Saturday, August 22, 2009
[ This is a filler post because I have a billion saved drafts and to-be-written posts about Chicago, but I don't want to hold up posting my current posts any longer and get 1,000 miles behind! I'll go back and fill in the trip and link to the posts when I'm finished. Aaagh. :-) ]
Posted at 12:12:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Posted at 6:52:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
What we got at Green Zebra (according to the receipt, which I took a picture of):
Dean:
1 Bees Knees [North Shore Gin, lavender honey, lemon, up]
1 Tomato Salad [Iron Creek Farm Heirloom Tomato Salad, fried pickles, buttermilk dressing, herbs]
1 Tortellini [Iron Creek Farm Heirloom Tomato Tortellini, parmesan fennel broth, basil]
1 Thai Spiced [Thai Spiced Carrot Soup, crispy rice noodles]
1 Popover [it had sweetcorn ice cream]
Me:
1 Ponchatcula [Ron Botran Rum, Summer Berries, Mint, Rocks]
1 Green Papaya [Shaved Green Papaya, salted mango, cilantro, grilled scallion]
1 Fish [Rushing Waters Rainbow Trout, smoked corn chowder, chaterelles, roasted plums]
1 Squash Tart [I can't find this on the menu, but it had Camembert on the bottom and was delicious!]
1 Doughnuts [3 mini Five Spice Doughnuts] [they were too strong and hard!]
Shared:
1 Crepe [Buckwheat Crepe, sweet corn filling, oyster mushrooms, blueberries] [this was not a dessert, but it was better than the desserts!]
Green Zebra was really good. Small dishes, which you're supposed to order 3-4 of. Everything very fresh and seasonal. The space reminded me of Candle 79 in New York (long and skinny, townhousey), but I liked the food even better. Zebra is just vegetarian (with one token fish dish), not vegan like Candle. Dean isn't sure which one he likes better, since Candle has all those great seitan dishes. Both Candle 79 and Zebra have fantastic and creative drinks. Candle 79's desserts are a lot better (unless we just chose poorly or something). There's a little more space in Zebra, and in Chicago in general, vs. New York. But in any case, it was really really good. It's very cool to be able to go to an upscale vegetarian place. Poor Dean gets all overwhelmed, since he can order anything, instead of just one or two items. Heh.
P.S. Oh also, they had a selection of five artisanal cheeses if you wanted a cheese course (we didn't get any), and all but one of them were from New England! Not only that, but two were from Colchester, Connecticut. (!!)
[Written 8/31]
Posted at 3:31:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
After I'd stayed as long as I'd liked (longer even) (not really), I went back up to the sneaky section of the 3rd floor Modern Wing and exited through the Nichols Bridgeway which leads to Millennium Park. (I'm good at spelling millennuim, from watching Millennium.) It was beautiful out by then, and my sunglasses would have been a lot more useful than my umbrella! But I was okay without them since there are a lot of tall buildings to shield the sun a bit, and my eyes didn't wonk out or anything.
As I got closer, I could see Cloud Gate through the trees. I knew what it was from my pretty slacky guidebook reading before our trip. Not surprisingly (being highly attracted to mirrors) I really liked Cloud Gate. Everyone was staring at it and taking photos. Here are a few of mine: one, two, three. It was fun (and difficult!) trying to find myself in the giant reflection. Luckily I was wearing my bright tulip-pink sweater, which helped. And it was an excellent day for clouds. The inside/underneath part (official name: the omphalos) is also very cool. Everyone's staring up. It's even harder to find yourself, distorted and multiplied. Here are a couple of pics: one and two.
I decided to walk back to our hotel instead of taking a taxi (even though I have NO sense of direction), so I consulted the GPS, which was pretty confused at being used by a pedestrian. I managed to find my way back anyway, without too much trouble! When I saw the Westin I knew I was going the right way (because I can see it from our hotel room window), and when I got to the corner of State Street and West Wacker Drive and saw Marina City, I really knew. [I didn't know it was called Marina City until now (or that it is a marina city!), but I'd noticed those buildings the night we arrived, with the bottom 19 floors housing a parking garage. They are actually very famous and are in my 1980 edition of Chicago's Famous Buildings that I got for 50¢ on the library sale shelf.] I crossed the Chicago River and found the Amalfi. It wasn't really that far, but I felt very accomplished about making it back to West Kinzie Street all on my own! :-) I ♥ Chicago!
[Actually written up on 8/31]
Posted at 3:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I forgot to mention how enjoyable it was being able to wander around the museum all by myself, at my own pace. I could be as speedy or as snaily as I wanted; I could zoom past boring stuff instead of pretending to be interested in it and trying to come up with a thoughtful comment to make. Or I could stand one foot away and stare at the hue of some splotch of paint for ten minutes. It was nice. It was also really nice how it was so uncrowded and easy to get close to whatever you wanted. (I do like MoMA best overall, though.)
I also forgot to mention my favorite part about when Uncle Dick took us to the Air Force Museum. When we first got there, he took four pennies out of his pocket and gave us two each, then told us to each let one go simultaneously on either side of this yellow vortex thing where they can spin around and race each other, indicating that you should root for your penny to beat the other guy's and that it's the coolest ever if they hit each other. Since we had two pennies we got to do it twice, and the pennies had a close shave the second time. I just liked it so much because he had the pennies all prepared and it was the kind of thing you'd show a kid. It felt like it was something he always did and had done for years and years, whenever he brought a kid to his museum. I liked it that he did it to us. It felt like a very uncle-ish thing to do. :-)
[Actually written 8/30, after I finished the previous entry. Oh and those dishes were on display at the Art Institute. I liked them.]
Dean's meeting with his commodities trading dude today, so I'm all on my own in the big city! I set my Palma alarm for 10. It rang at 9 because Palma hadn't auto-adjusted to the new time zone yet, so I got to mmmm in bed for an hour! (I had a reservation for Terzo Piano at the Art Institute of Chicago at 1 PM and didn't want to get up too early and be hungry in the meantime.) I like my hotel room. The bed is really comfortable (not hard), the sheets are soft (not stiff and loud when you move around... I hate that), and having my own pillow is wonderful. The bathroom even has a lighted makeup mirror exactly like the one I have at home, so I'm not bugged by the dim lights! (I hate dim hotel bathrooms.) I was super-tired last night and slept really well.
Posted at 1:05:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
The forecast said it was going to be unseasonably cool and overcast with scattered rain showers, so I decided to wear my sweater and take my umbrella instead of my sunglasses (it was a difficult choice which I waffled over for about five minutes, but there wasn't room in my Chicago Bag for both). Here's my self portrait in the mirror that I took while waiting for the elevator. :-)
Took a taxi to the Art Institute all by myself (there was one waiting right out in front of the Amalfi, so it was easy, and the driver was nice, too!), and he dropped me off right in front of the main entrance on Michigan Avenue. I took a picture before I went in, of the lions. (Notice that the forecast lied, and it wasn't that overcast.)
After I bought my ticket (no line at all!), I immediately located Terzo Piano on the museum guide map and showed it to a guide dude, asking: "How do I get here?" It was about 11:30 and my rez wasn't until 1, but I'd read that the museum is really confusing to navigate and I didn't want to be lost when the time came. I actually ended up able to find my way around pretty well; the only tricky part is that you can only access Terzo Piano and the Nichols Bridgeway (which connects the museum to Millennium Park) via a special elevator hidden behind the cloakroom on the first floor, even though they're in the new Modern Wing on the third floor. You can't get to them from the rest of the third floor at all. But I figured this all out and had no probs! It was actually kind of fun reading the map and navigating. (Did do lots and lots of walking back and forth through the Alsdorf Galleries of Indian, Southeast Asian, and Himalayan Art, though. But that's probably inevitable, since that passageway connects the two parts of the building.)
Once I understood how to get to Terzo Piano, I headed straight to the Stock Exchange Trading Room. The original Exchange building (designed by Louis Sullivan in 1894) was torn down in 1972, but they salvaged portions of the trading room and reconstructed them in the Art Institute. There were only three other people in the empty room: a photographer with a fancy camera and tripod, taking pictures of the architectural details, and, up in the balcony overlooking the floor, two people talking. One of them was a guy who used to work in the real trading room before it was shut down, and he was relating to the other guy his memories of how similar/different it was. I couldn't hear everything they were saying, but it was v. v. cool!
The lighting was kind of weird (dim on the floor, but with lots of light coming in through the stained glass skylights), so it was hard to get good photos with my little camera, but here are a few: 1) the clock, podium, and huge chalkboards for stock quotes, 2) a corner with the fancy stained glass skylights, detailed Art Nouveau ceiling and walls, and ornate goldwork at the top of one of the pillars, and 3) the door-pushes (or whatever those things are called... there were handles on the other side, to come in). Pretty nice space to trade in, huh? The floor itself was just empty, I guess for all the traders to stand and do their trades. It wasn't really that huge of the room, and I wondered if the real one was bigger.
After the Trading Room, I went to the Modern Wing on the third floor and looked at most of the galleries until it was almost time for lunch (then I had to go back down to the first floor to get back to the special sneaky section of the Modern Wing on the third floor where the restaurant was). For entertainment, and so I'd remember them, I took pictures of my favorite paintings, with a second closeup photo of the title and artist placard. (Photos are allowed, as long as you don't use a flash.) These are the ones I photographed before lunch. (My comments are on the right. You can click on each painting to read more about it, see an enlargement, etc.)
When I got to Terzo Piano, via the stealth elevator, it was super-crowded and there was a huge line! (Even though the museum itself was very uncrowded.) Since my rez wasn't until 1 and I was kind of hungry, I'd been contemplating showing up early to see if I could be seated before my actual rez, but it was a good thing I held off. The wait without a rez was about a hour. But thanks to Open Table, I had a rez and got to go right in. I don't know if it was because I was by myself, or I'm just really lucky with restaurant tables, but they gave me the best table in the place! I got to sit at a tall corner table on the edge of everything, right near the bar, with no other tables to two sides of me. Here's a view of the rest of the dining room from my table. (There were originally people sitting at those other nearby tables, but they left by the end of my meal.) The other part of the room was very packed and lunchroom-ish. Everything in the room is smooth and white and modern, and the bar is beautiful, with pearly glass tiles in shades of white and oyster. (It's the fourth picture over, if you view the Photo Tour images on the website.) I ordered the smoked whitefish appetizer and the corn chowder soup special. Dry cappuccino. Wrote on my Palma: I like this space... it's clean and light. It was fun dining by myself. I felt grown up.
After lunch, I walked outside onto the Bridgeway and took some silvery photos: 1) Two Prudential Plaza (cool Chrysler Building-ish skyscraper), Aon Center (3rd tallest building in Chicago), and the Art Institute's Modern Wing, 2) more skyscrapers including the slanty Smurfit-Stone Building, with the Trump International Hotel and Tower (which was right near our hotel) behind it and Millennium Park in front (you can just see the Cloud Gate peeking out behind the trees), and 3) shiny silver trains down below. (The trains were cool looking. The train tracks ran below the street.) Then I went back to the 3rd floor to see the rest of the Modern Wing, and the famous masterpieces on the 2nd level.
It was really cool seeing paintings I recognized from years of playing Masterpiece. I didn't investigate ahead of time what I'd see, so it was one surprise after another. The most dramatic one, by far, was van Gogh's Self Portrait, which we always called the "Uncle John" painting (because it looked like Uncle John did when he was younger, I guess). I got this painting as a forgery so many times that I came to believe/claim it was always a forgery. I was just walking along and all the sudden there it was, mostly blocked by the people crowded around it. This was the only painting that was hard to see because of people. (I waited to get close.) It's shocking how SMALL it is in person, only 16" x 13". It's just stunning, the colors are so rich and it's so intense. It's hard to describe. I was so wowed that I immediately texted Jan to tell her that I was at the Art Institute of Chicago standing in front of "Uncle John" aka The Forgery and how amazing it was in person. There was no question that it was the best painting in the museum.
These are the paintings I photographed after lunch to remember (as before, my comments are on the right, etc.). Here's a closeup detail from Pollock's "Greyed Rainbow" (see my comments about that). And a snapshot of what it was like to look at van Gogh's Self Portrait. I did not see The Child's Bath (my mom's fav from Masterpiece) or American Gothic (even though reproductions of it were plastered on everything), for some reason. Maybe I missed that part of the museum. Hmm.
Okay, Millennium Park will be a separate entry because this is the most insanely long entry of ALL TIME.
[Written 8/29]
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Posted at 8:40:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Dean: "It's 106 nautical miles to Chicago, we have two full tanks of gas, half a pack of chewing gum, it's almost dark, and we're wearing sunglasses."
Laura: "Hit it."
We're in Indiana, flying straight into the setting sun. It's 8:36 our time, 7:36 Chicago time. Total flight time from Dayton to Chicago will be almost exactly 2 hours.
...Haha, Dean just took off his sunglasses. :-)
[Above: Over Indiana. We had mostly clear skies all the way to Chicago, passing through only a few friendly clouds. It was very smooooooth up until final approach, just in time to make my landing video all bumpy!]
[Lights! So many lights! In the middle photo, Lake Michigan is on the right, off Tango's reflective nose (the horizon is slanted because we're banking to turn). We were still pretty far from downtown Chicago, but I could make out the tall buildings sticking up in the distance (look at the horizon). I snapped as many photos as I could, and kept silent, because Dean had a lot to concentrate on.
The controller had everyone join the 31C (31-Center) ILS about 30 miles out from the airport, even though it was clear conditions, to keep everyone organized on a straight line coming in. He temporarily pulled us off the ILS to let a faster Boeing 737 behind us pass, and then we re-joined the ILS. Right before landing, Tower cleared us to land on 31L (31-Left), the smaller of the three parallel runways. There was a jet taking off on 31C as we landed on 31L.
Midway is a big airport. Okay, it's not O'Hare, but it's BIG. Of course I took a picture of the airport lights stretching out behind Tango after we taxiied to the Signature FBO. We unloaded our luggage, a taxi soon arrived to pick us up, and we were on our way to our hotel in the Loop. On the way we passed Soldier Field and the Field Museum; later, we went by Navy Pier (I could see the lights of the ferris wheel!), and drove on Lower Wacker Drive! (!!!!!)]
[Written 8/27]
Posted at 7:00:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Photos: 1) Tango ready and eager for his flight to a BIG airport, and 2) Flat Flat Ohio, flying away from Dayton.
The reunion was a success! I met 12 relatives, 6 of whom I already sort of barely knew (like, I'd met them a few times in my whole life). Aunt Elaine had even made a molded lime jell-o salad!! (Along with a huge spread of other food, including hand-written labels!) That was awesome.
All those people weren't around/in the same room at the same time, so it wasn't scary. I just interacted with one or two at a time. Also, I brought my draft copy of the photobook I made for my parents' 50th anniversary, and people seemed to enjoy looking at that. I looked at it with Aunt Barbara and Magda (Peter's girlfriend, who was really nice) in great detail, then with Aunt Elaine, and Uncle Dick. Later Uncle John looked at it with Dean, apparently whilst providing very colorful commentary (Dean told me about it later, when we were at Spiaggia on Sunday). Susan's daughter helped me write down who all the younger generation people were so I could report back to my mom! (I'd never ever remember otherwise.) And I managed to take pictures of most of the key people, not including my cousin Susan who I only saw for a total of about 30 seconds. I told her I always fondly remembered playing with her in the (rented) dumpster after Grandma Dreher died and our parents were throwing out all her stuff. There were lots of cool old clothes and things for dress-up! I was eight, and she was a few years older. (She did not acknowledge if she knew what the heck I was taking about.)
My cousin Peter (I've met him about twice, when I was too young to remember) showed up near the end, after he left work (he's an engineering professor) and I talked to him in the kitchen while he wolfed down some of his mother's tortilla dip while asking me to name my all-time favorite beaches (not sure why...). He reminded me a bit of Robert. I liked him. Uncle Dick and Aunt Elaine were welcoming and cordial but very reticent (so I was glad we got to spend time with Uncle Dick one-on-one earlier), although Aunt Elaine did take me down into the basement to show me framed family photos (and their super-cool wall of historical and international collectible beer cans!). Aunt Barbara was just the opposite (she likes to tell you all about what she's into), and Uncle John was his usual entertaining self (well, I find him entertaining) and told me that I'm even better in person than I am in my photos. And yes, they sang. Several times. Uncle John acted like he had a starry-eyed crush on me, and asked for multiple hugs, but I was affectionately amused, not skeeved. It was really interesting seeing the various family members (brothers, spouses, parents/children) interact with one another (I thought they were very respectful), and, also, looking for physical resemblances. I must send Aunt Elaine and Uncle Dick a thank you letter; they were very gracious hosts.
Photos from the Museum of the United States Air Force:
Posted at 2:30:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
1) Uncle Dick, to me, when we noticed Dean was missing: "I think your husband likes engines."
2) Dean to the Infinite Power (well, not quite), inside one of the planes in the Presidential Gallery (Eisenhower's Columbine III, I think...).
3) Laura and Artificial Ike. Notice his cool telephone. Presidential planes = lots and lots of phones!
4) Inside SAM 26000, the first plane called Air Force One, a Boeing VC-137C built specifically for the President. This plane had a zillion telephones! It carried eight presidents: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, and was the plane that flew JFK to Dallas, where he was assassinated. Johnson was sworn in as the new president on the plane, and it carried Kennedy's body and President Johnson back to Washington, D.C. They modified it (removing seats and cutting out a partition) so his casket wouldn't have to be put in the cargo area.
There were HUNDREDS of planes at the museum, and they were all inside, in three gigantic quonset-shaped hangars. You could spend ages lost there if you stopped to read and fully appreciate everything, but we only had a few hours. Fortunately, we had a great tour guide in Uncle Dick, who gave us a ride from his house, then showed us around, letting us walk through at our own pace, offering interesting bits of knowledge here and there, and making occasional suggestions like, "You can shoot a missile... with your camera." (So I did. They were tall!) The coolest plane was the Flying Saucer one. I took a picture, but it didn't turn out that well. The museum was lit dimly, I guess to be nice to all the historic planes (no harsh and hot lights burning down on them); it was pleasant and easy to see with your eyes adjusted, but hard to capture enough light to take good photos.
After we'd walked through all the main galleries (very very impressive and well put together), he took us to the Presidential Gallery, which is located on the active part of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and, for security reasons, is usually only accessible using a shuttle bus that you have to sign up for ahead of time. The buses leave the museum every 45 minutes and you have to attend a briefing 15 minutes before their bus departs. You also need IDs (passports if you're foreign) to get in. However, all he had to do was wave his military ID, and they said, "Welcome, Colonel," and we drove right in. We even didn't need to show IDs or anything since we were with him. Nifty! It was 100% easy! We got to walk through retired Presidential airplanes and see what they looked like inside, including the cockpits and the living areas. Uncle Dick showed us the planes in chronological order and met us on the other side after we went through each one. Pretty nice!
They're really into their toast here! I ate all mine (white but not dry), in honor of Elwood. It was excellent! Very good meal, everything prepared just right. Didn't see any Big Boy comics, though.
Posted at 10:30:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
We're having breakfast at Big Boy's! Me: "Do you think Diane would be proud?" Dean: "She would."
Posted at 10:16:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
I brought my own pillow, and it was excellent. I slept well last night. (!) I also LOVE my Chicago Bag, which I am using for the first time. It's just the right size and really easy to access the contents.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Photos from Wednesday!
Posted at 11:59:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
1) Beginning our flight from the little city to the big city (I mean Chicago, not Dayton): Hartford off our right wing. We don't usually get this view of Hartford, as we rarely head west on takeoff.
2) Central Pennsylvania. Wide open, green and farmy.
3) Lewiston, PA--an actual town! Pretty mountains, Susquehanna River (?), and long stretchy train.
4) Big dark stormclouds on either side of our destination, with a blinding patch of sunlight beckoning ahead. Card table flat Ohio beneath, obscured in the haze.
5) Welcome to Dayton, Elevation 1009 Feet.
6) Tango stayed at the Wright Bros. Aero FBO while we visited the Dreher Bros. They are really into the Wright Brothers in Dayton (it was their home town). Notice the shiny rain puddles on the ground.
We landed about 6:45, so the total flight time was about five hours and 45 minutes. Plus our one hour stop for fuel and so-called lunch. It was fun nearing Dayton--we had to thread the needle between two big thunderstorm cells. There was lightning on either side of us! And a big bright patch of sunlight beckoning ahead. Wright Bros Aero was really nice. The guy had our rental car all waiting for us and pulled it up right next to Tango. Later, when we were having dinner at Chipotle while watching a huge lightning storm that was whipping the trees around, he called to tell us we didn't have to worry about Tango because he'd put him in the hangar for free, due to the severe weather!! NICE! After Chipotle we went to "Dayton's #1 Best Coffee," Winans, because I saw the sign on the way and of course had to check it out. I got a decaf single cappuccino and asked for it dry. The barista actually knew what that meant, and took his time making it, waiting for the foam to settle. I knew it was going to be good just hearing him make it. When he handed it to me, I practically gasped, the foam looked so creamy and amazing. (It didn't actually taste as great as it looked, though. Not that it was bad, but it was a little bland. Still, I was very impressed with the microfoam.)
Posted at 11:00:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Now we're lounging around our hotel. It's nice and quiet. Uncle Dick called while we were at the restaurant (my phone was in the car) and left a voicemail, so I called him back. He'd called Wright Bros Areo and knew we were down and safe, AND called Uncle John to let him know. :-) We're going to go with him to the Museum of the US Air Force tomorrow (he's a retired colonel, so he's an expert!), and he gave Dean turn-by-turn directions to find their house. Lots of Drehers to meet and greet tomorrow, and I barely know any of them! Wish us luck! It should be fun. Uncle Dick has been so nice.
"Indy Center" FLT 4:24
Posted at 6:45:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
FLT 4:52 Ohio is SO flat. Flat flat flat. Flatter than MD and VA. (And nicer looking.) Flat like a table. Flat and green and lushly farmy. It's so hazy today, I can barely see the ground at 6,000.
FLT 5:07 Ohio looks like a card table. That same flat green, with round metal folding legs underneath. It likes to play pinochle. All you gotta say is sug!
FLT 4:07 NOW we're in Ohio! That was actually a tiny corner of West Virginia before!
Posted at 5:11:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
FLT 4 hours - Our wings are right on the line crossing over into Ohio!
Posted at 5:03:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
FLT 3:25 Cleveland Center: "I don't care if you go direct Dayton." Dean, cracking up, to me: "That's like 250 miles away! You'd never get that at home."
Posted at 4:34:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
We ran into a turbulenty rain cloud, but now we're out, deviating along. It's nice and cool now. I had a Snickers bar from the vending machine since Snickers really satisfies. (It's true!) Slacky Sassy's! Dean had Sun Chips.
D: "I appreciate your flexibility. I'm from the East Coast so I'm not used to that." Cleveland Center: "Oh, we're not like that here. Any time."
FLT 3:03 Landed!
Posted at 3:15:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Aaaaaah! Sassy's restaurant is closed! "Back at 4:00." What the heck! It's 3 now.
FLT 2:05 We're in the center of PA. Lots & lots of farms. Silos and old picturesque red barns. Long stretchy farm buildings (cow barns?). And those cool white drinky towers, near the river. Very green. We're flying really low now and it's hot! There are birds above us. So many big green fields! All these silos make me miss the Brock Brock chicken farm.
Posted at 2:09:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
FLT 2:27 Lewiston emerged from behind the mountains. Long stretchy colorful train. I'm too HOT!! Now we're ascending. :-) I'm not good with environmental extremes. It's very hazy today.
FLT 1:15 Entering Pennsylvania! "Expressway to Your Heart" on the radio. Blue skies and fluffy white clouds.
Posted at 1:46:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
FLT 1:30 We were flying at 10,500 feet & I started feeling kind of weird. Dean said maybe it's oxygen deprivation (aka hypoxia) so he immediately descended to 4,500. I feel better. I told him I felt "hungry." He's so smart knowing I wanted O2!
FLT 1:45 Susquehanna River! We went by a Cloud Factory (I took pictures) and a quarry. Mills and farms. The Sus is brown. Low mountains (Appalachians).
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Wow! Bob is recording a Christmas album, and it's not a fake made-up rumour! That will be awesome. I think. I have said before that there should be Dylan Christmas songs (the one that mentions throwing out the Christmas pie/pine doesn't count), and I guess he finally agreed.
Posted at 4:38:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Since I finished all my packing last night (very organized suitcase; it is impressive!), I caught up on all my letter-writing today. Not e-mails. Only real letters. I don't really believe in e-mails.
Here's the big Sky Trip plan: Day One (tomorrow) = Fly to Dayton, Ohio (home of my two Dreher uncles), stopping at a place in Pennsylvania on the way for lunch. Day Two = Visit/meet a million Drehers at Uncle Dick's house! Then fly the rest of the way to Chicago. On the way back (Monday or Tuesday), there will be tailwinds, so we'll make the whole trip in one day. Chicago will be somewhat play-it-by-ear, but I made three great dinner reservations (♥OpenTable!♥), so it will absolutely involve eating fantastic food (possibly including, but definitely not limited to, dry white toast). Maybe we can visit all these locations?? Okay, probably not.
I couldn't resist trying it tonight. My mods were fine! It's delicious. ♥♥♥
Posted at 12:34:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Monday, August 17, 2009
I'm making another clafoutis, with the last of the Buell and Draghi blueberries. Except, I realized after I'd already got my heart set on it that we only have a tiny bit of milk left and I don't want to open a new container before we go on our trip. So I used grogurt instead. I also put in a splash of vanilla extract, and sprinkled cinnamon-and-sugar on top before putting it in the oven. My mom sometimes uses yogurt instead of buttermilk when making MY CAKE, and MY CAKE has cinnamon-and-sugar on top, and blueberry clafoutis sort of reminds me of MY CAKE (well, they're both good), so that's why. I'll let you know tomorrow if it's edible.
Posted at 11:47:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
[Edit: !! Wow, it got super-puffy on the edges this time! It looks (and smells!) good.]
It was HOT today. Good! It's supposed to be hot in the summertime. Not all the time, but sometimes. I made a bet with Dean that my Dad would be familiar with the "inside a cow" expression, but I lost. It seems like something he should say. I told him he ought to start working it into things.
Posted at 11:01:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
My back is killed tonight. I think it knows we're going on a trip. I didn't get up insanely early or anything, but it got all exhausted regardless. I still didn't finish picking out what clothes to pack. I don't know what to wear in a city! I got a fantastic new black-and-white skirt today at Uptown, though. It's kind of like the one I made (super-soft jersey knit, flowy, extremely comfortable), except I didn't make it. And it's a little longer, and has more sections. It was too big (natch) but I smallified it on my sewing machine (natch). My old machine would have had a cow with that fabric, but my new one just ate it right up.
I got some UFO peaches at Big W. They are good (highly edible), but almost too sweet!
