Welcome Holland: The Five Senses of Chicago

My dearest readers,

Three people live in Chicago. Two more descended upon the city. Three plus two is five. There are five senses, according to modern belief. How odd, then, that all the main events that took place during this rambunctious visit can be categorized under the aforementioned senses. How odd, indeed.

SIGHT

Friday - The group watches Teen Witch, which concludes brilliantly by not leaving any loose ends. Everyone is heartily unsatisfied. However, brighter moments included the rendition of "Top That" and the dramatic "I'm a model, deep in thought, don't mind me" poses displayed in the hookup scene. Molly also comments at one point : "Did anyone see the closeup of that nutsack?"

Friday - Uke, upon exiting the Main St. stop and seeing Evanston for the first time, comments on the bombed out building directly across the street.

Friday - While seated in one corner of Hoho's living room, Uke and Rosco comment on their vantage point. Ross: "I really like how all I can see is that guy's ass." Luke: "It's one big sea of butts at eye level." Uke then proceeds to clear their corner of the room by imitating a strangling motion with his hands.

Saturday - Loos and Rosco are treated to the sight of Dizzle and Hoho as seen from the other end of closing El doors. In addition, Loos makes a half-hearted effort to keep them open, in order to avoid being labelled un-chivalrous. In reality, the move accomplishes nothing.

Saturday - In the afternoon, the first ever Cru Crew meeting takes place. This joyous occasion is marked by name badges complete with bar codes for the full members and a "Hello My Name is" badge for Loos the initiate. The meeting consists of the viewing of Rad, followed by the ceremonial tying of the Cru Jones legdana for Loos' induction as the mascot. In addition, President Rosco sports a spiffy "Support the Rad" bracelet created by Hoho. During the middle of the viewing, Uke's roomie TJ and his Michigan friends arrive and mistakenly assume the rest of the crowd is cool for watching "Rad."

One of these things is different from the others...that's right, it's JD, because she's an idiot.

Notice how happy Dizzle is to have a crotch in her face.

Saturday - At a coffee shop in Lincoln Park, Rosco and Dizzle notice several children's drawings that were clearly stolen from the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. Among them are Felicity the Table Dog, Poofy Wig Dog (seemingly asking "are you having a laugh?"), a dog drawn by a child of age "B", and a drawing where the dog-shaped lines were not a guideline, but merely a set of random marks on paper, according to the artist. Rosco identifies this scribble-crazy colouring job as "the one that's not a dog."

Part of IKEA's new "Dögg" line of tables (courtesy R. Conkey)

Saturday - On the El ride home from Lincoln Park, Rosco makes faces at Dizzle, but masterfully frustrates her efforts to capture said faces on film, substituting a pained expression instead. He is helped by the ridiculously long delay on her camera.

"Say cheese and hold it for 25 seconds!"

Take twenty-seven.

The picture that broke Dizzle's spirit.

Saturday - As Loos and Dizzle walk back to the Hoho-lent car (which Loos has helpfully parked a mile away from the bar), they spot a sign that reads, in very engineering-style prose : "Senior you must be senior citizen 65 or older citizen discount 20% off cut keys discount." Clearly, proper sign spacing was not taught at the local sign-making school.

Posing in front of "Thee Iliteret Loxmith"

Saturday - On their way back from downtown, Loos and Dizzle spot a friendly giant (Tony) on the side of the street. Dizzle, instead of opening the window to yell at him, locks the doors. Loos does something far worse - after saying hi to Tony, he still has no intention of offering him a ride. Fortunately, the combination of Tony's asking and the long red light ensured that this encounter did not end as such : "Hey Tony? Waiting for the bus? We're gonna drive by your house in a few minutes. Oh well. Seeya later!" Vrrrrooooooom.

Sunday - After wearing his Transformers t-shirt and jeans for 3 days straight, Loos observes his reflection in the hall mirror and says "hmmm...this looks familiar."

Green shirt and bluejeans, what a classy uniform.

Sunday - Ross, in an incredible display of detection, sights not Judge Judy, but Judge Reinhold at O'Hare.

SMELL

Friday - The piece de resistance of the sense-nanigans.
Uke and Dizzle are cleaning shot glasses by the sink. Uke spots a lighter by the sink.
Uke : Can I light a hair on fire?
Dizzle : Okay, but you have to pull it out of my head first.
Uke yanks a hair from Dizzle's enormous lush cranium and proceeds to light it on fire. The hair sparks and burns in fits and starts. (Uke admits afterwards that he was trying to find a hair with split ends, for a nice candelabra effect.)
Chorus : Ooooh. Aaaah.
Everyone moves to the living room briefly and returns to the kitchen. Upon re-entry, the stench of burnt hair is overwhelming, having consolidated itself almost instantaneously. Not wanting the smell to be mistaken for a gas leak, the perpetrators leave a note on the counter saying "Sorry about the smell - we burned a hair." However, the culprits are unable to escape scot-free, as they run into Rojo (who had been busy chasing Molly down on her way home), and are forced to admit "just so you know, we burned a hair and it smells kinda bad," prompting bewildered expressions from the non-folliculopyromaniacs.

HEARING

Friday - On the way back from the airport, Rosco loudly sings "Dare!" at the tollbooth. The operator patiently listens during the extended time it takes to get change. Everyone else cowers in shame. Later on during the same ride, Rosco lowers the window and sings to passing cars. The window also mysteriously rolls up from time to time during these renditions.

Friday - At long last, Molly regales the rest with her brilliantly off-key rendition of "Now that I'm a Woman." This prompts repeated viewing of "The Last Unicorn" to witness the true horror of mistuned harmony and reedy voices.

Friday - During the clean-up phase of the party, non-Ice Queen Lisa remarks "I'm really drunk. But at least I didn't do anything too embarrassing!" Uke, having met her a few hours previous, wastes no time in replying : "Except for that one thing you did..."

Saturday morning - The Lisa-rassment contiunes. Lisa, having slept over at casa de bieri, wakes up, realizes she is somehow in PJs, and immediately starts to worry she embarrassed herself the night before. Rojo seizes the opportunity and convinces her that indeed, she had removed all her clothing in front of everyone.

Saturday morning - Joe, after coming home, mistakes Uke for Graham's friend Grant, and assuming Dizzle is some floozy the latter has brought home, is confused. He is also confused as to why the top lock on the front door is locked (JD no doubt wanted to be molested in private). To complete the trifecta, Joe then offers Loos' bed to the wayward strangers, not realizing that it's already occupied by its owner.

Saturday morning - It quickly becomes clear that Uke's voice is shattered from too much falsetto singing the night before. In vain, he tries to drive home an important point : "Don't usure."

Saturday - During dinner cleanup, someone notices a sign in Italian in Hoho's kitchen, and decides to mrmrfy it with a rolled r. This then results in various foreign accent renditions of mrmr, including a trilltacular Spanish version and a uvulastic French one.

Saturday - A series of sound gags results from Uke's lost voice. First, in his quest to shame even
the sultriest phone sex worker, Uke leaves raspy, incomprehensible, and presumably sexual messages for Michedan, Lisa, and Swames. Then, as Dizzle basks in the glory of Ukeless silence, she makes the mistake of asking, "Why couldn't you lose your voice when we were roommates and you were always making those annoying noises." Then, from the depths of Uke's soul issues a piercing "eeeeeeeeeeeeeee" sound. Dizzle recoils in horror as she realizes that the annoying core of Uke's voice is clearly the last register to go in his descent into silence.

Sunday - Loos comments that Erinn's voice allows him to "keep dibs" on her, revealing his secret desire of owning her, as opposed to merely being informed of her whereabouts.

Sunday - JD, Uke, and Loos discuss how Erinn's "annual" army ten-miler seems to occur multiple times a year. The conclusion : the race is actually an aggregate of pentannual two-milers.

All weekend long - Various Air Supply lyrics are yelled out ("something finally went RIGHT!") and altered ("two more lonely people in the world"), in addition to the development of a "quatret"-based rendition.

TASTE

Friday - After enjoying a sumptuous dinner at Dixie Kitchen, everyone is clearly too stuffed to pre-empt Rosco's aunt when she smoothly grabs the check and pays for it.

Friday - One night standrew. Awkward aftermath. Enough said.

Saturday - Having missed the chocolate mousse orgy previously, Uke eats the leftover mousse out of a cup in the sink, chastizing Dizzle for throwing away such a delectable goldmine.

Sink mousse, just like mama used to make back home.

Saturday - "Ross and Rojo" make a sumptuous risotto meal for the moochers. Moochers eat.

Saturday - During the night's pub crawl, TJ and friends show off their dancing skills in Dunkin' Donuts to prove they are sober, and the friends manage to procure free donuts as their "consolation" for having to hang out with TJ.

Saturday - Uke asks to look at Dizzle's beer, and promptly makes out with the rim.

"Let's get to first base," whispers the bottle.

Sadly, this bottle turns out to be a cold fish.

Sunday - Hoho makes batter. Hoho offers Ross batter. Ross tastes batter. Ross says "mmm...cinnamon." Hoho is impressed. Hoho says "Wow, you're good! There IS cinnamon in that!" Then, "This tastes like shit." Response : "Wow, you're good, I DID shit in that!"

Sunday - Dizzle spots a pair of orange socks attached to a woman on the El platform. Tasteless.

Too early for Halloween, just in time for the Mental Asylum

TOUCH

Saturday morning - A certain someone claims he wishes the weather were nicer. As soon as everyone else goes outside, it is clear that the weather is as nice as it could possibly be (mid 70s, sunny, dry). Par for the course.

Saturday - On the way to Hoho's, Uke and Dizzle try to figure out the potential prank they had devised for Dizzle's summer subletter. The summary goes as follows : "the prank was like, you pile pillows outside her door...and then you kill her." Although it would seem that there are a few steps missing, Rosco confirms the straight-shot-from-point-A-to-point-B nature of the prank by referring to it as "the one where you were going to smother her with a pillow, and if she woke up, you would say 'shhhh, you're not thinking clearly because you're not breathing. Go back to sleep.' "

Saturday - On the walk to lunch from Uke's place, the group passes a cute gray dog. In
order to confirm his (or her) cuteness, several members repeatedly mention how cute and friendly he is. Rosco then adds, "and soft...like a winter's day..."

Saturday - During the first annual Cru Crew meeting, Rosco recognizes he is a role model as President. His first decree is to take Dizzle's jacket, pause to look at her, and then pretend to wipe his butt with it.

Saturday - At the first stop on the pub crawl, Dizzle makes the mistake of leaving her jacket with the boys when she goes to shower. Uke then puts the jacket on under his shirt, so that when Dizzle comes back (an hour later), she searches in vain for her lost article of clothing. Finally, the ruse ends when Uke comments nonchalantly "wow, it's hot in here. I should take off this jacket." Plenty of hitting follows.

Saturday - Uke wears Dizzle's jacket as a legdana, and then decides to clean it off by licking it, leading Loos to call the situation "a poor man's wet t-shirt contest." Uke's licking was so thorough that the sweatshirt was still damp when Dizzle put it on to walk home.