Home Again

I did spend time thinking, in the course of the last week, what life would be like if I hadn't left Chicago. What if staying there had been important enough to me 24 years ago, so that I had convinced Ken to come and join me there rather than packing up and joining him in Boston with barely a backwards glance? It was important to me then to leave for so many reasons, and I have no reason to wish away the good life that we have here.

Oh, but I do miss my city. It's a particular pleasure to be able to go back, to rediscover, to cherish a place in a way that I wouldn't have been able to had I stayed. I realized this trip for the first time that really I grew up in a very small town. My neighborhood, Rogers Park, was truly the best of both worlds; a little town of friends and neighbors within the big city. I had a chance to catch up with a handful of people last Friday night -- some of whom I have not seen for 35 years -- and it felt like being with family. We treasure our shared past of growing up near the beach, of knowing each other's families, of going to school together. Danny K. said that he's always willing to do anything for someone from Rogers Park, and I understand exactly what he means. We are connected. Times have changed, the old neighborhood has changed (just a little), but we remain connected in our love of that place.
We packed so much into those few days! Family and friends (though not enough of either), museums, tourist attractions, bus rides, food.
Dean had been looking forward most of all to meeting Noah and Caleb, his cousin Nick's sons.
I've got tons more pictures to go through and post. It was a perfect, if too short, trip, and I think we're all pretty eager to make it again. Maybe I wouldn't love it this much if I had stayed; maybe I'd wish that I'd ventured out and tried something new. I content myself with the knowledge that I am of this place, that the Midwest shaped me in ways that New England can never change. And I still know my way around my city.

Happy

A joyous Easter to you, or happy Sunday, happy Spring, happy Autumn; whatever it is about this day for you, I hope you have cause for happiness and reflection and chocolate.

We head out in a little while to meet Ken's parents, brother, etc., at a restaurant. I'm not fond of holiday meals taken at restaurants, and if you aren't already hip to this let me warn you -- ANY New England restaurant with the word "Publick" in it, or any other Colonial-esque spelling, should be avoided at all costs. I can just see the pewter mugs now. I know you can't tell from this that I am trying not to have a bad attitude, but I am.

We didn't let the lack of our own Easter stop us from coloring eggs, or straining our ears in the night to hear the Easter Bunny. Today the sun is shining, which is a vast improvement over yesterday's rain, rain, rain.

We did manage to get the season opener in, first thing in the morning, though. A valiant effort in cold, windy drizzle.

We'll get 'em next time. It's never a good sign when the opposing team has jerseys with their names on the backs....

Flashback Friday

Great Uncle Joe with his pet monkey. Really. 1945?

Kind of a list

Dean turned 11 yesterday. It's a simple enough thing on the surface; people celebrate birthdays everyday. But how monumental this passage of time is to me, I can barely begin to express.

My computer is struggling to keep afloat with all I've got loaded on it. It's making it hard to do much here, since every time I download photos from my camera I have to wonder if the old girl is going to be able to hang on. Ken promises me we can try to switch machines but there's so much backing up and saving and moving to be done first -- it's like moving house.

I feel very out-of-touch here. I need to get out to all of your blogs, to catch up with what's been happening with you, and figure out what it is that's been happening with me.

We go to Chicago for a few days mid-month, and I've got a list of things to do and people to see that would take a month. I just want to feel the way it feels to be there. Home.

Flashback Friday

My brother Tony, 1962. Wishing him a happy birthday this Sunday.

Flashback Friday

My mom, kneeling/center, with fellow girl scout troop leaders, early 1960s

A somewhat random collection

Our consolation is the longer days, although we still find ourselves a little thrown off to find it still light at nearly 7 p.m. Getting warmer, too.

Friday's movie, thank you Mr. Netflix, was 1776!, a film version of the Pulitzer-winning Broadway musical. I had fond memories of having seen it in 8th grade; that was 1976 and our class did a lot to prepare for our trip to Williamsburg, Mount Vernon, and D.C. in celebration of the bicentennial. It's an odd movie in many ways, and watching it now I'm utterly amazed that the good sisters of St. Ignatius deemed it appropriate for us. Apparently Love American Style was a big influence on the playwright, as a constant presence in the story is the, ah, yearning that our founding fathers had for their wives back home.

Anyway. Dean's very interested in early American history and he thoroughly enjoyed the movie. What makes this worth watching is that so few re-tellings of the days leading up to the writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence (especially those aimed at children) make these key points clear: the Continental Congress was an assortment of primarily wealthy men who wasted a great deal of time on petty matters; that they, as a group, had no clear vision of independence and that about half of them actively opposed it; that it was the unrelenting drive of John Adams that brought the Declaration to the table at all; and that the Civil War was inevitable right from the beginning (political and philosophical division of the north and south, the abolition of slavery given up for the "greater" cause of independence, the sovereignty of the states). The sexual innuendo went over Dean's head as it went over mine when I first saw it. It does take a pretty static situation (roughly the month before July 4, 1776 in congress) and make it a good story. I'm not saying you have to see it (if I did, you'd be cursing me through a few regrettable showtunes, I KNOW you would), but you might want to see it and might want you older kids to see it if they are interested in history.

We got Dean's bike tuned up and road-ready this weekend, and wondered about the economic 'downturn' given that every errand we ran found us surrounded by what seemed to be lots of people shopping. I find myself feeling anxious and uncertain about things, and more than a little freaked out every time we buy something that isn't food.

AH -- big news -- I knew there was something: Caleb was born March 11, the second son of my nephew Nick and his wife Erin.
We're planning to get to Chicago next month to meet him, and his big brother Noah, and reconnect with family. And go to the zoo. And eat decent pizza for a change.

Flashback Friday

My baby's feet, May 1998

And SPEAKING of Liverpool

[Photo courtesy of http://www.uefa.com]

Our man Torres! Scoring against nemesis Real Madrid, bringing our boys up the next step in UEFA Champions League play. Love it. Just wish we could see the matches on our tv at home. Just still wish Dean could meet his hero someday.

Not talking about the time change

It appears that perhaps after 6 months to a year, I'll have had the chance to show you a bit of last October's trip to Disney World. I do not exactly know why everything seems to take so long. As a person who has primarily lived life with a reasonable degree of crispness, it's hard for me to adjust to the idea that really wanting, really needing, really meaning to do something today often means that I might just have a moment to get to it within a month or so. The thank-you notes unwritten, sympathy notes not sent, the quilting, sewing, crafting projects awaiting attention.... I think I don't make lists anymore because of all the time it would take just to document the un-done, not to mention the depression it would instill.

But I take no small amount of comfort in knowing I am not alone, and this is just about the way we live, collectively.

If I had a magic wand, I'd wave it to make Ken's birthday wish come true. In case you were wondering. He turns 50 in August and would like to celebrate his birthday (drumroll, please) at...

...Disney World. The good folks at Disney will need to extend one or another of their special deals in order for us to make this work, and even then it's a bit of a long-shot. Of course we've been talking for a couple of years, really, about the fact that this birthday would be coming up; it has just taken Ken a long time to figure out his heart's desire. It makes me laugh, though, in a good way. I remember when "Paris" was the answer to that question, although perhaps it is best that times have changed since we couldn't make that wish come true right now anyway.

I sound blue, I know, but I don't mean it. Dean had a triumphant return to the soccer season last night with his first practice; his team has a new assistant coach from England who has played the game all his life. Dean was somewhat disappointed that the guy is for Birmingham and not Liverpool, but you can't win them all.

Break

I was remembering this morning that when I used to work with my mom at a glass company (she was secretary to the president, I was in high school and helped out doing things like microfilming records in the summer), 10:30 or 11 was the time that the truck pulled up out front. The truck, unlovingly called 'the garbage truck,' was one of those quilted metal vans out of which are sold hot coffee, donuts, bagels. Cartons of white and chocolate milk. Cigarettes, maybe. Of course there were people who went out every day for a treat, and to smoke. For us it was more of a once-in-a-while, or Because it is Friday kind of a thing. As a denizen of corporate America, I had the convenience of a coffee shop right in the building where I worked. Thinking about it, every job I ever had except for this one had some means of supporting the coffee-break culture, of taking care of the 'I need a treat' feeling.

So here I am at work on a Monday, which is a bit unusual (I don't usually work on Mondays or Fridays; you may think that's 'lucky,' but then that would mean you haven't known me long enough to know that it has been a life's ambition to reverse the "week" and "weekend" schedules and this is as close as I've ever come to realizing that dream). It snowed this morning; not totally unusual, but we're all walking around acting shocked and affronted. It was extra dark, of course, 'thanks' to the time change. What I'd really like is another hot cuppa coffee and an old fashioned donut. There's a very specific type of donut that's called an 'old fashioned' -- it's a very plain cake donut. I'd also like not to be at work, but I'm racking up a lot of extra days to take off this summer so it's not the worst thing. And I really do need to get back to it.

A virtual coffee break, looks like. At least I don't smoke.

Flashback Friday

My dad, Paris, c. 1952

The story of Mr. Penguin and the Road-kill Bunny...

photo by Dean

...or, the wonderful toys handmade for me by Kym, which arrived all the way from Australia. Isn't Mr. Penguin magnificent? Glad he arrived with his own warm, woolly scarf since it's still quite chilly here and odds are that we aren't done with the snow (although that should all make him feel right at home).

photo by Dean

You have just got to love the wonderful sense of humor proven by the creation of a 'road-kill' toy for a pet! We weren't sure, Dean and I, that we were going to let Biscuit have his new toy; not that we're mean or selfish, but he's not been the best doggie to his soft toys in the past.

We took a deep breath, told ourselves that Kym said it was for Biscuit, and introduced them:

And it was love at first bite! I am delighted to say that so far, anyway, Biscuit loves his bunny but has not loved him to death, which is wonderful. Those knots on the ends of bunny's appendages are Biscuit's favorites, and they seem to keep him occupied enough so he doesn't chew up the bunny otherwise. Also, the lack of stuffing is perfect, since Biscuit's general trick is to knock the stuffing out of a toy as quickly as he can.

Thanks again, Kym!!

Flashback Friday

Me, Chicago, springtime, 1963

Yes. Ahem. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

An Open Letter to Kate DiCamillo

Kate;

You disappoint me.

It's not so much that you blatantly stole (blithely borrowed? is that your game?) the underpinning of Hitty: Her First 100 Years by Rachel Field. Come on now, did you really think we wouldn't notice? That we'd get caught up in the Velveteen Rabbit comparisons?

And it's not -- believe me -- that I'm incapable of giving my child exposure to sadness, difficulty, despair. (Go back and read my posts about watching sad movies with him. Go on.) Great literature does cover the course of human experience, human emotion, and I know all that stuff about the inevitable path of a protagonist -- the pain and suffering that leads to redemption. Check.

Spare me.

So really, after trusting you completely based on the triumph that is The Tale of Despereaux, we began reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane without worry or care. Now the irony here (at least I think it's irony -- I know it's not sarcasm) is that I wanted us to start reading Hitty as the new bedtime story. Got it out and everything. But Dean doesn't feel he can trust Rachel Field, after the very difficult part near the ending of Calico Bush (which his teacher recently read to the class). Dean says he'll NEVER read another Rachel Field book again, which is how I now feel about you. So there you go.

[If you are not Kate DiCamillo and you *think* you want to read The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, you might want to stop here -- but I BEG of you NOT to read this book to a child until you've read it yourself and decide that you really want to inflict it on the young.]

Why am I so upset?

Could it be because of the horrific depiction of child abuse at the hands of an alcoholic? Because for a four-year-old girl that abuse/neglect results in her death? That her death comes after the words "she coughed up blood"? And that's after the five-year-old boy who dies by "drowning" thanks to pneumonia. Could it be because every kind, decent person meets cruelty, abuse, torment -- and that no ill befalls any of the evil-doers? The message that nice people are chewed up and spit out by the world while evil people get their way? That you actually have Edward nailed by the ears to a CROSS at one point?

Yeah. Nice bedtime story.

Kate, if this was the story you felt you needed to write, then you and your publisher needed to work together to place this very clearly as an ADULT title. Not a children's book. It pains me to think of how many others will continue to be subjected to this horrific story based on your reputation as a great children's author. No, I honestly do not feel I am over-reacting; I am a student of children's literature, knowledgable about fairytales, the real Brothers Grimm, the long rich history of sad tragic tales told to educate.

You disappoint me.
Jennifer

PS: Consider our partnership, real or imagined, severed permanently, irrevocably. Unless you do something in future to redeem yourself and change my mind. Just a hint -- that probably won't involve selling out the rights to a story and allowing a film to be made that takes virtually nothing to from your original work other than the title.

[I know -- just don't ever get on my bad side.]