The latest

My plan for Wednesday was to come home, dump my stuff, and then go to a "style" event at the home décor shop across the street. I would then return home, have dinner and watch the Top Chef finale. I did some of that, but when I came home from work, my downstairs neighbor and friends were sitting around outside, and Marva said, "Do you want a hamburger?" Naturally, I said "sure!", and she fixed me a plate with not just a burger, but a wheat roll, potato salad and baked beans. Yummy.

Then I did go to the event, which was all about finding what colors suit you in terms of your home. I normally find these sorts of analyses fairly uncompelling, but some of the the tools she used did actually make some sense in terms of making one think not only about the use of the room, but the feeling you want to convey, and I think it helped me focus on, and maybe even make a decision about, the color I want in my dining room.

I was so pleased with the outcome of Top Chef! I'm don't make a habit of checking out the latest "in" restaurants, so I wasn't familiar with Stephanie Izard's Scylla, but I am always happy when a Chicagoan gets recognition, and she surely deserved to win. Her cooking has been so consistent throughout the show, and she is so focused and (for the most part) incredibly calm in the kitchen, and works well with others. (I must say that I'm constantly amazed at how many of these contestants don't work well with others.) She is, apparently, looking for space for a new restaurant in or near downtown, and I'm sure she'll do well.

I mentioned a while back that some folks are trying to reconstitute the Chicago Barnard Alumnae Club, and so on Thursday a small group of us went to an author reading by Lily Koppel, who wrote The Red Leather Diary, and is also a Barnard alum. For those who haven't heard about this - Lily was a writer for the New York Times and was living in a prewar apartment building on the Upper West Side. One day, as she was on her way to work (late), she saw a dumpster outside her building, filled with old steamer trunks. The building was clearing out storage space in the basement. She climbed into the dumpster! And rescued a bunch of stuff, including a red leather diary written in the late twenties and early thirties by a young woman named Florence Wolfson. A while later, she met a private detective and decided to try to find Florence -- and she did. That meeting led to her decision to write a book about the Florence who wrote the diary.

After the reading, we Barnard women sat around and chatted. Lily is a charming young woman, and I can see a lot of similarities between her and Florence. I can see why they are so simpatici, even with nearly 70 years difference in their ages, both so curious about life.

Poor Marissa got her claw stuck in my computer this morning! Right on the underside, there are little holes (vents, I imagine), and she was lying on the desk in front of the computer and started rolling about and stretching. Suddenly, there was a howl and I realized she'd gotten a claw in one of the holes and couldn't get it out. Of course, when I tried to help, she just squirmed a lot, which made it worse, but eventually I got her free and she went dashing off to sulk. However, no harm was done and she is back lying on the desk. I have tried to explain to her that if she would just let me cut her claws instead of fighting me when I do so, these things wouldn't happen, but she doesn't listen.

Noir-ish

It was an absolutely gorgeous day today. So, what did I do? I spent the late afternoon and early evening in a movie theatre. The Gene Siskel Film Center is having a "Fox Noir" series, all these films noirs from 20th-Century Fox. Today they showed "Night and the City" and "Thieves' Highway", both directed by Jules Dassin, and both marvelous. The cinematography of the former, in particular, was stunning. (Honest to god, sometimes I wish they'd never invented color.) Some of the shots of the wrestling jumped up and shouted, "George Bellows!" to me. A film conservator from Fox, who had worked with Dassin on the preservation of "Night and the City" before his death, spoke briefly before, and did a Q&A after, that film. Then I came home and had tortellini, with basil and oregano from the planter on my back porch.