mojosmom

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!