A Little Up Close and Personal

You may want to click on this picture to see this guy up close, but I was pretty astounded he even stood still on the window pane while I walked up and snapped a picture of him.

Stick 'Em Up!

My cousin Mikie, on top of my Aunt and Uncle's RV, taking his youthful aggression out on one of my other cousins.

Stuffed and Roasted

My first pig roast! It was far grosser looking at the pig than I imagined, probably because he's stuffed into that roasting contraption pretty tightly. If meat wasn't so damn tasty, I'd be a vegetarian.

Child Wrangler

Here's a picture of my favorite child wrangler: Dan knew just how to entertain the kids--invent a violent cross between baseball, drive-way kickball, and croquet. Thusly, Hammerball (so named for the hammer like shape of the croquet mallet) was born. Here, Dan points one of my younger cousins towards second base, right before his team got beaten soundly by the opposition. Leave it to a few 8 year olds to take competition seriously.

Eye Contact

This is pretty indicative of my family....no one in the picture is looking in the same direction. This even happens when everyone is supposed to be looking at the camera.

Too Cool for the Ground Level

Again at my Great Grandmother's Birthday Party: Two of my cousins, Jessica and Tiffany, chill out way above the crowd on top of Jessica's family's RV.

Our Idea of a Good Time

Ok, so my family is crazy and Polish. And we're conscientious too. We'll throw a good party, but let you know when the appetizers are hot and spicy (or spiked....like my aunt's specially made lemonade...)

A Birthday Invasion

My great-grandmother turned 95 on August 5th (this is posted really too early but I'm going to post a number of pictures from this get-together). Her favorite bird is the notoriously pink flamingo, so the whole family made sure that 95 flamingos were populating the lawn of our summer cottage when my Great Grandmother arrived there for her party. You should have seen the mess the birds left when they spontaneously decided to migrate South.

One Big Marching Band

One of my friend's dads is in a drum corps, which is like a marching band on steroids for grown-ups. This particular group, called the Kilties, not only marches, but they do it in fashionable Scottish (Scot-Irish? I'm not sure) garb.

Ale and the (Ugly) Lighthouse

Sailboating yet again: Here, my coworker Ale muses over the lighthouse that sits on Milwaukee's breakwater between the harbor and the rest of the lake. She let me know that she used to want to see this thing up close, but now she thinks it's pretty ugly.

Lessons in Rope Dropping

Another Dennis Sullivan classic photo: This is my co-worker Annie. They tried to get her to stand in the sail hoisting line, but she couldn't pull the rope fast enough, and started to drop the rope all over the deck, probably in an attempt to not smack this little kid behind her with it. Needless to say, Annie finds this all pretty funny.

More Seafaring Adventures

More Dennis Sullivan exploits: here, a few of my coworkers get a lesson in sail hoisting. The sail was almost like being out on the ocean, except for that lingering smell of waste treatment plants and dead fish...

Aye, to the Ship!

A group outing with my company saw me boarding the SMS Dennis Sullivan, a remake of a 19th century schooner that gives day sails on Lake Michigan. Here, a few of the women I work with take charge and head for our fair vessel.

Urban Dweller

This little guy was munching on some nosh right by Lake Memorial Drive, which is a busy thoroughfare...not the place you'd expect to find an abundance of nature. And yet he's making it work. What an urban warrior.

Not My Best Work, But Everyone Needs a Day Off

Kind of a dark picture of the Milwaukee River at sunset.

A Pretty City View

Yet again, at lunchtime, I took a picture that was destined for blog greatness. I ate lunch sitting right here, at the North end of the Veteran's Park lagoon, and was rewarded with both lovely views of downtown Milwaukee and a grass-stained skirt.

In Search of a Tasty Lunch

Sometimes you just need a cheeseburger. I work within walking distance of more than one fancy cheeseburger place, and I've decided I need to try them all. This one is from a place called Patty Burger, and while it was no NYC Good Burger, it more than did the trick.

East Side Walks- Part 5

Know I really know I live in Milwaukee. Someone had the world famous Bratwurst of the world famous Milwaukee Brewers 7th Inning Stretch Sausage Races in their front lawn. Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore (or New York, either).

East Side Walks- Part 4

Not old-time, but pretty artsy...there were more than one of these billboards in the area, but this one seemed the most ridiculous to me.

East Side Walks- Part 3

Nothing says Milwaukee, and "good, old time flavor" like an old-time Pabst sign.

East Side Walks- Part 2

More quirky Milwaukee East Side finds. Dr. Suess would be proud, but for the life of me, I couldn't find a single wall in the whole area that had 'one fish' written on it.

East Side Walks- Part 1

So I began taking occasional walks in my new neighborhood- Milwaukee's East Side. This grocery store was the first fun thing I saw, not only is it closed, it's quite proud to be shut as well.

Picture of an Addict

French fries at Milwaukee's French ethnic festival, Bastille Days. I'm a well-known french fry lover and addict.

Recovery

Cristina finally recovered from her dread illness, and joined me in Veteran's Park for some sunbathing and New Yorker reading. Naturally, I couldn't go even one day without hurting my body in some way, so I made sure to get good and sunburned.

What Did Us All In

After some serious investigation, the only culprit that could have been behind the spread of the stomach virus Cristina got while she was here visiting me was this jello. I made it for her so that she could stick to non-solid foods, but I ate some, thinking what she had was food poisioning. And that's what did me in.

Let's Put the Cat in Things: A Before and After

Welcome to Part 2 of Let's Put the Cat in Things, where Cristina and Dan put Buttons in a kitchen drawer. Don't worry, I made sure they took out all the knives first.


Buttons, however, wasn't too keen on this one. She took the first opportunity to get the hell out of dodge:


*Cristina and Dan actually took these pictures!

Let's Put the Cat in Things

This is Buttons, my roommate's cat (see previous posts). Cristina and Dan decided to put Buttons in an array of places, starting with this empty beer box we found lying around my kitchen. Plans have also been made to stick the cat in a drawer, trash can, refrigerator, oven, casserole dish, and a paper bag.

Yummyness

Cristina came to visit me, and promptly baked brownies. Enough said. :)

Catching Up: Cedar Point Pictures

So I know I'm a whole week behind on the pictures. First, my apologies. Second, let me make it up to you by bombarding you with a whole slew of pictures from my recent road trip with my friend Dan to Cedar Point, which is an amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio that has some of the biggest and fastest rides in the country. This first picture is of a fortune cookie my roommate got and has posted on our fridge. I didn't notice it until I was about to leave for Cedar Point. Pretty situation appropriate, if you ask me.


This below is Maverick, one of the best roller coasters I've ever ridden. It makes everything at the local Six Flags Great America look tame.


A quick pic of Snoopy, the park's mascot, and their fastest ride called Top Thrill Dragster. Themed like a dragster race car track, the damn thing goes from 0 to 125 mph in about 3 seconds. And yes, that's a 90 degree incline on the way up, and a 90 degree drop on the way down. It made me see stars in the crazy cartoon sense of the phrase and made me regret the Taco Bell I'd eaten earlier.


One more ride picture, this one of a steel coaster that does lots of nifty loop the loops and flips. It was like the Batman roller coaster at Great America, only longer and more intense.


A view of the park, which sits on a peninsula that juts out into Lake Erie. There was always a nice breeze coming off the lake, which makes those ridiculously long wait times for rides a little more bearable.


Dan, eating some of the park's famous fudge. It melts in your mouth and is some of the richest fudge I've ever had. I don't think I've ever seen this kid so happy.