mojosmom

( Redecorating )

( Fresh Air )

( That seminar mentioned above )

Oh, by the way, I have not forgotten about the photo meme. Pictures are slowly but surely being taken, and I hope to have the roll of film used up over this weekend so I can get it developed and pictures posted by mid-week.

Okay, back to housework.

The weather was absolutely perfect today. Warm and sunny, with a soft lake breeze. Just gorgeous.

I took Marissa to the vet as she's been having the occasional wheezing sort of cough. The vet says she's probably allergic to something, and advises using a non-dusty litter. But she's otherwise quite healthy and the vet says it's nothing to worry about. Then I came home and did a bit of ironing and got some books ready to release.

Shortly before noon, I hopped a bus downtown. First stop: the Chicago Architecture Foundation. I was just going to browse their shop, but I got distracted by an amazing exhibit in the Atrium, the ( The Newhouse Architecture Competiton )

There was some amazing work from some truly talented kids.

Then I wandered over to the Palmer House Hilton, scoped out the hot men and released some books: Blood, Snow and Classic Cars, Flesh and the Word, and Love, Sal.

The old Shubert Theatre has been bought and renovated and is now the LaSalle Bank Theatre. They had an open house today, which was one of my purposes in going downtown. So after leaving the Palmer House, I went down Monroe, dodged through the Memorial Day parade on State Street, and checked it out. They've done a great job of restoration on the theatre. It's really beautiful, and the seats are 3" wider now! I took a bunch of photos, released a book, nibbled on cookies, ran into a friend, and won a CD of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee in the raffle.

With some time to kill before my next destination, I wandered into a few stores on State Street. I found a lovely blouse (on sale) at Urban Outfitters and a decorative pillow (on sale) at Nordstrom Rack. Wandered into Dick Blick's and got handed a free sample of colored pencils (and picked up their list of upcoming demos - Lineco is doing a bookbinding one in late June - must try to get to it.) Browsed a bit at Border's.

On to the Gene Siskel Film Center for a showing of a selection of shorts in their "Treasures from the Library of Congress" series. My favorite was Jammin' the Blues, with folks like Lester Young and Illinois Jacquet just, well, jammin'. The photography was stunning, especially the shots of Young on tenor sax, cigarette between his fingers, smoke drifting up. And an equally smoky vocal of "On the Sunny Side of the Street" by Marie Bryant. Sublime. And on to ridiculous - one of the great cartoons of all time, What's Opera, Doc?. There were brief pre-showing talks by a couple of folks from the LOC, as well as a Q&A afterwards. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there was a reception afterwards, with food! So I had an unexpected late-afternoon snack of veggies, fruit, and sweets. Very nicely done, Film Center! While I was there, I picked up next month's schedule - a Janet Gaynor fest! I may have to stop in.

Then I came home, fed the cats, checked the mail, ate dinner, put the summer linens on the bed, and now I'm here telling you all about my day.

Last night, I went to the Center for Book and Paper Arts for the opening of their Residency exhibition. Lots of good stuff, but I was especially taken by a piece by Mary Hood, "Earth, Air, Water, Fire", consisting of four scented books. What was unusual was that looking at them, they appeared, depending on how they were presented, to be slipcased or in drop-spine boxes. But what seemed to be the case or the box were, in fact, the covers of the books. Beautifully executed. Lots of chat with Bill Drendel and Anita, and I met a couple of people who are new to the Center. Very nice noshes, too.

Thursday was a reception at the Newberry for the Newberry Consort. They have started doing these "end of season" receptions for subscribers, which I think is very nice. A preview of next season, the opportunity to chat with the musicians, and food (the invitation said "wine and cheese"; this was true, but there were also little bagels, smoked salmon and the usual accoutrements, veggies, fruit, and chocolate-covered strawberries). The news is that next season will be Mary Springfels' last as director. She's 60, her partner's now in New Mexico, and, after twenty-one years leading the Consort, she wants to move on to other things. She'll still sit in occasionally, which is good.

The rest of the holiday weekend promises to have just as lovely weather as today. I think I'll try to get to the Art Institute Monday, as I haven't been there in a while. Tomorrow I may just veg on the back porch with the Sunday papers.

Oh! The swans that live in the retention pond at my office have cygnets! I tried to get photos, but they were lurking in the reeds, so I got a shot of dad instead. Story on myself: cameras are not allowed in the building, but I had slipped mine in my bag and forgotten I had it until I said to someone, "since I have my camera, I think I'll try to get pictures of the swans". What's really silly is that, just the night before, I'd been telling someone that I could never have a camera phone because I couldn't bring it into the office. Don't know where my head was!

I got my New Orleans photos developed, and got a CD as well as prints. So most of them (some didn't come out too well) are now on Flickr, along with some new ones of the cats and a few of my binding projects.

Jazz Fest

Cats

Bookbinding Projects

I spent most of yesterday doing laundry and figuring out what to take to New Orleans. But in the evening I went to the WomanMade Gallery benefit art auction. I generally volunteer, and this year I was a 'spotter' for the live auction. I also bid on a few items in the silent auction, but despite my best efforts I did not win the jewelry, the ceramic vase, or the vintage evening bag. I did, however, win the books. Surprise!

To Caroline's today for dinner. She made a very yummy pot roast, and I brought a "Mango Passion Exotique" from Trader Joe's. We were treated to a recorder concert (well, two songs) by Jennie Len. She is supposed to play for her class and so she practiced on us.

Marissa did something that really shocked me. I keep the cat toys in a basket in the dining room, and normal procedure is for the cats to take out the ones they want to play with, bat them all over the house and leave them for me to pick up. Today, Marissa got out a sparkly toy, hauled it into my study, fought with it for a while, and then (you might want to sit down for this) put it back in the basket!!!!!

The other day, I took some film to be developed and picked it up this morning. It was mostly pics of Lilith and Mr. Mojo, so it made me a little sad to look at them.

The trial I was supposed to start tomorrow fell through. I walked into court this morning, and the prosecutor on the case came up to me and said, "will he take 8?" (meaning 8 years in the penitentiary). Although this was what my client had been willing to take months ago, I wasn't sure he'd take it today, since people often assume that, if the state makes a better offer the day of trial, it means something has gone wrong with their case. In this case, though, it meant that someone with a bit of sense looked at the case and said, "oh, go ahead and offer 8." Since my guy has a few probation violation cases and a case in another county which will all run concurrent, and since he was looking at 6 - 30, it was a good deal all around, even though our case was very triable.

I had a very casual dinner, prosciutto, melon, cherry tomatoes, brie and bread. Marissa went nuts over the prosciutto! She rarely begs for food, but as I was putting everything together in the kitchen, the minute I got out the prosciutto, she started meowing and standing on her hind legs and looking pitiful. I did not fall for it. Sorry, kid, the prosciutto's mine - you get cat food. I'm such a mean mom.

Usually, I complain that the camera is always in the other room when the cats are doing something cute, and by the time I get it, they are doing something else. Today, the camera was in the same room, but I still couldn't get what would have been the picture of all time.

I have a clothes chest in my bedroom, about 2 1/2 feet from my bed. This morning, half-dressed, I had the doors open and was bending over trying to decide what shirt I wanted. Marissa was curled up on the bed. Suddenly, I hear the jangle of her collar, and the next thing I knew, she had hopped up onto my back. I thought she was using me as a conduit to get to the top of the chest. But then she started to curl up on my back! Even though the camera was on top of the chest, any attempt to reach it would have disturbed her and ruined the shot I would have been trying to get.

Sometimes, I think it would be nice to have someone else in the house. As it is, you'll have to use your imagination.

Sitting here enjoying a glass of wine after a treacherous drive home. It was raining, and then sometime during the first act it started snowing. By the time we left the theatre it was coming down that nasty, slushy, heavy snow and the plows either hadn't been out or needed to come around again. But I made it.

The earlier part of the evening was very nice. Met Jamie, Kevin and Jim, and, unexpectedly, Sonia, for dinner. We had fortunately chosen a place across the street from the Opera House so we didn't have to go far in the rain and could relax a bit instead of dashing. I had French onion soup and a smoked trout salad. Yum. We had a bit of a surprise when our wine and desserts were comped. It turns out that the manager of the restaurant is the brother of a guy who teaches at the same seminar Jamie and I taught at last week. Jamie had told him we often eat there before the opera, and he told his brother to treat us right.

The opera was Mozart, The Magic Flute, the same production I've seen before, though they played up the silly stuff more this time than last (which I liked). The voices were excellent, as usual. It was worth the slog home.

There's a guy I've seen at the opera for years, always very elegantly dressed, very soigné, except that he also very obviously dyed his hair a deep red (likely his natural tint considering his coloring). However, this season he showed up au naturel, and looks sooooo much better, very distinguished-looking but still youthful. Wonder if he has a new boyfriend who prefers older men . . . Whatever it is, it's a lesson in "gray is gorgeous".

The cats hiss when they catch sight of each other, though it seems rather pro forma as they then stop it almost immediately and go on about whatever they were doing and ignore each other.

I decided it was time that Lilith and I had another feline in the house, so I visited the SPCA this afternoon. It was a very difficult decision, but then this lovely lady batted her eyelashes at me. Well, she reached her paws out from the cage and stuck her nose out, too. The volunteer took her out, and she immediately started purring and curled up on my lap.

I can't bring her home until Monday, as she is being spayed. She is four years old, smaller than Lilith (though whether that will continue once she's spayed, who knows?). Her fur is a soft, smoky grey, even lovelier than in the picture.

Marissa is the name she was given by the shelter. It's rather nice, so I may keep it, unless she tells me she wants another.

Here she is!

Today was the morning from hell in court. Our regular deputy is on vacation, and our regular clerk was at the dentist, and we had two people who didn't really know what they were doing. The clerk didn't matter so much, but the deputy is responsible for getting inmates to the courtroom on a timely basis, and we had a lot of inmates today. And this guy would call for them on a totally random basis, despite being told "we're ready on this guy and it will be quick". He was calling for inmates whose attorneys hadn't shown up, not calling for people we were ready on, and the kicker was that at one point the judge asked him who he had called for, and he said, "no one". She was not happy.

Each week in my Italian class, we are supposed to bring in an article (from the web, an Italian newspaper, etc.) and tell the class about it in our own words. This week three people, myself included, brought articles on the same subject, a festival called "Chocoday, yes, all about chocolate. However, I was the only person to bring in examples (Ghirardelli chocolate squares).

There's a very amusing argument going on in my dining room. I have an empty box on the floor (left over from hauling in books from a book sale). The cats are disputing possession. So far, Lilith's winning. Of course, the fact that the box is big enough for both of them matters not a whit. It's "mom, she's on my side" in Meow.