Where's My Corndog, Mittens?

Ben: On St. Patrick's Day (actually the Saturday before the real St. Pat's), we ate at one of our favorite Italian haunts, Angelina's, before heading down to the United Center to catch the Bulls-Hornets game. We missed the first quarter since we erroneously decided to take the bus, not allotting enough time for delays caused by drunken, pseudo-Irish revelry. Thankfully, our seats were Rock Star 6th row, which really enhances the experience. The Bulls won in rather undramatic fashion, having effectively won the game by the end of the third quarter, but not before we could get a few $6.50 Bud Lights into our bellies. I tried in vain to get a cool video shot of a rim rattling dunk, but no dice. You'll have to settle for some rather tame footage of a Tyrus Thomas layup instead. Try to contain both your excitement and excrement. (Gross)

Katy: I'm just happy that "Benny the Bull" didn't hunt me down that night while I was sipping away on my beer, people watching, and rooting for the Dunkin Donuts coffee dude to win in an animated race on the scoreboard. (Please note, that's not us you hear in the video link, but I almost do cheer to that extent. Yes! The Bulls won and so did my coffee guy, so I get a free DD coffee! Holla!)

Sports characters, like Benny, really seem to love me and can spot me in a crowd. Seriously, it happened on our first date at an Indianapolis Pacers game. I predicted to Ben it would happen, and sure enough, the wacky blue dude, either Boomer or Bowser, was like a magnet to me and dished out some hugs and awkward gropes in my direction. And, speaking of drunken, pseudo-Irish revelry, on that first date, Ben's former boss, Ken, predicted our love was "in the stars." He illustrated his point by pointing out an old window that was all boarded up. Meh, I guess he was right after all?! Who knew the Indy version of Benny the Bull and Ken Jenkins were such intuitive matchmakers?

Ben: The week before that, high school chum Eric Peters made his debut at the Handfelt Hacienda and we caught up on old times across the street at Edgewater Lounge, sitting near a woman who laughed like a goat. We drank fancy beer. No video exists of this encounter.

Katy: If no video exists, does that mean it really happened?

So last weekend, Ben and I also made a trek to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to visit Ben's brother and his beautiful family. That Friday, the two of us took on babysitting duties while the parents were at work...a fun trip to the playground, a Target run for kid gloves, corndogs, and viewings of Pinocchio and Bolt kept us and the kiddos busy all day. Aside from Griff thinking he saw a scary naked guy at Target (this would not be unheard of), the day went without a hitch. Saturday, however, Ben snuck off to the basement to take a "covert nap". He says (and I quote), "It feels so wrong, yet oh-so-right to lay down here in peace, dozing off to the background noise of children's screams." The parents are horrified by that sentence while those without tikes of their own nod their head knowingly. I also have a new nickname from the weekend. In addition to Katy, Kate, Katy Kates, and Miss Katy, I also now go by Mittens (from Bolt), thanks to my creative nephew!

In the evenings, we adults played very competitive games of Farkle and re-watched SNL Dateline skits all night long. Then we talked in funny voices all weekend. MmmmmmHmmmm...

Ben: I give a solid round of applause to the weekend. Of note was Gretchen's homemade tomato soup, which may have to make a guest appearance on Katy's Kitchen if we can work out the copyright issues.

*Editors note: Since Blogger has some weird issue where Katy's Picasa photo account is "full", it won't let her post any pictures without upgrading, which costs $20. So until we figure out a way to beat the system, I may have to post everything under my name and just have Katy comment like she did here. That $20 fee seems a bit offensive in this day and age.

Uncle Ben and Sienna

From L-R: Bolt, Mittens, Penny

Don't fake the funk on a nasty....uh, layup?

Things We Like: Boob Toob Edition

The Office: Probably the best television comedy of the DVR era. Underrated: Creed (the character, not the horrible band) and Toby. Remember in Season 1 when Steve Carrell was kind of fat and slicked back his hair and everyone liked the British version better?

30 Rock: This one gets better with age. Despite the aggravating presence of that dude that wears the unfunny trucker hats, this show delivers the goods. Tracy Morgan's absurdist humor never fails to make me laugh out loud, or LOL as the kids say. If it's really funny, I LOLZ!!!!

Lost: Always entertaining, sometimes brilliant. I'm only a few years away from being 'bearded, drunk Jack'.

Rock of Love: A train wreck of sluts, Ed Hardy t-shirts, bandannas and really bad music. What's not to love? Well, by that description, plenty. We really have no defense for watching this.

Celebrity Apprentice: Logic dictates that this show should be horrible, especially given how unwatchable Season One was. But something about the crude mix of Dennis Rodman, Jesse James, Clint Black and Joan and Melissa Rivers makes for fascinating television. Ok, fascinating might not be the right word, but it's...something.

Saturday Night Live: SNL is an easy target to criticize for being irrelevant or past it's prime, but really, it's still good for at least a few solid skits per show. Besides, at our advanced age, we're usually home on Saturday nights, so staying up until midnight now qualifies as being edgy and rebellious.

Top Chef: Reality show drama + pretentious cooking + Padma Lakshmi = Must See TV.

Check Please!: Local Chicago fave where 3 different people try out the other peeps favorite restaurants and then discuss over wine. This is how we find out where to eat. If it's good enough for Mr. President, it's good enough for HHH.

*It should be noted that we don't get the premium movie channels, so we can't throw any HBO shows on there for street cred, although The Sopranos still remains in our Top 5 of All Time. Other than that, Curb Your Enthusiasm is a reliable DVD staple and we've had Mad Men in our Netflix queue for ages, but haven't gotten around to watching it yet.

Michael Scott: I enjoy having breakfast in bed. I like waking up to the smell of bacon, sue me. And since I don't have a butler, I have to do it myself. So, most nights before I go to bed, I will lay six strips of bacon out on my George Foreman grill. Then I go to sleep. When I wake up, I plug in the grill. I go back to sleep again. Then I wake up to the smell of crackling bacon. It is delicious, it's good for me, it's the perfect way to start the day.

The Seedy Underbelly of HHH

The Handfelt Happy Hour is, for the most part befitting of it's name, a pretty happy place. From sun-soaked vacations in the Dominican to booze infused nights on the town, our readers perhaps erroneously think that we're "living the dream", much like a young Jonathan Lipnicki. Alas, there is a dark side to HHH, one that is kept in the shadows and only spoken of in hushed tones and even then so, in Pig Latin. That's right, for as much as there is to love about Chicago (best city in the world, woot woot!), it's not all lamb shanks and man scarves. Let's take a look at some of the more overrated aspects of big city life in this exclusive HHH expose.

Public Transportation

This one is both a blessing and a curse. We haven't owned a car in over 3 years. Shocking as that may seem to anyone that doesn't live in either Chicago or New York, there really isn't a need for one when you live in the city. Not having a car payment is great, don't get me wrong. I couldn't even tell you within 50 cents what gas prices are right now. The downside is, that public transportation, while a lovely idea in theory, is a contemptuous and lazy lover, teeming with disease and prone to wild mood swings. Taking a train or a bus is a way of life here, but sometimes, as you stand on a crowded bus in traffic, wedged between a morbidly obese woman eating buffalo wings (no joke) and a European tourist with an aversion to deodorant, you pine for the good old days of being stuck in traffic in the comfort of your own car. That way at least, you won't run the risk of the guy sitting across the aisle sketching a picture of you next to a giant penis.**

Restaurants

Over the past few years, our taste palettes have expanded, as have our waistlines. Sampling everything from onion rings to maki rolls is a bit of a hobby here at HHH, in case you hadn't noticed. Take it from my gut, there is no better place to sample a myriad of cuisines than the Windy City. Chicago is home to some of the best restaurants in the world. Alas, these places I'm about to list aren't among them. For as often as we photograph our food and rave about some life changing meal, the road to get there is littered with mediocrity and lingering tummyaches. I am a far more forgiving critic than Katy, who judges things based on a love/hate scale that would make Gordon Ramsay blush. That said, these places received the dreaded Katy critique, "Ew, I decided I hated that place."

Wishbone Restaurant: A favorite soul food haunt of Oprah. Oprah must like frozen soul food.
Southport Grocery: Overrated 'cute' brunch spot. I asked for potatoes with my omelet and they told me that they were out of potatoes and the only available side dish left was salad. Salad! For breakfast! Get out of my life.
Cafe Ba Ba Reeba: I know a lot of people love this place, but the time we went there the service was terrible, the sangria tasted like Crystal Light and the tapas were underwhelming. Yet people rave. Maybe it was just an off night. Too bad Katy already gave it the scarlet letter.
Lucky Strike Lanes: Trendy bowling alley/sports bar also doubles as the bain of my existence. Not once, but twice have I waited over 20 minutes just to get a friggin menu from this abomination. When we told our waitress it had been 20 minutes she just said 'oh', and walked off...and still didn't bring us a menu! Gutter ball.
Bongo Room: Another highly touted brunch place, where you wait upwards of an hour just for breakfast. We finally went on a weekday and came away wondering if we'd wait 5 minutes, much less an hour the next time. Blah.
Charlie's Ale House: The only sports bar in our neighborhood and it sucks. How hard is it to make a decent burger? Charlie, you're out of your element.
Opera: Fancy and overpriced Chinese food. Not bad, but hard to rationalize paying over $20 for Kung Pao beef that isn't any better than the $8 stuff that we get delivered, even if it was plated on something nicer than styrofoam.
Blue Agave: Inexplicably popular Mexican joint located in the heart of the Viagra Triangle downtown. Popular with the late night crowd, whose standards have likely been diluted by their insanely strong Margaritas.

Cost of Living

$5 bottles of beer. One bedroom apartments that cost more than 4 late model Lamborghinis. Cab fares that give the middle finger to the struggling economy. Fees on top of other fees. Chicago is the Ebenezer Scrooge (pre-ghost visits) of American cities.

Weather

I refer of course to the brutal and unforgiving winters. Sure, it's the same for most midwesterners, but try it without a car. Walking 10 minutes to the bus in the snow and ice and then having 2 buses go past you because they're too full...meanwhile you can't feel any of your extremities and you begin to think there's a good chance you might have actually died? Yep, I'm already the grandpa who yells, "In my day, I walked 2 miles in the snow. Uphill!"

Litter

C'mon people, pick up your shit! A lot of people rave about how clean Chicago is for a big city. Those people clearly haven't left the comfort of Michigan Avenue and the Magnificent Mile. The amount of litter on the ground in the neighborhoods ('real Chicago') is just gross. Ours included.

Time Travel

There aren't enough hours in the day to get things done, especially during the week. Everything is a constant rush. I hate having to rush. I also despise the band Rush. Conversely, even though I hate when time flies, I do enjoy a good time travel yarn (Back to the Future, Lost), but that's neither here nor there.

The Crippling Inability to Meet Friends

People here are nice enough I suppose, but everyone just goes about their business with their heads down, avoiding human contact at all costs. We've lived here for 5 or 6 years now and have never gotten acquainted with any of our neighbors. Not a one. It probably doesn't help that both Katy and I are both pretty shy, and in a big city, the meek are devoured by the douchey. We're really fun once you get to know us, as evidenced by this sweet blog.

**This really did happen to Katy.

"Lame."

Between Two Ferns

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis from Between Two Ferns

Brilliant.

F'n Lay Down Sally

This past weekend saw two California residents and Iowa transplants, Ted and Vicki Schmitz, making a pit stop at the Hacienda, braving swirling snow and frigid temperatures, and in the process reminding them why they moved to California in the first place.

After greeting Mr. Schmitz with a awkward bro hug and a bottle of cold Hi Life, we engaged in a few quick games of FIFA soccer on the PS3 before heading downtown to meet our better halves for a pretentious but wholly satisfying dinner at the new tapas hotspot, Mercat La Planxa. We opted for the Chef's Tasting Menu, which consisted of three waves of courses served family style, as chosen by the chef. Some of the highlights included: smoked bacon and spinach flatbread, mushroom risotto, black Angus ribeye and a Spanish potato omelet. Falling under the 'best ever' category would have been the perfectly cooked and seasoned lamb shanks and the trio of ice cream (pistachio, peanut butter and chocolate) which led us to unintentionally recreate the sounds of the 'diner scene' in When Harry Met Sally. We also indulged ourselves with a couple of bottles of a very good Spanish red wine of which I can't recall the name, but that our waitress constantly referred to as 'verrrrry sexy' (which oddly enough, she said about the ice cream as well). By the end of the meal our bellies were full and our wallets were empty, but we were able to pool our change and scrounge up enough money for a nightcap at our favorite dive bar, Edgewater Lounge.

On Saturday, Ted and I woke up bright and early and headed to the Globe Pub, where we met our buddy Ken to catch a couple of EPL Soccer matches that were going on. I'm a soccer novice, but it was pretty cool to go to a crowded bar of enthusiastic Europeans and watch 'the Great Game' at the buttcrack of dawn. These fans don't mess around. The bar was packed, but at times you could hear a pin drop because every one's attention was directed squarely on the game. Ted has chosen Everton as his favorite team. I am currently weighing offers from a variety of different clubs and will make my decision in the coming weeks, although Aston Villa is the frontrunner since I like their uniforms and their name sounds like a James Bond car.

That night we went back to our old haunts in Wicker Park for some pizza and beer and Piece Pizza, and then made our way to Louie's Pub for karaoke. That place is no joke and some of those American Idol wannabees have some chops. I signed up to sing 'Every Rose Has It's Thorn', but apparently I've been blacklisted (they must have heard my stirring shower rendition of the Charles in Charge theme song) as my name wasn't called. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, because even with liquid courage, I was pretty intimidated. ("I'm not drunk enough for this.") We were sitting at a table reserved for a bachelorette party later in the night, so we made sure to sign up the lucky gal for a few embarrassing songs, much to her chagrin I'm sure.

As she usually does after she has a few libations, Katy suggested the extremely sketchy Asian speakeasy across from our place, Cafe Bong Ho, for afterhours. (When you're over 30, 'afterhours' means 'after 10pm') Most times cooler heads prevail and we end up skipping that option, but not this time. Smelling of Windex and fresh cat litter, Cafe Bong needs to be seen to be believed. That said, it's best seen only after you have copious amounts of booze in your system. There were about 7 or 8 other patrons there, all sitting at the bar (they only have one booth and it's an American travesty), singing karaoke. There is one TV in the corner showing Chinese game shows and the other one which has the karaoke has a rotating background of Chinese landscapes, tigers and fields of flowers. The words on the screen were egregiously misspelled and often times not even close to what the actual word was.

All of this made singing Patrick Swayze's "She's Like the Wind" even more surreal than it would have normally been. Vicki and Katy did a nice recreation of Clapton's "Lay Down Sally" (the key is to add a strategically placed, yet subtle f bomb in the chorus). We butchered a few more songs, ate some arsenic-laced peanuts and drank some expired Old Style. Finally we walked home, much past our bedtimes and worse for the wear.

Sunday we crawled out of bed and ate breakfast at 'A Taste of Heaven' (our bodies felt like 'A Taste of Hell') before zoning out on the couch to Rock of Love Bus and our DVR'ed episode of 'Lost'. Later in the afternoon, we bid farewell to our gracious guests, Vicki and the needlessly nervous Ted, who fretted over taxi cab etiquette and his mangled stomach lining. With that, we reflected on the great weekend before quickly falling into our normal Sunday routine: dreading Monday.

Lamb shanks at Mercat La Planxa. Getting shanked never felt so good.

Vicki and newfound soccer fan and taxi cab confessionalist, Ted at Louie's Pub.

Proprietors of the Happy Hour, at Mercat.

Belting out the tunes for talent scouts at the Bong.