Resolved...

Generally speaking, I try to be realistic in my goal-setting. I try not to set the bar too high, because I know that it is better to set goals that can be achieved, rather than intimidate myself out of trying by setting out to accomplish too much. Hence, my New Year's resolutions always tend to be a little boring. Back in 2007, I resolved to floss my teeth every day, and I have managed to maintain that lifestyle change steadily for the past six years. Last year, I resolved to cook more at home, and over 100 new recipes later, I believe I have accomplished that goal and then some!

This year, I'm sticking to a modest set of goals once more:

1. Bake more cookies - I realize this resolution is a little unorthodox. After all, most people resolve to eat healthier and lose weight around this time of year. Meanwhile, I'm looking to increase my output of caloric treats. Here's my rationale: last year, I baked more cakes and made more ice cream than cookies, and when it came time for my yearly Cookie Bonanza, I found that I hadn't tested nearly enough recipes. This year, I plan on getting back into the groove when it comes to cookie baking, so that I will be able to return to my usual lofty standards when it comes time to bake in December.
2. Master Grandma Betsy's caramel recipe - Every year at Christmas, Grandma Betsy makes homemade caramels that are absolutely to die for. They are one of my favorite things about Christmas with the Wyatt family, and they are a taste memory that I will forever associate with my grandma. For the past several years, Grandma has threatened that each additional year will be her last making them, as they are labor-intensive and her health is ever-deteriorating. A couple years ago, she gave me the recipe, along with a list of pointers, in hopes that I would take up the mantle. I genuinely want to preserve this tradition for future generations, but I've also been scared. All I've heard my entire life is how challenging this recipe is, and I've never worked up the nerve to give it a try. Last year, I dipped my toe in the waters of candy-making and emerged unscathed, so I think 2013 is going to be the year for me to put on my big girl panties and master this recipe while Grandma is still around to give me further advice if I need it. Culinarily speaking, there's nothing more tragic than a family recipe that is allowed to die off with its maker, and I refuse to let that happen.
3. Get out more -  Back when I started this blog in 2009, I did so largely to give myself a reason to get out of the house and experience more of what Chicago had to offer. I knew that I couldn't sit on my couch all the time and expect to have anything interesting to write about, so I forced myself to go to more museums, see more sights, and see more theater and movies. Up until we moved in January of last year, I had been pretty good at adhering to that mission, but newly house poor and living far away from downtown has meant that Justin and I have gotten kind of boring in the last year. Though I'll probably never get out and about the way I used to when I was living in the heart of the city and had no house payments, I'd like to try to do better in 2013.

These are resolutions that I firmly believe I can adhere to in the year to come, so stay tuned for updates on my progress...

You Don't Know What You Got Till It's Gone...

Horrible things happen to good people. It is a fact of life, but that doesn't make it any easier when tragedy strikes someone you know. Earlier this week, I got an unexpected phone call from a friend who has never called me in all the time I've known her. I thought maybe she was calling to check on me in my first week of unemployment, but I was wrong. So wrong. I only wish that had been the reason.

She was calling to tell me that the husband of our mutual friend was very sick, and in the hospital. It was Dan, the husband of my former coworker McNulty, for whom we threw that baby shower back in June. Dan, the father of precious little Kiera, who I was so excited to meet back in August. She told me that things didn't look good, and my heart sank.

I told Justin, and he took it harder than I would have expected. You see, Dan and Justin aren't that far apart in age. They were both librarians. Back when I met Dan at the baby shower, I told Justin that I thought he should have come, because I thought he and Dan would have hit it off. They had a lot in common. We held each other a little tighter that night, and hoped that somehow, Dan would pull through.

The next morning, I got an email that Dan had passed away. Diane, the HR director at my old job called me to check on me, because she knew I'd be home alone all day. I was fine, but my heart was broken for my friend. It just didn't seem fair, that two people who had fought for so long to become parents were only given two months to be a family. My heart broke too for Kiera, who would only know her father through the photos and memories passed on by his friends and family.

When Justin got home from work, I hugged him harder than I think I've ever hugged him before. My friend lost the love of her life, the father of her infant daughter, when he was young and in the prime of life. They had no warning, and little time to say goodbye. They thought they had all the time in the world together.

I tell Justin all the time that I want to spend the rest of my life with him, but the reality is, none of us have any idea how long that will actually be. Nobody can predict the future, and though we hope that a lifetime will be a long time, sometimes it is not. I am so incredibly lucky that I have found Justin, and experienced this kind of love in my lifetime.  

It's easy to get caught up in the minutia of our daily lives, but I am choosing to take this tragedy as a reminder not to take a single day that I have with him for granted. Nobody knows how much time they will have, but we can do our best to make that time matter, and to make the most of it. 

Though I didn't know him well, Dan seemed like the kind of person who lived life to the fullest. My heart goes out to everyone who is grieving his loss, especially McNulty and Kiera. Keep them in your thoughts this week, and give an extra hug or kiss to someone that you love, in memory of Dan.

Happy New Year...

Well, for me, this hasn't been the best New Year's on record: I've been sick since Wednesday, and Justin and I decided to forgo any sort of festive celebration in favor of packing and getting ready for our move all weekend. It wasn't the most thrilling course of action, but Justin and I both have three days off of work, which is practically unprecedented given our divergent work schedules, and we felt that it would be the responsible thing to do to use that uninterrupted time to work towards our common goal of getting moved. Last night, we packed non-essential kitchen items, seasonal stuff, cleaned out the storage locker I keep at my current apartment building, and sorted a variety of other materials to figure out what's going with us, and what is staying at my parents' condo. We worked on it until about 11:30, and then had a lone celebratory cocktail to ring in 2012. Exciting stuff.

In a similar vein, my New Year's resolutions are pretty tame as well, and are focused on the new life that Justin and I are building, as opposed to scratching off items from an ambitious to-do list, like last year. In fact, I didn't even make a list this year. Instead, my goals for 2012 are twofold:

1. Finish moving. I dream of the day when all the boxes are moved, unpacked, and all of our belongings are merged, organized, and in their proper place. I want to be done painting, get our light fixtures swapped out, and the handful of carpentry projects completed. I'm looking forward to establishing new routines, and settling into life together. I'm ready for all this upheaval and stress in our lives to be behind us once and for all. I know that household projects never really end once you're a homeowner, but I'd like to have the majority of it finished. It's my single-biggest goal of 2012.
2. Cook more at home. Since Justin and I aren't currently living together, we tend to see each other most often when we are going out to do something, and that means eating out together. Once we're living together, our budget will be more restricted, and there will be a lot of quiet evenings spent together at home, so I resolve to cook more meals from scratch, together. In preparing to move, I've gone through years of back issues of Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Saveur, Everyday Food, and Food and Wine and pinned all the recipes that interested me to Pinterest so I could finally throw them away instead of hauling them all with me. I've got a seemingly endless queue of new recipes to try now, and I hope to make a huge dent in it.

I apologize, dear readers, but I believe my life is about to get a lot less glamorous. There will be less theater-going and more movies, especially movies watched at home on our new couch, via Netflix. All the bustle and activities of downtown will be further away, and more difficult to make time for. These are changes I'm willing to make to take this step with Justin, but the early stages of this new life may not exactly make for the most compelling reading material. Welcome to 2012 -- the year of quiet domesticity!

Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News...

After last week's good news/bad news roundup, I'm happy to report nothing but joyous happenings this week:

After frantically searching for a job the past several months and finding nothing, I received a reprieve from the History Museum. They're not letting me go at the end of the week, as scheduled, but instead, they've signed me on for another year. I'm getting a new supervisor and a new project, which will explore the impact of the Cold War on Chicago history. For now, it seems that the focus will be on people who immigrated to Chicago to escape Eastern Bloc nations and areas afflicted by the Vietnam War, but it will be intriguing to see how the scope of the project changes over time. Given that I spent my undergraduate years focusing on Cold War history, both from foreign relations and pop culture perspectives, this project is right in my wheelhouse and I'm very excited.

In other employment news, Justin has been offered a new, and very interesting part-time job at an architectural and engineering firm, in their company library. He's been going through the interview process there for what seems like an eternity, and I'm ecstatic that things have worked out for him. Congratulations babe!

And finally, Dad finally made good on his 2010 Christmas present to me, which was to schedule a trip to Italy. We'll be flying to Milan on October 19th, and visiting Florence, Bologna, Ravenna, and Venice before returning home on the 30th. It will be intense trying to cram in so much sightseeing into such a short period of time, but I'm looking forward to seeing Renaissance masterpieces, Byzantine mosaics, historic churches, and beautiful cities. I haven't been to Italy since I was about 13, so I'm looking forward to experiencing it as an adult, and sharing it all with you. Make sure to tune in during October!

Luck Be A Lady...

Fate is a fickle beast. Sometimes luck is on our side, but from time to time, the universe deals us a bad hand. Today, I got a little bit of both.

In the realm of good news, I got an email from my favorite food blog, Serious Eats, that I had won their weekly "Cook the Book" contest, wherein they feature recipes from a newly released cook book and give away copies to five lucky readers. It turns out that I've got a copy of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams At Home in the mail, so you loyal followers can look forward to a spate of new ice cream recipes and techniques whenever it arrives. The timing is slightly less than ideal, given that we're headed into fall and winter and the book was sent via media (i.e. super slow) mail and won't arrive for 4-6 weeks, but hey, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

However, I also got a piece of bad news today. Remember that "mysterious illness" that's been plaguing Justin since we got back from St. Louis and that slowed him down during our visit to Starved Rock? Turns out, he has pneumonia. Though the infection is much more serious in the elderly, children, and the chronically ill, he's still going to need antibiotics and plenty of rest over the next few weeks to finally kick this thing. Let's all wish him a speedy recovery, mostly so that he will feel better and back to his old self, but also (selfishly), so I can go back to kissing him!

Tales From The City - Part Five...

There are truly a limitless number of oddities to encounter in the city. Take this little item that I found on the sidewalk today, in the niche formed by an average, unimportant building on Van Buren Street:


It appears to be a fake deputy badge, attached to a mouse trap. If two other passersby hadn't spotted it first and stopped to snap cell phone pictures, I would have walked right by it. Who left it there? Perhaps some kind of street artist? Why not leave something bigger, that would make more of an impact? Also, I'm no expert in mousetraps having never needed to use one, but isn't it loaded? Wouldn't it really hurt if someone stepped on it?

Is it a statement that the police and people in positions of law enforcement are rats? Are they trying to catch magpies by putting something shiny in the trap? The piece is woefully lacking in context. We'll probably never know what the intention is behind it, or what it means. Such is the nature of these absurd little blips on the radar of urban life, but at least they keep things interesting...

One Love...

Today, I was lurking on Pinterest, skimming through all the various photos, projects, and phrases that had inspired others, when I ran across one that hit home with me. The quote was attributed to Bob Marley, though when I tried to do some sleuthing, I came across multiple variations on the same quote, so it's hard to say if he even actually said those words, or how he really said them if he did. In the end though, it doesn't really matter who said them, because I think there's a lot of wisdom behind the sentiment:

He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can. He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break -- his heart. Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.

While I was reading through the various other quotes dubiously attributed to Marley, I also came across another passage on the topic of love that I liked even better than the original that launched my search. Bear with me, as it's kind of a text block, but it's worth reading through the whole thing:

Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colors seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.

Who knew Bob Marley was so (allegedly) wise?

Whether he wrote these words or not, I think they capture my feelings about love perhaps better than I ever could. Not a day goes by that I don't think about how lucky I am to have found Justin, and how happy I am to have him in my life. Things might not always be easy, but they will always be worth it. After all, to quote another famous musician, "All you need is love."

Tales From The City - Part Four...

Near my apartment is a small sculpture park, mainly notable for the proliferation of signs there that ask that people not walk their dogs there to protect the plantings, and for the large number of dogs that can be seen relieving themselves there anyway. In the summer, however, it becomes a favorite outing venue for some manner of day camp, and I often see its children waiting there at the end of the day for their parents to pick them up.

I think the focus of the camp has something to do with creative pursuits, as the children are more often than not occupied in some sort of craft project. Today, when I walked by, I noticed that they had adorned most of my block in sidewalk chalk. Some of the drawings obviously came from the kids, but some appeared to have been created by the counselors, including this one, which was my favorite of all the impromptu art:

I couldn't agree more...

Whatever and Ever...

As you've probably noticed, I haven't felt much like writing lately. It's a combination of the writer's block that afflicts me from time to time, and a general sense of being a bit in the doldrums. Not only have I not felt inspired to write, I've also had little motivation to do anything worth blogging about. I know, I know, I'm missing out on the supposedly best time of year to be living in Chicago, but I'm just not feeling it right now. Until I am, I thought I'd share a little piece of randomness from my daily life with you.

As if this mannequin isn't creepy enough, I enjoy the fact that it's aligned with the portrait behind it so that it looks like it has a tiny, shrunken male head.

This, my friends, is a Schlappi, one of the mannequins used by the museum in our clothing exhibitions. For some reason, they seem to turn up in strange places around the museum, often seemingly abandoned for long periods of time. Randomly running across one, especially when the lights are dim early in the morning, can be a truly unsettling experience. This particular one has been hanging out in our main conference room for a couple of weeks. The fact that it is covered in padding seems to indicate that it was intended for use in an exhibition, but surely it wouldn't have been left out in a public place for so long if it were needed imminently. In fact, it's been sitting there so long that some staff member finally felt emboldened to touch it, and put it into this flamenco-like pose. All it needs are some castanets. Seriously, what is it doing there, and why hasn't someone put it away yet? Such are the mysteries that come with working behind the scenes at a museum...

Fun Fact: The costume department staff stuffs pantyhose with batting and sews extra layers around the breasts and stomach to bring their mannequins into the shape of the woman who originally wore a given garment. Old clothing was usually tailored to fit a specific body, so not only does it not look right if it's hanging off a skinnier, less curvy form, it actually puts additional gravitational stress on the fabric and seams if they aren't properly supported. Originally, our museum used to create custom forms for each piece of clothing they put on display, but they recently decided it would be more efficient to switch to pre-made mannequins and add custom padding as necessary.

Wishy Washy...

I've been more than a little stressed out lately: I ended up taking off work yesterday to dash home and be with my mother for the day when it was discovered that she wasn't supposed to be alone for 24 hours following a hand surgery she was undergoing. Caesar, our dog, is very sick, and needs an echocardiogram. My insurance company and my therapist parted ways, and now I can't afford to see him anymore. I've been trying to plan a visit for Katherine to come to Chicago at the end of the month, but it's been beset by complications at every turn. My lunch bag got stolen. My CTA Chicago Card account got screwed up somehow, and I've been paying out of pocket to get to work for the past five business days while the computer system sorts everything out. Literally, it's been one thing after another, big and small.

However, one thing that never fails to cheer me up is the silly emails that come from the museum's Director of Properties, Jay (he's in charge of facilities management, more or less). Whereas most of my interoffice email is very efficient and businesslike, Jay's emails are usually long, whimsical affairs that require a couple readings to glean their purpose. Jay used to be a priest, so I think he's diverted the energy he once used to address his congregation into sending feel-good messages to the staff here at the museum.

Back in February, when he was emailing us to notify us about building closures during the blizzard, we were privy to the following thoughts:

We value everyone here and wish everyone to be safe during this storm. It is in times like these that Chicagoans really shine in helping each other. I plan on shoveling some older person’s parking space in front of their home just to stick a lawn chair in it and claim it for him or her. Maybe I’ll grab on to a squad-car’s bumper and do some street-skiing. That’s always fun! I hope to look back at this as a crisis averted and maybe gain a silly story to tell. Be safe and stay warm. Thank you!

Then today, I was greeted by the following email in my inbox, which I think is by far the pièce de résistance of his entire body of work:

Spring is here
Although cold dulls the cheer
But hearts fill with love
To the window washers above.

As they gracefully descend
Upon our windows they attend
So if you see one outside your space
Make sure a smile is upon your face.

By helping our museum take in light
We feel they are part of the good fight
But in all efforts to be safe
By all means do not make them wave!

I might still be on edge, and counting down the days until the weekend so I can bury my head in the sand and sleep for a dozen consecutive hours, but Jay's ridiculous poem brought a much-needed smile to my face. I'm a firm believer that we need to look for joy wherever we can find it and then cling to it, and Jay's silly emails are a bottomless source of joy in an otherwise mundane work day. Thanks Jay!

Let Me Upgrade You...

Life is full of less-than-pleasant tasks. Today, I spent nearly $100 rebuilding my pantry after a winter of bean and pasta dishes left me seeing the back of my cabinets for the first time in ages. I also disinfected my freezer's ice tray with bleach because for whatever reason, it is determined to grow mold, even though sub-zero temperatures are supposed to be a deterrent for such things. Such are the necessary evils of adult life that nobody warns you about when you're young and dreaming of all the things you'll do when you grow up.

Yesterday, before I left for my day trip with Justin, I hauled myself out of bed at the ungodly hour of 6:00 on a Saturday morning to make it to one of the few DMV branches in northern Illinois that is open on the weekend to renew my driver's license near its opening time of 7:30. Although a trip to the DMV is never anyone's idea of a good time, I was actually really looking forward to getting a new license, specifically, a new photo. My old picture was a truly heinous affair, the result of the technician telling me to look in the wrong direction when she snapped the photo. I ended up looking some combination of exhausted, stoned, and like I was trying to give a Myspace version of sexy. Not good at all.

As you can see, my new photo is a vast improvement, and it actually looks like me. With the old picture I sometimes got funny looks whenever I got carded, as if the grocery clerk/bartender wasn't entirely convinced that my card wasn't a fake. Now I don't have to worry about people catching a glimpse of my hideous photo whenever I open my wallet. Going to the DMV might be one of the most odious chores around, but this time the necessary evil turned out for the best.

A Whole Lotta Love...

There is nothing better than a man who makes you laugh:

Me: I love you.
Justin: I love you too, lots.
Me: Lots and lots.
Justin: More lots than there are vacant lots in Detroit.
Me: (laughs hysterically)
Justin: I guess I could have come up with a more romantic way to say that...

Resolved...

Everyone makes New Year's resolutions, and most of us are terrible at keeping them. For my part, I'm pretty sure the only New Year's resolution I've ever kept was my 2008 pledge to start flossing my teeth on a nightly basis. Still, regardless of the 4% success rate I've maintained in following through with resolutions in my 25 years of life, I still managed to come up with a pair of New Year's resolutions for 2011:

1. As I was reading through my posts from 2010, I discovered that I didn't try a single new recipe in the last year that wasn't for a dessert item. That means I spent a whole year in a cooking rut, and didn't even notice it. Therefore, I've resolved to start working through the piles of recipes I've cut from magazines and newspapers, and start sifting through all the online recipes I've book-marked over the past few years. Time to get back to experimenting in the kitchen!
2. As soon as the weather improves, I'd like to return to the project I started in August of visiting some of Chicago's most historically and aesthetically significant houses of worship. I want to see the remaining churches on my list, and continue searching for new ones. Chicago is an amazing city, and I want to continue exploring its hidden gems in 2011.

So there you have it folks, in print, for all the world to see. Hopefully with a little outside accountability, I'll be able to follow through this year, and bring up my resolution success rate...

Lovely Weather For A Sleigh Ride...

Since we aren't fortunate enough to do our winter traveling by sleigh this holiday season, we've been driving all over the state of Illinois instead. Today, amid the falling snow, we stopped to put gas in the car when Mom spotted this cute little fellow at the gas station and he brightened our day:

Intelligent Design...

Ever since my visit to the Art Institute with Joy last year, in which Joy shared her infectious enthusiasm for industrial design, I must confess that I have been paying more attention to how the things I encounter in my daily life are designed, and whether their functionality is enhanced or diminished by the aesthetic concerns that went into their making. Which is why, when I spotted an abandoned coffee cup in the sink at work this week, I couldn't help but scratch my head:


I mean, I know this is a novelty promotional mug, but honestly, who looked at a coffee cup and thought, "This container for hot liquids that sits near my computer is too stable. What this needs is wheels to help it move around more easily"? This cup seems like a disaster waiting to happen, and I don't blame its owner for putting it out to pasture in the office kitchen. I'd want it as far from my desk, and my lap, as possible...

Here Comes The Sun...

There used to be a time in my life when the only way I saw the sunrise was if I'd happened to stay up so late that the sun rose before my head hit the pillow. I am not a morning person; in fact, working a job with regular 9-5 hours is basically a constant affront to my natural circadian rhythm. Now that I do regularly glimpse the start of the sun's daily journey across the sky, I frankly can't see what the big deal is. Usually, there's nothing more than few weak rays of yellow and orange light, and I've failed to understand why it's considered so romantic to stay up and watch the sunrise. Give me a vibrant, technicolor sunset any day!

But this morning, I happened to peek out the window at just the right moment, and was rewarded with an ethereal explosion of color over the lake. It's not enough to turn me into a morning person, but it was beautiful enough for me to grab my camera and capture the experience to share:

Good morning Chicago...

Wake Me Up When September Ends...

I was relieved to see the calendar flip over to October today. Although the balance of the past month was productive and positive, September petered out on a bit of a sour note for me. After Monday's boat trip, I found myself worshiping at the porcelain throne, despite having consumed no alcohol at the event (as most of my colleagues did.) Somehow I had acquired either food poisoning or a bout of gastroenteritis, and I was laid up at the condo with it for two days. There are few things quite as miserable of being sick and alone with no one to take care of you. No one brings you Sprite, saltine crackers, or an extra blanket. Living on your own and getting sick makes all those times you were sick as a child seem like a picnic by comparison, and few things can make a grown adult want their mommy more.

Thankfully, I was feeling well enough to go back to work by Thursday, and to go out with Natasha and Mireya for dinner tonight, which was a perfect way to start the month on the right foot. Even though we no longer work together, the three of us have been trying to get together on a semi-regular basis, and keep up with each others' lives. Dinner once a month might not be the same as lunch twice a week, but I am very glad that we have been making the effort to stay friends. Here's hoping the rest of the month is just as full of friends and good cheer...

Bag Lady...

As I've explored in the past, shopping at Macy's makes me feel vaguely dirty. I don't like patronizing the store that bought out my beloved Marshall Field's, but their selection and their sales are hard to beat. However, if there is one thing that drives me crazy above all else when shopping there it is their perpetual shortage of paper shopping bags. Their plastic bags are shoddy and cheap, and likely to break before you even get your purchases out the door of the gargantuan store. Yet they rarely have any paper bags on hand to offer their customers. Well, ladies and gentlemen, on yesterday's shopping trip to Macy's with my mom, we discovered just where all those elusive paper bags have gone:

While the giant paper bag dress was undeniably cool, it was little consolation in light of the rapidly stretching handles of the plastic bag I was holding. Perhaps Macy's needs to focus more on providing tangible customer-service and less on providing eye candy to distract from that lack of service...

Never Forget...

It didn't dawn on me what today was, until I was riding the El to meet Lauren for lunch. At each and every train station, there were police officers with bomb sniffing dogs. At first, I thought, "Is there something going on in the city today? Some dignitary in town?" And then I remembered, today is September 11th. Other than a brief shiver that ran down my spine, I didn't give it much further thought until this evening, when I ran across a block of programs on the History Channel dedicated to that event. Particularly chilling for me was a documentary constructed from amateur footage shot that day by real people, spliced together to create a real-time narrative of the attack and the collapse of the towers.

What struck me, was how many details from that day I'd already allowed to slip from my mind. The papers fluttering through the air; the debris left over from people who had been going about their daily working lives strewn across the ground, interspersed with twisted metal, shards of glass, and covered in a thick grey dust; stunned onlookers wandering zombie-like through the city; all that noxious, black smoke streaming from the buildings before they collapsed. It troubled me that I had to be reminded of all these things.

I can recall exactly where I was on September 11, 2001. It was the start of my junior year of high school. I had first period gym class, and we'd been outside playing tennis, so we hadn't heard the news of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center. I walked into my second period class -- A.P. U.S. History, where the television had been left on by the previous teacher. On the screen was the image of smoke billowing from the World Trade Center. Before I had time to process it, my teacher came in, and turned off the television. I will always remember what he said as he did it: "You can hear about this later. For now, let's get down to the business of history, shall we?"

"Let's get down to the business of history." What could have possibly been more historic than watching the September 11th attacks unfold? Of course, there was no way of knowing their significance at the time. Still, in the days that followed, that flippant remark would echo through my mind over and over.

I don't remember much else about that day. The school was put on lockdown for a long time, and my history teacher tried to deliver some comforting, contextualizing words of solace. I can't remember a single one of them. I can remember sitting in my biology class, the whole class watching the television in horrified silence. Mostly, I remember not knowing if the four planes were the end of the attack, wondering if there were more hijacked planes, and not knowing where they might be headed. I remember being scared for my dad, who works downtown, calling home from a payphone to see where he was, and being completely and utterly relieved that he hadn't gone in to work that day. But that's where the memories stop. Somehow, I got home that day. We probably had dinner together as a family. I know we spent days glued to the television set, watching the coverage on CNN. I can remember that Caesar, a relatively new addition to our family at the time, could sense the tension and sadness in the air, and he stayed close to us that entire week, wanting to be held on our laps.

I knew even then that the world had changed in some fundamental, not yet fully comprehensible way. Over time, those changes have become apparent, from the obvious realities of our ongoing War on Terror and the nightmare that has become air travel, to the small differences, like the knot that forms in the pit of my stomach whenever I see a low-flying plane near the city. I think it is impossible to have lived through and witnessed the events of September 11, 2001 without being altered in some way. Watching the documentary tonight, and reliving those memories made me consider how fresh the wounds of 9/11 still are, even nine years later. Some of the details and nuances may fade, but we will always remember that day.

What kind of feelings does the 9/11 anniversary stir up for you? What do you remember about that day?

Calm Before The Storm...

Summer, or at the very least, summer-like weather, has descended upon the fair city of Chicago. This, my loyal readers, can only mean one thing: it's about to get a whole lot busier around here. There will be art fairs, street festivals, and farmers' markets to write about once again, after a long winter of movie reviews and cookie recipes. I'm sure many of you are relieved. It'll soon be time to leave the cocoon of my apartment and venture forth into the world again.

However, at the moment, I've been having a bit of what Dad likes to term, "a slow news day." Although I have already planned something for every Saturday and Sunday for the rest of May, and several of the days in between, I spent the past weekend relaxing, tidying up my apartment, and relishing a last weekend of blissful indolence before the frenetic pace of summer sets in. It may not be terribly exciting, but I can see the bottom of my hamper and my kitchen sink for once, and considering how busy I'm about to get, it may be the last time I'll be able to say that for a while. So there you have it folks; not much to report for now, but check back in the weeks to come for the more lively posts I have on the agenda for May...