimacing drunks, like an evil leprechaun.

just how irascible was this troll? i went to some cheesy, crowded lincoln park bar with him one night [well, almost every weekend, but i digress]. at some point, some big redfaced porkchop head was pawing at me, mumbling something about "sauce". nanoo-nanoo, noting his size, cowered by my side to grab my hand and whisk me home. by the time we arrived, he had sufficiently worked himself into a lather, stomping his little rumplestilskin feet and fuming that it was my fault because i was "dressed like i was ready for action." after all, i was wearing my most revealing turtleneck and my fuck-me khakis. tsk! shameless harlot.

now that he's long gone, my family asks, "wasn't he, like, part midget or something? like a dwarf?" he was a twin, i reasoned. besides, you can't be part midget like you can be part german.

today, i asked ana, our nanny, about
a cute little song she sings to otto. it goes something like:

un enanito
tire un bolita
¿donde fuera caer?

i knew it was about something throwing a ball and wondering where it went. an enanito, i also concluded, is a smaller enano. what's an enano? i asked her...

a dwarf.

skeletathlete

click to listen to its workout music

i was driving down ashland today in light, late afternoon traffic and passed [or was passed by] quite a number of joggers. i was feeling mildly guilty, sitting in my car on my fat duff in such prime weather for outdoor activity when i saw a skeleton in sweats bounding by. its head seemed fairly normal, healthy even, with a light tan, but its twisting radius and ulna exposed below the raised cuff of its sweatshirt glistened with sweat. the bouncing it did on its haunches at the stoplight did not strain its track pants with turgid, flexing hamstrings. it looked rather like a merrionette bobbing on invisible strings. my mind immediately generated a list of ways i could gesticulate to it to somehow derail it on its maniacal quest for death. i envisioned myself leaning over to the passenger window to do the babysign for "eat" [pursed fingers pecking lips] and seeing reason spread over its face like a beam of light.

am i being punk'd?

it's not even one o'clock, and the string of aggravating nonsense like boulder-sized breadcrumbs obstructing my path has already agitated my brain to a fever pitch. i can't get away from it. numbers transposed incorrectly, resulting in pissy emails. errors due to inadequate information are rearing their ugly heads. repeated requests to disregard last [insert your preferred method of bitching here]. all issues that are NMP [not my problem] but i'll end up adopting them anyway. that's just the kind of masochist i am. that's why i make the big bucks(?)

and here i sit at my desk, on a cool but sunny spring day, trying to duck and weave, shuck and jive, smile while wincing.

i need a vacation -- oh, wait. i just got back. damn.

dancing with the starlets?

i predict no three-peat for cheryl... and look at that dead person's hand around her waist!

generally speaking, i am not a big tv watcher in that i don't commit to many shows. i hate to be tied down to having to sit in one place for an hour or more and focus. since the introduction of satellite tv and its accompanying dvr [like tivo], i've been more interested in what the boob tube has to offer.

my latest love is "dancing with the stars" -- i can't get enough. it makes me miss dancing like crazy. the only problem i have is, since i never watch it live, i never vote. anyway, the couples are so cute, each in their own way, and i almost always agree with the judges. apolo anton ohno with his professional partner julianne hough are so ridiculously cute i could cry every time i watch them. i just read julianne is one of eleven kids and from utah. is she a lapsed mormon? ah, to be eighteen again. joey fatone and pro kym johnson are incredible, too. he is not afraid to shell out his fair share of the effort, busting out a tour-jete or head-high battement here and there. those women are, by far, the strongest choreographers, but they also happen to have the guys that can manage challenging routines.

i'm a little bummed that only one female star has survived. i wonder what lady could garner the fan power to be a serious contender. it'd have to be someone down to earth that would please even the cattiest of callers. maybe gwen stefani? charlize theron? halle berry? ellen degeneres? who would you suggest? do you watch the show? who are you hoping to win?