Patrick and I took Molly and the boys out to the Park Ridge July 3 fireworks show last night at Maine East H.S. and it was great.
In fact, it was the second-best fireworks show I’ve ever seen (In 2009, we got to sit on a private pier on Lake Michigan to watch the now-defunct Chicago 4th of July fireworks; too bad the ne’er-do-wells got that one shut down).
Parking was free and abundant, and there was plenty of room to spread out with chairs and blankets and coolers.
Total cost of the evening: $10 for some light-sticks that kept the boys entertained until the 9:30 p.m. start time.
It was the perfect opportunity to play around with my recently purchased SLR camera which, honestly, I have very little idea of how to use it. But, the pics turned out pretty well!
Via Flickr:
Who needs downtown? The Park Ridge July 3 show was spectacular.
Michelle, Amaya & Luisa at the pool; InterContinental Hotel, Chicago
Because it’s ubiquitous now, I sometimes forget about the really cool, and even life-changing things made possible by social media in general, and Facebook in particular.
A few years ago, my husband arranged a surprise for me: He contacted a few of my high-school friends (whom he’d never met, and with whom I had not been in contact for many years), and signed me up for my high-school 25th reunion. I had wanted to go but previously had declined the invite because of the expense involved. But it was something Patrick knew I’d enjoy and so took matters into his own (virtual) hands by first contacting my old friend Vive Bridges (whom he’d already met) who put him in touch with a few other people on Facebook.
Since that reunion, I’ve been able to keep in touch with a handful of old friends on almost a daily basis because I’m now connected to them on Facebook and a few other social media outlets. And I’m at the stage in my life where that feels so, so good. I’m lucky to have them in my life again. Not only because of the obvious perspective it brings a few decades after high school. But mainly because they’re just super-interesting women that I really enjoy knowing all these years later.
I’ve was privileged to commiserate and brainstorm (online and in-person) with one friend who was laid off from her job last year. Last Christmas, she and I met at Starbucks for some girl-time and talked about careers, kids, what it means to be an adult, knitting and the possibility of her having to move from Little Rock back to Memphis. During her job search and interview process, she stopped in Chicago for an afternoon and I was lucky enough to be able to take 1/2 day off work to go meet her for drinks. She eventually found a much better, much cooler job (I knew she would) in Memphis. All these years later, I like her so much, and I’m so glad to call her a friend.
This week, I received a Facebook message from another long-time friend, one I’ve known since we were about 8 years old. We were on a swim team together as kids, and I used to love going to her house to spend the night. Then she and her family moved to Spain for a few years and we fell out of touch. When they moved back to the U.S. a few year later, she and I attended high school together. Since then, she married and moved to Atlanta, I moved to Chicago, and we were out of touch again for many years. But we re-connected at the aforementioned high-school reunion. I’ve enjoyed getting to know her family/kids through Facebook photos for the past couple of years. But I got to meet them in person this week when she and her husband and kids were in Chicago for an impromptu vacation. It was fun, and kind of surreal, to see her kids and my kids playing in the pool together. It brought back so many memories. And even better, her husband and my husband were there, and we all sat around the pool for a while talking about Holland and traveling and kids and swimming like we’d all known each other all along.
Amaya, Ruairi, Lucas & Liam at the pool; InterContinental Hotel, Chicago
So, thank you Facebook, for making it much, much easier to enrich my own life with old friends, and people I’d never see on a regular basis. I love to see them online, and I love it even more when I see them in person!
I’ve written about the Chicago food-trucks before. The naan-wiches, the empanadas. And I’ve heard rumors about a mac ‘n’ cheese truck.
But, today, a pink truck showed up bursting with sweetness. Sweet Ride paid a visit to our building and a line formed quickly. And unsurprisingly, every person in that line was female.
It’s easy to think that dudes just don’t want to be seen queuing for cupcakes in front of a pink truck. But I’ve also heard that guys just don’t care about sweets in the same way that many women care about sweets.
Which is to say: Guys don’t obsess about sweets the way they obsess about sports or history or sex.
On the other hand, women can think about cake and pudding and chocolates all day long: we plan for Sweet Ride’s arrival; we may actually deprive ourselves of other nutrients all day long if we think there’s even a possibility we’ll have a box of tiny cupcakes for lunch.
You may have assumed I ate a box of tiny cupcakes for lunch. And you’d be wrong. I ate a cup of organic banana pudding with vanilla wafers in the middle (no word on the origins of the ‘nilla wafers).
It was the best $4 I spent all day. It was so delectable that I tried to linger over it, but I looked down and it was gone in a flash. And now, I’m about to do some investigating to find out when Sweet Ride will be back again for my next pudding fix.
I love a weekend of “firsts.” Meaning a weekend filled with things I’ve never done or seen before. This past weekend contained several firsts:
The Ceili
On Friday, Patrick, Ruairi, Liam and I went to the Irish American Heritage Center for the Midwest Fleadh Cheoil and Ceili Mor. It was a lot of fun, watching the oldsters and youngsters enjoy the music and also watching everyone dance. Totally worth letting the kids stay up late.
The Swimming
Saturday morning, Ruairi dived into the swimming pool for the first time. A real dive, not just a flailing, whining, coerced face-flop. And Liam actually kicked his way across the pool, unaided by the coach. After nearly a year of weekly swim lessons, the boys finally may be understanding that we’re going to keep doing this until they actually learn to swim. :-)
The Reptiles
Saturday afternoon, we went to the UIC P.E. building for ReptileFest, billed as “the nation’s largest educational reptile and amphibian show.” It was pretty cool, and as with every activity we do that involves something semi-geeky, I actually enjoyed it as much or more than my sons. And I may have been convinced that our new family pet should be a Crested Gecko.
Chicago Fire Academy
After ReptileFest, we drove around downtown for a bit. A traffic jam conspired with my desire to grab a geocache, and we ended up at the site of Mr. and Mrs. O’Leary’s former property and the alleged starting point of the Chicago fire in 1871. The Robert J. Quinn Fire Academy is where trainees become Chicago firefighters. In front of the building is the “Pillar of Fire,” a bronze sculpture by Egon Weiner commemorating the great Chicago fire.
I’ve lived here since July of 1999, and I’d never visited this spot until Saturday. If it weren’t for my husband and my geocaching hobby, I’d never see most of the cool things in this city.
Butera
Sunday morning, I attempted to buy groceries at Butera. Mainly because my mother-in-law (whom I love a LOT) guilted me into going there by making Grampa dig the weekly circular out of a giant stack of newspapers and telling me that it really is cheaper than Jewel. So, I gave it a whirl. I’m down with cheap groceries, but I also crave predictability.
I love to shop at Aldi because I know exactly what it’s all about: the cheapest possible food. Everything from the quarter-operated grocery carts to pay-for-your-own bags means cheap food. And on the other end of the spectrum, I also love to shop at Whole Foods: high-end food in a blazingly gorgeous store with a sushi counter and wine bar. Jewel is a step or two down from Whole Foods, but still pretty predictable.
But Butera? I still have NO IDEA what that place is supposed to be. It looks super cheap from the outside, but you don’t have to pay for your cart; it has some recognizable brand-name stuff inside, but nothing cutting edge. Bad lighting, a horrible, confusing layout, and people wandering aimlessly blocking aisles and generally clogging things up. I was in there for 30 minutes and had exactly two things in the cart (feta cheese and a box of generic cereal) when I decided to bolt and hit the Jewel. $140 later I had a car full of groceries and had rehearsed a whole story in my head about why I went to Jewel instead of Butera. Then I came to my senses and realized that Grandma would not be inspecting the grocery sacks and sighed in relief. :-)
Gasoline
Oh yeah. I also paid $60 for 14 gallons of gasoline. I’d like to think this “first” would also be a “last.” But I’m pretty sure it’ll only get worse.
So, this morning Patrick and I were lying in bed when the kids joined us. It was almost time to leave the house for the kids’ weekly swim lesson. Liam (my 4-year-old) was standing on the bed, and I was helping him out of his pajamas and into his swimsuit. As I was removing Liam’s underpants, I noticed a big glob of snot hanging out of his nose and–without even thinking–I used the just-removed underpants to wipe his runny nose.
Patrick was aghast, looking at me as if I’d just given Liam a big dose of codeine to induce drowsiness (no, I’ve never done that, but I’m pretty sure I know someone who has).
Me: “What’s the big deal?”
Patrick: “You just wiped his face with the underpants that he’s had on since yesterday!”
Is there anything wrong with this? I mean, the underpants were going right into the hamper, and Liam was going right into a chlorinated pool.
Bad mom? Or super-resourceful nose-wiping mom with easily-aghast husband? You decide.
