The Gipsy Kings and The Mamas and The Papas

Brian and I saw The Gipsy Kings at Ravinia last night. I even got Brian to dance a little.

Good news: yesterday I spent the day searching for two people who had decided to ride out hurricane Katrina. My coworker’s parents live in Gulfport, MS, and she hadn't heard from them in a few days. Yesterday, the task was given to me to try and find her mom and dad. So I spent yesterday working with local television stations, newspapers, The Salvation Army, The Red Cross, and FEMA. I heard news this morning that her parents are doing fine. One house on their block is still standing, and they are taking shelter there with some of their neighbors.

I am proud to work for a company that will make finding a mom and dad top priority for the day.

Quit Yer Belly Achin'

With all the problems facing our world today: the evacuation of the Gaza Strip, Hurricane Katrina destroying the South, the rise in gas prices, I think it is important to take a moment and discuss the most important issue of all. My abs hurt. A lot.

Whoever decided that doing a lot of crunches, on a daily basis, was the best way to tone a stomach, should be burned at the stake. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to move. It hurts to laugh.

(Billy, this part is for you…)

And I love working out. I am one of those persons who really enjoys going to the gym. Ten months out of the year I go to the gym, a few times a week, and subject myself to really intense workouts. I don’t feel like I have accomplished anything unless my hair is soaked, I have sweated through my t-shirt, and my muscles burn with a pain so fierce I have trouble walking.

I love lifting weights the most. I love exhausting my muscles and then forcing myself to do another rep of 10. I love when the endorphins kick in and you get that rush of blood that flushes your face. For awhile I was waking up in the middle of the night with severe leg cramps, because I was pushing myself too hard at the gym.

But nothing compares to the pain of crunches. And the worst part is I know I am going to do them again today. And tomorrow. And the next day.

So here is a tribute to all those people who suffer with me.
Laine: who is running a marathon this weekend, as part of her training ran 10 miles on Sunday.
Angie: because of her dedication, my 2-year-old nephew knows how to say “Pilates”.
Mom: she climbs on that bike and watches “So, You Think You Can Dance” in order to ease the pain.
Sarah: your arms look like Madonna's arms. No lie.

Feel the burn.

That's a Wrap!

Film reviews:

1) The Killing Fields – excellent film, worth renting. Malcovich was great as usual, and Sam Waterson, you know him from Law and Order, was very compelling. This one is good.
2) Suspect Zero – do not waste your time. It’s extremely boring (even with Aaron Eckhart and Ben Kingsley). The directing is a mix of Seven and The Ring, so if you have seen either/both of those, then you have already seen this too. Also, it has Tom Cruise’s cousin in it (bad guy from LOST) and so that’s just the icing on the cake.
3) Empire of the Sun – pretty good but also very long (Spielberg likes those epics). The one scene that made me cringe was when the boy, Jamie, is walking through the camp on the first day. Everyone at the camp is wearing white or grey outfits and they are completely covered in a white dust. Then in walks Jamie wearing a red school blazer. It reminded me too much of Schindler’s List, when the little girl wearing red walked through the street, the only color in a black and white scene. Also, keep your eyes open for a small role played by Ben Stiller. He has about 4 lines total.
4) Gia- I don’t even know if this is available to rent. Channel 20 showed this movie like 4 times this weekend. Angelina Jolie before she was Angelina Jolie.

Other events from the weekend:
-chopped all my hair off. It’s really short. I mean really short.
-Nevin’s with Billy and Rife. I left when Billy turned to some guy and said “I think I saw you in Batteries Not Included. You haven’t grown much since then.”
-Early service on Sunday morning was a breath of fresh air. Looks like I may have finally found a church in Chicago.
-Napped most of Sunday day.

Friday Night Checklist

An inventory of Lulu’s birthday party:

-1 Birthday Girl
-1 Piñata filled with candy
-1 cow’s tongue
-A handful of ballet dancers
-1 bag of pork rinds (with ranch dressing)
-1 beaten Piñata
-1 can of Evil Eye
-1 chocolate cake
-1 Adam Ant cd playing in the kitchen
-1 destroyed/mangled Piñata
-A slew of writers from the Fiction Workshop at Columbia
-1 C&B lady
-1 stocked liquor cabinet
-1 Jello mold
-6 or7 improv artists from Second City
-1 game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey
-1 angry lesbian
-2 Yoga instructors
-1 flaming Piñata

My Plan is Working

I spoke with Sadia yesterday. She is contemplating moving from San Francisco to Chicago. We both agree that buying a house is damn near impossible in California, even if a major earthquake were to occur, and Sadia really wants to own a house. So Chicago may be her best bet.

Other benefits to moving here are:
1) her folks live here (which, at times, could also be a negative to moving here)
2) her friends live here
3) Dustin lives here (and after 5 years of flirting, they should just be together already)

It’s my goal to get all of my friends to move to Chicago (or at least the Midwest). Here is how the plan is working so far:

1) Tim turned down a job on Everybody Loves Raymond to join the dual masters program at Northwestern. So he is in Chicago now.
2) Alida stopped recruiting for reality shows and moved to Chicago with her boy, whom she recruited for Amish in the City. She is now in Chicago.
3) Ben stopped editing for Grounded for Life and is now directing television shows in Ohio. He is in the Midwest now.
4) Sadia is on her way, or at least will end up here eventually.
5) Josh’s heart belongs in Chicago, but his job is wherever Will is shooting his films. But it’s just a matter of time before Will starts shooting in Chicago again. And the Starbucks in Chicago also allow you to sit for hours and type out hilarious screenplays.
6) Karla and Aaron are a little more difficult. But I do hope that once Aaron has a little more pull in the film industry, they can live in Minneapolis and he can just fly to shoots from there.
7) Laine – She says she is staying in Houston, but I don’t think she can stay away from the Cubs for that long. And besides, I live here now and it’s about time we live in the same state.

So let’s all keep our fingers crossed that Sadia migrates to Chicago. She is one of my best friends and I would love to live in the same city with her, again

Lance

My brother, Lance, just got a big ol' promotion at Cerner. Although he will continue living in Kansas City, he will be flying down to Orlando, FL every week (Monday through Thursday) to oversee the software implementation at Florida Hospital.

Some notes from Lance's email:
About the client:
Florida Hospital is an acute-care organization (multi-facility) with a little under 3k beds.
This is the largest client (dollars) in the Southeast.
They are implementing 15+ solutions (Cerner products).
The hospital is affiliated with the Adventist religion which is a Christian sect (I was told by the client that if you mix a really good Baptist and a really good Jew then you'll get an Adventist).

Interesting Note: Most of our meetings begin with a prayer and once per day they play music over the loud speakers and we gather together for announcements and prayer requests. - Participation is always optional.


**Now, instead of going to Kansas City to visit Lance, I may meet up with him in Orlando. Hell, he will have a company paid apartment there, along with a shit load of frequent flier miles, and a rental car. Plus all of his food and stuff is paid for by Cerner.

My family rocks.
Way to go, Lance!

We Could Hook Down, Logistically

The Cubs lost, but we're all winners in my book!

Billy said my blog is like the show Laguna Beach. What a jerk.

*As a side note: Josh - Ian Moore is playing the Abbey Pub on 09/19. Yeah!!

Tommy Girl

I spent 90 minutes last night watching “Tommy Lee Goes to College”. It is a stupid show with horrible editing (let’s hope Kevin isn’t working on this reality show). I am completely addicted to it now and will be watching it every Tuesday night.

This is what Tommy and I have in common:

1) We both lived in LA
2) We both love music
3) We both say “this shit's bananas!”
4) We both have brown hair
5) We both were in the marching band
6) We both struggle with Organic Chemistry
7) We both love coffee in the morning
8) We both have a scandalous past
9) We both were on the diving team
10) We both love nature

This is why Tommy and I can never be:

1) Musicians bad. Curfew 1am.

It was Ladies Night

We couldn't resist heading to Tuman's. And we couldn't explain why everything we heard was so freaking hilarious.

Bon Appetite

Leah is in town this week, so we met up last night for dinner. We all sat around for an hour chopping mango, garlic, cilantro, onion, pineapple, and basil. Precious was kind enough to slave over the hot stove while the rest of us focused on finishing the bottle of wine. The dinner was an incredible meal consisting of insalata caprese with chopped garlic, potstickers, grilled shrimp with shitake mushrooms and red peppers, halibut and mahi mahi with a mango/pineapple salsa drizzled over the top.

Please note that Precious was wearing a Transformers t-shirt.

Saturday night: Part 1 and Part Deux

I am going to break Saturday night down into two parts. (And I feel really bad because out of all the photos I took that night, exactly zero of them are of Jake.)

Part 1) I met up with Jake and a whole crew of people at Tuman’s on Saturday for Jake's going away party. It was great chatting it up over $2 PBR pints. I was also really glad to be able to hang with Jake one more time before he set off for Minneapolis. Ashley, Michelle, and Emily popped in for a pint, and it’s always a good time when they are around. I look forward to catching up with Jake this Thanksgiving. This part of the night was so much fun.

Part 2) Jake had left. Ashley and the ladies had left.

Thought things were cool and the friend mode was working but I was terribly wrong. This is what I get for giving people the benefit of the doubt. I am such a sucker for an email apology and a promise for better times to come. 3am rolled around and shit went down, and it went down fast. All so he could hit it up with some random chick. I was cramping his style. And that promised sofa disappeared in a drunken blur and I found myself standing on the sidewalk under the neon sign looking around thinking “now what?” while he actually looked me in the eye and said “we are catching a cab”. And he didn’t mean we in the sense of, “yes I know I said you could sober up in my living room tonight and therefore you went ahead and drank yourself stupid so hop in this cab with me and we’ll laugh about this in the morning.” He meant we in the sense of, “it's 3 o'clock in the morning and you are drunk and can’t drive and have absolutely no place to go, but at this moment I don’t give a shit what happens to you as long as this lady on my arm is willing to put out.”

In the matter of about 30 seconds I became an after school special, all so he could get some.

This part of the night was officially the worst 7 hours of my entire time living in Chicago. So fuck you for telling me that I could crash on your couch. And fuck you for not having the balls to talk to me yourself. And fuck you for walking away knowing full well I had NO PLACE TO GO.

Only Mostly

Conversation I had with Laine this weekend:

Olivia:
“Eventually when I get married I will only mostly be making out with my husband. Which is such a scary thought.
Poor schmuck. I haven’t even met the guy and I am already cheating on him.”


Laine:
“There is a reason why monogamous and monotonous sound the same.”

Male Bonding

Friday night I saw the film Harold and Maude. Sarah, Ashley and I were all squirming in our chairs as we witnessed a boy (who looked about 13 years old) get it on with an 80 year old woman. We agreed that the film was a strange mix between Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Golden Girls. My favorite character in the whole movie was the tree.

Afterwards I met up with friends as a bar. Best quote of the evening was:

Olivia: How you doing?
Dmitry: I’m doing drunk.






Jeff and Oafy had some strange male bonding that evening. I wonder if it was brought on by Oafy mixing meds with alcohol. Either way, by the end of the night Oafy and Jeff were slow dancing on the sidewalk and Jeff never did figure out what the horse on his t-shirt was doing. (I thought the horse was having an epileptic seizure. Jeff thought the horse was dying.)

DCFC

I just got the new Plans album. Ray, you are the best!!!

I am waiting to listen to the whole thing until my drive home. But I am sure that it rocks.


Woo-hoo!

*But of what I have heard, I really like Summer Skin. It seems very appropriate for this time of year and has that sort of sad, reminiscent feel to it. I like the idea of peeling freckles from our shoulders.

**Alright, I'll Follow You into the Dark is such an awesome song. And for a strange reason, it has almost brought me to tears.
Someday...right? (God, I am such a girl sometimes.)

The Name Game

For most of my life I have been the only Olivia I have known (not counting Olivia Newton-John). But in the past couple of years the name has become more popular and there are a bunch of little 4 year old girls who now share my name. This has created a few problems for me, as I am not used to someone saying “Hey, Olivia!” and having that be directed towards someone else. For instance, last fall I was shoe shopping with my mom when I heard “Olivia, put that down!” I immediately dropped the shoe I was holding and replied “Mom?” I then saw a woman run towards a 3 year old who was placing the heel of a shoe inside of her mouth.

Yesterday, there were two times when I heard my name being called only to find out that the person wasn’t speaking to me. The first time was when Brian, Chad and I went out for lunch. Some frazzled mother-of-three kept reminding Olivia to stop horsing around and eat her food. The other time was last night while watching some public access show (so many new channels on the tv, I don’t know what to do with myself). A holistic doctor was showing how to give sinus massages to children, as a means of getting rid of cold symptoms. His test subject was his 5 year old daughter, Olivia.

So it got me thinking, where do we get our names from?

My full name is Olivia LaVon McCain. I know that my parents contemplated naming me Nola or Abigail, before deciding on Olivia. My mom heard the name Olivia while watching an episode of The Walton Family. The mother on the show was named Olivia Walton, and my mom liked the name, and hence I was named. LaVon is my mom’s middle name and my grandmother’s middle name. I will most likely be passing down the name LaVon to one of my children.

Please share with me how you got your name.

I think we've met before

This has been the summer for reconnecting with people from my past. And by a bizarre act of nature, they all seem to have the same name. Let me explain. About 8 weeks ago I went to my 10 year high school class reunion. While there I met someone from my class that I hadn’t really interacted with before. His name is Jake (and he reads this blog every now and then so I am sorry if you hate that I am writing this) and a friendship was formed over discussions about KCRW, Lake Wobegon, and Pagliai’s Pizza. I never imagined I would make a friend at my 10 year class reunion.

Cut to yesterday. An email appeared in my inbox and I did a double take on the name. Titled “An Old Friend”, I was floored to see that Jake (my old boyfriend from like 8 years ago) had found my email. In a recent conversation he had about Iowa City, my name had been brought up, and with the help of the grapevine, he got my email address. And just like that the past shifted into the present.

Now I don’t think I know anyone else by the name of Jake, but if I do, I have a feeling that he will appear (or reappear) within the next few weeks.

On a different note, I am halfway through Freakanomics. It’s very interesting and I would definitely recommend it. But I need a suggestion for my next book to read. And no, I don’t even want to pretend to attempt reading Infinite Jest.

Freaks

I started the book Freakanomics last night. It’s obvious that the author's first passion is Economics, more so than writing. But, like The Tipping Point, the content is so fascinating that I have trouble putting it down. It’s a short book, so it shouldn’t take me long to finish it up.

I read on article last night on the new DCFC album, "Plans". When asked how they got the title for the album, Ben replied that his favorite joke is "How do you make God laugh? Make plans." So I guess God must be chuckling now. I know I thought that was quite clever.

I saw a clip of Cartman, from South Park, doing the aristocrat joke from the new film "The Aristocrats". I didn't find it that funny. Brian saw the film last night and enjoyed it. I think this may be a Netflix for me. I can't justify spending $10 on this film. If anyone else out there saw this, and enjoyed it, please leave a comment and let me know.

This past weekend, my friend Sarah and I had a discussion about why most of our friends are guys. I do have some very close girlfriends: Laine, Sadia, Karla, Angie, my mom, etc., and I think Sarah and I are going to have a great time hanging out together in Chicago too, but the majority of my friends have always been guys. Sarah and I were trying to find a concrete reason why we prefer hanging out with guys more so than women. I think yesterday I found my reason. A brief interaction with a woman I met about 3 weeks ago caused so much unnecessary drama it was ridiculous. There was some definite manipulation on her part, as well as a dash of cattiness and selfishness. It about cost me a friendship with someone I really do want a friendship with, and I am pretty sure it has cost my friendship with her.

I figure (and I know some of you have heard me say this before) there are so many people in this world that would love to see me fail: coworkers who would like my job, women who would like my guy, strangers who would like my parking spot, etc. Why should I befriend people who would also want to see me fail? Friends should lift each other up, support one another, and encourage one another towards success and happiness.

I guess I feel that guys are less likely to be catty and manipulative, because in all honesty they just don’t give a shit. I just hate that women like that give women like me a bad name.

Anyway, so I met up with Rife and Prop at Nevin’s last night. There weren’t any Riffel Towers occurring, but we had fun anyway. Yeah for friendship!

And sorry this post is so boring, but it was a Tuesday and my life can’t be exciting all the time.

12 and Beyond

It never occurred to me to go above channel 11 on my tv set. I have never had cable, and currently don’t have cable, so I just assumed that everything above WTTW would be white noise. But a fluke dropping of the remote control last night opened my world up to so much more. I have the History Channel! And Oxygen! And a Spanish channel! And about 15 other channels that I didn’t even know existed. So last night I explored these two digit programs and was very much pleased with the findings.

Manno and I bonded this weekend over our ability to get sucked into tv marathons. He confessed to watching almost 6 hours of Night Court on Saturday night. I then shared my experience of 8 hours of NYPD Blue (“The Changing of the Guard” season). We both agreed that when a 90210 marathon comes on, all bets are off. Schedules are cleared, appointments cancelled, friends left hanging high and dry; everything is dropped to watch a group of teenagers sort through their issues of sexuality, alcohol abuse, and bad fashion.

I think it’s time we all come clean about those moments of not leaving the sofa for hours, due to tv marathons. Please, in the comment box, share your experience and know that you are not alone.

Retro on Roscoe

People watching is fun. And I had the opportunity to meet some great people (thanks Sarah!!)
Best surprise of Retro: guy with the Weezer shirt who had Mocean Worker on his Ipod.
Worst pick-up line I heard: "Want to going sailing with me on Sunday?" (which tied with: "Hi! I like your glasses and your hair is bouncy!")
Best band: Indignant (but to be fair I missed Chris' band playing, so they probably rocked as well)
Worst band: the chick who sang Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" with a really pretty voice...that was just strange.
Best celebrity sighting: I swear Elizabeth Taylor was watching Elevation.

Street Fests are the best.

I Pledge Allegiance, to the Band

Indignant played Retro on Roscoe on Sunday. It was a great show! Any band that can rock their own music, and do a cover of the Black Keys, is cool in my book.
I will keep everyone posted as to upcoming shows.

Friendship is Rare

My birthday: surrounded by friends at Nevin's. (I hate that in both photos of me, I am talking on my cell phone. That's just obnoxious.)

Also, the skydiving had to be postponed due to inclement weather (aka it was cloudy and sprinkling). So it looks like we will be jumping to our certain death in September instead. At least 5 people at work today told me about the lady in Utah who jumped tandem and died this weekend. I guess she hit a building or something. Ok, come on. Who skydives with buildings around?