casual ultimate » 2007 » January

with five weeks left to go before battle of the beach, miss casual and ms. ultimate decided to kick our workout into high (fixed) gear with a grueling triathlon on saturday, which lasted until the wee hours of sunday morn.

Stage 1: Wake up at 8:00, don’t eat breakfast because it makes you fat and slows you down. we’re trying to convert 100% of our winter energy reserves into lean muscle by march 10. drink coffee to get your heart racing, and then jump on a high-performance bi-cycle racing machine for a 15-mile ride in frigid temperatures. luckily about 20 other people had this same idea, and we met up with the lady and gents from chicago fixed gear for a ride from montrose to the planetarium and back again. here’s a pic of some of the tri-athletes at the start of the ride, courtesy of our man fro. upon completion of this stage, it is acceptable to have a light brunch of bagel and cream cheese (as pictured here) or almond croissant, followed by a repeat of the same after some book shopping at myopic and quimby’s.

Stage 2: After a quick shower to warm up, we went for a consultation with one of our trainers, monica, where she was working the gatorade table/hostess desk at the peach pit. she advised us to drink a beer each (full frontal and double d are choice selections this time of year) and consume a pizza as quickly as possible. this kind of training will prepare for between-game hydration and bagel consumption in florida. we then turned to an endurance sitting session by watching seven episodes of arrested development season three in quick succession. when you’re watching this many episodes on DVD, it’s important to conserve seconds on the clock by fast-forwarding through the credits and opening song of consecutive episodes. we had to sit through the first five episodes only to get to the sixth, which contained steve holt (steve holt!) gems of training wisdom. our favorite adages include the post title, as well as: “don’t ask ‘can i’, ask ‘i can’” and “no blood, no oil”. words to live by as we moved into the all-critical third stage.

Stage 3: stage three was all about isolating muscle groups that will be necessary for beach ultimate dominance down in florida. we chose to focus on the quads, abs and glutes - “wind your waistline to the bass line” was our battlecry as we rolled up to the darkroom for a merciless three-hour dance workout. it’s important to dress appropriately for this stage, particularly for the quads, so we had to wear our heels. one of ms. ultimate’s dance partners showed what a great workout dancing could be, as he refused to dance without holding his shirt up and fondling his six-pack. someday that will be us. just as miss casual was beginning to wonder, “can i?” she ran into inspiration in the form of an old college buddy, j dot. his drunken posting makes us think he’ll be guest posting about dance moves here in the near future.

it was an arduous 16-hour marathon, but that’s what a girl’s gotta do if she wants to play serious ultimate. we plan on repeating this every weekend between now and botb: stage 1 with our chifggers, stage 2 switching it up each week, and stage 3 at various venues including carol’s. we’re going to run out of arrested development, though, so anyone who bought season two of the office is welcome to join the workout. we’re looking forward to an update on the weekend in arizona, gentlemen, so don’t let us down.

xoxo,
c & u

well this week has actually sped by and its already time for another wicker park weekend. this time though most of our peoples are out of town in tempe playing ultimate of all crazy things. pfil, dp and chucktown will be bringing the pain to arizona and hopefully some of it will make it onto this blog come next week…although were not sure itll be b-rated. other friends of cu will be posting soon about their time in acapulco last weekend. if you don’t know already, the trip has spawned its own very funny blog about food, one of our favorite topics here at casual ultimate. theres even a thread about food happening in the forum right now….

the cu staff, holding it down at the manor, will be inverting our normal pattern of ‘take no prisoners’ friday followed by ‘recovery’ saturday. we’ve got a nice little saturday planned. tomorrow morning we are getting up early to ride bikes with some of the fine people of chifg and then napping to rally for dancehall mayhem at the darkroom tomorrow night. we might even huff kittens…i dont know. i dont know if we’ll have time… so it looks to be a chillax evening on paulina but tomorrow night we will be ready. i am going to get my nails done like this so that people know we mean biznass. holler.

we were just alerted to the practice of kitten huffing and felt the need to share this tragic story of animal abuse with our readership. thanks to stacey the bronze goddess for the tip - and keep your kittens away from lainers.

what a weekend. friday night we started out at handlebar with a paulina sub-committee meeting. dp, liz and the cu staff talked weekend strategy over samosas and alpha king. we were joined by other vips and discussed future party themes such as ‘the rubix cube’ and the ‘2007 is like a tuxedo t-shirt’ before settling on turtle races in two weeks. ms. ultimate noticed a mailbox with the name ‘p. frisbey’ on it so we left them our card assuming their first name is ‘play’. before leaving for lemmings we made friends with people we already knew at the bar through cookies and bicycles. the guys at boulevard bikes are the best. they didnt even need the cookies cause theyre already so sweet. also we think in ms. ultimate’s future senate run ‘peace through cookies’ could be a powerful foreign policy.

but her main campaign slogan, ‘i motherf%^king love this country’ was born of ameri-cans at our next stop, lemmings. ahhh lemmings. packed though it was it always brings the best crowd and beer that tastes like freedom. we stood at the bar next to some people we’d end up going to the bulls game with the next night strangely enough. the cu staff discussed the attendees later and realized that we had a perfect storm of a guestlist… all our favorite regulars plus some new people to keep it interesting. ms. ulty’s cool uncle and mac (an old nemesis cohort of dr. welsh) turned out. and the professor and vusi showed up just in time to debate the winning potential of bears vs. snakes with miss casual, the boss and a very unfriendly ‘young’ lady. our conclusion? snakes by two.

it was a winning weekend in many regards… the bears, lots of friends old and new and cookie distribution seem to be the major themes. we laughed, we cried, it was better than ‘cats’. in conclusion miss casual has to print a retraction of a previous comment regarding payton manning and if you want to know about the post title you’ll have to ask the staff or the boss since it is not b-rated (safe for blogs).

if you want to know what’s going down in this picture you’re gonna have to check out our friend jeff’s blog, the daily score, since we are guest posting over there today. sports by the letters c and u, if you will.

not much else is new in the casual ultimate universe. thai food, cookies, and law and order… you know, the usual. the bright spots in our otherwise standard wednesday evening were miss casual getting to have a drink with her other friend claire after work and some oberlin alums, jesse and rachel, are staying at chez ultimate. they took our wednesday from a 4 to a 7. but look out friday cause we’re looking at you for a big 10.

we just booked out tickets for battle on the beach in west palm. awwww yeeeah. we miss the flying plastic, and the sand, and the sun, and the warmth. The team is going to rock, and we’re staying with the towns. Ms. Ultimate is looking forward to mamatown’s legendary meals and v-neck sweaters and loafers on the sideline. Rumor has it lainers is going to resume her role as #1 fan. And most importantly we are going to win. Apparently it’s usually a bunch of college teams, but we don’t care – let’s win, people. Start Q1 2007 off right.

last night the cu staff dropped in on some of our favorite people, the original briefcase baby and her lovely parents. that makes two weeks in a row that weve shown up uninvited on a monday night on someone’s doorstep for a housecall. look out. our next monday night housecall could be you. heres a photo of the clocktower at the end of the block in printer’s row that made us feel like we were having a dickens moment.

over onion rings and pinot nior we discussed childrens books, ms. ulty’s new profession as a nanny, and just add water family planning. maxine is almost too much for us to handle. she’s so cute we couldn’t take out eyes off of her until she called it a night. we all agreed that we are eagerly anticipating dr. welsh’s return to the midwest in a few short weeks and that stuffed cheeseburgers are what life is really about (if the bacon and cheddar are inside, they don’t make the rest of the condiments slip around on the bun). allison turned maternal and gave us advice on how to keep boys in line, and we saw her strategy in action: ‘nate, you’re putting music on, right? nate, are you opening a bottle of wine?’ usually you have to pay someone for insightful observations like this but we get it for cheap. thats where the post title comes from. nate admitted that sometimes he just lets allison drive. are we in the trust tree?

the house, the baby, the parents are all warm and lovely. what a great stop. we’ve had two great monday nights in a row and who knows where we’ll end up next week? you might wanna be home with some hot chocolate on the stove in case its your house.

xo
c and u

With the awful weather cramping our cycling style, c.u. is looking to branch out to indoor wheel sports. this guy went 85 straight hours on the stationary cycle, with only one 5-minute break allowed for every hour of biking. wouldn’t necessarily give up my day job in pursuit of a Guinness record, but that seems like a weekend well spent. certainly more productive than c.u.’s weekend, where our greatest accomplishment was returning a keg and picking up ms. ulty’s old bike from the shop, and we needed hot cocoa, fresh biscuits and two hours watching talladega nights to recover from that. ms. ulty’s now wondering if “i’ll come at you like a spider monkey” would be an appropriate threat for her commuting nemesis.

to be fair, the weekend started out strong, with ms. ulty chowing down on killer cuban food with treem, el presidente and hendude. the pork-based lipids went to straight to her head, though, and things got crazy by the time el presidente led the charge to innertown pub. miss casual had just witnessed a knockdown dragout fight that ended in three people getting dragged out of the bar and the bouncer doing shots to dull the pain of getting punched in the face. is no corner bar safe for democracy? saturday meant biking and let’s pet puppies; *do not* let ms. ultimate near that store because the next time she goes in, she’s coming out with a puppy. on the way out we ran into our top economic advisor and biggest workplace fan, coach. schultzie’s party capped off the evening, but we were too tuckered out by leisure to see it through to the end. the fact that we made it to the party at all was a triumph of the human spirit, a feat just slightly less astounding than breaking a guiness world record. any crazy stories? who won dice cups?

Fate has presented me with what could be the biggest revenge-seeking opportunity of my life – should I take it?

We all get to the point where we recognize our fellow commuters; the woman who carries a small piece of luggage instead of a laptop bag like a normal person, the guy who air drums while listening to his ipod, etc. I may be the only person out there, though, with a commuting nemesis. There’s this one girl – long dark messy hair, tragic eyeliner, worn-out boots, funky clothes, art institute canvas bag – who is often on the same blue line train with me and gets on at division, as I do. One day about a year ago, the car was packed to the gills as usual and the clark&lake stop came up, where 70% of the passengers get off. This girl – let’s call her Bitch - was standing right in front of the door, and I was packed in behind her (the folding doors, not the sliding ones which allow much more room for people to get on and off). The doors open, and she doesn’t move at all. I’m getting pushed from behind, I’ve said “excuse me” and she doesn’t move at all, and she basically gets pushed out of the train (along with me). I guess I stepped on her foot, and of course I say “sorry” as she flashes me an evil look. We both get back on the train, the next stop comes up and she gets off, but as she does she looks back at me and snarls, “fat ass!” fat ass. Who even says that anymore, and is it really applicable to someone who weighs less than 300 pounds? Unbelievable. Some other commuters look at me and we chuckle about it, but still – who does bitch think she is?

Of course, I see her often on the train platform, looking angry at the world. Just yesterday morning, in fact, i needed to sit on the platform bench to rearrange what I was carrying and the only seat available was next to her. I sit down, she gives me a dirty look and gets up and walks away. Whatever, we’ve established that she may be psychotic and it must be difficult to carry around that much rage all the time. But again – who does bitch think she is? I feel like it’s part of being a citizen in a large city that you have to treat strangers in your path with at attitude neutrality if not outright graciousness. Apparently she’s in a different camp.

And then, last night, fate stepped in. I’m taking a continuing education biology class at northwestern to improve one of my grad school applications, and **bitch is in my class** I’m 95% sure it’s her – I had looked her in the face that very morning, same boots, same stupid canvas bag. But it class she is sugary sweet with the professor (leading me to think that she may actually have some sort of bipolar mental disorder, I wasn’t just calling her names).

So what do I do? Do I let her be a crazy asshole in the morning and then sit in class with her at night? There are, like, a dozen people in the class so individuals can’t be anonymous. Do I accuse her of cheating on an exam so she gets kicked out of the degree-seeking program she’s in? do I just confront her and ask her why she thinks she can treat strangers the way she does? Do I do it in class or on the el platform? Whatever it is, I want her heavy black eyeliner streaming down her face along with tears of remorse.

- ms. u

last night the ladies of casual ultimate went to maproom to expand our minds and drink some hefeweissen. the topic of cafe scientifique (or ’science cafe’ if you need a translation from the french) was climate change so naturally we had to make an appearance and assert ms ultimate’s obvious intellectual superiority over the presenter. here at left is an actualy picture of science. bet ya didnt know…

miss casual gave an exclusive interview to the tribune at the event but probably got edited from the story becuase she was giving her attention to the georgia tech / duke game rather than the issues at hand. it was fun drinking some good beer but going out on wednesday is confusing because i think today is friday but its not. wednesday is the new thursday. which makes friday the new monday according to the mind blowing logic of a guy at the bar last night. no wonder we wanted to go to lemmings so badly. we had our days confused.

anyway the debate in the forum over bikes and gears and wheel sets (oh my) is heating up so check it out. tbr (bless his heart) is bringing his a-game. makes for an interesting thursday…or is it friday… whatevs.

so last night a couple of the team bon vivant members decided to spin their wheels to break in redh.o.t., ms. ulty’s new steed. after we passed logan square and then belmont, we realized we should drop in on our peeps at the real world house. joe little, ever the gracious host, answered the door ‘bryan’s making dinner. you cant have any.’ feel the love.

but bryan made plenty so the cu staff stayed and tore into some chicken and the best broccoli lyrica’s ever eaten. not to mention some rare blondie that miss casual opened up. it seems joe little may be interested in joining bon vivant in the spring when he gets a road bike. he and miss casual are going to be doing centuries by the end of the summer.

so it truly was the good life last night becuase over red wine, pointy soccer, and parsnips the cu ladies got to enjoy the company of cho, who will be leaving us soon becuase of his 10 year life plan. we will miss him but hopefully he’ll guest post on the blog from china, or brazil, or someplace weird. then on the way home we stopped by the Brs to show off the bike to carlo and got to meet sally’s new puppy who is a barrell of energy, kind of like ms. ulty herself.

the argument for fixed gear bikes went up in the forum so check it out and add your two cents. we’re looking forward to a rebuttal from tbrizzle.

after a mostly uneventful weekend, the exception being an excursion out of the double deuce with the boss and dp where ms. ultimate was placed in charge of the boss’s wallet, there was much activity on sunday. in a daring coup miss casual convinced ms. ultimate herself to come over to the dark side and buy a track bike. we had previously planned on a point-counterpoint post debating the merits of gears on bikes versus single speeds. however now we will only post the fixed gear team’s argument and allow tbrizzle to post an empassioned tirade against our position. watch the fireworks in the forum.

even though we fall on different sides of the argument, we still come together for bike practice. our new cycling team, bon vivant, is taking applications for new members. the core is composed of the cu staff, tbrizzle, and our instructor, crash mcgee. you might recognize him from such posts as ‘the viking crashes again for the second time in two days’ or ‘bg skies cho’. we plan on riding, learning tricks like trackstands and bunny hops, and on foul weather days watching bike videos to gain inspiration for new feats of greatness on our bicycles.

so now when you see the cu staff tooling around wicker park youll see miss casual on sugar bomb, her chromed out bianchi, and ms. ultimate on her bike redh.o.t. with the lovely white wheel set that you see joe working on in this picture. joe and nick at cycle smithy on clark are our new best friends forever. we know weve said this before but the circle of friends at cu knows no bounds. they showed us a hot pink tandem track bike that we almost mortgaged our souls for but instead ms. ulty found her valentine in this hot machine.

our friday was spent with the boss and dp in old town or west town or lincoln park as miss casual calls it. we called it scary-ville. cu was wary of leaving wicker park but the boss talked us into an out of zip code adventure. unfortunately our dates, two large gentlemen wearing replica jerseys, were tied up with pfil and dp’s dates, who had quite a lot of blue eyeshadow and a three digit rating code ending in 8.

This morning I was riding to work and saw a girl sprawled in the street, face down, after getting hit by a cab while riding her bike. She was not moving and I honestly thought she was dead. Eventually she started moving a bit but was in a lot of pain; she was only moving her arms and everyone was just waiting for the paramedics. and you know why I thought she might be dead? Because she wasn’t wearing a helmet. Wear your damn bike helmet and be safe, people, it’s not that hard and no one cares how you look. This is especially disconcerting since a certain casual Viking was hit by a car yesterday, and also wasn’t wearing his helmet. Thankfully he’s fine but geez people, just do it. I started wearing my helmet regularly because I got sick of lying to my mom, who asked me if I wore a helmet every time I told her I was riding my bike (yes, even though I’m 25). Now I wear it because I know people getting killed while biking is not something your pediatrician said to scare you, it happens. According to the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute (seriously) even the safest riders can expect to crash every 4,500 miles. Careening through major thoroughfares at rush hour cuts that mileage number significantly. Clearly getting blindsided by a cab is going to do some damage with or without a piece of plastic on your head, but a good hair day seems a small price to pay for avoiding head trauma.

a number of items were found in the aftermath of the new years party. shoot miss casual an email if any of the following belong to you:

- digital camera with incriminating photographs
- one asian man, face down on couch
- lone leather glove
- zt’s dignity, believed to have been lost in k-dog’s closet
- Brian (tall male, blonde)
- lamp, found in ~1,000 pieces (thanks, jerk)
- one pizza cutter, covered in cake
- approximately 80 champagne bottles, empty
- one case sparxx - found, currently in fridge for this weekend
- Schultzie’s countdown watch
- lipstick, found on C(B)R’s collar
- new c.u. careers as party planners
- determination to make 2007 even better than 2006
- lost: ping-pong balls; found: beer pong ingenuity (champagne corks-genius or crazy? you decide)
- lost: underarmour; found: well-dressed ultimate players - who knew?

wicker park, nay the universe, may never be the same after the casual ultimate new years fete. it was a lot of work to pull off such a bitchingly fun celebration of 2006 but who better than the cu staff to manage this awesome responsibility? after running around all day getting the necessities the cu staff walked out the back door of the house to find a keg fairy had stopped by and left a half barrel of alpha king on our back porch. this party went from one keg to two by sheer destiny so we knew it was gonna be off the chain. here’s schultz, akira, and ms. ultimate celebrating a year in which casual ultimate had more fun than we have a right to.

with chucktown on the west coast we enlisted the help of the boss and hales as our hired muscle to help us get the pbr up the stairs. here they are feeling the holiday spirit in the back of the saturn. the boss also brought the hostesses some lovely bubbly to sip on at midnight - he’s a classy one. you can take the girl out of the ghetto but you cant take the ghetto out of miss casual. here she is swilling from the bottle even though she was dressed up like a proper lady.

that just happened.

dp and liz rolled up with their vip crew from the paulina pre-party and things got started. after a brief meeting of the jd/forestry sub commitee in the vip lounge (that would be russell, the cu staff, and mr. cooper) we bounced upstairs to get our dance on to girl talk with the zibby, two dans, and bk. get on the girl talk bus right now if you haven’t already - it will change your life, even moreso than the christmas bus. who knew joe little had such hypnotising dance moves? well we did but still he was working it big time. baker and denardis and kenzie showed up late but they are the sprinkles on our cupcake so they made the party. and while all this was happening the stork dropped off a new briefcase baby for the callaways - not the first of the year but still impressive. what a happy new year it is. 2007 is going to be awesome.

there are some more photos up here so if you’re registered with the site you can check them out. also you can post your own pics from the party of you’re so inclined. thanks to pfil, hales, akira and the ladies of 1535 for making it happen.

xoxo
c and u