Idiot

I had a real hard time falling asleep last night. The last time I looked at the clock it was about 1:30, and it was a while after that before I fell asleep.

At 6:00 this morning the phone rang. I get scared when the phone rings that early. Who would be calling me at 6? Did someone die? Is someone sick or hurt? What the hell?

The caller ID said the name of my building, which meant someone was in the vestibule ringing my apartment on the intercom to be let in. Who would be calling me from the lobby at 6 in the morning? I didn't answer it. If it was someone important, they would have left a message or hung up and tried again.

About this time I realize that I have the lobby channel on my television. There is a camera in the vestibule that I can see through closed circuit television. So I turn it on, and there's this dude just standing there. He is a college-aged guy with a big backpack. He's just standing by the door, as if he's waiting for someone to let him in. He never buzzed anyone else. He just stood there. Eventually he walked out of the building.

What the hell? What person randomly rings anyone at 6 in the morning? My thought was that maybe he was locked out or something. But if he was, why would he ring a random apartment? We have a 24-hour building manager. Why didn't he ring him? Moron.

Saturday Dinner

We tried a new restaurant called West Town Tavern. If you live in Chicago or are ever here, you should try it. The place is really cute, with hardwood floors and exposed brick walls. They have a lot of interesting beer selections (you will not get a Bud there) and wine. The four of us split mussels and shrimp spring rolls for appetizers. Jeff and Tim got the duck with mashed potatoes and asparagus. Susanna got the salmon. I got the lamb on cous cous. Everything was so yummy! We all tried each other's food. Then for dessert Susanna and Jeff split the apple-raspberry crisp with caramel ice cream. That was good. I had a piece of chocolate cake with a small scoop of chocolate chip ice cream. Tim got this rasperry infusion stuff that was so good. It was some kind of after dinner drink. It was so sweet and yummy that I wanted to get more and make popsicles out of it. Very good! I highly, highly recommend this place.

Kill Hannah Show

Sunday night I went to see Kill Hannah. They are a Chicago band who usually do a lot of shows here (although this is the first one I ever went to), but they have been recording a new album and doing shows in other parts of the country, so it had been a while since they did a show here.

The night started out in an annoying fashion. The ticket said 6:30, but that's when they decided to open the doors. I have been to Metro many, many times, and the time on the ticket has always been the time the show started, not the time the doors were opened. I guess in this case it was different. There were supposed to be 3 acts, but apparently one of them, Tommie Sunshine or something like that, was the DJ before hand. So I guess he started at 6:30, and they opened the doors then.

The opening act was a band called The Assassins. This band has some potential, but their live show needs a lot of work. Part of their sound was coming from a laptop computer, that apparently wasn't working correctly when they took the stage. They had to stall, and the only one in the band who did anything was the drummer. He tried to keep the crowd from being bored. The other members of the band, except the keyboard player who was also working the laptop, just stood there. Finally they were able to play. They had a screen behind them showing stuff, like clips from the movie "Pi" and some other stuff. There was one part where it seemed like they were trying to sync what was on the screen to what they were playing, but it was off. The music itself wasn't too bad, but it was too much. The drummer was by far the best musician. There was a bass player, keyboard player/laptop user, the lead singer who was also the guitarist, and a female guitarist who did backing vocals and lead vocals on 2 songs. And it was like they were trying to do too much. The stuff coming from the laptop was as intricate as they could make it. The female guitarist, well, her guitar wasn't needed. I think the most amount she played for any song was like 10%. It was just for emphasis. And with the other instruments and electronic sounds from the laptop, there was enough emphasis where it was needed already. They just need to clean themselves up.

Kill Hannah came out and they were great. They played some of their new songs that were pretty good. If you go to the website http://www.killhannah.com all of songs on mp3 there were played. They have a real high energy show. I have seen a lot of times when all of the members of a band play instruments they all just stand in front of their microphone stand and play. Not this band. All of them ran all around the stage and really got into the songs for the whole set. Also, the guitarists and bass player all had lights on their guitars, which looked really cool at times when most of the lights were off. The lead singer sings with emotion. And of course the crowd went nuts when the last song of the encore, ending the show, was "Welcome to Chicago, Mother Fucker".

Trip to the supermarket: $134

Now, you may be asking yourself, how does a single woman living by herself spend $134 at the supermarket? And no, I'm not having a party or cooking a big meal or anything like that. How does that happen?

First, I bought some things that aren't usual buys for me. First, and most expensively, there was the pretty large Rubbermaid food container I bought. I had decided to make fruit salad, and I bought a honeydew melon to cut up for it (after having some at Tim's parents' house over the weekend I really had a taste for honeydew). I don't have a container that would fit a cut up honeydew melon, let alone the other fruit. So I had to get a new container. That was $9. There were others, too. I had to buy 7 light bulbs. One for the lamp in my living room. A 4-pack to replace some of the bulbs in the ceiling light fixtures in my bedroom and dining room. And 2 for my desk lamp. I only needed one, but that wattage only came in a 2-pack. And I also needed an extension cord. And a card and gift bag for my mom for Mother's Day. So I guess that's a bunch of stuff that I wouldn't ordinarily buy that increased the amount of my bill.

Let's just say that all that was about $30. That still leaves $100 in food and stuff for myself. Some of it isn't for me. For example, I bought some Carnation Instant Breakfast and cereal bars for Tim because he needs those sometimes. The instant breakfast will probably last him a couple of months minimum at my apartment because he isn't always there and doesn't have some every time he's over.

That still leaves a ton for myself. Okay, I admit, I hate grocery shopping. I stock up on stuff so I don't have to go shopping on a regular basis. I hate it. I hate the supermarket. I hate waiting in line there. I hate when I forget something and have to walk all the way back through the store to get it. I hate having to carry all the groceries up to my apartment. So I do it as infrequently as possible. I probably won't have to go shopping for a month, except maybe for milk.

Also, seeing as how I'm poor now, if things I use a lot are on sale, or if I have a coupon for them, I will buy them even if I don't need them right away. I bought a jar of pasta sauce because I had a coupon that was about to expire. I still had a jar at home, but why not buy the next jar I need when I can get it for cheaper?

So there you go. That is how a single woman can spend over $100 on groceries for herself.