Kristabella: Full of Snark Since 1977

Posted By Kristabella on April 30, 2012

On Saturday night, my friend Jessica and I went downtown to some trendy bar in River North to help celebrate her sister’s birthday. It was actually really fun. The bar was small, yet quaint. And they had the most amazing cocktails, including the Vanilla Sky, of which I think I had 3 too many. It was vanilla vodka, strawberry puree and champagne. Potent and delicious.

So after about 17 of these drinks, we decided it was time to go home. We are old and we both needed to get sleep. Little did we know how very potent these drinks were and how very hungover we would spend all of Sunday.

We hopped in a cab and shared it up north, since we don’t live too far from each other. We told the driver that we were heading north to Irving. I paid attention, since there was a shit ton of traffic on the Ontario feeder ramp, and I wanted to see if it was an accident. It wasn’t, so Jess and I checked our phones and chatted.

About 20 minutes later I happened to look up to see where we were. I noticed that we were passing the White Sox stadium and were on the Dan Ryan, south of 35th Street. In the exact opposite direction of where we needed to go.

I yelled at the cab driver to turn around, that he was going totally the wrong way, and that we were not paying for this cab ride. I was pissed. I mean, Irving is a MAJOR street. Even if you may not have known the cross street, you, as a Chicago cab driver, should know that Irving is north of the Loop. I think my suburbanite brother and sister both even know this.

He finally got us close to where we needed to be and we got out. I flat out refused to pay. We were literally in the car for an hour. For a 10 mile drive. After midnight.

We started walking to an intersection so that I could catch yet another cab to my house, since we were near Jess’s house. What we weren’t expecting was the cab driver to get out of his cab, leaving it running in the street, to chase us down for money. I then drunkenly lambasted him in the middle of the street that we were not paying for his lack of knowledge and our unfortunate jaunt to the South Side.

Then he threatened to call the police. And since we were both shitfaced and wanting to get far, far away from this man, we paid him like $10 and made him leave. Which he did, thankfully.

My next cab driver was much nicer and knew where he was going. He also told me we shouldn’t have run off without paying, since he did take us to where we needed to go. And I’m like “yeah, except he was probably planning to originally take us to some ditch outside the city near Indiana to kill us, so I didn’t really want to pay for that.”

It appears I am no longer the cab driver whisperer. But I would like more of those delicious drinks.

Category: A Dash of the Crazy, A Day in the Life of Me, Chi-town, Taxicab Confessions | 10 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on April 26, 2012

On Saturday, after I finished my race, I came home, ate the entire contents of my fridge, showered and headed downtown to meet my mom, my sister, my SIL, my cousin and my 2 aunts. As part of our Xmas present, we all got to go see Jersey Boys together. It was Ladies Day Out.

I’ve seen Jersey Boys before, but this was a new cast. I didn’t like this cast as much as our first cast, but the show is amazing. If you’ve never seen it, go. The music is awesome, and it is such an interesting story about the Four Seasons.

After the show, we all went to Wildfire for dinner. After dinner we walked down the street to have a drink. I stayed the latest with my SIL, who was waiting for her 8:30 train. After we finished our drinks, we took a cab over to Union Station. We were way early for her train, so I suggested we sit in the train station bar and have another drink.

I found a seat at the bar while she went to check to see if Jamba Juice was open. It wasn’t. So I drank by myself and she kept me company until her train was getting ready to leave.

While we were sitting there, an old man with half his teeth missing decided to listen in on all our conversations and then drunkenly give us advice about us and women in general. None of it made sense. I’m pretty sure the dude had been sitting at that bar since it opened. That was a lot of drunkity speak for 8 PM on a Saturday.

Kim left to catch her train and I sat and finished my beer. Cletus the slackjawed yokel had enough of me ignoring him, and he left. And so a dude with camouflage bags took his seat. I asked him where he was coming back from (Afghanistan), how long he had been deployed (three years!) and then thanked him for his service and bought him a beer.

I don’t know what his deal was, but he was also completely shitfaced. And he basically propositioned me to have sex in the train station bathroom. I don’t know if I love America that much, sir.

Thankfully, the bar was closing and I could try and ditch him. But I also had a beer to finish and didn’t want to waste it. So I did what every other SANE person does in a train station at 8:30 on a Saturday night, I chatted up a strange man eating a hamburger to distract the drunk soldier.

I told him the deal with drunk Army man and that if he could pretend like we knew each other until drunk Army guy left, it would be much appreciated it. He was happy to oblige. And we had a very nice conversation while he finished his dinner and waited for his train back to upstate New York. And then before he left for his train, we became friends on Facebook. Because that’s totally what you do in that situation, right?

And then I got in a cab, chatted up my cab driver and went home and passed out on the couch.

My life: The stuff reality television is made of.

Category: A Dash of the Crazy, A Day in the Life of Me, All in the Family, Chi-town, Hooch Hilarity | 4 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on April 23, 2012

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a race on Saturday that was 4.2 miles long. It was the Chicago Shadow Run of Pat’s Run that was going on at the same time in Tempe, AZ. It’s pretty cool – the main race is like 30,000 people running in Tempe and finishing on the field at Sun Devil Stadium. And in the meantime, dozens of alumni associations across the country are running at the same time in support of Pat. It was a very cool thing to be a part of.

I was thinking that I’d really like to run it in Tempe next year. But it was like 100 degrees there this year, so I’m not sure about that. It was 40 here. Quite chilly, in fact, as we all stood around waiting for our race to start and I was glad I wore my jacket. (Although, I wasn’t glad as I started moving around and was a bit too warm with it on.)

There were about 20 people who ran. I was the slowest runner on the trail. I started out at the end of the pack as the real runners took off like rockets. I ran a lot of the race in last place. I really, really didn’t want to finish last, but I really, really didn’t want to overdo it.

So I ran my own pace. I had my phone and listened to the live Nerdist Podcast that I saw the week before. It was a nice refresher since I forgot some of the hilariousness. I wanted to run the whole thing and knew that slow and steady was the way to go.

The race was actually on a path that is right near my house, one that I run on every weekend. A little after mile 1, we hit the turnaround at the northern-most part of the race. About that time, we had a few walkers. I finally was ahead of someone! Yay!

I just kept it going. Kept to my pace. And then people started walking more. And people started running slower. By the time we got to the next turnaround, a bunch of people that had lapped me had finished, but I had also moved ahead of a few people.

I really wanted to walk near the end. But the odd thing was it wasn’t because I was unable to run. It’s completely a mental thing. I wanted to walk because I could. And I felt like it was too much and I was overexerting myself. But I wasn’t. I was fine. So I kept running.

I finished in 42 minutes, according to my GPS. It was also a little shy of 4 miles. BUT! I ran for 42 minutes straight without stopping. FORTY TWO MINUTES! That is a first. I’m super proud of myself and how far I’ve come. I remember when three minutes straight was HARD.

Now that I know I can do it, I hope that helps my brain not always want to walk when we don’t need to. Either that or I’m pretending that every run is a race and I can’t finish last.

Category: Chi-town, I Bleed Maroon And Gold, Run Forrest, Working On My Fitness | 13 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on April 18, 2012

I’m pretty sure in almost six years of blogging (SIX? Holy crap!) I have used this blog title before. But I’m too lazy to go back and look and I’ll know once it posts and has a 2 after the title. That is WordPress’ way of being all “YOU LACK CREATIVITY, JACKASS.”

So what’s new, internet?

Not much is new here. Which is why I haven’t posted. Because while I could write yet another post about running and eating better, I’ve been really slacking lately. So much so that I had to come up with a real present for April to get my ass to the gym 14 days this month. And as it is, I’m really going to have to work for that present. This month will be a Roku! If anything will get me to work out, it’s some sort of added way for me to be able to watch TV. No more watching streaming things on my computer!

I went to see the Nerdist Live last Friday. I got there late because I went out for beers after work before the show with my sister Alix and her boyfriend. And drinking 8% alcohol beers on an empty stomach is always a good idea. But we had a fun time, which was why I was late.

But we only missed a small bit of Matt Mira’s performance and saw the whole rest of the show. It was absolutely hilarious. If you ever have the option to see it, or even any of those dudes do stand-up live, GO DO IT NOW. They are some funny motherfuckers. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time!

We didn’t wait around after the show to meet the boys, since the line was insane and I was drunk and we were both hungry. I will have to seduce Chris Hardwick some other time. Some other time…

After the show we went across the street to grab some food at the grilled cheese restaurant. There I had the most amazing sandwich – grilled cheese with chorizo and jalapenos. I’m still thinking about it. It was so yummy.

On Saturday morning, I drove up to Milwaukee to visit her and her family. It was the end of Passover, so I drove up to visit, eat matzah, play Catan and make a million melty bead creations. And really, minus the matzah, it was like any other time I get to hang out with the Martells, AKA always awesome!

I have zero patience for melty beads. I have ideas of how to make it cute, but then three seconds of having to dig through a giant bucket of beads that have 17 different shades of blue and I’m done. I’ll use the first bead I pull out of the tub and call it a day. I have so much admiration for Ali and her kids, who will painstakingly search for all the golds to make a cute peace sign. Or even something that matches.

It’s why my creations end up like this ugly monkey:

As an added bonus, the Martells flew out of Chicago on Monday and I got to meet them for lunch before they flew back to Canadia. I had taken the day off to get all my errands done anyway, so it worked out perfectly. We went to a Kosher diner near my house that had a really amazing burger. I really wanted cheese on it and well, then remembered I was at a Kosher diner. Dairy and meat, no mixy, mixy.

After that, I went home, went grocery shopping and then came home and took a nap at 5 PM. This was the least smart thing I had done. It was the opposite of my brilliant decision to get a chorizo grilled cheese. Yep, still thinking about that sammich.

Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep on Monday night. That led to me being super sleepy all day Tuesday, falling asleep on the train both to and from work, and walking around half the day with my pants zipper down.

So I went to bed at 9 last night. Skipped my run and everything. Which means my 4.2-mile race this weekend is going to be interesting.

But it’s for a good cause.

I was lucky enough to meet Pat Tillman when we were both at ASU and was honored that the Cardinals organization asked me to help work his memorial in San Jose after he was tragically killed. I’m glad to be taking part in the Chicago race this year and am planning to make it to Tempe next year.

Category: A Day in the Life of Me, All A-Twitter, All Things Blogging, Chi-town, Gotta Have Friends, Land of Random, Run Forrest | 8 Comments »
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Posted By Kristabella on April 10, 2012

I bank at Chase. Well, I was with Washington Mutual and then they went belly up. I don’t really have any complaints with them. Until now.

I mean, it was a pain when I had to get a new debit card when it became Chase and had to change all my automatic payments. But I forgave them. And then like a year later, they changed the card from MasterCard to Visa and I had to do EVERYTHING ALL OVER AGAIN!

When that happened, I said “you know what, self? Why don’t we make all these payments through your checking account. That won’t change, unless you change banks. You won’t have to go through this again! You are a genius, self.”

Oh hahahahahaha past self, how wrong you were.

Last week I got a letter from Chase that my routing number was changing. Not my checking account number, just the routing number. So all those accounts I changed, to outsmart the fucking bankers at Chase, had to be re-done. It’s a giant pain in the ass. Most of them can be semi-easily changed online. It’s time-consuming, but at least I didn’t have to talk to anyone.

That is, until today.

My student load company is apparently stuck in 1997 and the only way to change the routing number is to call, or send in another voided check. Being lazy and cheap and not wanting to go through that, I decided to call them. How hard could it be?

Oh, hahahahahahahaha past self, you will eat those words smothered in cream cheese.

Mmmmmmmm, cream cheese.

Anyway, here is how the conversation went:

Me: I need to change my routing number.

Her: Can you hold on two minutes?

Me: Sure.

*two minutes passes*

Her: Hi, OK. Thank you for holding. How can I help you?

Me: I need to change my routing number.

Her: OK. What is the new routing number?

Me: 127000023

Her: OK, let me verify, that was 1200000073.

Me: No, 127000023.

Her: Right, 12000000003.

Me: No, ONE TWO SEVEN…

Her: Right, that’s what I said, 127000023.

And then my head exploded.

Category: A Dash of the Crazy, A Day in the Life of Me, Land of Random, Rants & Rants | 7 Comments »
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