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WEDDED BLISS The Newsletter for Michael and Rochelle's Marriage Volume III, Number 5 -- October 25, 2000 Table of Contents: Windy City Binge Michael's Vacation Warm-up The Leather Jacket Challenge Married Couple's Date Vote! Bonus Political Rant   Windy City Binge At long last, our trip to Chicago is at hand. As we mentioned in earlier newsletters, we're in Chicago to eat, and eat hard. Here's the schedule Rochelle put together for us: Day Lunch Dinner ---- ------------------------- --------------------------- Sat United Air. (queasy-ine) Ambria (French) Sun Mas (Latin Am.) Aruns (Thai) Mon mk (fusion) _surprise_ Tue Tre Kronor (Swedish) Charlie Trotter's (sublime) Wed Lula Cafe (fusion) Topolobampo (interior Mex.) Thu _in negotiations_ Saussy (Amer./Asian) Fri Nine (Am. regional) OneSixtyBlue (Am. regional) Sat Bongo Room (fusion) United Air. (again) Michael's brother, who lived in Chicago for many years, is arranging dinner for us on Monday night, and promises a Chicago classic. On Thursday we were going to eat lunch at Tru, but they are closed for lunch during the period we're in town. We're going to be embarrassing about the number of photos we take of the food we're eating. And unlike our Italy trip, where we still haven't gotten around to uploading most of the food images, we're going to be uploading and documenting our entire trip online as we go. That's right, each day we'll upload the previous days' food and other events, and provide the semi-rambling commentary you've come to expect from us. We hope you'll follow along with us on our trip, by viewing the following page regularly: http://www.michaelandrochellessite.com/photos/chicago/viewer.html?TopicID=chicago We promise not to taunt you too much. ;-)   Michael's Vacation Warm-up After our last trip, we decided that all future vacations or getaways had to include Michael taking off at least two days beforehand to relax. He has this tendency to loll about in a slug-like manner while muttering "No, no, I'm on vacation" whenever Rochelle starts telling him all the fun things she has planned for them to do. So after looking at the above food schedule, and knowing his wife, Michael decided to take off a entire week before the Chicago vacation. So, what is he doing? Not much, from all appearances. He says he's working on a cool new web site, but he said that over the Labor Day weekend, too, and nothing came of that. Rochelle thinks he's just goofing off. [ Editor's note: I have a list of 22 things I am trying to get done during my vacation warm-up. So far, 11 of them are done, including this newsletter. And a bunch of the others are small, so I'll get most of them done. Still, it's not looking good for any of the big items still on the list...especially that cool new web site. ]   The Leather Jacket Challenge So I wanted a new leather jacket for the winter. Michael said I shouldn't buy one at my new "married weight," since he was sure we were both going to shed some pounds soon. So I said, hey, how about I try to lose weight for a month and then get a jacket that fits. Michael said, but how do I know you've really tried to lose weight? OK, I have to lose a certain amount of weight to get the leather jacket. To which Michael says, if there's a prize for losing weight, I want in on that! From there, we started making up the rules, and generally lusting after leather jackets. Michael, the ever-rational one, came up with the formal rules for our contest. The Ground Rules Official weigh-in, naked, dry, pre-breakfast, post- constitutional on 10/1. Routine ends on 10/28, the day we leave for Chicago (4 weeks total). Final weigh-in under same conditions as official weigh-in. A minimum loss of 5% of body weight is required to qualify for a jacket, e.g., 10 pounds for a 200 pound person, 7.5 pounds for a 150 pound person. (Those are fictitious weights, barely.) No food or calorie-bearing drink after 8:00pm. No alcohol. Aerobic exercise for 30 minutes 3 times a week. (Note that fat-burning only starts after your heart rate is up for 20 minutes, so more minutes are good.) You can "buy" a day of bad behavior by exercising 1 extra day. This means we can be bad up to four days a week, if we're exercising every day. Base reward coat budget is $250; you get an extra $25 for every extra 1% of weight loss. We can "save" the reward, and increase it, by continuing to lose weight after 10/28, but the weigh-in does not "reset" after our vacation. In other words, if you lose 6%, but the coat you want is more than $275, say $325, you'll have to burn off the vacation weight PLUS an additional 2% of the official weigh-in weight. Weigh-ins once a week, and we chart everything on the whiteboard, in the parlor, so our friends can motivate (or make fun of) us. With less than 2 days to our final weigh-in, the outcome for both of us is extremely questionable. We're thinking of suspending #3 and making #9 permanent, extending the deadline indefinitely. Of course, we're getting really tired of not having a beer or two on occasion, so we may just give in to our inner fat persons, and scrap the whole thing. We're not sure whether we'll get a leather jacket or not, if that happens.   Married Couple's Date We recently had a married couple's date. You know, the kind where you go to a home improvement store, fantasize, then go home, order takeout, and eat it in front of the TV while watching a video? In this case, Rochelle got the home improvement itch ("Our house is a HELL hole"), and made an appointment with IKEA to go and have one of their kitchen consultants make some basic design recommendations. What fun! We took in our measurements, talked a bit, and then the consultant (who looked about 14) went to work putting together scale drawings on some groovy custom CAD software. When she was done, she started dropping in cabinets and new appliances, moving them around, and talking about the different possibilities. When she was done, we had what feels like a terrific improvement for our home, one that makes us drool every time we look at the drawings. It will be years before we can actually afford to do it, (have you seen Gap or Be stock recently?), but it was fun to dream...   Vote! We wanted to take a moment and be serious, and remind everyone receiving this newsletter to vote in the upcoming election, now less than two weeks away. We specifically want to remind you of this year's unusual election day schedule: November 7th: Those voting for Al Gore November 8th: Those voting for anyone else In all seriousness, this year's important. Go vote!   Bonus Political Rant If you've looked into him at all, you know that until about the age of 40, George Bush, Jr. (Junior hereafter) was basically a dilettante who had never held a job of any kind. He was the family problem: "What are we going to do about George?" Junior is not qualified to be President of the United States. He is an intellectual lightweight and an inexperienced puppy compared to his opposition. You might not like Al Gore, but at least he has the chops and experience to be the leader of the free world. Ask yourself, do you really want Junior holding the nuclear football if we have another Cuban Missile Crisis? We've read a lot about "undecided" voters. How can you be undecided? OK, so maybe you're not excited about either candidate, but you should have no difficulty seeing why one of them will better represent your interests. Especially if you're a woman, socially progressive, care about the environment, or understand that a technology-savvy President is badly needed during a time when technology is creating so much turbulence in our lives, our economy, our society. In spite of some recent volatility and slight slowing of growth, the economy has never been stronger than it is today. Contrast that with where the economy was before the Democrats took office in 1992. For the past eight years, the overall crime rate has dropped. Junior has talked about "breaking the gridlock." Well, that so-called "gridlock" has given us 8 fabulous years. We think "gridlock," where neither party can railroad change through Congress and into law, means the government does less, and stays out of the way. It's a Good Thing. A quick word about the alternative candidates. A vote for Nader, or any of the alternative candidates, is a vote for Bush. With the election this tight (even here in California), do you want to vote for an alternative candidate to "send a message" to the current mainstream political parties? Is it worth the likely cost of putting an incompetent boob in the White House? Think before you vote. And remember, Election Day is November 7th if you're voting for Gore, and November 8th if you're voting for Bush.