Back in Chi-town
09 February 2014
Wiley
Home at last. We were reunited with our son Brad, who had done a great job taking care of our house and the beasts who live within it - Barkley (the mutt) and Marmalade (the cat).
Merry taught her course in the EDU program at AU. She loves teaching fellow educators, and was in a great mood every day when she got home from class.
She waited too long to sign up for the class she wanted to take at the school of the Chicago Art Institute, and when she attempted to sign up the class was full. However, she was able to take an oil pastels class in St. Charles with her friend Nancy. She drew and painted all summer, and in my opinion some of her work was wonderful.
We both got together with friends - I with my few, Merry with her many.
Summer in Chicago is magnificent and we took full advantage. We went to five concerts in Millennium Park, of the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra. The concerts are both world class and free. We always bring bread, cheese, a bottle of Rhone, and because we are now old (we used to sit on a blanket) our lightweight folding chairs.
Chicago is our nation's greatest city for theater. We saw some great plays.The most moving was "The Pianist of Willesden Lane", a one- woman-show by Mona Golabek, a concert pianist with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. In the play Mona Golabek portrays her mother, Lisa Jura, who grew up in Vienna with dreams of becoming a concert pianist. Her mother was Jewish, and just before World War II began; her parents were able to place Lisa on a kinder transport - part of an effort by British relief organizations to evacuate Jewish children from Germany. Lisa ended up at a home for Jewish refugee children in London. As Mona Golabek tells her mother's story she morphs into her mother - and plays the classical music her mother loved and played. Her mother even played an old upright piano in the basement of the youth home as bombs went off during the blitz. Lisa Jura's parents both died in a death camp, but because they had incredible courage, which enabled them to place their daughter on the train - the kinder transport- knowing they would never see her again, Lisa Jura lived, and I got to meet Lisa's daughter Mona Golabek after the play. I told her about my father, who fought in the U.S. Army infantry, through France and into Germany during the war.
We also saw Big Lake Big City at Looking Glass Theater with our friends Nancy and Terry, The Pullman Porter Blues with our friends Joan and her husband (Russ) my former law-school classmate. We saw Tribes at Steppenwolf - a play about a family's ability to listen and featuring a deaf actor. We went to famous Second City
(a wonderful gift from Sean and Tesia for Merry's birthday) - A Clown Car Named Desire, with both our sons and daughter-in-law. We enjoyed a production of Miss Saigon with our friend Ron. We also went and saw a marvelous production of Raisin In the Sun with Ron and Shira. We actually delayed leaving to go back to the boat in January so that we could see a preview performance of The Seven Guitars at Court Theater, one of the ten "century series" plays by the great August Wilson.
We bought Merry a road bike when we got back - a fast bike with clipless pedals and skinny tires. Merry went for 20 or 30 mile rides a couple times a week, and we rode our bikes together to Sycamore and Glen Ellyn. In the fall, we drove to Wisconsin to ride the Elroy-Sparta Bike Trail, which follows an old railroad right of way, going through three very long and dark railroad tunnels, one of them ¾'s of a mile long!
Merry flew out to Colorado with her friend Joan and spent time at her wonderful home in the mountains. They took daily long hikes in the mountains, relaxed in hot springs, and took in the beauty of the aspen leaves turning. Joana has done an amazing job putting finishing touches on her home - laying floors, making cabinets, and much more.
I completed my tenth Chicago Triathlon this year. I felt that I trained hard all summer, but I did very bad in the actual race. My bike time was a huge disappointment. Well, maybe I will do better in 2014. We both ran the Sycamore Pumpkin run and I did rather well in that race. Our neighbors also ran the race and did well.
We had some work done on Les Miserable over the summer. We also added wood flooring to the master bedroom and hallway of our house. Mark Rawksi, our daughter-in-law- Tesia's uncle, did a fabulous job. I had planned to take another course toward an MA in history at Roosevelt University fall term 2013. However, one of the repairs - replacing a bulkhead under the V-berth - was so expensive ( so were the home improvements) that I didn't feel that we could afford the tuition at R.U. I hope that I can get a semester done in Fall Term 2014.
So, we did a lot of cool things done between when we got home in June, and went back to the boat in January 2014. One of the coolest was going to the Chicago Symphony Ball concert in September, where we heard Ricardo Mutti conduct music by Verdi, including pieces from Nabucco and Othello, which I liked so much that I bought CD, boxed sets of both operas.
For me, the best times of all were Thanksgiving and Christmas at our house with our families. The turkey, the Christmas tree, all of us together like we pretty much are every year - these were the most spectacular hours of our time home.