Before The Fireworks
Sitting in the middle of Illinois waiting for night. Ate too much smoked meat, drank too much whiskey and beer, and sucked down too many very strong, very strong, jello shots. And that’s not really even true. I paced myself for the long evening, but still felt sick over night. I even managed to drink 2 bottles of water during this Fourth Fest mess. The food combo and combo alcohol is probably what turned my stomach. I should have eaten less grease and stuck to one beverage. No actual vomiting occurred, in case you should be thinking that I am some lightweight who can’t hold her liquor. I can drink the alcohol. I just shouldn’t. Anyway, we saw “home” fireworks until about midnight. This town we were in basically has the residents blowing off commercial grade fireworks for a lot of hours. We also saw a lot of those paper lantern things. No really good pictures because the displays were too unpredictable and I only had my phone. I was a mere spectator for this show. But I will put up my one blurry, bursting picture (if you squint and stand back, way back, from the screen you can kinda see the firework thing) and move on to the usual daily routine. Which includes work for me. The BF is off and the kids are still in Kentucky, and none of those little bitches at my job would work for me today. Wah wah wah. No one ever wants to give up their Friday. I’m hoping for a quick night and no admits. I really, really, really, need to win the lottery. Oh well. Until then.
And Now For The Really Important Postings! All About Stevie!
The party on Saturday was a huge success! Thank you to everyone who came out (and reads this) and represented for the family. The party was at her dad’s house, which is way out South in the cornfields of Illinois. As is illustrated by the graduation girl and the 25 pictures she took of herself in said cornfields. It was a hike for some, so the extra effort was appreciated. The rain held off out there it seems, or it was just like, forget it, we ARE not going that far down 57, because it was torrential as we were driving north at 11:30 that night. It stopped once we got near home, and it’s all good for the sod. The sod. The sod. All we can concentrate on is that grass and keeping it alive everyday. But I digress. Here is the cake:
And here’s the girl. She doesn’t like this picture, but it is the only one I have of her actually doing a party thing. So I will bury it at the bottom of this cake post. The rest of the pics are all of her in the corn and against the sunset with her cousin. I will give those the next headline post (actually above this one because that’s how they fall unless I backward time them and I’m just not) so she can look at herself if she wants to for the rest of the day when I go to work.
Bench of the Day!
So the fourth is over, but summer is really just beginning for some people! This is a bench encouraging you to go take a vacation! As a bonus we get to use motorcycles, cars, trains or planes! Much faster! Mostly safer.
Some of these benches have designs on the back too. This is one of them! If you get the chance, go take a walk and see them for yourself. Later!
Dang! My neighbor is trying to start a riot over here!!
If you read me, you know I live in the Chicago area, and even if you don’t read me, I just told you, so…
This is MOSTLY Bears territory around these parts. We do have the Packer fans of course. We ARE a tightly populated, close proximity region. Dense, even. With people of all sorts. And that’s cool. Except this weekend.
In case you haven’t heard, or have been out of the country, or just don’t read the paper or watch the news or look at the internet, this weekend has a football game going on. It’s kind of a big one. It’s for our NFC championship title and then the Superbowl. People DO get a little nuts!
It’s the Green Bay Packers of Wisconsin and the Chicago Bears of Illinois. Playing in OUR town. In OUR stadium. In OUR lifetime! It’s only been about 70 years since they played each other in a championship game! Seriously! 70 years!! (FYI–Chicago won that game AND the 1941 version of a Superbowl, played at Wrigley Field no less!) And I have to say, it is pretty exciting!
But my neighbor is like 80 years old and lives mostly alone, except for her daughter, who is not there 24/7! Good thing football is played in winter. Less traffic and likelihood of hanging around outside comparing teams.
Basically the city of Chicago, Green Bay, and probably pretty much all of the south to north area of Illinois and Wisconsin will shut down for a few hours on Sunday to see what will happen on this historic day! And it’s not just me.
I can almost hear my sister’s eyeballs rolling inside her head, thinking that I am being overly dramatic. Uh uh. Click on any sports link on any internet, the game will be there. And it sucks for Pittsburgh and NY because they play too, for the Superbowl, but no one seems to care. At least no where around here!
These are some quotes from articles I thought were funny (the first two are from the same one–click here to read the whole thing):
Not that the Super Bowl seems to matter much: Packers fans said beating the Bears at Soldier Field would be a wonderful cake, with a Super Bowl victory serving as the frosting.
AND THIS:
“For guys who have followed the Bears all their life and truly hate the Packers, yeah, this is their Super Bowl,” said Mark Foster, 54, who plans to erect a 5-foot (1.5-meter) inflatable Bears helmet outside his home in Lansing, south of Chicago. “We can lose 50 to nothing in the Super Bowl to Pittsburgh or the Jets, but if we beat the Packers, who cares?”
AND THIS (A little history if you have the time—click it!):
The next chapter in the “NFL’s oldest rivalry” puts the Bears and the Packers up against each other for a spot in the Super Bowl. Some are saying this is the biggest game in the teams’ history; they’ve faced off 181 times before – dating back to 1921 – but only once in the playoffs, in 1941.
For nine decades, they have broken each other’s bones, and they have smashed each other’s teeth, and they have irrigated their fields with the blood of the other,” says the St. Petersburg Times. As this year’s teams head into their rubber match, both Chicago’s and Green Bay’s hometown papers are reflecting on this storied rivalry and reviving the excitement of the teams’ 1941 postseason matchup. Here, a look back, through Chi-town and cheesehead eyes, at that winter day:
Nope…gotta go read it! Link at the beginning…it’s worth the few minutes.
And even though this is old and we KNOW that the Bears and Packers are going to play, this is still a good article from ESPN (linked here):
If all goes well, Soldier Field will be the epicenter of all humanity on Jan. 23.
Now, that is drama!
Anyway, I’ll keep an eye on my neighbor, make sure no one throws stuff at her house and whatnot. And for the record, I am a FOOTBALL fan. I love the game, the whole game, the teams, the players, the physicality of the whole sport and I am totally rooting for the BEARS because they are MY home team and I want US in the SuperBowl!!
But I can’t say that I hate the Packers. And they are really good this year. The Bears are too, but man, I just don’t know! For sure it will be a good game. No doubt everyone on the field will be playing the best football of their careers. Oh yea. It is that serious! But not too serious. Lots of jokes flying around. And just cause I like you, I will end this with a joke on behalf of Bears fans everywhere. It’s from the internet, where else?
A teacher tells her class she’s a Packers fan. The class agrees with her except one little girl. When asked who she likes the girl said the Bears, the teacher asked why and the girl said “because my mommy and daddy are fans”. The teacher replies “that’s no reason to like them, what if your dad was an idiot and your mom was a moron then what would you be?” The little girl replied back, “a Packers fan.”
Thank you and Goodnight!
GO BEARS! GO BEARS!
And back to the Bugs!
We are almost to the end. I think this is third to last. I just found out the Arboretum where they had this display is having a 5K race in the fall through all their paths, or some of their paths; the place is huge. So, more to look forward to. Pictures of trees. IN AUTUMN! Yowzer! Stick around! Even with a (hopefully) not-too-crazy school schedule, I want to keep running and keep writing. It’s a good stress buster. Corny.
Now look at these big bugs!
You see that expanse of space behind the sculpture? Big land. Tired kids. But all four are in there.
Hey guys! There's a giant bug sitting in the weeds right in front of you! We could look in the mud at home. For free. 3 out of 4 captivated by dirty water. I had to put it in though, because it's just too cute.
And since we are doing spiders…
Today’s Big Bug is a BIG spider! If it looks impressive to you in these photos, it was even better close up! Creepy-crawly!
But stay tuned here in the next few days because the artist did ants too. Giant, sprawling-across-the-grass, ants. Ants are my biggest bug problem. Spiders are pretty scary too, check out this dedication post to a brave but crazy spider that was living in our house, but ants are the ones that get me rolling.
Not to go off subject, but we live on a slab foundation, and as anyone who may live on one knows, ants love to live in the cracks underneath the house. Except in winter or rainy times when they like to migrate indoors, say onto your living room floor or bedroom or closet or tables or kitchen or anywhere they can crawl their teeny-tiny bodies around too. These are a particular kind of ant, slab ants. They’re small, really small, but they can get everywhere fast and before-you-know-it. You can just be sitting on a chair when you suddenly notice a small movement on the floor or near a wall, and you go to take a close look…OMG! Seriously, there could be like a hundred, in a trail with that one crumb of food the vacuum didn’t get. It sucks, and it sucks worse when you have small children who like to crawl around on the floor but now you don’t even want them to walk on it because an ant might crawl on them. Yuk yuk yuk! Thankfully there are awesome exterminators who will come and eliminate the problem for you! We found a great one and the ants only make a minor appearance, maybe, once every few years now. It’s lovely. Plus it makes you vacuum a whole lot more, and who doesn’t like to be forced to keep their house clean so vermin doesn’t set up camp?? Not me!
Anyway…here’s the spider:
After yesterday’s bike ride the last thing I want to do is sit on something hard (!?!) Like a bench…?? (Sick)
Before I go on and on about what we did yesterday—bike riding adventure—you will be impressed…here is another bench from beautiful, downtown, Tinley Park! The theme is…
Superheroes! Or Spider-Man at least! Peter Parker!
I don't remember Spider-Man fighting these horrible creatures but I never read the comics. That green lizard guy is a mystery too!
Buggy Bug Bugs
Of the day! I’m fading fast here….my brain is being vodclouded as I type. 1000 words and all that…(fyi, that lady and her booty is not me or my sister. She was just another mom getting in the way of my picture, in case you were wondering)
just shy of pretty 
