I’m not a do over person, but I’ve never been able to get Mantua out of my mind. We were last here in spring 2009, after the economy crashed and flights got super cheap for a while. It was the first time we didn’t travel in winter and I remember stumbling out from looking at […]
I live with three dudes. Only one of them has intact testicles. There’s the dude I married. (More on him later.) And then there’s Shinto. When we lost our cat Janacek, a sweet old boy remarkable only for his shedding, we went to the shelter looking for a similar cat. We asked the attendant to […]
You may recall from my last post that when HOB and I were in the marvelous Rookery building, he spied a glasses shop. Soon after he made an appointment with an optometrist there, because, as he told me “I think I have a hole in my eye”. And damn it if he didn’t—for real—have a […]
Hey, WOB, how do I find The Rookery in Chicago? Well, dearest reader, you will find The Rookery on LaSalle, between Adams and Quincy. If you’re me—meaning you’re lucky—you can visit on your lunch break. Easy enough just to casually walk by and check it out from across the street. You’re probably going to want […]
Though I’ve lived in Chicago since 1994, this was the first time I’ve visited the Brighton Park neighborhood. I was not expecting Parisian Novelty. This is where we jumped off the bus, 17 miles south of our neighborhood, Rogers Park. The Parisian Novelty Company dates from 1898 and—back in the day—made trendy celluloid cases and […]
At my goodbye party at my former museum job, I was presented with two official gifts “to thank you for your years of service”: 1: A gorgeous artist-designed bag, which once I pulled out of layers of fluffy tissue paper, I was told I couldn’t actually keep, but I would receive later by mail (I […]
One of the reasons I like to walk great distances through new cities is to experience the zoning and density. (You thought I was going to say I do this for snacking opportunities, didn’t you?) We weren’t in Toronto long, but we got around, and I was continually impressed by how well Toronto does density. […]
Actually, we didn’t try the poutine. Yeah, I am the lady who always tries the local foods but… …it just looks regurgitated. Oh, did I mention we just came back from a flash trip to Toronto? I mean, what would make sense with me about to start a new job is that that I would […]
At work I was known as a lifer. Museum work is exciting and I was living the dream of being in the center of the multi-disciplinary art world. I sought cultural capital, and for almost 25 years, I found it. A few months ago I walked out of meeting and said to myself “You’re not […]
In the late 90’s I worked at the Art Institute of Chicago for a few months. I was hired to work a variety of visitor services roles but was never actually trained for them: the AIC just dropped me off in the coat check and the other staff showed me what to do. Everything we […]
Picnic at the Cathedral 