Summer Deeps

Enervated (one of my mom’s favorite words). Spending too much time sopping up water in the basement. Saturday night we got 3+ inches in something like 3 hours. Quietly freaking about recent political news, although, since Mark is in quarantine upstairs after he tested positive for Covid Friday morning, I’m downstairs with the cats. Which means instead of live TV that would’ve been full of headlines, I watched a slightly odd movie Saturday night. In between sopping up the basement. As for me, I’ve had what I’m sure is a cold for 2 weeks, and have tested negative for Covid 4 times, most recently on Friday. Mark and I both last got vaccinated last fall, but I had Covid in November and he never has, so I think I have more immunity.

The schedule was different last week, because we were planning a trip to Chicago on Wednesday and Thursday. And of course, Monday was the big back to work day after the long 4th of July weekend, so it felt different even to us retirees. I worked at the library like normal, then we had picnic leftovers, ramen salad and sandwiches, for dinner.

Tuesday – since I wasn’t going to be there Thursday – I worked at the food pantry. The last thing I did there was to bunch up some chives someone had donated, and somehow the chives stunk up my old Northern Exposure t-shirt. When we got back from Chicago my bathroom, where I’d left the shirt, had a funny smell. I sniffed all over the place worried that it was pipes backing up or coming in form outside, but finally traced the smell to the shirt. I’d taken the ziplock bag the chives came in to re-use, stuffed it in the back pocket of my jeans skirt. The shirt was hanging over the skirt, but after washing the skirt was fine but the shirt still smelled. I Febreeze’d the heck out of the short, but I hate the smell of Febreeze too, so it’s still airing out in the basement. I wonder of Ill ever wear it again, or even more, put it in a drawer where it’ll stink up my other clothes. Anyways that was all after Chicago, and I was telling you about Tuesday: after the pantry I came home to wait for the dryer to be delivered. The first one was dented, so they took it back and this was the re-delivery. This one was dented too, but the driver put us down to get $100 back. The the cleaners came, also rescheduled from Thursday and I went off to the library where there really wasn’t anything to do. So I sat at a coffee place until it was time to go home, and the zucchini pasta I already told you about was dinner.  

The plan for our Chicago was go down Wednesday, spend the day seeing art shows, and then have dinner with the kids. Thursday it was a luncheon with an architect speaking then head home. We started at the Bean.

Then we walked to the South Loop and had lunch at The Spoke and Bird.

Not sure what’s up with them – they currently have only one location, but seem to have plans for lots more. We went to Spoke & Bird because we thought we’d proceed south to the Hyde Park Art Center to see a textile show by Robert Earle Paige, but we were hot and kind of tired so we decided to go back uptown and see Georgia O’Keefe at the Art Institute. But we forgot that the Art Institute is closed Tuesdays AND Wednesdays. So we went back to the hotel and decided to go see a movie at Block 37, right across the street. Inside Out 2, which was pretty riveting for a cartoon.

We had to run down the stairs through the shopping mall to get to the Blue Line and we just missed the L, but were only a little bit late to meet the kids for dinner at Middle Brow. Where I was really glad we had a reservation because they’re having a moment (they’ve been on a bunch of best pizza lists and recognized for their beer and wine, and they were in this Washington Post article, “Where the Bear characters would really eat“), and were packed on a Wednesday. We had the Chicago Dog pizza, the special of the night. Instead of chopped up hot dogs the pizza had some locally made mortadella that was really good, and of course sport peppers and yellow mustard and chopped tomatoes and onions and day-glo green relish.

A pretty good day but as Megan said, we spent the afternoon at a national movie instead of seeing something local.

We figured we could get coffee and then go see the O’Keefe show on Thursday morning, taking advantage of our member early access to the Museum. Our plan was to go to the South Loop Dollop, our regular, and also Mark said the stop & go next door was a good place to get bananas. We got the bananas OK, but another unexpected closure – the Dollop was closed for remodeling, so we walked back up town and went to the Monroe St. Dollop and then back to the hotel for breakfast.

 

I really liked the O’Keefe views of New York City hung near Steiglitz’s photos of New York City.

After the Art Institute, we went to meet a friend at a luncheon where the architect Carol Ross Barney was speaking. Barney was pretty great and talked about DuSable Park, and other Chicago development projects. We got some bad health news from our friend, I guess inevitable as we all age, but that was a bit of a damper.

I wanted to walk to DuSable Park, which is not really open yet, just to see how pedestrian friendly it is. Or is going to be.

We got home relatively early on Thursday evening, and I made a blueberry cobbler type thing that we had with ice cream, and watched a Bear episode and I think something else that I can’t remember.

Thursday was our last night of TV watching together, though, because like I said, Mark tested positive for Covid Friday morning. Jasper was already here, and since Mark can isolate upstairs, and I was still negative, Al & Emma decided that Jasper should stay for the day.

Jasper and I had kind of a funny day. Originally I thought we might go to the Children’s Museum, but first we had to wait for the plumber to fix the lines going to the new washer. Jasper had been on family vacation all week last week, and Emma said he might be a bit clingy and he was – he got kind of unhappy when I left him on one side of the baby gate when we were going in the basement to show the plumber what to do. I don’t like to climb over the gate with Jasper in my arms so I set him down, then go over, then pick him up. And he didn’t like being in the basement very much, either. We hung out and played until the plumber finished up, and he seemed kind of tired, rubbing his eyes, so I thought we’d go to the Museum after nap. But that didn’t go quite as I thought it would either. I started the naptime routine about 12:30, but he kept sliding off my lap and going to get other toys. I think it might’ve been too hot so I turned up the AC, and we ate more and played more and read more books. I put him in his crib about 1:30, but he still didn’t sleep, so I went in we read another book and rocked, and he finally slept. And woke up only 30 minutes later, when I rocked him back to sleep again, and he slept until 3:15. And the Museum closes at 4:00 so we didn’t go.

Mark was in quarantine so the weekend was kind of quiet. Friday I made myself a cherry, cheese, and crouton salad for my dinner and took sandwich stuff upstairs so Mark could eat on his own.

Saturday I volunteered at the Farmer’s Market at Breese Stevens, relocated for the Art Fair. It was hot, so instead of doing my shopping at Breese Stevens and then having my produce wilt while I volunteered, I drove over to the Westside market and shopped there first before biking to Breese Stevens. I stopped for bagels on my way home because Mark was out, and had one for breakfast with fresh mozzarella and cherry tomatoes and pickled jalapenos, latter two items from the farmers market. Sort of the same breakfast I had Tuesday, as shown in the overleaf. For dinner I finally made the chicken and zucchini and crouton casserole I’d been plotting since before our Chicago trip. You’re supposed to make it with stuffing mix and cream of mushroom soup, but I had made croutons and mushroom sauce.

As above the rest of Saturday was watching a movie on my laptop and shop vac’ing the basement. There was another downpour on Sunday morning but that one I sopped up with towels.

Sunday morning Susan and I went to the gym as usual, and then we planned to go to La Fete de Marquette and see the last act, Marcia Ball from Austin with the local band the Jimmys. They did four songs and then La Fete got shut down due to severe thunderstorms. Susan had gone the night before and that one got rained out too. We both had our bikes so we headed for her place and stuffed my bike into her car (actually her loaner car because her car is stuck at the dealer’s waiting for a part) and she drove me home. Which I felt a bit bad about making her do, but at least she got to see the rainbow over Willy St. I think her pic is better than the ones I got here at home, when I was creeped out by the yellow light and went out to look, and discovered the rainbow. My basement didn’t leak on Sunday night, thankfully.

In between the gym and La Fete, I made a blueberry buttermilk pie. I thought I’d write it up, but turns out I already did, though the already-written recipe is a little different than the one I made Sunday.

Here’s a comparison:

I think the 2021 pie is prettier and looks more blueberry-y, even though it has fewer blueberries. Maybe it’s because there’s more flour in the custard and it holds the blueberries up to the surface. And the more sugar makes the pie browner. The 2024 pie has some lemon zest and lemon juice along with the nutmeg and vanilla; I think I like the absence of lemon a little better.

And after 3+ inches of rain Saturday night, plus another downpour Sunday morning, plus the rain Sunday night, it’s raining again on Monday night. I’m not going down to the basement to look. Yet.