Me in Place

Here’s to our fifth year of our Christmas tradition of going downtown to see the lights and eat beignets at the Grand Lux Cafe!

On the list of 30 Things to Do in Chicagoland, is visiting the Hancock Observatory. I waited until I had all three kids with me and all three old enough to enjoy it and we went last week. I feel loyal to the Hancock Observatory because they didn’t sell out to some corporation and change their name on all of us. Thanks, John. I appreciate it.

The audio tour included in the admission fee involves headphones and a small device you enter numbers on to hear David Schwimmer explain what you’re looking at. Mine didn’t work and also, it is hard for a mom to listen to any sort of device when there are three kids trying to figure out how theirs work…so, the audio tour was missed by me, but it was okay, I knew what I was looking at after living in Chicagoland for forever!

SuperBoy listened intently and enjoyed the views. And, all in all, it was a great visit and fun to do. (By the way, they are having an ice rink at the Hancock building January til March of next year.)

And…two more checked off the 30 Things to Do in Chicagoland list.

The first was eating pizza at Gino’s East. I had never been – a strange anomaly in my life – but always wanted to go, especially after that one Amazing Race finale where the final task was to order and eat a pan pizza and then race to the finish line. Mr MIP and I ordered a small sausage, black olive and mushroom pan pizza and patiently waited the 45 minutes you always wait while waiting for the waiter to bring your waitful Chicago deep dish pizza.

Oh, yum. Crust is a little more like Lou Malnati’s and the sauce wasn’t quite as good as Giordano’s, in my opinion. But the quiet little booth with the graffiti left by hundreds of other diners, made the experience a great one. Definitely recommended!

Blurry, but I wanted you to see the graffiti covered walls:

And the other thing we accomplished from The List was to visit the Lincoln Park Conservatory. Free and beautiful – it’s definitely a place to check out. Not very large, but filled with beautiful plants and a fern room and orchid room (my fave) and tons of 1st graders, it’s located just north of the (also free!) Lincoln Park Zoo.

Oh, I love orchids. Don’t you?

On the 30 Things to Do in Chicagoland, it includes getting your picture taken by five different statues in located in Lincoln Park. Lincoln Park is the largest public park in Chicago and includes a free zoo, a free conservatory and is just plain beautiful!

There are lots of statues around the park, but only five were listed to get your picture by – so we ended up wandering a LOT around this park, looking for random author statues and asking the oldest zoo volunteers I could find where the statue of Eugene Field was. (The older ones know things. Don’t ever forget that.)

Here ya go -

Grant (did you know Grant and Lincoln are the only two who have a statue both in Lincoln and Grant Parks in Chicago? Makes sense, I guess.)

Shakespeare

Hans Christian Andersen

Eugene Field

Lincoln Himself

Standing by statues isn’t really my idea of fun, but it was fun to check off another thing on the list, and the walk itself around the park was beautiful. Take some time to visit Lincoln Park. You can take a long, nice walk. Visit the free zoo. Visit the free conservatory and have a picnic. Very nearby is the Chicago Historical Museum – which I haven’t visited, but have heard is great.

My awesome (usually) brother and sister-in-law (always awesome) bought me a Swiss Army Knife for my birthday in February. It has many a feature, including a teeny ballpoint pen and a ruler.

His name is Mack. As in, Mack the Knife. Which I played today on the piano. A particularly fun smooth jazz version of it. Is it going in your brain now? Mr MIP tells me when he hears that song, it brings him right back to Wednesday nights. As a child, he and his family would attend Wednesday night prayer service and their parents would take them to Dunkin’ Donuts afterward and get them a donut. Pretty sure we can call that donut a bribe for sitting through prayer service. Anyway, at 9 pm, Mack the Knife would play every Wednesday night and it brings Mr MIP right back to a chocolatey place in his heart. Mack the Knife makes me think of my Fruncle Roger’s cool 3-D McDonald’s sign he had in his office at his old house. It was a picture of the moon dressed like Mack the Knife. I don’t know why.

Anyway, now that I’m ready to deal with any and all situations, I’ve decided I’ll start a new list called:

Mack & MIP Save the World! And I’ll list how each accessory was used to save the situation at hand.

And, now, with no further delays of childhood memories:

Mack & MIP Save the World:

1. Tweezers: When SuperBoy climbed the fence to see where the fire engines were going  – after we heard a big explosion – he slid down from the fence and ended up with six splinters. Tweezers to the rescue! 3/19/10

2. Scissors: Bought the girls new tennis shoes. Ones that tie. 7yo wanted to try them on in the car. “Wait til we get home and I can cut that for you…” I started saying. “Oh! The Knife!” I whipped out those scissors and new shoes were worn in less than two minutes. 3/13/10

3. Nail File: Mr MIP says nonchalantly, “Do you have a nail file?” My daughter and I reply immediately, “Yes! The Knife!” Mission accomplished! 3/20/10

I also checked off two other things downtown:

One from the 30 Things to Do in Chicagoland created by Roger: Get your picture taken by the Monument to Standing Beast.

It’s a rather strange looking monument, but here’s to Standing Beast! I even made sure to walk around inside the monument to get the full effect. The full effect included obvious signs of someone relieving himself in the monument, which just goes to show you, there’s more than one standing beast.

We also stopped in for coffee at Intelligentsia – a shop I’ve passed many times and always wanted to stop, but for one reason or another, we never did. This time? This time we walked about 400 miles out of our way to get there. But it was worth it when I ordered my medium mocha and the angst-ridden barista looked at me out of his horn-rimmed glasses and said, “Sarah?” (Not my real name. But I don’t give my real name at places where they yell out your name. It, for some reason, creeps me out that random people would know my name.) “Sarah? Here’s your mocha.” And, with a final flourish, he handed me one of the best mochas I’ve had. (Besides mine. Which I’m sipping right now. Which is perfect. But doesn’t have that extra dollop of angst-y intellect, so I’ve got to give it to Intelligentsia on that one!) If you want to visit – there’s one east of the train station on Jackson. And there’s one about a block west of the exit from the South Shore Line on Randolph.

My uncle is a Lister Supreme. I’m just a little plain cheese lister…but he practically majored in listing in college. His latest list is 1,000 Things to Eat Before You Die(t). He’s just rating and trying new foods for fun. He said I could join him if I wanted. That’s fine. I will. Our difference is that I want to make/cook/bake new foods, whereas he just wants to eat them. So, to each his own, and I’ll be glad to add my food ideas and trials to his.

So…my Number One on my list actually was a surprise addition! We dropped my daughter off at Camp Grandma yesterday and as we were getting ready for lunch, my mother-in-law pointed out a huge plant she was growing on her deck. She said my mom had given her the seeds for Christmas and voila! Master Gardener Mother-in-Law had grown a beautiful HUGE plant full of beautiful nasturtiums.

They were so bright they’re almost neon.

Then she had me put them in our salad. I cut them up a little so that my family would eat them without knowing (it worked!). And we enjoyed a Nasturtium Salad for lunch.

They taste kinda peppery – sort of like how arugula tastes as compared to iceberg lettuce. Interesting and unique. And beautiful. But I’m not gonna say I’ll ever start picking nasturtiums and just chewing on them because I’m craving them! I’d rate them a 3.

On our exciting trip on Friday, Roger also mentioned the little town of Amboy, where there is a soda fountain at a pharmacy that’s been there since 1642. Just kidding. More like 1860′s or so. We followed them out there and enjoyed a soda fountain treat – kids got ice cream, I had a cherry coke (is there anything better than cherry coke from a soda fountain?). Roger and Sally had the specialty of the house: Green River Phosphate. Tasted kinda limey.

Another of Roger’s panoramics:

Oh,wait, but that’s not all! There is also a park where a man carved a bunch of people and animals out of dead trees! We’re talking Crazy Fun! Why, here’s Denny Hastert giving his stump speech! hahahaha…oh the fun is contagious, is it not?

When I saw that yesterday was forecasted to be Hot, I knew we had to break free from the constraints of Winter-y Indoor Life and make a foray into the Wild, Wild Outdoors.

So I checked the 30 Things to Do In Chicagoland List that my Uncle and I came up with a few years ago and decided to accomplish #29 – Walk on the Effigy Tumuli at Buffalo Rock State Park. Uncle and Aunt and Cute Cousin and the kids and I all made a day of it and headed out into the Warm Air.

First of all, back in the day, effigy tumuli would be built by Native Americans as burial mounds. There are real ones around. The ones we were going to visit were not real – they were created only about 20 years ago to reclaim land which had been strip mined. What they are are large mounds of dirt shaped to form five different animals: a turtle, a water strider, catfish, snake and something else which obviously did not make a huge impact on my memory.

So, yeah, the problem is, you have huge mounds of land – you can’t really tell what it is just by walking around. You would have to be able to fly over the site to really see them. So basically this event turned into a Hot Hike. But, alas, the company was fine and the weather was good and we had a grand time of it. Although, I do recall my question of: “All of Chicagoland is available for us and we choose this to put on the list??”

SuperBoy hikes through every puddle he can find:

The park is right by the Illinois River:

With just enough of a drop to make me worry about SuperBoy and how well he can (or can’t) swim (this is Cute Cousin):

As an example: Here is the sign for the catfish tumuli:

Here’s what you see. Roger is standing on the catfish’s eye:

Spot the SuperBoy! He is climbing on the catfish’s back down to the tail:

Just for the record: For all of you who have made fun of me for how far ahead of everyone I walk. This is a real photo, not doctored in any way, that shows how far behind I walk when I’m with my family. I’m just sayin’. This is where it comes from.

Roger’s a pro at panoramic shots. You can check out his blog at Listing Through Life.

Oh, and the Park Fun went over the top when we saw the two bison who live there. Maybe we could liven up the Chicagoland list a little by installing these guys by The Bean in Millenium Park. Now that would be fun.

Finally, a life goal has been accomplished! We went down to the Art Institute yesterday and had a great time! I took my kids, my mom and met up with my mother-in-law downtown. MIL (Mother-in-Law) is an artist herself and was a great guide for us.

She has great patience with the kids and knew interesting information about the paintings and displays we saw. Here they are looking at one of my favorite parts of the institute: a collection of miniature rooms that are decorated in different styles and eras. Like a very detailed dollhouse (Gramma W, this would have been your FAVORITE!).

We ate at the Garden Restaurant there. Food was good, service…um… I don’t know. Not so good. But the food was fine!

How did SuperBoy do, you ask? He did fine! He had his moments…but we just kept trying to distract him with questions about the paintings. He kept repeating his latest phrase, “This is getting tiring.” And I took a picture of how he looked at some of the rooms:

But I considered this a valid option for a five-year-old viewing Renoir. He was quiet!

Focus Pocus; Me In Place; photography; 2009

1 Goal Down; 56 (give or take) to go!

Grandma Luv; 2009