mojosmom

My sisters were in town this weekend. I picked Cathy up at Midway after work on Wednesday, and Stacey drove in on Thursday, arriving just about an hour before I got home. She brought scads of vegetables from her garden - zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant and bell peppers - so Cathy made us gazpacho for dinner.

I took a vacation day on Friday, and we went downtown to the Cultural Center and the Art Institute. I'd already seen the Louis Sullivan and Jazz Loft Project exhibits at the Cultural Center, but they were well worth seeing again, and we also saw the exhibit, Stranger in Paradise: The Works of Reverend Howard Finster. We had lunch, and then to the Art Institute for their Sullivan exhibit, and also the Henri-Cartier Bresson show, which was immense. Then home to rest up before going out to dinner with some old family friends.

On Saturday, we headed to my local farmers' market. I needed some garlic, and we also bought a variety of fruit, a lovely bit of lamb, some flowers and Brown Sugar Bakery's awesome bread pudding, fresh from the oven. We stayed for the chef demo, and, as always, sampled the end products, both of which were vegetarian, so Stacey could enjoy them as well.

We had thought about going to Carifete, a festival of Caribbean nations, with food, vendors, a parade, etc., but skipped it in favor of resting up a bit at home. Then I ran some necessary errands while my sisters went over to the Art Center to see a show I'd already seen and didn't need to see again. Late afternoon, we went out to Oak Park to see our friend Jeanette, a founder of the Chicago Architecture Foundation. She took us to a local art fair and dinner, and then we went back to her apartment, chatted and watched the video of her 90th birthday party. She was telling us about what the new owner is doing to her former residence, Frank Lloyd Wright's Davenport House. He's taking it back to the original 1901 configuration (there's apparently a bit of controversy about this), and the work is taking so long that six years after he bought the place, he still isn't living in it!

Sunday, we drove out to the boonies to see Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House:


I wouldn't want to live there all the time, but I can sure see why Edith Farnsworth spent every weekend there! And we could also hear why she finally decided to sell it. There was a bridge over the Fox River, right by the house, which, when she bought the land, was just a quiet, farmers' bridge. Then the powers-that-be decided it needed to be a big, modern road. And, boy, is it noisy! Quiet inside the house, but no more serene evenings on that terrace.

When we got back to Hyde Park, we went to the Medici for a late lunch. New t-shirts: "Support Elena Kagan - a judge of good pizza"! (She apparently frequented the Medici when she was at the Law School.)

Yesterday, I had to go to work, but the sisters walked down to the lakefront, through Jackson Park and then hit the bookstores on 57th St. Cathy made penne pasta with mushrooms, zucchini and pine nuts for dinner, along with thick slices of tomato with fresh basil. After dinner, she suggested that we go for a walk around the block, as it was a perfect evening to go walking. I put forth an amendment to the motion, that we walk over to the Istria Café and have a gelato. The motion, as amended, carried unanimously and was put into immediate effect. We came back through Harold Washington Park, where some young men were playing soccer and some older men were playing chess.

I dropped Cathy off at the airport this morning, and Stacey drove herself home later in the day. So now here I am with no one but the cats, which is okay, too! Marissa, who is normally quite shy with other people, took a mild shine to Cathy, briefly snuggling with her when she was trying to print out her boarding pass!

Stacey arrived on Thursday, about the middle of the afternoon. I had assembled the vegetarian lasagna earlier in the day and, as we were both hungry, I put it in the oven as soon as she got in. That and a salad, with chocolate mousse (courtesy of Trader Joe's) made a nice dinner.

On Friday, we went to a couple of used book stores and both of us bought a bunch. I found one book I wanted that didn't have a price marked, so Doug checked Abebooks, and immediately started making snide remarks about parasitic booksellers. Really, look at the huge variation in prices, with no reasonable explanation. (He charged me slightly less than the lowest-priced copy on Abebooks, due to condition.) Yet another reason I enjoy O'Gara's is that you encounter things like this:


After the bookstores, we went and got the remainder of the groceries that I needed for my Sunday open house. Later in the evening we went to the opening of The Opportunity Shop, a transitory space for art in the neighborhood. Basically, they get a realtor to allow them to use empty store front space for a short period of time (this show is up for about a month), and a variety of artists just come in and hang their art. A good time was had by all, and then we went home for dinner.

The next day, we headed to the Cultural Center for a showing of Between the Folds, a documentary about paperfolding. This is not your grandmother's origami. The artists are doing incredibly complex and sculptural pieces. But it was also about the mathematics of paperfolding and some interesting applications of knowledge gained through folding. The film will be shown on PBS' Independent Lens series in December, so, as they say, check your local listings!

The film was followed by an origami workshop, but we skipped that to look at a couple of the art exhibits, the best of which was After the Storm, photographs by Jane Fulton Alt of the aftermath of Katrina. We also stopped briefly at the Art Institute, to visit the Museum Shop and say hello to the lions, newly decked out for the holidays:




Sunday was my annual open house. As usual, a wonderful group of people gathered to chat, eat and drink, and everyone had a good time.

I took the day off from work today, and finally got to a couple of fabric stores to hunt up buttons. I have a vintage coat and a short jacket, both of which lost buttons and for neither of which I had spares. Having realized that I wouldn't find anything close to the buttons that came with the garments, I decided I'd just replace them all. But I'm going to save the old ones and find some other use for them.

This afternoon, I did something I've been wanting to do for a while, but haven't gotten around to. At 47th and Lake Shore Drive, there's a birding trail/butterfly sanctuary:


and just west of that, there's a viaduct with murals on one wall and mosaics on the other. So I took a walk, and took pictures. Murals & Mosaics.

Went to the opera last night, Verdi's Falstaff, which I enjoyed very much, not least because I saw the second and third acts from a much better seat than usual! At the first intermission, Jim said that the couple who usually sit next to them weren't there, so why didn't I move up? Sounded good to me! Their seats are in the first section on the main floor (mine is the back of the main floor, under the boxes), much closer, better acoustics and more leg room. Jim said these people aren't renewing next year, and thought I might try to get one of the seats. Unfortunately, as much as I'd like that, it would cost me 2 1/2 times what I'm currently paying, so unless I win the lottery, that ain't happening.

We had dinner beforehand and talked politics, mostly about Barack (as to be expected from a bunch of Hyde Parkers!). Duncan said (tongue in cheek) that he's voting for him in order to get the potholes on his street filled. His theory is that if Barack wins, Chicago is more likely to get the Olympics, (of course, this might be a reason to hope he doesn't win!) and since much of the Games would be on the south side, our streets will get paved and our infrastructure improved. Jamie pointed out that Hillary went to the same high school that he did, and therefore he would have a connection either way. Our local state rep also goes to the opera, and we ran into her, so there was more talk about our favorite son.

I went to pick up my ring today. They did an excellent job, and it cost less than the estimate. They cleaned the ring as well, and it looks all sparkly again.

As I was downtown anyway, I went to the Art Institute. There was what they call a "Q & Art with a curator", about the Clarence Buckingham Collection of Japanese Prints, a gallery I visit pretty much every time I go to the Art Institute. They change the exhibit every three months, so there's usually something different and, if not, it still pays to re-visit. It was quite interesting. She talked a lot about the collection itself (they have 16,000 prints, which sounds like a lot but pales in relation to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts 65,000), how they put the shows together and decide the themes, and also about some of the specific prints that are in the current exhibit (which focuses on Kabuki actors). She said they are always happy to hear ideas for future exhibits, and as it happened, I had been thinking that an exhibit about the growth of the collection would be intriguing. She had mentioned that the curator who had advised Buckingham had kept a very detailed record, and that he had drawn little designs in the records, and I thought it would be fun to see those. I suggested that, and she said, "Oh, that would be a good idea!" So if you ever hear that the AIOC is doing such an exhibit, you'll know where the idea came from.

I should mention that admission is free the entire month of February, so if anyone is in Chicago, now is your chance! (The Hopper and Winslow exhibits are extra, though.) There's a guy who sells Streetwise regularly outside the AIOC, and his pitch today was, "Admission is free, so you should have a dollar to help the homeless." He's usually pretty good at coming up with riffs like that, so I hope he did okay.

I had not realized that they were also having a Member Appreciation Day, which pretty much consists of "you can get 20% off at the Museum Store instead of the usual 10%". However, I restrained myself, mostly because I wanted to get to the Cultural Center for another free cabaret performance.

I took another couple of pictures for croc_sandwich, and then came home.