New Bike!

Jason now has a handsome black Diamondback bike which he bought today from a nice old dude who fixes up bikes in Batavia. We pulled up into his driveway and checked out all the options lined up in front of his garage, all with their price tags swinging in the breeze. Jason tried on several to find the right frame size, drooled over the pricey mountain bikes with suspension, but then chose a good quality one with a black aluminum frame, Shimadzu brakes, and mid-duty tires. Jason haggled fiercely with the dude's wife and got $5 knocked off the price. Can't wait to put some miles on that thing together! That dude is quite the entrepreneur. While we were considering, the guy sold 2 other bikes. And it so happens that this same weekend Kelly's sister and mother also bought bikes independently. I guess spring was in the air! Kelly thinks that Jason looks more handsome and bad-boy on his bike than any man she has ever seen on a Harley.

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Jason came over to Kelly's place after work and we made some fancy steaks and watched our current addition, Six Feet Under episodes. We are plowing through season 4, but there's only one season left after this. The highlight of the evening, however, was the total lunar eclipse. It was way below freezing at night, making the sky clear as glass. Jason and Kelly popped out on the balcony, bundled up as though for an arctic adventure, at ten minutes before it was scheduled to be completely blotted out. The moon was blood red, except for a quickly disappearing fingernail sliver. Kelly took the photograph above with her Canon Powershot A75 without the aid of any telescope or special lens. And for all you photography amateurs out there, she also turned off her flash. She plans to submit this photo to National Geographic and then Jason and Kelly will retire on the royalties. The pictures below were snagged off the net by Jason. Kelly fails to see what is so great about them, because they look obviously photoshopped, and any idiot could have taken them.

RENT

Yesterday we went downtown so that Jason could see Kelly's all-time favorite musical, RENT. We rose early (for us, anyway) and took the train from Geneva to downtown Chicago. Jason lives within walking distance to the train, a great perk, especially since there is a Caribou Coffee en route. The train ride was pleasant, though it took over an hour and was packed with families with young kids (no screamers, thankfully) that were probably headed to the popular annual auto show.

When we arrived we met Denise, one of Kelly's college friends, at the train station, and we strolled over to Millenium Park to see the Museum of Modern Ice. This turned out to be a strange ice-mural about thirty feet long made up of flat chunks of brightly colored ice fused together. The overall effect was like a mosaic of melted chunks of glass, but with many interesting patterns of frost etched on each chunk. The artist's helpers were walking around spraying the ice with water, and they also carted out more chunks of ice to add to the display. Giant coils with glycol pumping through them kept the ice frozen, despite Chicago's infamous fluctuating temperatures. We also paused for a while at the ice rink and watched people with varying degrees of skill skate around and around, gasping for the people that fell in front of us and cheering on the young kids with their feet sliding in all directions.

Then we headed over to the Cadillac Palace for the show. There we met up with Susie, Tony, Traci, Lisa, and Denise's friend Terri. The show was so awesome! And luckily, Jason liked it too. The Angel character was a little strange because they used a female to play the role of the drag queen. But the cast as a whole totally rocked. Kelly did her best not to sing along as she realizes this is really annoying. But later she did serenade Jason with some lines.

After that, we went to the delicious Grand Lux Cafe on Michigan Avenue for some vittles. We got a table by the window overlooking the competing Lawry's restaurant, and racked up the biggest restaurant bill we'd ever seen between 7 of us. The food was delish. Then we raced to catch a train home -- we ended up taking a taxi to make it in time.

Also during this weekend, we watched several episodes of Six Feet Under, a show that Jason has addicted Kelly to. She can't wait to find out what really happened to Lisa, who mysteriously drowned ...

Valentine's Day ... and our Loviversary

On this night Jason arrived to take Kelly out for heart-shaped stuffed pizza at Giordano's (now an annual tradition) and presented her with a card with this beautiful poem in it that made Kelly have tears in her eyes:

What We Are

It's more than "I need you."

Merely that doesn't

send enough love to our hearts.

It's more than "I love you."

Our souls know the journey

goes far beyond words.

It's this (yet more than;

a poet can only go so far) --

We are the shining light

in the palm of God.

Kelly presented Jason with a hand-made card with a frog on it, in honor of Smacky. Later that night, they watched Six Feet Under episodes and had yummy dessert.

Incidentally, 2/15/08 is our Loviversary ... the anniversary of when we first said "I love you" to each other. We remember this because we had the decency to avoid saying it on chintzy Valentine's Day ;).

Wine and Showshoe

It was less than a year ago that Jason and I went up to Traverse City, Michigan with Susie and Tony for the Taste the Passion wine tasting event put on by the Leelanau Peninsula Vitner's Association. And here we are again ... but this time, we brought a whole crew of friends. Ten people in all, the Sands Motel was certainly happy to see us during this super slow tourist time. Christina and Rodney gave us a ride up Friday night. We arrived late to find our room keys in envelopes taped to the locked motel lobby door. This sort of thing would never be safe where we come from, but in the far North, why not?

The next morning we headed out to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore where Jason and I collected a new stamp in our national parks passport book. Then we snowshoed the Pierce Scenic drive which they close off for the winter season for snowshoers and cross country-skiiers. We didn't make it far since we dallied in the winter wonderland to make up mini snowmen and to have fierce snowball free-for-alls. Only a few injuries were reported. The boys enjoyed striking out off the trail like polar explorers while the gals wondered if we might ever see them again.

Then we headed over to our first winery stop: Cherry Republic, where we had some delicious chicken mole tacos and cherry wine for our first wine-and-food pairing. Kelly snagged the recipe but will be unable to replicate it without a food processor. We also tasted some cherry champagne and a cherry port that tasted like cough syrup. Next door this winery/cherry emporium sold everything you can imagine with cherries in it, including cherry salsa, cherry pretzels, gummy cherries, on and on. We could have easily stuff ourselves there with sugar, but instead we headed over to nearby Boone Docks for lunch.

That afternoon we hit a few more wineries, went out for dinner with Susie's parents, then went to Susie's parents' home for some hot cocoa, cookies, and hot tubbin'. The next morning we had to forgo snowshoeing because we'd been hit by a blizzard! It was painfully cold out and the wind blasted us with icy flakes. So we opted for a leisurely breakfast that ended up with the worst luck in service ever. Kelly ordered a tea to try called "Heartwarming Cinnamon" which she detested. Jason ordered an omelette without onions that arrived choked with them. Susie had a misunderstanding about the kind of bread she wanted for her french toast. Then the bill arrived and we'd been charged for an extra omelette. We headed over to a book store in town and Jason found a book of haiku by Japanese writer Basho, whom he'd read about in a National Geographic article left in our room at the Sands which we later stole. Because of the foul weather, we spent the entire day wine tasting rather than snowshoeing although the roads between wineries were harrowing. A couple times our car coming down the hill was unable to stop, but luckily we avoided incident.

That night we had dinner at the North Peak brewery, and afterward discovered this great Irish pub downstairs where live Celtic music was playing. We stayed for a few songs, and even got to sing along.

The next morning we arose early to hit the road. On our way out of town we stopped at the Traverse Pie Company where Kelly bought Jason a piece of cherry crumble pie that she owed him from last year. Then we hit to road, stopping at the Bob Evans for lunch near St. Joseph on the way home. The roads were still nasty, full of scary potholes and unplowed sections of the highway.

Eleventh Month Anniversary

Our 11th month anniversary was on a Wednesday, my school day. Fortunately, the teacher let me leave early. Kelly came over about 8:30 pm. I gave her a card with two Christmas tree ornaments attached; an owl and a frog. Kelly gave me three CDs by the band Live. Unfortunately, I had all three already! But since two of the CDs were burned copies, I kept those; I gave her the one I already had. We talked for awhile and realized it was too late to do anything, so we watched a short film called "One Too Many." After that, bed!

Dick Young Forest Preserve (or as I grew up with, Nelson Lake Marsh Nature Preserve)

Although a brisk morning, me and Kelly bundled up tight and went to Nelson Lake Marsh in Batavia for some autumn birds. I was certain it would add a few avian wonders to Kelly's list, as it has mine for so many years now. My footsteps are all over this place, the first being those of a preteen. I spent many weekends walking the trails, admiring familiar feathered faces and searching for new ones. It's a beautiful preserve, with prairie, woodland, savanna, a large marsh (technically a kettle), and a 40-acre lake. I was excited to finally be taking Kelly there.


We parked by the old silo at around 9:15 and began walking towards the lake lookout. It was overcast and drizzly but the birds were active. As we approached two returning birders I stopped, took up a karate stance, and told them to tell us what ducks were on the lake.

The man fell to his knees and grabbed my coat, "Please don't kill us, Mister. Please, please don't kill us!"

"The ducks," I said calmly. "Tell me the names of those ducks and I'll spare your worthless little lives."

"G-g-green-winged teal," said the man, shivering. "And scaup. That's it. That's all we saw."

"Don't lie to me punk!" I yelled, drawing a chop high into the air. "I will slice off your head with my hand if you lie to me!"

The woman fainted.

"I swear to God that's all we saw. Those are the only ducks we saw!"

I lowered my weapon and clutched my binoculars. "Okay, I believe you. Now pick up your ho and go. And don't ever show your faces around here again, understand?"

The man gulped. "Yes, yes, I understand. I understand! Thank you."

As he began smacking his wife's cheeks, me and Kelly turned and resumed our walk to the lake. Kelly took my hand and gave me a seductive look. "That was sexy," she said.

The rest of our visit was quite pleasant. We walked maybe a quarter mile to the north before deciding to turn back. The most common birds we saw, by far, were Cedar Waxwings and American Tree Sparrows. Afterwards, in the car, we wrote down all the birds we saw in the "birder's shorthand" that I use:

A Goldfinch 5+
B Jay
BC Chickadee 2
C Goose 20+
C Waxwing 50+
DE Junco 20+
Fox Sparrow 10+
Gull sp.
GW Teal - small flock
M Dove
N Cardinal 5+
RB Woodpecker 2
RT Hawk
Scaup sp. (too far away to ID) - small flock
Tree Sparrow 40+
WT Sparrow