Summer Summer Summertime

Memorial Day is over, and summer is on its way. I even saw two kids on one bike today! I've had quite an interesting weekend. The first story I will share with you deals with the incredibly bizarre song I heard on Saturday afternoon. I was flipping through the stations and came up with what sounded like an incredibly dramatic R.Kelly song. The first lyrics I heard were, "I tried my best to quickly put it on vibrate, but from the way he act, I could tell it was too late." I was hooked immediately. The song, "Trapped in the Closet" is apparently a five part "urban operetta" that R. Kelly plans to turn into a short film. The story is this: R. Kelly goes home with a lady. Turns out she's got a husband, so R. Kelly has to hide in the closet. His cell phone goes off, and he gets caught. For some reason, R.Kelly has a gun (a Baretta). I wouldn't call this a song as much as a musical narration. R.Kelly keeps going on and on about the guy opening the closet, as shown by the last few lines in Chapter 1:
"He looks at the closet
I pull out my Baretta
He walks up to the closet
He comes up to the closet
Now he's at the closet
Now he's opening the closet."

Chapter 2 deals with the fallout from the situation. Highlights include finding out that this woman's husband is a pastor, leading R.Kelly to think that they can settle this "Christianlike." Unfortunately, that's not the case. The pastor has a lover as well, and Chapter 2 ends with us finding out that it's a man! WGCI apparently felt the need to play the first 3 chapters all at once. I didn't realize this and kept waiting for the song to end. I gave up in the beginning of Chapter 3. Apparently there's 2 more chapters that haven't been released yet. I can hardly wait.

Ok, the weekend. Thursday night I went to an "undisclosed location" to meet up with my fellow Common Sense alumni. Good times all around, and I learned an interesting beer lesson. For some reason, the waiter kept pronouncing Smithwick's Ale "Smittick's," much to our confusion. So I did a little research, and lo and behold, the "w" IS silent.

Friday night I went to a party at Melanie's. Beforehand, I decided to stop by the mall to look for tank tops. I stopped at Marshall Field's to check out a 2 for $20 deal, yet I found a disturbing trend in this year's tank tops: they are bizarrely long. Now, I have an extremely long torso, but these puppies were even long on me! I hate to see how they'd look on those with torsos of normal length. I can understand the long tanks when they're ruffled at the bottom or flare out or something, but these were wife-beater style (not the solid colored plain ones, for those in search of cheap Marshall Field's tanks, those are OK, I'm referring to the appliqued and sequinned ones located behind the plain ones). I headed off to American Eagle and finally found some cute tanks on sale, but not after trying on other tanks that were extremely long. I also decided to try on what I consider the tank top version of the poncho, the babydoll style tank. I've never liked these tanks, because I like, many of my friends, think they look like pregnancy tops, but after hearing a girl in another dressing room exclaiming about how cute they were, I decided to put my maternity wear preconceptions aside and try one on. The results? Oh hell no. It's just not happening. Anyway, Melanie's party was a lot of fun, and though I did not try one of her "Adult Root Beer Floats," I was pleased to find out that the $4 Mojito bucket I got at Target actually made quality beverages. Also, we had these salsa tortilla chips that tasted a lot like those Pizzaria chips that were popular in the late '80's. Maybe they weren't popular, I don't know, but I remember a lot of commercials. For some laughs, check out this info on Pizzarias being discontinued. I love that it's located on "taquitos.net."

Saturday I headed downtown to hang out with my sister and see the musical "Wicked." Before the musical, we did some shopping on Michigan Avenue, and, as luck would have it, there was a person dressed up as Hello Kitty taking pictures with people in the Nordstrom Mall (North Bridge?). Yes, I got my picture taken, though I started thinking about how Hello Kitty must not be too photogenic, seeing as she has no mouth and thus can't pose for pictures.

Saturday evening we went to see "Wicked." We arrived a bit early and made a quick stop at Walgreens. While waiting in line, the woman behind me said, "There's Bruce Weber!" Indeed, the U of I basketball coach was standing nearby. Bruce seemed to be a jovial fellow, and as it turns out, was also going to see "Wicked." As we walked over to the theater, I spied Bruce meeting up with his family and handing a girl (his daughter?) a package of Twizzlers. You heard it first: Bruce Weber will not pay theatre prices for Twizzlers. Indeed, Twizzlers were on sale inside, but Bruce scoffed at those prices and brought his own. Bruce Weber, I applaud you, both for your skills in coaching and your candy chicanery. Also, I got so excited that I ended up buying Twizzlers after we got our seats.

A review of "Wicked": Loved the plot, thought the songs were so-so. A lot of the music was a little old fashioned, and the male lead had a somewhat crappy voice, though the female leads were amazing. The story was really great, and the effects/costumes/etc. were awesome. However, the highlight of the show, by far, was the guy who played the Wizard of Oz. Why, you may ask? Well, he was played by none other than David Garrison, the guy who played Steve, Marcy's first husband, on "Married With Children." Steve can sing, who knew? I was so thrilled. Considering the fact that Christina Applegate is up for a Tony for her role in "Sweet Charity," could a Broadway career for David Faustino be far behind? I would also be amused if the understudy for the role of the Wizard was Ted "Jefferson D'Arcy" McGinley, but no such luck. Another amusing note: one of the songs in the musical is called "Defying Gravity," and unfortunately got stuck in my head forever. However, there was a women's t-shirt for sale that read "Defying Gravity" across the chest. Just a little bit skanky. We left the theater, walked past a horse who was urinating an insane quantity (my sister informed me that the expression "pee like a race horse" comes from the Lasiks they give race horses), then headed back to my sister's place. A bit later, Julie came by and we went out for a bit, first to a kind of cheesy bar, Mickey's, where, of course, I ran into someone from Joliet, then to a cute wine bar. After our boozing, we went to a Mexican late night place, where an excited (and tiny!) patron informed me that I was "the most prettiest girl ever." However, a few minutes later I heard him raving about how the salsa was "the best salsa ever," so we'll call him Superlative Steve.

Sunday involved more shopping downtown, and, after I headed back to Joliet, a night out at Heroes. There was a lot of bag playing (not by yours truly, I suck), and a lot of country music. Apparently Sunday nights are Country Sundays hosted by "Blue Suede Tony." "Blue Suede Tony" looked more like regular DJ Eddie C to me, but maybe he took the night off. Now you know that I've recently come to love country, but overall the country on Country Sunday was pretty bad. I heard a country version of "I Want You to Want Me," apparently by Dwight Yoakam and definitely crappy. Also amusing at Heroes (besides the random Strawberry Shortcake doll left abandoned there) were posters for a band called Spank that will be playing there this weekend (alas, I will be out of town). Spank features the guy who played Jesus in my high school production of Godspell, which is amusing. Also amusing: I have the movie soundtrack to "Godspell" and the guy who played Jesus in the movie is the dad on Alias. That's kind of scary.

Monday my mom and I did some shopping, and the most amusing moment for me came on the ride home. We passed the Culver's by Fox Valley, and the sign out front read, "Remember the Fallen." Underneath that (or maybe above, I'm not positive)it said, "Caramel Cashew." Now obviously we're referring to veterans, but I just found the gravity of the Memorial Day message combined with "Caramel Cashew" to be hilarious. Is "Caramel Cashew" a veteran, or a retired flavor? I also started thinking of kids dropping their ice cream cones, and thought maybe we should also be remembering the fallen ice cream. In other fast food follies, I've been meaning to mention for about a month now that the Burger King on Jefferson, the one I complained about in the past, is no longer. Running out of Whoppers does not make for a successful franchise.

In Police Blotter news. . .

Steaks stolen

JOLIET — A Jewel shopper with what appeared to be swollen legs had actually stuffed hundreds of dollars worth of steak down his sweat pants and escaped from the supermarket despite a clerk's order that he surrender.
The steak smuggler struck shortly before 3:30 a.m. at the Jewel at 1537 N. Larkin Ave. A store clerk reportedly spotted a man walking toward the front door. The clerk believed this man was afflicted with "very swollen legs," police said.Closer examination revealed that the only swelling this man had was that of steaks secreted in his sweat pants, police said.
The clerk reportedly told the man he was not going to leave the store. The crook replied, "Do what you gotta do," police said, and left the store.
Police said the thief is a 5-foot-10, 160-pound white man in his early 40s. He was wearing a gray sweat shirt and gray sweat pants. He apparently made his getaway on a black bicycle.
The stolen steaks were worth $300, police said.

Oh man. Are those some steaks in your pants, or are you just happy to see me? I'm kind of grossed out by the word "secreted," but this is a hilarious entry. Apparently the clerk should have been a little tougher in his surrender demands.

Man fished from river

JOLIET — Joliet police had to fish an apparently intoxicated man out of the DesPlaines River this week after he allegedly jumped in, hoping to score some cash from a passerby.The 46-year-old Joliet man was pulled from the river at 7:09 p.m. Thursday by police who waded into the river and formed a "human chain" to rescue him.
A woman who witnessed the incident told police she saw the man standing along the river wall in Bicentennial Park and that he asked her if she would "give him money if he swam across the river.""You don't want to swim in the river," the woman told him, but the man jumped in anyway. He was taken to Provena Saint Joseph Medical Center to be treated for a cut foot.

Is a "human chain" anything like Hands Across America? I wish I had seen this for myself.

Then we have this Blue Light special

Retail theft charges
JOLIET — A Wisconsin man was arrested outside a local discount store on Friday after allegedly biting a loss prevention officer who tried to stop him from leaving the store without paying for his merchandise first.
Mark J. Leskosek, 36, of 8704 W. Howard Ave., Milwaukee, was arrested at 3:45 p.m. Friday in the parking lot of Kmart, 1801 W. Jefferson St.
According to police reports, Leskosek left the store without paying for a pair of jeans, shorts, T-shirt and package of briefs.

This one was in again on Monday, only the shorts were described as "mesh shorts." I sincerely hope that means mesh-lined. Anyway, that's all I have for now. I don't plan on updating until I get back from Miami, so expect an update sometime next Tuesday. Have a great week!