Chicago's Museum of Science & Industry

Many of Chicago's museums are offering free admission this month.  With only a half day of school on Friday the girls were up for an adventure to the Chicago Museum of Science & Industry.

It is IMMENSE.  With a train and a 747 in the lobby the museum manages to make you feel small in the face of science and yet awed at the power of exploration and discovery.  The sensory onslaught was a bit tiring for the wee ones, but Jason and I could have explored all day.  If you go, don't miss the weather exhibit or the body exhibit.  You can watch your heart beat or make a tornado.

Mustard's Last Stand

How do you order a hot dog in Chicago?

With EVERYTHING but the KETCHUP

Two blocks from our house, across from Northwestern's Ryan Field, stands a little hut that has proudly served Chicago style hot dogs for over forty years.

You can order a hot dog.

A polish sausage.

French Fries.

 Even ice cream.

 But don't even think about putting ketchup on that dog.

Consider the following interview with the grillman at Mustard's last stand. 

It is posted on the wall above the bar stools.

Though 80% of people in Evanston put ketchup on their dogs it is "sacrilegious" and "un-American."

But these guys don't seem too concerned.

They even invited Eleanor behind the counter to make a dog.

I think she has a future.

Have a hot dog.  Put some mustard on it.  

After all...

Nature Kicked Her Clothes Off

"It was a cold still afternoon with a hard steely sky overhead, when he slipped out of the warm parlour into the open air. The country lay bare and entirely leafless around him, and he thought that he had never seen so far and so intimately into the insides of things as on that winter day when Nature was deep in her annual slumber and seemed to have kicked the clothes off. Copses, dells, quarries and all hidden places, which had been mysterious mines for exploration in leafy summer, now exposed themselves and their secrets pathetically, and seemed to ask him to overlook their shabby poverty for a while, till they could riot in rich masquerade as before, and trick and entice him with the old deceptions. It was pitiful in a way, and yet cheering-- even exhilarating. He was glad that he liked the country undecorated, hard, and stripped of its finery. He had got down to the bare bones of it, and they were fine and strong and simple. He did not want the warm clover and the play of seeding grasses; the screens of quickset, the billowy drapery of beech and elm seemed best away; and with great cheerfulness of spirit he pushed on towards the Wild Wood, which lay before him low and threatening, like a black reef in some still southern sea. - Chapter 3 "The Wild Wood" The Wind in the Willows




This week Eleanor and I began reading The Wind in the Willows.  Where has this book been all my life?!?  It is beautiful, enticing, creative, and funny.  Sometimes I want to swirl the words around in my mouth, reread them, taste them, and then run outside to experience nature in the way that Kenneth Grahame sees it.  Consider the above passage, Mole's description of a winter day as he embarks on a journey into the Wild Wood to meet Badger.  Who knew the bare bones of winter could be so mysterious, so beautiful, and so enticing?  I think I, too, may go take a walk in the woods.

Another Year - a Mike Leigh film

Last week I saw Black Swan.  Today I went to see No Strings Attached.  I guess I thought I’d ride the cultural wave and see another Natalie Portman movie, maybe blog a little about our culture’s view of sex, and take in a little lighter entertainment than Black Swan.  But, after 15 minutes of No Strings Attached I couldn’t stomach it anymore and decided I needed a little more brain food for my precious few hours alone escaping house chores.  There is plenty to digest and talk about in regards to Black Swan, but this post is not about Black Swan.  I’m sure most of you have already seen it or at least had a passing conversation about it, so since I still have your attention I thought I’d leave you with a few thoughts about another movie you might not have noticed.  

After slipping out of No Strings Attached, I popped in another film, across the concession stand in Evanston’s Art Cinema, called Another Year.  Sometimes art is powerful but not necessarily comforting, entertaining, or relaxing to watch.  Good art is not just a mere copying of reality but is an interpretation of reality that makes the viewer see, feel, or understand something about creation in a new or deeper way.  Such is the case with Another Year, a film by Mike Leigh (Oscar nominated director of Secrets & Lies 1997).  The movie moves at a very slow pace, taking time to develop characters that capture your attention and move you to care about their lives.  Like a painting that leaves a powerful emotion more than a plot, this movie crafts characters that leave a deeper understanding of human loneliness and our deep need to be needed.

The story centers around an aging couple, Tom & Gerri, who have a deeply content marriage sharing simple things such as their garden, their cooking, reading, their son, and being a place of refuge for their friends and family.  But the more poignant character is that of Mary, a profoundly lonely middle age woman who works with Gerri.  She desperately is seeking hope and connection and yet is so trapped in herself and her own loneliness that her life spirals inward into a frenetic and painful sadness.  

The acting in this movie is superb.  After taking an improv class last fall I have a greater appreciation for learning the skills of subtly communicating emotion while being aware of your fellow players.  Part of the genius of this movie is watching the actors respond to one another with a connection that is subtle yet so in tune to one another’s emotions.  As a warning, the film does move slowly.  You have to sink into it like a big soft sofa and just relax.  Don’t expect the grand drama of Black Swan, the rollicking plot that keeps you on the edge of your seat.  But if you hang with this movie you will be rewarded with rich characters that realistically reflect real human beings and the pain we all feel in our desire to connect with one another and have real community.  As the Boston Globe put it "there is a little bit of Mary in all of us" (read the Boston Globe's critique HERE ).  It will make you want to hug the people in your life and be thankful for them.  It will make you want to seek the grace to be a better friend, wife, husband, sister, son, or friend of the lonely.  And it might even make you want to plant a garden...

-3 Degrees

With a nudge and a groggy "What time is it?," I roll over under our cozy down comforter.  Jason slides his finger across his IPhone screen.  "Time to get up," he replies, "and it is -3 right now with a windchill of -19 degrees Fahrenheit." 


NEGATIVE NINETEEN WINDCHILL.


What does that mean?  Who decides what it really feels like out there?


According to Wikepedia it means this:


"The human body loses heat largely by evaporation. The rate of heat loss by a surface depends on the wind speed above that surface: the faster the wind speed, the more readily the surface cools.  Thus, the attempt to maintain a given surface temperature in an environment of faster heat loss results in both the perception of lower temperatures and an actual greater heat loss increasing the risk of adverse effects such as frostbite and death."  


What does 'the perception' of a  -19 windchill feel like?  It feels like the hairs on the inside of my nose are standing up tall and rigid. They create a strange prickly sensation as I walk out my front door.  It feels like it is too cold to walk the dog because his paws would freeze.  It feels like my big toe is having its own little fireworks party of tingling sparks deep inside my wool sock.  It feels like...


HOW DID THE THIRD LARGEST CITY IN THE UNITED STATES GROW UP IN THE ARTIC?????  I mean, L.A., I get it.  It's sunny.  You can grow oranges and wear cute flip flops.  Sure the world would flock there.  And New York.  It's where the boats landed, right?  Maybe people were just tired of traveling.  But Chicago?  People had to travel here, build houses here, stay here even before there was central heat.  Maybe they ate a lot of hot dogs with mustard and deep dish pizza.  Maybe that's why the politics got a little corrupt. Folks were just feeling a little grumpy about their cracking skin and hat heads. And maybe that's why Saturday Night Live keeps hitting up Chicago's Second City for some of the nation's best improv comedians.  If you're going to be freezing cold you might as well find somewhere warm to go and laugh about it.

Climbing High

We finally joined a gym 

that happens to have a three story climbing wall

upon which  Rynn climbed to THE TOP

on her first try.

 When I tucked her into bed that night I asked her,

"Were you scared being that high?."

She replied,

"Why would I be scared?  Daddy was holding me."

Climbing high without fear trusting in her father's love and care.

A spiritual lesson in there somewhere??

Eleanor took to the wall with great courage too.

Her favorite part?  

Swinging on the way down.

 My favorite part?  

Watching the proud bravado of some young guys (pictured below) be quickly silenced by a seven year old girl scampering to the top.

Awesome.

Ice Skating in the Big City

Today Jason and I go ice skating.

We buy skates.

We take the skates for coffee at Intelligentsia.

 We take pictures of the Bean because, well, it is becoming a habit.

We wait for the ice rink to open.

 And we skate!

A bit wobbly at first...

we soon gain our confidence.

 Thank you, Kate & Phil, for telling us about the FREE skating at Millennium Park.  What fun!

After a little skating we need some hot chocolate, so we go to our favorite place for FREE hot chocolate...

  The Member's Lounge at the Art Institute of Chicago.

 Jason creates a super yummy drink.

hot chocolate + 1 mint tea bag= peppermint hot chocolate

 and by the way... if you live in Chicago... make your journey to the Art Institute this month.  Admission is FREE for ANYONE weekdays only for the rest of the month of January.  Wow!

 Jason has so much fun on his new skates that he decides to take a spin on our neighborhood ice rink at Gillson Park.

No lines.

No people.

No rentals.

Five blocks from our house.

Jason practices his triple axel on hockey skates while the crowd goes wild.