Finn Fest: A Photo Diary

Uncle Bill and Miss Bobbie bought me hard lemonade after I talked to them on the phone while crawling through Chicago traffic. I told them I was just going to pull over and cry for a few minutes. They thought I sounded stressed. In South Bend they tossed me in the back seat with a drinky drink. And a straw to be discreet.


My mom and Robert are at the cabin for a few weeks, so they brought the boys. I call them the Traveling Cat Show.


Tee Lake and the T-Par-T (which I still think should be named Orange Ya Gonna Ride the Boat?)


Beating the uncles at badminton.


Finn Fest Day! Let the fun begin.


Gathering around the coolers.


Grandma salutes the flag.


Calling Finn Fest Bingo.


Finnish Chef—she always wears this in the kitchen.


A typical Finn Fest shot.


Too much fun.


Passing around the (unloaded and locked) gun.


Tommy and his timepiece—just like Flava Flave.




"I'll show you kids how to fish." And then he got it caught in the tree.


Teaching the kids to gamble.


The children's quarters.


Traditional day-after swim off the pontoon.








The girls.


A Finn and her granddaughter. Funny story...Friday night we were all at the cabin, giddy with Finn Fest suspense, and maybe wine (but not Grandma), and Grandma challenged me to arm wrestle her. I saw my future flash before me, but all eyes were on me—how could I say no? So I slammed my elbow on the table and it was go time. Well, Grandma won. My family was ashamed. They'll never let me forget it.


Sunday's farewell sunset booze cruise.


"Jesus, take the wheel."

Finn Fest 2007

Finn Fest 2007 officially starts tomorrow at noon when I drop whatever I'm doing and race to South Bend to meet Uncle Bill and Miss Bobbie. I'll leave my car at the airport and from there the three of us will have the road trip of our lives up to Lewiston. Uncle Bill said he's only bringing 80 bottles of wine due to space limitations.

Finn Fest is our annual family reunion. There's nothing really Finnish about it, besides the Finn flag. We just eat and drink and swim off the pontoon boat. And the kids fight. I'm excited. I love Tee Lake in the summer. And I'm excited to eat something that's not the same thing I've been eating for two weeks. I expect a lot of fanfare for my homecoming. Stuff like, "We've missed you terribly!" and "Sometimes I miss you so much I can't sleep at night!" and "You look GREAT! Are you modeling out there in Chicago?"

My neighbor Beth is going to feed Peewee while I'm gone. She came over last night so I could show her where everything is. I've been calling her "Auntie Beth" to Peewee. Like, "Your Auntie Beth is going to take care of you for a few days" and "Do you love your Auntie Beth?" Well, I think Auntie Beth is a little nutty. She's a nutty scientist. When she came over last night she brought her cat Tristan with her. Only she said, "He followed me over here!" I think she wants Tristan and Peewee to be friends. Everyone knows that's crazy, right? So Tristan was in the hallway, and she said, "Open the door and see if he's there!" I'm thinking, Oh God, oh God, oh God, because I know Peewee is going to freak out. But how can I say no? She'll put a science spell on me. So her cat came in my apartment and the two of them had a hissing fight, OF COURSE, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT CATS DO, AUNTIE BETH, and Peewee howled like I've never heard her howl before. Then for half an hour after they left, Peewee sat staring at the door. Poor thing was traumatized.

So I'm a little worried that Crazy Auntie Beth will bring her cat every time she comes over to feed Peewee. Plus, she thinks a cat should never be left alone for more than a day, so she's coming all four days. Which is very nice of her, but she also told me that Tristan always needs a body at night—she has someone stay at her apartment when she's gone. So now I'm just picturing her sleeping in my bed and wearing my clothes.

Boats

Whenever Colleen and I get together, we always talk about how much we want a boat. It's always like we're saying it for the first time: "You know what I really want?" "What?" "A boat." "Me too!" Yesterday I drove down Lake Shore looking at all the boats anchored out in the lake and people sunning themselves and swimming off the sides and I thought it must be nice to have money and friends.

Colleen and I first talked about boats over cupcakes at the cupcake shop, then we talked about boats over dinner. The initial plan was for me to meet someone with a boat. But I can't even meet someone without a boat, so the chances of that are slim. We thought maybe I should put on Match.com, "I will only date you if you have a boat." Dr. Phil would probably tell me that's not good dating etiquette. But I bet Dr. Phil has a boat, so he can shut it. Then we decided we can just go in on a boat together, in our minds. We'll name her the Erlleen. I want the Erlleen to have a pool and a large deck for my segway scooters. Colleen said we can make cupcakes to sell to the other boaters. Maybe that's how we'll pay off the Erlleen.

Thank you for bein' a friend

The weekend was nice. Went for a bike ride, later to Colleen's (and by Colleen's, I mean Matt's) for a movie and Jewel cocktails (made with Jewel brand cola—delish!), and yesterday to the beach. Not a bad life.

I made a comic about the fun Peewee and I have together every night. It's funny because I look horrible.

Monday Night TV

So I'm watching my new favorite summer reality show—AGE OF LOVE, OF COURSE. I like Age of Love mostly because I hate the 20 year-olds. This show, for me, is like watching sports. You have two teams, the 40 year-olds and the 20 year-olds. And you have a goal, the 30 year-old tennis player whose name I still don't know after watching it for four weeks. The 40 year-olds are like the veteran team that everyone loves, and the 20 year-olds are like the obnoxious newcomers who talk a lot of trash and look like hookers and cry a lot. I root for my players by yelling at the TV, "Come on, 42!" or "MORE OF THAT, 48!" And then I yell at the 20s things like, "What a hobag!" Sports are fun.

New Bike

Weeell, I bought a new bike yesterday. It's a nice road bike, unlike my other one that I named Blue Piece (of shit) because it weighs a ton, the gears don't work, and it gets flats literally just sitting in the room. The rims are patched inside with Band-Aids. But I love New Bike. It'll force me to get out and ride. Only not now because it's too hot.

I drove my car to the bike store, then rode the bike home and was going to walk back to get my car. But when I pulled up on the bike, my scientist neighbor Beth was on her way out and offered me a ride. I said, "This is too convenient!" She said, "Something inconvenient will happen later to even things out." I was like, "Okay, Miss Cleo." BUT THEN, I drove to Colleen's apartment so we could go to the beach in her neighborhood, and after walking forever in the hot sun and talking about how much we couldn't wait to go swimming, we got to the beach and the water was closed due to high levels of E. coli. Hmm. So we drove a little farther north to Rogers Park and the water was open. We probably swam in E. coli anyway. Afterwards we went to a cute hippie cafe called the Heartland Cafe. It reminded me of something down south—very relaxed with a screened porch and swinging screen doors, and in a residential neighborhood where you wouldn't expect to find it. They had a photo booth, so of course we had our pictures taken.

Last night my coworker Brendan and I went to a blues bar here in Evanston. It was fun, mostly because I couldn't understand a word the lead singer was saying and Brendan told me it's because I'm a racist. I laughed and I laughed. I also laughed at the older couple sitting next to us who asked each other at the beginning of every song, "Do you want to dance to this one?" They were the only ones dancing, and badly, but it looked fun.

Today Beth came over to meet Peewee. She LOVED Peewee. Then she kept telling me about people that I think live in the building, but I have no idea who they are. She was like, "Jose had cupboards like yours," "Virginia's cat-sitting for a 13 year-old male," "You should see Emma's cat." I just nodded.

Fourth of July

I went to the beach yesterday morning, and—the last two times I went to the beach I ended up with a weird sunburn pattern on my back where I couldn't reach with the sunscreen. So because I'm such a freaking genius, I went to the hardware store and bought a small paint roller to put it on with. It was really funny and really sad at the same time. Then this morning on the news they were showing innovative ways to apply make-up by using household tools, and one tool was a paint roller.

I had a good Fourth. It started on Tuesday night when I went to Brendan's house in Niles for their fireworks. They were sort of weird. They were accompanied by music. I wished I had been at Navy Pier instead, because now that I have the south in me, I want my fireworks to be bigger and better.

Yesterday Colleen and I went downtown to the Taste of Chicago to see John Mayer. He wasn't bad. At the end he did "Sweet Home Chicago" with Buddy Guy (I didn't know who he was) and that was fun—to see the whole crowd singing and dancing. Colleen brought her boyfriend Matt's comforter so we could sit on it, then we would leave it in the park when we were done. Haha, DUH. It made sense to her. So we lugged the thing all the way on the L and through crowds of people, sweating all over it in the sun, then when we got to the lawn there was no room to spread it out, so we set it down and didn't use it once. Then we abandoned it after the concert and ate some food.

I didn't bring my camera, which we both complained about the whole time. So I thought I'd do some artistic renderings.




Here is Colleen holding the comforter on the L.

Here we are abandoning the comforter in a crowd of people.



Here is Colleen putting a slice of fudge in the pocket of her white dress.



Here I am eating fried okra.



Here I am eating beer-battered artichoke hearts.



Here we are eating blue raspberry Italian ice.

Visitors

The uncles Bill and Kent came this weekend from Kentucky. We ate, we drank, we drank even more. They were my first real guests (meaning I feared a secret white-glove dust test). Despite that I refuse to cook and don't really know how to make plans, I think I'm a wonderful host.

On Saturday we went for a long walk in downtown Evanston, around the Northwestern campus, and along the lake. The weather was perfect. And we had a great lunch at a Spanish tapas restaurant. You know what? I really love eating. For dinner we went to my new favorite wine bar/bistro and each had our own wine sampler. You know what? I really love wine.

We enjoyed reading passages from Amy Sedaris's book on entertaining—my coffee table book—and I got some ideas for cooking for one: bananas dipped in Jell-o powder and uncooked hot dogs dipped in Swiss Miss. See, it's not so hard being alone.

They left this morning to their friends' in the city and also left a fridge full of wine. It's always great to have visitors and sad to see them leave.