casual ultimate » 2007 » May

the people were fun, the food was veggie, the birthday was ultimate. the c.u. staff plus out-of-town reinforcements plus zibsters and agatha celebrated ms. ulty’s b-day (21, finally!) with a chic dinner at the green zebra, followed by drinks at fulton lounge and the new fulton lounge (what was that place’s name? not sure it was filled with loud music and crazies) before realizing we weren’t meant for that kind of class and finished things off with a pbr at gold star. green zebra was delish, but we were surprised by the repetition of certain ingredients throughout the tasting menu (lots of asparagus, fennel). we were also hungry about two hours after dinner because of the total lack of protein - real vegetarians couldn’t eat that way. we also think they could spruce up their decor a bit - too much grey. all in all though, good times and it’s fun getting dressed up every once in a while.

that was only the start of the b-day weekend, though, as ms. ulty and bacers hit up the batting cages on saturday afternoon and won exciting prizes (bouncy balls, paddleboards) at skee-ball. we ran into mel; actually she was something like the sixth person we’d run into in 24 hours, with schultzie, sfolk, ruth, liz and even old family friends out and about in the double deuce. of course we also saw pirates of the caribbean on friday - good, go see it, but watch the 2nd one on video first. no the out-of-towners are gone and we’re back to the usual. it’s sad, but we’ll see everyone again soon, and bacers had to go take care of her kitties.

and speaking of our usual antics: happy hour, a.k.a. balloon time! we’re thinking of doing a regular balloon time this friday, but put *friday june 15* on your calendar: it’s the blog’s 1-year birthday and we’re having a party at the high dive on chicago near damen. it’ll be at happy hour time, of course (6-9), and we’re buying the first 50 beers for our friends and then it’s $3 drafts from there on out. everyone’s invited. be there or be in the spirit division.

have you ever seen anything so pretty as a million skittle colored bikes like this? this is where miss casuals holiday weekend ended. well i guess technically it ended doing laundry and icing my ankle watching law $ order but really michelle and aaron’s super badass cupcake and bicycle filled bithday bbq was my last stop so well retell the weekend memento style and start at the end.

pulling up to the birthday bbq it was easy to pick out the house as it looked like a parade of pretty bicycles. michelle and aaron were great hosts and amy made some fierce vegan cupcakes. it was nice to drink some sangria and lounge with the ladies of c’n'd. we at casual ultimate feel very lucky to have met such wonderful ladies with such similar interests as ourselves. amy and miss casual are mentally preparing to race our first alleycat on saturday. we need to think positive. theres no ‘i’ in win. but before then there will surely be some tricks as miss casuals skids need work and ms. ulty wants to perfect her skid hop move.

previously the cu staff and stacy had stopped by a bqq thrown by dp and liz. looks like hales is back in town for good and is our new neighbor. baby audrey came looking like she meant business and the boss’s neice was the envy of miss casual in ruffly pink socks and perfectly fluffy hair. with all the babies around it occurred to us that briefcase could easily be renamed ‘team earmuffs.’ good to see the letter j out and about and again we were glad to have friends that appreciate grilling and beer the way team paulina does.

all the bbqs came after recovery brunch because stacy, brooke, and the cu staff started at piece the night before with malt liquor and determination. crunk or die. miss casual had bumped into nat on armitage and he let on the it was going down at dannys so off we went. stacy bought us a shot and it was ON. super dance party all night til stacy looked like she might be napping at the bar. we havent danced so much since… well since the last time we were at dannys probably. a stranger had given stacy and ms. ulty ballons on the walk over from piece so we tied them above our table to indicate clearly ‘this is where the party’s at.’ balloon time.

ms. ultimates bday needs its own explanation from the birthday girl. she also is in further photographic evidence so ill leave it to her. back to the architectures. lates.

theyre out there. i can almost hear them through the doors. and the duct tape over the seams in the doors. and the plywood over the windows. cicadas have come to chicago. i know because i watch the news. its been three days since i holed up chez casual with slider, a box of saltines, two bottles of champagne and cable tv to wait out their brief lifespan. i have my tennis raquet in case one sneaks in and i looked for goggles but couldnt find any so im just wearing my sunglasses. i called tbrizzle and told him to stay with mk because i couldnt risk a security breach by opening the door for him to come home. ms. ultimate offered to bring us some food and lemonade but theres not much that can be slid in the hairline space between the door and the metal threshhold so were gonna have to hold out on our own.

im halfway through the second bottle of champagne trying to get my courage up to leave the house tonight. it is going to be an epic evening. not only are we celebrating ms. ultimate’s day of birth but we also have reinforcements coming to our bacchanal of eating at green zebra and who knows what after that. plan A is coming in from brooklyn. bacers (as shes knows to ms. ulty) has already arrived from the west coast. we also get the pleasure of zibby von tramp coming to 21 year old us. only the strong will survive. and thats just friday night. holler at us this weekend if theres shennanigans happening near you.

im going to watch one more episdoe of law $ order svu and then unpeal a bit of the tape around the back door and see if i hear any buzzing. i mean were running out of champagne anyway…

we’re posting this 2006 pic of lucky’s new hi tops because (1) it’s too hot to do anything blogworthy and (2) parents are writing to us that their children are getting frightened by brownbear’s ’stache. guess it’s just too awesome for them to process.

a lot of folks have been complaining about the heat recently - but isn’t this what we’ve been waiting for? beach weather? and isn’t it going to get much, much hotter and more humid? ah, chicago summer, i love you. at least the zibster’s back home and we can set up our lemonade stand in wicker park. it will be part performance art, part commercial venture. seriously though zibby: i’ll give you 10% of profits, just like in the old days. remember how fun it was?

no cicada sightings yet for miss casual. i feel like tomorrow’s gonna be the day. please send us your updates on cicada watch 2007. hopefully they don’t come out tonight, because ms. ulty’s going to the sox game. the cicadas love america’s favorite pastime.

well this weekend was quite a marathon of frisbee and beer so we need to break it down into three pieces. hence the post title courtesy of the king of r&b, kels. (when is that new album dropping anyway?)

the show

baker had told us very directly that we were not allowed to get crunk the night before the tournament so friday night the cu staff prepped for the spring league tourny by hanging with the ladies of cnd in the double deuce and neglecting bike tricks in favor of dinner and lively conversation. jessi’s newly finished bike is so pretty it makes unicorns jealous. then saturday am it was road trip dance party with dp and liz and the cu staff. all of team paulina was singing my humps by 830am. the first game for teamocil was a close one which we lost by a single point inspite of heroic leaps by rory and rob. so into the loser brakcet we went to face off against our own it dept. and his partner in crime ms. angela. baker tried to psych us up by performing some sommersaults on the sideline and yelling and jumping a lot but to no avail.

thats when the beer came out.
and then it was on to our last game which we won long after everyone stopped caring. our only sustenance was old style and pizza that tasted like cardboard. it was hot and we were tired. however in spite of all the hardships and the fact that we are the most underperforming team in cusl history, we had more fun playing with teamocil than we deemed possible. funnest. team. ever. we watched the finals in which there was briefcase on briefcase action, mr. phillips vs. the volkmans (or team earmuffs as we like to call them). team ledonne took it to the house and won spring league again. nice work people. must be in the dna.

our team’s spirit award went to mel (seen above avec beach towel even thought she ditched us later on) and the league spirit award went to teamocil although it was totally unmentioned and apparently means nothing at all. our cu spirit award goes to vijay and his bumble bee shorts and new moustache, seen here flexing for the camera. on the way home listening to my humps again, the part about mixing ‘your milk with my cocoa puffs’ came on and all that could be said was ‘im not sure what a cocoa puff is, but ill bet ive seen vijays.’

the after party

after being comatose and icing the heck out of various body parts we lost our ride to the lee-martins wedding celebration. congratulations to you two. you are the best and most fun couple ever and were sure you have many more years of love and happiness and winning summer league together. we ran into some people coming from oak park at twisted spoke. the spring league party ended up being very nice. beautiful night out. great location. fun crowd. we spent the evening chatting with the coopers and baker and rob. lets just say middle names were changed in leaglly binding contracts and im getting a package in the mail which i am not allowed to open at work. the real insanity began after miss casual went home to dreamland so im gonna let ms. ulty explain since she brought her a-game to the hotel lobby portion of the evening.

the hotel lobby

…that two-hour dinnertime nap must have done the trick, because after closing down the party at twisted spoke ms. ulty followed rob, jake and much of the spring league committee (sans baker) to carol’s for some country style dancing. technically we dragged jake, by dismantling his bike and putting it in sparks’ car before he knew what was happening. we’re tricky that way. man carol’s is fun. we even ran into one of ms. ulty’s former neighbors; we couldn’t be friends because our parents were feuding like the hatfields and mccoys, and now whenever we run into eachother it’s some sort of awkward hello. but what’s more awkward is when rob and jake start yelling her name in a bar. repeatedly. there was dancing, pitcher beer drinking and even sleeping on tables. not sure whose idea it was to stay until the 5 am close (probably the friend of the blog who wished to remain nameless), but it almost killed poor devin/david. next it was an ill-advised trip to the burrito joint next door and then over to chalet sparks for a sleepover party. thank goodness sober was driving - you’re the best, not sure if we told you that enough on sunday morning. i’m still not so sure how i feel about going to sleep when the sun is coming up and the birds are chirping, but it couldn’t have been with a better group of kids (unless miss casual had stayed awake, of course).

this might be my new favorite picture of ye olde beache ultimatee, even though it’s just the viking and miss casual waiting for everyone else to showe uppe. the cold weather didn’t keep the faithfuls away, and we had five-in-five almost all night. a fun time was had by all, with baker and tun showing up to everyone’s surprise. it took a while to get tun to take off his bike helmet and shoes, but he eventually joined the game. our team was the c.u. staff, baker, tun and sally, so other than sally it was good warmup for the tourney this weekend. way to squeeze in that extra practice, teamocil. baker, we promise to be good girls and not go out tonight (other than chicks n’ drinks, which is wholesome fun and games) so we’ll be ready to rock tomorrow morning, 9:00 am sharp.

the c.u. staff ducked out of beach early discuss 1st birthday party plans with the manager at lemmings. he told us something lame, like we’d get a quarter off of drinks for our friends, but we’re going to bargain with them until everyone drinks for free. or, for a dollar off drafts. ms. ulty is going to put together a posterboard matrix of bars at which to hold this party, then we’re going to do the hard work of visiting each one and weighing the pros and cons. we might have to visit some of them more than once just to be sure. quenchers, the green eye, cleos II and high dive are all on the docket.

after dinner at pennys (of course), ms. ulty persuaded miss casual to come to tricks n’ drinks by using the kryptonite-like powers of champagne: casual can’t resist it no matter how hard she tries. it’s good she came though, because her skids are dead on and we’re about ready to have a ladies skid comp. we finally met andrew, the owner of the bike baby that our bikes would make, last night at Tn’d. i know that doesn’t make much sense, but luckily we have this pic to illustrate [photo credit: morgan]. ms. ulty got the very basics of a bunny hop down and we’ll be practicing all this and more at chicks n’ drinks tonight, top secret location, etc. tricks are fun, we’re getting good at them; soon enough we’ll be able to do the two backwards circles and 720 front wheel spin that steve may or may not be able to do, we haven’t seen the proof yet. speaking of steves, work steve stopped by with the fiance while walking their pup. remember this at your desk today, steve: the only thing better than working any good job is working no job at all.

it was a tough decision to put up another post since chucktown’s was so entertaining and actually, you know, about ultimate, but life goes on. and so do we. how we do it is no mystery - we blog.

beach is tonight at north ave. 6 pm sharp. we’re hoping the weather cooperates; it’s actually pretty cold outside. ms. ulty attempted to go yogging this morning and had to wear tights. the general plan is to head from there to lemmings, and we might be going earlier rather than later if it’s too cold and no one shows. but we’ll at least be tossing for a bit. there might be some tricks n’ drinks in the works, but we’re not sure yet. ms. ulty’s just about over her fear of bike tricks and miss casual’s numerous and inexplicable injuries seem to be on the mend.

for those of you who will be heading out to the polo fields for the spring league tourney this weekend, we couldn’t help but notice that this weekend is naper settlement’s civil war days. if your team gets eliminated early, you might be able to catch a discussion on fashions of the civil war (1 pm), or the Gettysburg address delivered from the paw paw post office porch by none other than abe lincoln himself (130 pm). unfortunately the big battle is on sunday. thank you, free subscription to timeout. team teamocil will be missing the festivities, however, since the finals aren’t until the end of the day and surely we’ll have to stick around for the awards ceremony as well.

in other news, el presidente shared this story with us last week and we thought you’d want to hear it too. true story:
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This woman that works with my child therapist friend was a chaperone on a special education class trip to the Shedd Aquarium a few weeks ago. One of the boys in the class disappeared for a while, and the teachers couldn’t find him. He mysteriously returned to the group towards the end of the trip, and his pants were wet. No big deal, they thought, he probably wet himself…special ed….blah blah blah. They didn’t say anything to him about it, and put the kids on the bus to go back to the school. As they drove away from the aquarium, a police car pulled the bus over. The police boarded the bus, and asked the teachers if they had any students on the bus with wet pants or shoes…a penguin had gone missing from the penguin exhibit at the aquarium! The teachers interviewed the boy with the wet pants, asked to look in his backpack, and….there, among his pencils and notebook was the missing penguin!

How do you steal a penguin and your teachers do not notice? Didn’t it make noise? Maybe even smell fishy or something?

Meanwhile, you should know that I hear the penguin is okay and has been returned to his little penguin friends and family.
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Hi, everyone. Mr. Town here, Miss Casual’s brother. Check out our new site:

www.casualtown.com
: ist das Community Browsergame FORREALZ-ischlagen!

Let’s catch up real quick: How are you doing in Chicago? Nice. Yeah, good to hear; I was going to ask you about that, so it all worked out then? Oh, it didn’t. Sorry to hear that. Well she wasn’t right for you anyway. Oh she was, and it was your fault? Yeah, well I mean, I guess life goes on. It doesn’t? Listen, I didn’t want to get into a whole discussion here, but seriously, we used to be friends and I remember that.

I’m doing fine out here in SF. I live in the city now, and let me tell you something: dudes love some dudes out here. I mean, I think it goes deeper than friendship in a lot of ways, especially one way. It’s not affecting me though. I’m straight as an arrow, and nothing will change that. I don’t even give awkwardly long hugs to guys more than once a week or so. That’s a fact.

Anyway, here’s a day in the life so that you can get an idea of what my life is like these days (Midwest translation is in brackets so you can follow what I’m saying): I get up at 7:30 (9:30 CST) and take a shower. I hop on my normal bike for losers (fixed-gear bike) and hit the road. I’m hella tired (tired), but I hop on the downhill slope (like the Midwest but kinda slanted) and just coast for a while. I realize that I forgot to shave, and then notice a few girls (lesbians) riding bikes alongside of me who also forgot to shave…their faces. It’s cool though. I breeze by a couple Carl’s Jr’s (Hardees) and swerve to avoid hitting an old Asian women (black guy). I work for 8 hours (10 hours), and then I marvel at the beauty of the Bay Area on my way to watching the Warriors (Bulls) go down 1-3 to the Jazz (Pistons). I then go to sleep in an 800 sq. ft. 3 BR apartment (3500 sq. ft. 4 BR) while my openly gay room-mate (…errr…) watches South Park.

Here’s your pre-season scouting report for Ultimate out here in the Yay Area:

COED:

Brass Monkey: Sweethearts, great leadership, returning their core for one last go of it. Expect a good year from them. I may roster up with them again since it was such a great experience last year, and they have a spot at representing the US in VanCouver in ‘08 if they finish at the top this year.

Mischief: Defending National Champs in the coed division. They have one guy that wins all their games for them: Tyler Grant. He is back again. They will win again.

WOMEN:

Fury: They picked up five really good players, and they just happen to have an amazingly good coach: Matty Tsang. He’s the reason they will win again when it counts.

New Team: This other women’s team that is a mixture of Homebrood (RIP) and Skyline. They have no identity and fragmented leadership (a la Justice League last year). They will probably have a tough year.

MEN:

Jam: Idris is captaining again this year, and Hollywood and the Body (aka Greg Husak and Brandon Steets) are coming up from the Condors to join an already stacked team. These guys don’t seem to play with a lot of heart, but this team has the players to win a title if it all comes together. They’re also no longer pretending not to be Jam. I’ve been trying out with these dudes, and it’s a lot of fun.

Revolver: Lot of ex-Stanford on this team. They play small ball, breaking the mark, taking high-percentage passes, and really grinding with teams. There’s some great chemistry on this team, and they are looking to add some height (possibly me) to their roster. We’ll see if it’s a fit. Nick Handler is something else. I’ve never been impressed with dump cuts before or seen a guy who is 5′7″ go deep as well as he does. Rivaled maybe only by Josh Wiseman (same team, same height, almost solely a deep).

I guess that’s all there is to say. I will be at Poultry Days with USDA, getting there early on Friday and staying Sunday night if you wanna hang. I’ll be at Sandblast (Thu-Tues) with Dago Tea, a really fun crew mostly from the Bay. Let me know your plans for those two. Unless you’re Jacob Dee. Then just sit tight and wait for your spanking.

Chuck

sure it was 7 on 5, but at least mr. serious showed up this time. he and his band of illinois brothers couldn’t throw a cup strong enough to contain teamocil’s desire to win that game. too bad not a single woman on their team felt like playing ultimate on the most beautiful day of spring league. props to the one lady they had, who was speedy and savage. arguably the turning point in the game was mr. serious’s soul-crushing turnover in front of his endzone, which was immediately followed by a swing and a huck to ms. ulty for the score. congrats to team teamocil on our two wins (isn’t it fun to win?). this is our fearless leader doing a victory dance, thinly disguised as g.o.b.’s chicken dance [stock footage]. drink lots of water and visualize success for the tourney this weekend - if we don’t win spring league we’re nothing! thanks to our #1 fan for watching both games and going on a beer run - we’re nominating you for the spirit award.

thank goodness for vitamin i, or else miss casual and ms. ulty might have missed all the action saturday morning. both ladies were crazy sore from the inaugural meeting of chicks n’ drinks, whereby ladies with shiny bikes practice their tricks away from the boys in an undisclosed location. here are a couple pics of the members of team unicorn practicing their skids. next friday, everyone on the team will receive a self-destructing notice of location and tricks to be practiced 90 minutes before meeting time. miss casual informs ms. ulty that holding a cloth soaked in white vinegar to a bruise “sucks the bruise out” - doctors, any truth to this? because we’ll try anything at this point to be able to wear shorts again.

sunday was a day for culture and legal education. after calling their respective moms, the c.u. staff brunched it up at toast and then rode to the art institute to catch the last day of the cezanne to picasso exhibit. good show, but approx. 300,000 mom-and-child pairings had the same idea and it was a little crowded. given their bike- and ultimate-induced injuries, we went back to home base to relax on the couch for a bit. “a bit” turned into “seven straight episodes of law $ order” and one plate of nachos and a frozen pizza later it was time to call it a night. too bad we couldn’t make it to beach, but we were dying. oh, and ladies, there’s a pair of hot pink pedal cages on the market if you’re interested.

ah, wrigley field. there’s nothing better on a summer day. i suppose it would have been more fun if they had won. turns out wrigley has bicycle valet on the northwest corner of the stadium, which is pretty cool. not sure if it’s better than just locking your bike up, though, because you have to wait in line to retrieve it after the game.

after the game we convened for a little beach ultimate action. turns out you can play with just cones, and they’re a lot easier to carry to work (thanks miss casual!). it was ladies night for a while, with the c.u. staff, lyrica, leah and annie representing; cobb was there on the boys side. soon enough the rest of the regular crew showed up - ms. mmms, tbrizzle, the viking bk, etc. c(b)r, where were you? the games were pretty good - so nice to run around on an uncrowded beach on a nice day.

misses casual and ulty gorged themselves on penny’s while watching the bulls game with tbrizzle and the viking - or baby bjorn, as we’re calling him now that he’s shaved his beard. oh bulls, why do you do this to us? ms. ulty tore herself away at the start of the fourth quarter to practice her skids at tricks n’ drinks. given ulty’s sore legs and miss casual’s potential major ankle injury, we might have to take it easy at the inaugural meeting of chicks n’ drinks tonight.

as far as spring league, team teamocil is getting fans and maybe even cowbells tomorrow morning, so our opponents had better watch out.

our post title is courtesy of ben friendhugger…it’s hard to explain, especially on a family-oriented blog such as this.

where to begin? tuesday night: we forgot how much fun it is to hang out at chez tbrizzle, now chez tbrizzle-casual. if you haven’t seen it yet the apt. looks awesome; who knew lucite lamps that cost more than rent go well with cogs and pistons found in old hardware stores? the c.u. stay, the (b)r’s, j dot and ms. mmms all shared a delicious meal while watching the bulls bite it; these pistons don’t look good with our bulls.

Wednesday was happy hour at the peach pit with some new customers. we forgot how good that pizza is. we were also surprised to see a new beverage on the menu: malt liquor. it’s actually quite good, and comes in a paper bag. it’s about time a classy microbrewery gave o.e. a run for its money. order the dolomite next time you’re in there - we think it would go well with the bbq chicken pizza. there’s a chance we’ll be back in there to test that theory before the weekend is up.

we’re not sure if it was the dolomite or the cubs win that went to everyone’s heads, but there was quite a bit of storytelling. two stories tied for weirdest, and only one of them is appropriate to be put into words. we’re saving el presidente’s story about pee pants and the shedd aquarium for tomorrow. morgan’s story could best be titled, “peanut butter and ladies,” and is the tale of one man’s desperate attempt to entertain himself with….perhaps we should call the story, “i love crepes,” because there were actually no ladies involved. it can’t be put into words, but let’s just say it’s related to today’s title and is also the name of the collegehumor.com summer softball team. speaking of which, if bryan plays his cards right we’ll get him one of these t-shirts to wear while blogging.

dinner was followed by a skidding lesson - my. ulty can go two and a half feet, so watch out boys. she’s hoping that learning every bike trick in the book will mask the fact that she still can’t do a track stand.

this afternoon ms. ulty and el presidente are heading to the cubs game, then booking it to beach at 6. be there or be square - word on the street is tbrizzle may be back on with casual ultimate. we’re not sure where this leaves the blog, but it does mean miss casual only had to lug cones to work today.

a haiku to working overtime

work is not so fun
tomorrow looks to be nice
lets get our beach on

I wish this could be some kind of epic post about cinco de mayo hijinx and the first weekend of the rest of ms. ulty’s life, but the fact of the matter is that the biggest accomplishment of the weekend was a 4-hour nap on Saturday afternoon.

Friday was ms. ulty’s last day of work, and the ladies and gents of her workplace made sure it was a night to remember. or forget, depending on how you look at it. toasts were given with bottles and bottles of veuve at bin 36, and louise convinced some of the youngins to club it up rusky style after cocktails and dinner. ms. ulty was rather moved by the may day immigrant rights march, but louise taught her how some of the p.y.t.’s of eastern europe earn their citizenship solo. upon seeing one of our inebriated coworkers getting his groove on with a beautiful and scantily clad young lady, she observed, “she took one look at him and said, that’s my greencard.” god bless america. narwhal, we need to go dancing again soon when i’m not carrying a vase of flowers.

Saturday was spring league, of course. it felt like we played well - seemed like mel was open all day, of course rory was catching (almost) everything, hendude had some nice weaving once he and treemboat felt like showing up, miss casual made a sweet trailing edge catch in the endzone - but still, losses. it’s getting a bit frustrating, but at least we have fun, right? right? it’s been decided that we’re going to have the most fun team BBQ in the league, to be hosted by liz sometime in the next couple of weeks. details on that to follow.

the c.u. staff had lunch at kumas; it must have been the burgers that put us in comas (which sounds like kumas…coincidence?). soooo good; eating all the beef on their menu clearly has to be a summer goal. saturday afternoon was ms. ulty’s aforementioned 4-hour nap. miss casual, against all odds, stayed awake and even had dinner at the new cleos with the russells, TBR and julio. unfortunately even a restful afternoon didn’t give us the steam needed to get the most out of otherandy and baker’s mayo5 par-tay. luckily andy represented for teamocil, as evidenced by his expertise with the pinata. lesson learned saturday night: adults don’t get enough smarties and sweetarts.

sunday was dp’s surprise b-day party, which turned out to be not such a surprise. still, good times were had by all. their yard has a grassy area that is *perfect* for bags, so that’s where you’ll find us between frisbee games and bike rides.

that’s about it. let’s get our toss on this evening, it’s perfect outside.

Ms. Ultimate just got a beautiful bouquet of bright yellow flowers from miss casual, tbrizzle, the Viking and c(b)r. you guys are the greatest friends ever!!! I wish I had my camera hookup thing so I could take a picture because they’re so pretty. Also, we don’t have a picture for today’s post.

today is ms. ulty’s last day at work before a summer of fun and games or, as our post title inspiration and future guest columnist chris put it, I’m about to be funemployed. it’s going to be weird not coming to work every day, but the transition to full-time blogging, ultimate playing and bike riding should be a smooth one. the only thing needed to make a 14-year-old boy’s dream summer perfect is daytime access to the cartoon network, which miss casual is reputed to have at her new pad. please make me an extra key this weekend.

last night we got things started off on the right foot by hanging out in an empty parking lot, watching bike tricks and getting champagne crunk on a school night. Miss casual is still the trackstand master, but ms. Ulty has the rear dismount down to a science. Eh, it’s a way to stop so it works. Tbrizzle and the Viking showed up for a few minutes before heading to the peach pit for dinner; tbrizzle’s going to tweak his derailleur so that every time he shifts a little electronic voice is going to say “gears are magic.” It sounds complicated but luckily the viking’s an electrical engineer/dejiner of some sort. Thanks for coming, because ms. Ulty was scared to be hanging out with so many strangers and misses the comfort of the c.u. nest.

Lucky for us, the tricks kids are the nicest bunch ever. And a little bit crazy too, but a good crazy: friendhugger and others are going to bike 160 miles on Saturday! And we thought two morning games of ultimate was a lot to handle. Evan tried convincing ms. Ulty she could do a social century in the near future but she’s going to leave that hardcore riding to miss casual for now. After the fuzz came we all hit the no-name bar across the street for a nightcap and a little chris isaak.

And the best part of it all is, the weekend hasn’t even started yet. It’s gonna be packed with playtime and cinco de mayo hijinx. Miss casual just downloaded fergilicious….things could get crazy.

people who know casual ultimate will know that miss casual is not an ‘overtime’ kind of girl. she is more similar to that chubby helmet wearing stunt kid in the bud light commercial who says ‘im going to work 2 minutes passed 5… on a friday!’ then watches the clock tick passed go-time and breaks into a sweat and hand tremors.

living the casual life is a full time job in itself which very leaves little time for things like ‘commitment to one’s career’ and ‘dedication to work’ and ’staying at you desk past 530.’ once upon a time, (i believe they called it ‘the 50’s’) people defined themselves by their life’s work… and at casual ultimate we still do. its just that my life’s work is clearly organizing happy hour and writing about it in a self aggrandizing fashion. what can i say? its a gift and i have to maximize my god given potential. so while others toil at their desks, miss casual takes to the streets of the double deuce looking for ms. ultimate, trouble, and a good glass of prosecco, in that order, so that the real ‘work’ can begin. to use a phrase often heard in our house at the holidays, she heads out to ‘work. you. dog.’

so here at my ‘real’ job at 7:02 on a beautiful wednesday evening i just thought id check in with the blog, my one true calling. when the book deal comes through it will be sad to leave all this ‘architecture’ biznass behind but for tonight i will relish my smug feeling of satisfaction at working late into the evening for a change… or at least for another 28 minutes until my boss will pay for my dinner.