This is my 2nd visit to the Windy City with the Indianapolis Museum of Art Volunteers and Docents. As a lowly volunteer, I was delighted at yet another opportunity. I invited my co-worker Barb to come as my guest, and we had a great day away from the office.
We went to the Chicago Art Institute to see the Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper exhibits on display. It was really awesome. Now, I’ve been a fan of Hopper since my college days. I like the simplicity of his style and the pensive mood that some of his pieces create. But I didn’t know much about Winslow Homer, and yet, I also enjoyed his work, too. He primarily painted in watercolors, and I was struck with the precision and skill it must have taken to paint in such detail as he did using only watercolors.
We also toured through the Impressionist galleries, where I tried to take digital shots of each and every Renoir, Monet and Seurat on display. I also thoroughly enjoyed the Thorne Miniature Rooms in the lower level of the museum. I even bought a book about the rooms to review them in more detail. Very impressive stuff!
After our tours, we headed out doors (in the rain – see my Monet umbrella) for some lunch and a bit of sight seeing. We walked a bit through Millennium Park. I loved the fountains and the fascinating bean. Love the bean!! We then took a cab (see previous post) and went up Michigan Avenue for some shopping. I wanted to check out Crate & Barrel, Chicago style.
I still need to plan a full weekend trip there to really see all the sights, enjoy the riverboat architectural tour, walk along the lakeshore, see Navy Pier, visit the other museums, take in some special cuisine, do some city shopping, etc. Yes, I need to make a point about returning to Chicago and getting to know the city better. All in good time and as money allows, I guess.
**UPDATE: I failed to mention where I got the fabulous Monet umbrella I am toting in the photograph. It was a bday present from my beloved sister. Isn't she just the best?** Sis, was that subtle enough?
How I have made it to 34 years old and have never ridden in a cab before is a mystery! Well, it’s not really a mystery--I never needed to take a taxi until yesterday. I was in Chicago with my friend and co-worker Barb. She suggested that since it was raining we could hop in a cab or take a bus to get around downtown instead of wading through the puddles.
I said, “Well, you know I’ve never ridden in a cab before.”
She gasped and went to the curb and got us a cab. “My treat,” she said laughing.
So I have officially ridden in a cab now...a downtown Chicago taxi to be exact. It was not quite as thrilling as I thought it would be, but it was another FIRST for me, and something I can now check off my list of things to do. HA! WOOHOO!!
I've had my AT&T U-Verse service for a week now, and I am loving it. I have far too many cable channels. I've been so busy (and addicted to Facebook) that I think I finally made it through the whole round of them just today. HA! If you don't have HD, you don't know what you are missing. It's just incredible!
I had to have a service guy out again today to check things out because I've been losing my internet connection when I am on my phone. Turns out it is actually something to do with my 2.4 GHz phone. WHO KNEW?? So, I'll probably be investing in a new phone for my place.
Anyway, the same cable guy that was here last week was back again today. His name is Jonathan, and it was like having a friend back for a visit or something. Is that weird? I love how I can make more conversation with a perfect stranger than I can with some people I have known for years.
Anyway, last weekend he had asked me about my weekend plans. You know, just making conversation while he was hanging out at my place for 3 hours doing the U-verse installation. Well, I had told him my friend Lisa was coming for a visit. So this week, he asked me how my last weekend was with my friend.
NEWSFLASH: He's attentive, friendly, funny and HE LISTENS.
Don't get your hopes up here, people. I think he's taken. And truly, I just think he is the kind of guy that can walk into a room and make friends with anyone there. He's THAT guy.
Oh well! It was still one of the best random conversations I've had in a while, and it made me smile.
The guys came and installed it on Friday afternoon. I'm loving it thus far. Far too many channels, and so I find myself just madly flipping through. I'd really be stuck if I didn't have a handy dandy guide to get me through. HA! The music channels are in the 5000 channel range. What the heck!! No, I don't have 5,000 channels. I only have 260...so I didn't get too carried away. But 260 does give me plenty of channels to enjoy and keep up on my cultural research.
I also got high speed internet on the same plan, which is wonderful. I've missed not having access at home. It's about time I got on Facebook and joined the rest of the world again.
Anyway, Lisa O. arrived for a weekend visit soon after the 2 AT&T guys left my place. I told her that she had just missed a most rare occurrence. Had she arrived 5 minutes earlier, she would have caught me home alone with 2 men in my apartment. Can't say that THAT has ever happened before! [sigh!]
I played an hour of tennis last night with my friend Becky. It was my first time swinging a racket in 12+ years. It was a lot of fun and a tremendous workout. Neither of us are headed to Wimbledon or the U.S. Open, but we both had some fun chasing the balls and trying to get some serious volleys going.
I woke up this morning with a strange malady however: "tennis heel." No, I didn't get tennis elbow or even tennis knee. I wound up with tennis heel. I could barely get out of bed to make it to the phone, call into work, down an Aleve and waddle back to bed for an hour. An hour later, my alarm went off again, and I was feeling much better and well enough to come into work for sure.
Weird things like this always happen to my sister and I -- like the time she fractured her ankle just walking on the sidewalk. It is not only medical oddities...it's other stuff too like boiling eggs without water or getting melted plastic transferred from your curling iron to your bangs.
In our defense, my sister and I usually say: "It could happen to anyone." But her husband, Jonathan, usually replies, "Yeah. Especially if you are a Bennett sister." No, Bennett is not my last name, but you get the drift. I've changed my name to protect the innocent. So maybe we aren't normal...but then what is normal?
My parents and my Mom’s siblings have put my Grandma’s house and property and most of the contents up for sale at an upcoming auction later this spring, and for some reason it has me a bit sentimental. I don’t usually get all that sentimental about my Grandma. She is a wonderful woman, and I love her dearly, but I don’t get warm and fuzzy feelings about my Grandma. To me, my Grandma stands for strength and resilience.
My Grandma has always been a strong woman. She grew up in the depression era on a dairy farm in southern Illinois, moved to Michigan with a cousin and worked in an auto plant where she met and married her first love – only to lose him to World War II, raised her 2 young girls on her own until she remarried a few years later, farmed 14 acres with her 2nd husband, raised chickens, canned and froze thousands of fruits and vegetables, quilted numerous quilts, made clothes by hand and machine, taught junior church for 40+ years, and survived her 2 subsequent husbands on the farm. My Grandma is no shrinking violet!
When I think of my Grandma, I always think of her doing something. She didn’t want to sit idle. Whether it was canning creamed corn (which was always wonderful when Grandma made it), making rhubarb jam, hoeing for hours out in her garden or shelling nuts in the basement, I never saw much of my Grandma just sitting. She’d make wonderful homemade meals like real fried chicken with mashed potatoes and homemade gravy, fresh green beans and corn on the cob, tomatoes and pickles, etc. There was always plenty at Grandma’s house.
My Grandma was a story teller and always had something to share. Her stories always started out on 1 topic but wound around into a jumbled set of 5 or more other stories. She’d get sidetracked and tell us something else about what she picked up at the market or who she ran into in town, and I recall my Mom always gently guiding her back to the topic at hand. Sometimes, she would tell a story with a new twist from what we’d heard before, and we’d quiz our Mom about it on the drive home. .
As I think about going back to Grandma’s house, I think of my hours spent roaming her “woods.” It seemed like the woods to me, but it was really just her side and back yards complete with some tall trees and long grass. I’d meander along with my thoughts, talking to myself or making up adventures as I explored her property. When we would stay the night at Grandma's, my Mom and Grandma would open up the sleeper sofa and start making up the bed for my sister and I. We’d jump into bed and say our goodnights. I’d always try to stay awake so I could hear what my Grandma, Mom and Dad were discussing in the kitchen away from our little ears. I knew it was a juicy story or something I would want to know, but somehow, sleep would always win out, and before I knew it, it would be morning, and I’d hear Grandma busy making breakfast in the kitchen.
Our visits to Grandma’s house were always hours longer than expected. My Dad would send us out to the car when it was time to go, but we wouldn’t be able to leave right away. Grandma would want to send us home with a packed car full of fresh green beans from her garden, canned peaches and pears from her basement stockpile, or something else she just had to share. She was very generous. Then as my Dad would start the car, my Grandma would think of thirty more things she had to tell my Mom. We’d pull away and start waving from the backseat, and I’d often catch a glint of a tear in my Grandma’s eye. She was a strong woman, but she didn’t like goodbyes.
For the last couple of years, as a result of several strokes, my 92-year-old Grandma doesn’t do much except sit in her chair in my parents’ living room. She gets around slowly with the use of her walker, and for the most part, she responds to yes and no questions without much more interaction. There are occasions when you can catch a flicker of the woman beneath the strokes, like when she laughs at something one of us has said or when she plays with her great grandchildren. But for the most part, the active, talkative, generous woman of my childhood is gone.
It's hard to grow old. It's hard on everyone. Hard on the person who is losing their health, strength and faculties; and hard on the family members who are just standing by, wanting to help but not always sure what they can do. I don't like it, but it's part of growing up, I guess. Realizing how precious every moment is.
On a whim, this morning, I clicked the button to see more than my trip mileage, which I watch neurotically since I don't want to ever run out of gas. I knew I was approaching 100,000 miles, but it had been a month or two since I checked. Today, I wanted to see how many actual miles were on my car altogether, and would you believe it, my car was at 99,999. I laughed out loud. How cool is that! I got to watch my car turn over to 100,000 and beyond. It was a special moment between car and human...
I told Maddy [aka Madison--and yes my car is a SHE!] Happy Birthday of course and giggled to myself. She actually had her 7th birthday in January, but I think we should celebrate this milestone as well. It's a pretty big deal.
So now, it's time to get her 100,000 Honda check-up. WOOHOO!!!
I usually don’t mind winter…I really don’t, but this year it has been irritating. This year there have been 1-2 days every week where driving is treacherous, and I don’t recall that in years past. I think it’s normal to have 1 or 2 days a month where you have to be extra careful on your drive to and from work, but not 1-2 days every week. That’s annoying!
And it’s not as if we are getting buckets of snow dumped on us all at once. I wouldn’t mind that if it all came at once and kept me home for a couple of days, but these little storms are mixed with sleet, ice and rain and that is where the problems come in. We’ll get 1-2 inches of snow on top of the ice one day, and then the next day, the temps will rise and the slush begins only to refreeze overnight before we get another inch or two of snow and the whole thing starts over again... And so the commute to and from the office has become more of an adventure. HA!
Then there are the potholes creeping up all over the city. It’s horrible. I feel like some roads are war zones. I know that spring is just going to mean more potholes, but I am still more than ready for some milder weather on a regular basis. Plus, I'm ready for spring blooms...
On Saturday evening as planned, Becky and I met up for dinner at Macaroni Grill, browsed through the digital cameras at Office Depot (since both of us are digital camera shopping before our England trip) and then headed to the Second Presbyterian Church for the performance of Guiseppe Verdi’s Requiem.
We had no idea just how many people would be there. It was truly a packed house, and we were a few minutes early--not early by our standards since both Becky and I like to be really early for things, but still early by the average person’s standards, and yet it was pretty much standing room only. We finally found 2 seats in the last row, and this row was one of two pews right outside the sanctuary, and so as you sit there, you are literally facing a glass window and seeing everybody else inside. I joked about it feeling like we were right at St. Peter’s Gate in Heaven, and the gates just shut in front of us. We were almost in but not quite.
This was my 2nd visit to this incredible church building, and I still found it as beautiful as before. It has the air of a European Cathedral with its massive timber beans and stone columns, and of course, it is also known as the church where Ryan White’s funeral was held. I was sad that Becky wasn’t going to get to sit inside the sanctuary, but all that was about to change.
An usher came by and said that there was room in the front row of the sanctuary. Becky and I decided to chance it; although I did threaten her that if we walked down this massive aisle and still didn’t find a seat that I would die of embarrassment if we had to walk back up the aisle in front of all those faces. But that didn’t happen.
We got seats smack dab in the middle of the front row, and I mean these seats were the closest you could get. I’ve never sat so close to anything in my life. The IU Philharmonic Orchestra was right there in front of us. I could have reached out and touched the cellist’s bow. It felt like the 4 soloists were practically singing to us in our own private performance. We could see everything. The bass soloist was wearing black cowboy boots with his tuxedo, and I found that amusing and indicative of his personality. I could see the sweat glistening on the conductor’s head as he waved his arms above us. We were pretty darn close.
I leaned over to Becky and told her that this scenario gave new meaning to that verse in the Bible about how the first shall be the last, and the last shall be first...
The concert itself was spectacular. The message and music of Verdi’s Requiem was meaningful and inspiring. It was very moving as the oratorio choir and the soloists sang about asking for GOD’s mercy to spare them and those that have gone before. It was a stirring testament to the holiness of GOD.
And yet as we sat there mesmerized by the lilting refrain, I couldn’t help but wonder if the meaning of the words was caught by those singing it. Did they know about WHOM they were singing? Did they catch the deeper significance in the Latin? Or was it just a beautiful piece of classical music to them? It meant something to me, but I wondered if it meant anything to the melodic voices singing HIS praises. These voices that HE made, this talent that HE blessed them with, singing the music that HE inspired…
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus.
Hosanna in excelsis!
I’ve caught myself focusing far too much lately on the not so blissful moments of being a singleton--usually when I just need to cuddle and my plants don’t seem interested or when I watch a chic flick and start crying because I suddenly start to feel lonely even though 5 minutes earlier I was thrilled to have no one to fight for the remote with. Now granted, most of these moments are, upon reflection, either during my monthly cycle or around my birthday or Christmas. It seems like those are the occasions where I tend to focus more on what I don’t have.
But today is NOT one of those days. Today I’m just happy. It could have something to do with my copious amounts of ice cream (the Founder’s Favorite at Cold Stone Creamery) after lunch. Yep, I’m feeling pretty good right about now. Or maybe because it’s Friday and sleeping in sounds like a wonderful dream about to come true tomorrow. Or maybe I’m just delighted because it is pay day. But for whatever reason, I’m having a good moment just now, and I’m planning to enjoy it.
I am going to explore Blockbuster on my way home and rent some new DVDs. One perk of being single is that I don’t need to consult a husband or significant other on what to select. My plants don’t seem to have a preference, and they just might enjoy that new vampire movie. I know I’m looking forward to it.
And then as a rather last minute whim, I read about a performance of Verdi’s Requiem for tomorrow evening, and so I emailed Becky, and now we’re planning to catch some dinner and go. I don’t know anything about Verdi or his Requiem, but I’m in the mood for some culture, and FREE culture is always desirable. Truth is that I couldn’t so easily make these last minute adventures if I were married.
Now I’m not sharing these singleton perks to make any of my married friends jealous. I’m really not. I’m posting this so that on one of those blue days when I’m feeling a twinge of sadness about my marital state, I can re-read this post and remember that I don’t have it all that bad. In fact, it’s pretty good...
This is my 2nd visit to the Windy City with the Indianapolis Museum of Art Volunteers and Docents. As a lowly volunteer, I was delighted at yet another opportunity. I invited my co-worker Barb to come as my guest, and we had a great day away from the office.