Happy Halloween

A Visit to Sunshine

This afternoon we got a small glimpse of love in action

 during an Open House visit to

Sunshine Gospel Ministries

in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago.

They opened their doors for friends to come 

and see how the grace of God 

and a little vision 

can begin to transform a community.

Sprinkles and Nuts

Chicago by L: The Loop

So, what does it mean anyway?  The Loop.  During my first year in Chicago I heard people make comments all the time like,
"Do you work in the Loop?"

"Is it in the Loop?"

"Oh, I used to live in the Loop."

"Have you tried that restaurant?  It is in the Loop."

Like any good Southerner I sort of assumed that "the Loop" meant some large interstate that circled the city (I know, go ahead and laugh you Chicago aficionados).  Wrong.  To the eyes of an out of towner the L map looks like a preschool crayon drawing of colors that meet in a central psychedelic rainbow.  This is the Loop.  It is the historic business district of Chicago.  Towering canyons of skyscrapers -hemmed in by Lake Michigan to the East and the Chicago River to the North and West- dwarf business men in suits and tourists with cameras.  And circling all this world class business and money making are the elevated tracks of the L.

Wildcat Alley

Northwestern Football 

is only a few blocks away-

right here in the neighborhood.

Feeling slightly guilty 

that my children are painted

 like Northwestern Wildcats

and don't even own a Tar Heel t-shirt...

I probably need to get to work on that one!

Boogers in the Library

Have you ever known the rush of discovery and exploration of finding something in the library?  Something small captures your imagination and sets your mind on a search for a new idea, a new discovery, in the bowels of a library.  You wander among the quiet stacks looking, your eyes scanning the spines of books hoping to find the one you are looking for.  You pull two or three that hold promise, scan the table of contents, the index, or the chapter titles for a clue in your treasure hunt.  Then, on page 115 of a book that hasn’t seen sunlight since 1972 you see a word that ends your treasure hunt. On a yellowed page, marked with red ballpoint pen and a booger,  is the passage for which you have searched.  This journey is only for the brave of heart and, perhaps, stomach...boogers not withstanding.

Apple Picking

For the last few weeks Chicago has been enjoying an unbelievable stretch of beautiful weather- bright blue skies, warm temperatures, and sun. (Before you get too jealous, I'll also add that the weather reports are predicting this winter to be one of the worst in Chicago's recorded history.  How do they know these things anyway?) Last Monday, a Columbus Day holiday, we went apple picking.   This involved an hour and a half drive through Chicago sprawl before the endless stoplights gave way to farm land and apple trees not far from Wisconsin!  I think we'll be eating apples until Easter.

Yoga is Hot

Yoga is hot.  Studios are opening on main streets and in malls.  Yoga is in ads selling everything from cell phones to insurance.  It has become so pervasive in pop culture that you might be tempted to dismiss it as cliche.  If you told me five years ago that I would be standing in a room heated to 105 degrees, dripping sweat in spandex, with a spontaneous smile spreading across my face I would not have believed you. I first put my face down on a stinky yoga mat at the Chattanooga YMCA five years ago and have been slightly addicted ever since.  This post is my attempt to convince you to try it, maybe just once.  Wait!  Before you click away, consider the top excuses I hear from people.  I dare you to not be one of them.

Chicago by L: Bucktown!

Bangs, boots, beer, and bikes.  Get your hipster game on because this is your virtual trip to Chicago's  Bucktown neighborhood.  In Bucktown you can get a get a Chicago microbrew, stop by one of only three Chrome stores in the US (Chicago, New York, San Francisco),  or dodge hipsters in cowboy boots to wiggle your way into a used bookstore or boutique liquor store.  What used to be a working class neighborhood, whose name may have originated from the large number of goats-bucks- raised by Polish immigrants that settled there in the 19th c., is now a neighborhood not unlike Portland's East side. Take a few cowboy boot clad hipsters in skinny jeans, toss in a few Chrome accessorized bike commuters and moms in expensive yoga wear, and you will have a good sense of Bucktown.  

some thoughts from Dostoevsky

I promised you a few weeks ago that I'd give some periodic updates on my journey into Russian Literature. After only a couple of lectures  I'm still only 100+ pages into The Brothers Karamazov.  I have to really concentrate when writing 'Karamazov' in order to spell it correctly (3 'a's!).  The book is incredibly rich, both theologically and philosophically, but it hasn't yet begun rolling along with all that juicy love and lust that keeps the pages turning in Anna Karenina.

Just a few Pics

It's been sort of serious around the blog lately.

All that talk of Russian Lit and health insurance.

I figure some of you granmas and aunties out there are saying,

"Come On, Caroline!  Just give us some pictures of the kids, please." 

These are not the best pictures, 

but they capture some of the happenings around here in the last 24 hours.

The side ponytail...
and you thought you'd only have to live through the 80s once.
Wrong!

Ma'am, It's how the system works.

The health care system.  It gets a lot of press.  It is a big controversial subject.  It is incredibly not fair.  We sit at the top of this food chain.  I recognize that in the last week Jason has received better health care than 99.9999 % of the rest of the world at relatively little cost to us.  It is the cost to the system that boggles my mind.  I know the services rendered to us Westerners enjoying modern medicine are very expensive.  But sometimes the lack of efficiency is as downright annoying as the fifty styrofoam cups they give you in the hospital.  Let me walk you through the last six hours.

Incident #1: Those of you who faithfully read through my ramblings in the previous blog post know that Jason is currently being treated with heavy doses of antibiotics through an internal catheter called a PICC line.  This is a very efficient system set up in the hospital which enables him to go home to receive intravenous antibiotics without being in the hospital.  After a few visits from a home health nurse both he and I are trained to give the medicine.  We've had a standing date at the same time each day for the last few days for lots of sterility, saline washes, drugs, and other fun things.  The only cost to our insurance for this (not counting the drugs)?

The 1x/week visit from a home health nurse= $200.

We find out today that this is NOT covered by our insurance because Jason is receiving OUT OF HOME physical therapy for his knee.  So, technically, if he can get out of his home for physical therapy,  he should be able to get out of home for his meds.  So what IS covered- by the letter of the law- is for him to trek out to a hospital infusion center  EVERY DAY to receive his medicine.  You do the math.  Even if the infusion center is cheaper, let's say for kicks $100/visit, the insurance company is agreeing to pay for these visits EVERY DAY for the next two weeks instead of paying for only one more visit from a home health care nurse.  Like I said...you do the math.  Our health insurance is covering medical expenses, but it is at an incredibly higher cost to them (and eventually to all of us) as well as effort to Jason.  

Incident #2: Eleanor needs to visit her pediatrician for a minor health issue.  I make an appointment for later in the week, but as we walk past the office on our way home from school I decide to step in to see if they can fit her in this afternoon.  The receptionist, who looks like she should be at some shady lawyer's office in a cheap movie instead of in a neighborhood pediatrician's office, says with a fake smile, "Ma'am, I could let your child see the doctor, but I'll have to charge you an extra $80 for being a 'walk in' patient."  She quickly releases the muscles surrounding the lipstick that has bled into the cracks of her upper lip, and her smile disappears.

"You mean," I ask incredulously, "that if I stand in this lobby and call you on my cell phone to see if Eleanor can have an appointment at 3:45 I will be considered a scheduled patient?  But if I actually talk to you and ask if she can see the doctor at 3:45 you will charge me an extra $80?."

"Yes, Ma'am, it's how the system works."

on russians and writing

The week before last, while auditing Gary Morson’s  Intro to Russian Lit class at Northwestern, I began to think differently about the importance of writing- even about those things that seem mundane- for the human heart.   

Morson explained to us that Russians see literature as not only the highest of the arts but as the very reason for existence and the essence of our humanity.  To write or become the subject of writing is what makes you truly human.  There are stories of millions of people -dying of mass starvation under Lenin- who were keeping diaries.  They are quoted as saying, “This is why I have lived- to record this.”  Dostoevsky, writing a response to Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, said of the book, “At last, the reason for the existence of the Russian people is justified.”

One of the most identifiable experiences of Dostoevsky’s life was that he suffered through what has come to be known as the “mock execution.”    He was brought out as a prisoner to be shot.  For one hour he thought he was about to die before being surprisingly pardoned and sent to four years in a Siberian prison camp.  This experience  made one of his fellow prisoners go mad and kill himself.  Dostoevsky?  He took the emotional trauma of the experience and wrote The Brothers Karamazov.  His experience and the reflections on the psychology of what a person goes through right before an execution would color his writing for the rest of his life. Why? Because, according to Dostoevsky, part of being human is the sense of a possible future.  When that possible future is taken away- even for a few agonizing hours- the experience changes you.