Illinois 2013
by Scott Hardie on December 1, 2013
Ten highlights of my just-concluded road trip to northern Illinois with Kelly, in chronological order:
- Seeing lots of friends and family at our engagement party in St. Charles, our old hometown. I was glad to be able to talk to everyone there, and also glad that I now recognize almost everyone in Kelly's large family on sight. (It took me a few years!) My thanks to Chicago-area Funeratic members who joined the party with their respective spouses and kids: Jackie Mason, Lori Lancaster, and Matthew Preston. I wish I had remembered to take a group photo of us all for this site.
- Playing the depraved, adults-only Cards Against Humanity at the after-party in our hotel with Kelly's close friends from Springfield. What's good to the last drop? Leprosy.
- Dinosaur-watching at the Field Museum in Chicago. My memories of visiting it on grade school field trips are mostly about resenting the abundant stairs. As an adult today, I suppose I still don't like the stairs, but I better appreciated how neat most of the exhibits are, with appeal for all ages and knowledge levels. I wish I could spend a whole week there. Hmm, we have a honeymoon coming up...
- Eating lunch at a colorful Mexican restaurant in Princeton with Kelly's brother Andy. I rarely get one-on-one time with him, and it was refreshing to learn a different perspective on family issues that I hadn't considered before. It helps when hanging out with him that he's a pretty gregarious guy.
- Having the vacation portion of the goo tournament go smoothly. After the disastrous first week of the contest, I really did not need anything else to go wrong while I was mostly offline for ten days. Thankfully, due to advance preparation, it didn't.
- Seeing The Day of the Doctor in a huge 3D screen, even though it meant driving all the way to Davenport late at night. It really made the show cinematic, like what a Doctor Who feature film would look and feel like. Enjoying the terrific show in a room full of eager fans dressed as their favorite Doctors improved the experience even more.
- Having a great time for only a few dollars at Nickel World, and sightseeing the eighty-some Asian restaurants around Rockford. That city must have more Chinese restaurants than Hong Kong.
- Taking Kelly's mother Pat shopping in Peru for a day, while Kelly was stuck working and the rest of the family was busy. I was able to help her get around (no easy feat given her medical situation) and find precisely the right items for herself and for her family as gifts, and we had a good time.
- Introducing Kelly's family to the aforementioned Cards Against Humanity. It was worth it just for the look on Kelly's face when she realized that her retired father knows what pixelated bukkake is. It also provided what might be the single greatest poem I've ever heard:
Hulk Hogan
Expecting a burp and vomiting on the floor
Dying
- Shopping for Thanksgiving dinner supplies with Kelly's father Russ, helping Kelly (just a little bit) to prepare the delicious meal, and eating around the dining table with the whole family. My transition from Kelly's boyfriend to family friend to family member has been gradual, but I realized during the meal that I now definitely feel like we're a family. In a few months, we officially will be.
One Reply to Illinois 2013
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
Weakened
A friend (new GOO devotee Aaron Weiss) once said he had read about a psychological study that found people don't feel like they've had a weekend if they didn't have free time on Friday night. That was my experience this weekend: At the office till eight, then sitting down with pizza and a DVD only to nod off on the couch by nine thirty. I may have woken up refreshed on Saturday morning, but there was this crushing feeling that the weekend was almost over, that sort of numbing dread you feel every Sunday night an hour before bed. Go »The Money Pit
Nobody's falling off of staircases or dropping bathtubs through the floor, but this month, our house has had a lot of things go wrong at once. It feels like every day brings another visit from a contractor. Here's our list so far: Mold remediation: A patch of black mold in the primary bathroom meant having the shower tiles stripped out and the infected drywall removed. Go »Dr. Jerk
I wish doctors would treat me like a person, instead of a fat person. No matter what complaint sends me to the doctor in the first place, within minutes, every visit turns into a conversation about how I need to lose weight, and what will happen if I don't. Like I haven't tried a thousand times to lose weight. Go »Gigantism
Thanks to a friend who couldn't use them, I scored They Might Be Giants tickets to replace the broken Valentines gift that I originally bought for Kelly. We took in the show last night with two other friends who happened to be going, Nathan and Raquel, and it was a great time. Most of my concerts have been metal, so I'm used to screaming and head-banging, and I didn't exactly know how to get into the music, especially since I was the least familiar with the TMBG catalog. Go »I Wonder
Is there any way I can program my car's CD player to make an "om nom nom" sound when I slide in a disc? Go »
Scott Hardie | January 1, 2014
The construct-a-poem card in Cards Against Humanity (technically it asks for a haiku but doesn't care about syllable count, so to me it's just about making a three-line poem) is quickly turning into my favorite. Two poems from our game last night:
Lady Gaga
Waking up half-naked in a Denny's parking lot
Dying of dysentery
Drinking ten 5-hour Energys to get fifty continuous hours of energy
Crushing Mr. Peanut's brittle body
Leaving an awkward voicemail
If you haven't played Cards Against Humanity, get a copy and round up some friends who aren't easily embarrassed and have yourself a great time.