Go-Go Boots Collect Dust

The good news is that Toby (Shad's brother who just moved in w/us) applied for a job at Marshall Fields and has an interview on Monday. This is perfect because MF is obviously on my list of preferred places to get a discount. Also on the short-list is Chipotle, Starbucks and Caribou. I'm encouraging him to get two or three jobs so that I don't have to pay for coffee or burritos anymore. Plus it'll be a real boon to my clothes-buying racket, but might make it more difficult to sneak things into the house.

The bad news is that Li'l Chicago Gentleman's Taco has closed. I can't believe it. Gentleman's Taco served us well up here on the North Side for several years, specializing in 30 different kinds of tacos. There was for example, the "American Taco" (ground beef, cheese, lettuce, tomato); the "BBQ Taco" (ground beef, cheese, lettuce, tomato + BBQ sauce); the "Sweet & Sour Taco" (ground beef, cheese, lettuce, tomato + sweet & sour sauce); the "Beefy-Beef Taco" (all above + chopped up polish sausage) etc. Okay, these were no Chipotle tacos, but you could get a good size taco for about $1.69. Also he had yummy tamales. When he prepared the food he'd tell me stories about growing up in Chicago and talk about how tamales are as old as time. One time Shad tried to pay with a $20 bill & he didn't have change, so he said, ah, don't worry about it, you can pay me later. So the next time we went we paid him back and he was totally surprised. (This might be an indication of why he's gone out of business?) Maybe he's just moved...

In other news, you might notice that I am posting to my blog instead of at the disco party. This may be shocking because normally I will jump at any excuse to wear my shiny red go-go boots. I was also planning to wear a groovy silver dress and my lavender wig. Well, Shad's slaving away on a comic and normally I don't have a problem going by myself but I sat down at the dining room table to work on this brief for work and suddenly realized it's 10:30 pm. Jeeze. I'm going to leave to gogo boots in the closet and hopefully will get this stupid thing written, it's due Monday.

Zander left his laser-pointer at our house. We've been tormenting Car mercilessly. She just wants to catch that elusive red dot so badly!!! I've been training her to be an olympic jumper, so it's super fun to put the red dot high up on the wall and watch her jump up to try to catch it. She has mad ninja kitty jumping skills.

Angela and I went to the International Women's Day event at the U of M today, sponsored by Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights. It was awesome. There were some wonderful, inspiring speakers, workshops and free lunch! Winona LaDuke spoke in the afternoon and was wonderful and also very funny. Zainab Salbi spoke in the morning and was awesome. She is the CEO of Women for Women International, an organization that helps women who are victims of war. Check out the web site, there are things you can do, like sponsor a woman in one of these war-torn countries and send her personal letters. One thing Ms. Salbi talked about is how in the fight for survival and the terror of being raped, the humiliation of being reduced to a number in refugee camps, the pain of losing everything, many of these women struggle with retaining their sense of self. This letter-writing thing is a neat way to do good from your own living room by connecting with these women, show them support and give them hope.