Two trips to Chicago …

… cookie fairy escapades, grading, working remotely constantly, and all the way up to Christmas Eve.

Sunday morning after the party I washed the last serving platter at 9:37. I made this cranberry ginger cake from Milk Street Kitchen that I had had a vision of serving warm with mascarpone whipped cream at the party, but there was too much going on. Let them eat cookies. I omitted the powdered sugar, and it was dandy coffee cake for Sunday morning. Then I packed some cookies – to ship to Mark’s brother in Maryland, and Jane in Oregon and a carton to take to Jeff & Teresa up the street who missed the party and a foil pan to take out to Chris’s tree sale. I put half the cranberry cake into another foil pan and headed out. Go to Shoe Box and turn left.

I had a short, pleasant visit with those guys, no tree sales by 11:30 AM on the last day of the sale, but it seemed like the people who showed up as I was leaving were going to buy.  Came back, changed, and we went to the Madison Symphony Christmas. I’d traded our Friday night tickets for Sunday afternoon so I could do party prep, and we were up in nosebleed. More bad behavior up there than in our regular Mezzanine seats, everyone on their phones.

After the concert we got a cup of coffee at Colectivo. Mark walked home and I drove so I’d have time to do a little work. We had ice cream & cookies for diner.

Monday I took my packages to the post office and then graded until it was time to leave for the train to Chicago at 11:30.

We arrived and checked in at the hotel. I got us in at the Palomar, a little further north Kimpton where we’d never stayed. I liked it – lots of light, although it seemed to take a long time for that $100 fee they put on your card “just in case” to clear.

Then Fontano’s for subs for a pre-show dinner. I had meatball. I felt very in the fold to be seeing Wilco in Chicago. The setlist is in the prior post.

2019-12-16 212825 from Debra Shapiro on Vimeo.

Tuesday we had a big breakfast at Little Goat, and got back to Madison in the afternoon. I graded on the train and when we got in, and I packed a few cookie fairy boxes to deliver Wednesday, which was pretty much a normal day in the office work day, except I started my new task of contacting candidates who are coming to interview for faculty jobs. I’m getting a course release spring semester to do this work.

Thursday was grading all morning and meetings all afternoon.

Friday we took a late train to Chicago, so I could grade at a real computer, not on the train, for most of the morning. We got there in time for an 8:00 dinner at Publican. Good but more food than we could eat. Our eyes were bigger than our stomachs, as my mom used to say. We got bread, and of course the carrots, and a salad, buttermilk dressing, little gem lettuce, shaved fennel, not sounding too rich until the  crispy pork rinds on top, and that would have been enough for me, but we also got the half roast chicken with frites. We waddled back to the hotel and went to bed.

I’d decided that I didn’t need to work Saturday after all the grading on the train and at all hours I’d been doing, but spent some time doing work email in bed at the hotel with a cup of the Keurig in-room free coffee, before we went out for Dollop coffee.

After Dollop it was up north to Floriole, another Chicago fave, introduced to me by Lottie & Doof (really Tim, Lottie was his grandma, who is a very occasional blogger, but who makes up for the infrequency with the quality of his writing. See this post he wrote back in August, coincidentally on my birthday, which is pretty F’ing hilarious; informative – maybe I need to expand my Brit TV-watching beyond Great Baking Show; and how we all think, really, followed by his gift guide from early December) to meet one of my Chicago archivist/librarian buddies, Linda, and had a pleasant time sitting and eating and chatting. we split a piece of quiche and a sticky bun.

Next we went to MCA, and wandered and looked at art for about an hour and half, before heading back to the hotel, changing, gathering cookie boxes, and meeting John & Megan for a pre-pre-drink before dinner. They chose this place called Good Measure that’s near where Megan works. It was the perfect antidote to all the tourists we’d been jostling through on Michigan Ave. They played a lot of ’80s & ’90s punk a bit too loud, and Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom was on the TV, and we got to the monkey brains dinner scene while we were sitting there.

Here’s what we looked at at MCA; it’s Jenny Holzer and Upstairs at Mobil: Musings at a Shareholder, by Hans Haacke in a kind of depressing show about communication and how some people’s voices are systematically silenced, and then some pieces from a show about water. I didn’t take any pics of this one, but I thought the most interesting thing in the water show was a movie by John Akmofrah, Vertigo Sea, that mixed archival and modern footage, picture of animals, polar bear hunting, a dying whale, pictures of Aboriginal people, and a lot of staged shots of people in sort of 18th and 19th century dress in desolate landscapes. You’ll find lots of images from it online.

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We met more of our archivist/librarian friends at one couple’s posh retirement home, The Clare, had a drink there, and I handed out the cookie boxes. Proceeded on to dinner at Little Beet Table, a limited chain – we were at the Chicago location <grin>. All veggies, which was nice after our meat extravaganza at Publican the night before.

Sunday I thought I might work at the library, but it didn’t open until 1:00, so instead we had a quick Dollop coffee – no more crowded Sunday than it had been on Saturday, and I went back to the hotel room to work.

We had breakfast at Beatrix – more cauliflower for me – cauliflower grits & eggs (I’d had curry cauliflower at Little Beet the night before). We had time before CSO at 3:00 to go to the Art Institute. I looked at this Photography and folk art show. There was no room at the member lounge so Mark, who’d looked at it while I was working in the morning, waited on a bench.

The symphony was guest conducted by Edo deWaart, who I guess lives in Wisconsin, though sounds like he’ll be in San Diego guest conducting in January. The soloist was Leila Josefowicz, who played a Stravinsky violin concerto that I guess is pretty tremendously hard – it’s got this chord that Stravinsky struggled with opening all four movements. Anyways even Mark stood up to give her the ovation – he never stands up. The symphony opened with a short piece by John Adams, The Chairman Dances, which was awfully good too, and the last half was all Dvorak, Carnival Overture, and Symphony #8, what Mark would describe as a war horse, classical pieces that get played a lot and even classical know-nothings like me find them familiar, pretty melody and also fun to listen to.

We just missed the 5:30 train, so had to wait around till 6:30 and got home at 10:00. I had a few cookies and tea, and Mark had his with ice cream.

Monday morning I went to work and got one of my classes all graded – although to my horror when I logged in Christmas Eve day, the grades didn’t get saved, and I had to put them in again.

Monday the weather got completely depressing, cloudy high 40s, almost slimey. Frozen fog when I walked to work in the morning, smelled like manure outside when I left campus in the afternoon.

I’ve been working on this post since the night before the night before Christmas, when I still had 19 papers to read. Christmas Eve day I was determined to finish all the grading, but the laundry was overflowing and the recycling needed sorted and the vegetable drawer was a mess – so I cleaned up all that stuff first.

We had our traditional pizza and Christmas movies and leftover cookies Christmas Eve celebration last night, with Al & Emma, and Ethan and Belinda & Stephen. A small charcuterie board with party leftovers, a little cheese, squash hummus, salami, pickled mushrooms & peppers, olives, and the pizza was pepperonata with sausage and cheese and plain with just cheese, and caramelized onion, roasted squash, and goat cheese. And of course a big cookie platter – after we ate all we could I gave Belinda and Stephen the leftovers to take home.

And now it’s Christmas morning, which started off kind of the same as yesterday – I wanted to finally finish this post but first had to clean up the cat litter and put dishes away. We’re having pumpkin muffins for breakfast – but I gotta go make them! since it’s just me and Mark, and pot roast for dinner with Al & Emma, and trifle for dessert.

Happy Christmas to all! and to all a good day!