New Blog Frontiers, Quiet Rebel Redhead, Lingering Sickness, Bonus Tuna, and Old Nellie Hubbard

Because I don't write enough, I just made my first post on Chicago Metblog. It's about CTA President Ron Huberman kicking ass and taking names on a 7:30 a.m. Red Line train last week.

Amy Lillard is even cooler than I thought she'd be. She agreed to meet me for lunch at Kopi yesterday and she gave me some fantastic freelancing tips I'm already putting to good use. She's really smart and funny and interesting, and has the natural red locks I've been trying to get out of a bottle for years. Don't forget to give her a peek at Quiet Rebel Writer.

I'm still getting settled in the new place. It's a little lonely during the week without Nellie and Teresa, but they'll be here soon enough. I'm re-sick. I don't know how this happened, except for maybe lack of sleep. My throat is killing me. I want to get better ASAP because we're finally tiptoeing into biking season!

A few observations about transitioning to our new home:

--I love our big sunny kitchen and the washer and dryer neatly tucked into our pantry. I've been working from my laptop at the kitchen table all day, while washing bedclothes, unpacking, washing, and finding cupboard space for Nellie's kitchenware, stepping on the back balcony for a bit of sunshine, and nibbling my way through our soon-to-expire produce. I've never thought of myself as a particularly domestic person but I have to say this new living environment has already had a good influence on me and (do not tell my mother I said this) I enjoy puttering around in my bathrobe, sipping coffee, and doing little household tasks.

--I went to clean out a few things from my old place and found several things on high shelves in that kitchen, including the tuna I had for lunch, one of Calpurnia's mice (??) and a bottle of ADD med which will surely be put to good use.

--Our kitchen cabinets are packed with stuff...on the two bottom shelves only. We're shortish and we don't have a step stool yet. Maybe we should put Bryan's cooking supplies on the high shelves, he's the only one who can reach up that far.

--Nellie has the kitchen collection of Old Mother Hubbard, if OMH had a QVC account and a Platinum Mastercard. No kidding. Nellie will nurture the crap out of you with muffins and eggs and six kinds of soup, and she's got pots and pans and cookie sheets enough to feed conquering armies. She's got cookie cutters (for persuading picky little eaters to down the pb&j's she foists on them), novelty ice cube trays (for orange juice cubes shaped like orange slices), and utensils I can't begin to imagine the proper use of.

--I love living in a family building. I love the chatter of our landlord's little grandkids coming and going and the warm smell of dinner rising up the back stairs at 5 or 6 o'clock. Our landlords are such a lovable grandparent-y couple that some days it's all I can do to not invite myself downstairs for ham and pinto bean soup and cornbread when that happy domestic scent reaches my sniffer.