#100 Clean a Fish

Ed, Edric, Nader, Norris, and I took a road trip out of the city to Dave's for some fishin'.

Dave rigged us up.

We fished. I had a lot more fun than it looks like I'm having.

I caught a big fish, bigger than I have ever caught anyways. Dave didn't know what it was. He had to look it up. It was a fresh water drum.

Nader caught a stick and a lot of seaweed.

Ed caught the same little fish twice.

Dave taught me how to clean a fish. It was not as gross as I thought it would be. It consisted of cutting off the head, slicing the belly, and pulling out the guts. I thought it was going to be crazy nasty awful. The worst part is that I swear my hands still smell like fish.

A storm ruined the plans to build a fire, cook the fish over the fire, and eat the fish, so instead we ordered pizza, watched the Bulls, played back tag, punched watermelons, and rocked out.

#75 Go to the Roller Derby

This may be the weirdest and best event I have ever been to. How truly bizarre.

My Friday & Saturday went like this:

Friday:

Work

Work Picnic (Bags & Touch Football)

May Fest

OTB

Movies

Saturday:

8-Mile Run

Roller Derby

OTB

Mormon Lecture

The Roller Derby was strange and awesome. I kinda want to play but I kinda don't. I want it to be faster paced. But the names were awesome. Juanna Rumbel. Georgia Onyourbehind. Val Capone. Jackie Daniels. Alisin Chains. And my favorite: Beth Amphetimine.

The whole thing was part sport, part circus.

I don't even know what else to say. .

#77 Don't Drink for a Week

I did it. It was much harder than I anticipated.

#87 Eat at Hot Doug's

Hot Doug's is a Chicago legend. It used to be on Roscoe, just blocks from where I used to live, but then it moved to... well, a few blocks further down Roscoe at California.

Doug makes hot dogs.

All of you: "Wait, Megan, I thought you hated hot dogs? It's true."

Doug also makes all kinds of crazy sausages from all kinds of things: duck, antelope, bison, just to name a few.

Those sausages are amazing.

This all went down on a day I was dreading. I went to work expecting to teach lay responder CPR and First Aid ALL DAY, which is exhausting and boring.

When I arrived, Yessenia was there ready to teach instead! Hooray Yessenia!

So Edric suggested we get crazy and go to Hot Doug's. Norris agreed.

We got there around 2pm and still waited in line for at least 20 minutes. We made friends with our line mates. The first group were friendly, skinny, hipster guys. One took our picture. Edric hated him. I thought he was okay. I did not want to date him. Norris. Then, Norris and Edric were singing the theme song to "Doug." The guy behind us joined in. He looked like a total dork. He was. But he was also awesome. He filled us in on the new sausage introduced the day before. We asked why he knew so much. And he has the tatoo!

See. if you get the Hot Doug's logo tatooed on your body, you get free Hot Doug's for life! For life! Anytime you want! Apparently you still have to wait in line.

I had a braturst (the Paul Kelly) with sauerkraut and the new sausage, which was cherry and apple pork sausage with pear mustard and Vosages bacon chocolate on top.

Holy crap. Delicious.

Smiles all around. Except for Norris whining about how he didn't love his friends and he ordered too much.

I'm not ready for the tatoo... yet, but I will return! Maybe this time with Holly. And on a Friday or Saturday when they have duck-fat fries!

#15 Go to the Ballet

Top 13 Things I Loved about the Ballet

13. I got some gossip from my new friend. Not much but one of her friends had dated one of the dancers.

12. I saw a lady with helmet hair. It was seriously a foot tall. She looked like she was ready to get on stage for "Hairspray."

11. I saw 14 people pushing Segways across the street while on my way to the ballet. Ha.

10. Ungraceful people. It was even funnier seeing people do not so graceful things during intermissions. Some lady dropped her huge purse with a big plop and it was much funnier than if we hadn't just seen people dancing around beautifully.

9. Apparently it was the last show of the season. That was kinda cool.

8. Because it was the last show of the season, they honored some ballerina who had been with the Joffrey for 26 years. That was touching. All of the dancers and her family came on stage and each gave her one flower until she had a huge bouquet. Sweet.

7. I made a new friend. No one would go with me, so I went alone. There was a girl in my box, also alone. Apparently she loves the ballet enough to subscribe (meaning she's a member and goes to several shows a year at a discounted price) and she can never find anyone to go with, so she goes alone all the time. I would have told her to call me next time and I'd go with her but she had to leave early, in the middle of the 3rd... act? So hello out there, Julia. Thanks for taking my picture!

6. Multimedia. They did a whole speech and video presentation explaning the show and how it came about. That was cool because the Joffrey can be quite modern and it definitely needed some explaining. The choreographers even explained their inspirations, which were dreams. I liked it.

5. I had a box seat. It was box #1 so I could see the up front stuff really well but not everything on the side of the stage. It felt fancy to be in a box and sit in fancy chairs though.

4. The auditorium. It was a really, really pretty auditorium.

3. Muscles. I felt like I was at a live version of Body Worlds. I mean, those cats have NO body fat, which is possibly unhealthy, but it was so cool to see people who are so leanly muscular. I guess that's the kines geek in me. Both the men and the women were so impressively fit. (Sidenote: while watching I remembered that I had had a dream that we were having a party at the Campus Rec. It was pretty much the lock in, but we were dressed up and planning to dance at some point. Karlo showed up in a cut-off shirt to show off his impressive abs. It was weird.)

2. Costumes. Apparently I'm girly enough to love flowy skirts and pretty colors.

1. The dancing. So pretty. So graceful. So impressive. I don't know how they don't kick each other in the face all the time. Just so crazy athletic and kinesthetically aware.

Top 3 Things I Did Not Love about the Ballet

3. All the bowing and clapping. They did a whole bowing thing after each "act" and it got old clapping. I wanted to clap loudly for the ballerinas/inos but I got tired of clapping by the end.

2. Men in ballet shoes. They have their own type of ballet shoes, not toe shoes, that almost looked like they were barefoot, but they weren't, I don't think. It weirded me out. I mean, I guess actual barefeet could get sweaty and slippery, but still weird.

1. All the white boys had douchey haircuts. That was weird. And distracting. It just kept making me wonder if the ballet required them to have those bowl cuts all the boys had in 7th grade or if it was by choice.

Overall, I liked at least 10 more things than I disliked. I would definitely go again and would consider buying season tickets. I really loved it, way more than I thought I would. The dancing was amazing.

Update: I went to the "ballet" again. This time it was to see the lovely Danielle with the PE girls. It was... the best 23 seconds of my life. The rest was... interesting.

Another Fail

#86 See an orchestra perform a piece I have performed.

Ed & I went to Symphony Hall on Friday to see Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, one of my very favorite pieces, which I played, along with William Tell, with the Michigan Youth Symphony.

Except it wasn't Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet. It was Provokiev's Romeo and Juliet. And some other pieces I didn't know.

Nice try, Ed. I'm a dork. They played Tchaik earlier in the season so I just assumed.

#85 - Go To 3 Shows

To clarify, this meant 3 Broadway shows. Fortunatelly, Laura Masters organizes a Theater in Chicago group. Thanks, Masters!

The first show was Les Miserables. I'd seen it before. This rendition was eh. I liked the songs I already liked. And when Jean Valjean was walking through the tunnel, the effects were cool. But the title of the show was spelled wrong on the back drop. At the time, I was pretty sure it was, but I didn't want to say anything because my French is only so so (comme ci, comme ca). But they had the wrong accent mark. I looked it up the next day. Weird. (No, I don't know how to do accent marks on this website, so now I spelled it wrong while complaining it was spelled wrong. Whatev.)


The second show was Hair. I knew the music, so I was excited for it. Plus, I love hippies. It started slow, just describing each characater and their circumstances one at a time. Then there were the naked people just before the intermission. I knew that happened but I had totally forgot, so it was a bit of a shock. That was definitely the most naked people I'd ever seen in public standing still. I have to say standing still because I grew up and went to school in Ann Arbor, the former home of the naked mile.


The last show was Next to Normal. I'd never heard of it. I knew the UM Depression Center was doing a fundraising event by taking a group to the show on the same night we went because there is a character living with bipolar disorder. For a show I'd never heard of, it was amazing. The show was good; the story was good; the songs were good; the performers were amazing. I really loved it. It was much more emotional than I was prepared for on a Thursday night, but well worth some tears sitting alone in the theater. (No one I knew well went this time.) I highly, highly recommend it.

Just so...

I needed 2 "check" tags so my count stays correct. #3 & #4 are chronicled together.

#3 Learn to Make a Killer Mac and Cheese and #4 Learn to Make a Killer Soup

I grouped these together because I made them together. I decided I needed to try at least 3 recipes, including at least one spectacular one, to claim I can make a killer mac and cheese or soup. I hit killer on attempt number 2 for both, but attempt number 3 for the mac and cheese was also killer.

Attempt #1

Shrimp and Mushroom Laska and Macaroni and Cheese, both from Jane Hornby's What to Cook and How to Cook It, a cookbook given to me my my dad for Christmas this year. The laska looked awesome in the pictures but then a little scary in the pan. The mac & cheese looked awesome all around. Looks can be deceiving. The laska, a curry-type soup, was really good but could have used a little more spice. The mac & cheese was baked and a bit dry. Soup #1 = killer. Mac & chese #1 = not. My testers for this round were Ed Cruz and Beth Spitelli. From my memory, Beth & I both liked the soup, esp if it had a little more spice - even though Beth didn't remind me she doesn't like shrimp and just ate around them - and Ed was neutral.

Attempt #2

French Onion Soup and Macaroni and Cheese, soup from an online recipe given to me by Lisa Morrison, and the mac & cheese from a Rachel Ray cookbook given to me by my Momma. I don't think my house has ever known a smell as lovely as the onions sauteing. Amazing. Now I saute onions regularly. Just for the smell. Okay, I eat them too. The soup was more of an onion soup because I didn't have the proper bowls, so I couldn't melt the cheese on top. We just put it in the soup. Then I baked some croutons, some with cheese on top. The biggest problem was that I figured I only needed about half an hour to make the soup - which was true - but I didn't read the last step which read, "saute for 2 hours." So while Ed & I watched the Oscars, we ate the soup, but it wasn't quite as amazing as it should have been. After Ed left, Chris Zann and Holly Munk stopped by, and by then, the soup was really good. The mac and cheese went a little smoother and was quite killer. I wasn't what I had envisioned as it had tomatoes and mushrooms in it, but it was really, really good. Soup #2 = killer (eventually). Mac & cheese #2 = killer. My samplers were Ed Cruz, Chris Zann, Holly Munk, and we think Beth Spitelli, but our memories are confusing us as she wasn't there to watch the Oscars but she and I remember her trying the mac & cheese. Weird.

Attempt #3

Tomato & Spinach Soup and K Rob's Portobella-Stuffed Mac & Cheese. The soup was a simple Rachel Ray and was actually quite good. I would make it instead of canned tomato soup. I'll probably mess with it and try other things in it too. Then I got an originial K Rob recipe, actually convincing him to write one down. It was awesome. Beth & my favorite mac & cheese, and I love portobellas. The only issue I had was that most of the mushrooms collapsed, so I only had a few pretty, truly stuffed mushrooms. I'll have to ask him what I did wrong and try again because it was a really nice touch without being too complicated. Yum. Soup #3 = good. Mac & cheese #3 = killer. My samplers this time were Ed Cruz, Beth Spitelli, Chris Zann, and Holly Munk.

I'm happily becoming a much better cook!