chicago '08

usually going to the grocery store is a routine that both Hugsband and I participate in. we think about what we want to eat in the upcoming week, we make an ingredient list, we shop. but sometimes Hugsband goes to the grocery store without me, midweek. I get inordinately excited when that happens. when I shop for myself, I am typically good at avoiding temptations and sticking to the list, with fresh veggies and hard-to-find cheeses as exceptions. when Hugsband goes, on the other hand, I never know what we're going to get. (most often he picks up something chocolatey, whether that something makes it home and is shared with me is another matter.) that brings us to thursday night. when I came home from work, we ate the yummy dinner he made and then started thinking about dessert. I knew Hugsband had run by the store on the way home from school, and I hoped in my heart of hearts that he bought ice cream as a surprise. as I went to ask him, my excitement impaired my ability to generate speech, and I asked "did you get surprise cream?"

sadly, he didn't. and I haven't had surprise cream in almost a month, which is surely a record for me.

remember the episode of pee-wee's playhouse where PW makes a salad bar and says "eeeeew, brains" when he holds up some cauliflower? I love that story. I just made roast cauliflower from the restaurant AOC's recipe, and promptly ate about 3 cups of the stuff. what a wonderful dish. I am also making curried carrot & squash soup with lots of ginger, but that won't be ready until the cauliflower is long gone.

it's macoun apple season too. macouns are a new england specialty, and they're only available for a couple of weeks each year. they're tart and crunchy and don't keep for more than a week or so. we bought a bunch.

on the chicago job front, I have some possibly exciting news. one of the university medical centers is trying to create a job for me. if they find funding, it will be mine. I may be traveling to chicy-g in the next couple of weeks to meet with some docs.

we want to buy a home when we move. I have started obsessing about houses in the greater chicago area and have fallen in love with oak park, but I don't think it's affordable. Hugsband will be going back to school, so my increased salary will be offset by losing his. maybe I can commute from Hugsband's parents' basement in bradley? at some point in my life, I hope he and I are both earning full salaries at the same time. I wouldn't know what to do with myself. I imagine the 2-salary life might involve designer suits and expensive chocolate, but it may mean pet monkeys and our own pizza oven. really, I am fine with either lifestyle.

Hugsband is sick and keeps annoying me with his throat clearing noises. I do worry a little that I infected him and somehow the cow feces is in his lungs. I did something strange and out of character last night. despite FDA warnings and my well-developed case of hypochondriosis, I served bagged baby spinach for dinner. I did cook it, though. I made a delicious take on welsh rarebit, with the baby spinach and some mushrooms incorporated into the cheddar sauce. the thought of that yummy, velvety sauce may be responsible for my willingness to eat the possibly contaminated veggie. cheese sauces, from a taco bell nacho to a pretentious froth of manchego, are my downfall. when I finish here, I will check on the medical research literature to see if e coli ever causes cold symptoms in whiny boys.

I started the job search process, in preparation for the end of my postdoc next june. once I edited the bejesus out of cv, my mentor started emailing it to "the big wigs" in chicago. there are exactly 2 big wigs in chicago, according to my mentor. he thinks that they will either (a) offer me a job, or (b) know of someone who will be very happy to offer me a job. thus, I will skip the entire process of responding to posted job openings. we're trying really hard to find something in chicago, to the extent that I am ignoring other parts of the country- even bloomington! in all, it's very scary to limit my options and leave the process in someone else's hands for the time being. but, I can't imagine more capable and well-connected hands to leave it in. at this point, too, I don't want to imagine living anywhere besides chicago. I never thought I would be so eager to forsake both the east and west coasts and be eager to get back to the middle!

I have a pretty good excuse for being MIA for so long. Hugsband and I have spent every spare moment stalking an escaped budgie (parakeet) who has taken up with the house sparrows who frequent our backyard. for 3 weeks we watched him and made lame attempts to capture him in Elmer Fudd-style traps. as the weather became colder, I grew increasingly afraid that we wouldn't get to him before he developed a respiratory infection or was injured. we got him (her?), though. the capture was very dramatic. we were running around outside for over an hour. two neighbors we didn't know joined in to help. finally, Hugsband nabbed him in a bush by draping a kitchen towel over his hand and grabbing him from behind.

in the Chris Clark tradition of giving pets their own last names, we christened him "Max Duncan Duptin".