I woke up to a very gray day, such that I would probably have stayed in bed if I hadn't had a conference call scheduled for 9:00. (This was just for a status on planning for a concert/gala for the early music group on whose board I sit.)

Now it's raining/sleeting/wintry mixing. I registered to go to a showing of one of the Commissario Montalbano films at the Italian Cultural Institute tonight, but I am really thinking of bagging it because of the weather. I may just stay home and watch Barack. (I did not even consider getting up in the wee hours of the morning to go stand in line in 4º weather to maybe get a ticket.)

In fact, this week and last have been fairly quiet for me, not much scheduled, and with some very cold weather last week not much incentive to change that. But I have done a couple of fun things. I went Sunday afternoon to hear Paul O'Dette and Ronn McFarlane play lute duets, Italian and English. Their encore was Dowland's "My Lord Chamberlain, his Galliard", which is written for two to play upon one lute. Rather fun!

I saw a production of "The Magic Flute" which, while the music (of course) is glorious and so were the voices, I didn't like. Why the director felt the need to stage it as though kids were putting on an opera in the backyard, I do not know. It lost all the magic, you never felt it was really happening.

The dishwasher has arrived, so I am slowly filling it with enough dishes to run it. Honestly, I'll probably not use it a whole lot, but it's nice to have.

When I imported my LJ entries, comments didn't come along. I did it again, and find I have a slew of duplicate entries. So I am gradually going back and deleting the duplicates, making sure to delete the ones that don't have comments. Only a minor annoyance, though, and worth it, because I like having everyone's comments! I'll shut down my LJ shortly.

Really. It's not just that it's in the 90s. It's humid and stuffy to boot. I dashed to the library earlier today to return a book and renew my card, and, after realizing how bad it really was outside, I nixed my plans to go to an outdoor concert tonight. I'd have been sitting out with no shade, no breeze, and I know I couldn't have tolerated it for long. So I stayed home with my A/C.

Last weekend was nicer. I had an errand downtown, and had left lots of time due to bus reroutes. Having done so, we naturally zipped there in no time, and I was quite early. But, as always, I had a book with me, so I sat in the Art Institute's sculpture garden and read until it was time for my meeting. The meeting was short, so afterwards I went back to the Art Institute to see the exhibit Undressed: The Fashion of Privacy, a nice complement to the "Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity" show. I also stopped by the shop and picked up a few "Special Value" books.

It was a bad day for book shopping (or good, depending on your point of view). I got my hair cut, and then went next door to O'Gara & Wilson's. Everything 25% off, because they are moving to Chesterton, Indiana, of all godforsaken places. I suppose from Doug's point of view, it makes sense, because that's where he lives, but for literally decades it's been one of my favorite used bookstores, and I will miss it terribly. It will come as no surprise to you that I bought a bunch of books.

This is all on top of what I picked up, free or cheap, at the American Library Association convention here a couple of weeks ago. I had an exhibit hall pass from Tim over at LibraryThing, and took full advantage of it!

The sibs arrive tomorrow for a couple of days. Stacey has warned that she plans to bring lots of veggies, so I will exercise restraint at the farmers market tomorrow morning.

Our "mild" winter has disappeared with a vengeance, now that spring is just a few weeks away. We got about 10" of snow yesterday (yes, New Englanders, I know that's nothing compared to what you've been dealing with!). It started in the early morning and just kept snowing into the night. Both things I had planned for yesterday were cancelled by mutual agreement, as was an event for this morning. I did go out in the morning before things got really bad, just to pick up some produce, but other than that I stayed inside, warm and dry.

What was cancelled (well, postponed, really) today was some additional training for Robie House tours. There's a young adult book by Blue Balliett, The Wright 3, which involves mysterious goings on at Robie House, and the Trust does a special tour for kids based on the book. I'm going to do the training to give that tour as well as the regular one. I've given a couple of the regular tours already, and I am really enjoying it. One of the perks of doing this is that there is a lot of additional education available, seminars and lectures, etc.

We had one bad day last week, too, but not bad enough to stop me from going to the Art Institute for a talk about chocolate and the Mayan culture, accompanied by a couple of kinds of hot chocolate, finger sandwiches and cookies. Yum!

I tried to accomplish some stuff on Monday, but was stymied. My hair is growing out, so I decided to treat myself to some shampoo from The Body Shop. But when I got there, I discovered they're closed for renovations and won't re-open until next month! Then I went to the bank to transfer some funds for the deposit on housing for my trip to France, and they needed one bit of info I didn't have. So I couldn't do that, either. (I have the info now and will go back tomorrow.) I then went up to Gilda's Club, contending with the alternate transit routes, as the Brown Line train, which I usually take to and from downtown to the club, couldn't cross the river as the bridge is out for repairs. The CTA, however, had free shuttle buses running so it worked out, though on the way to the bus coming back, I was forced to walk past the Anti-Cruelty Society's windows and admire the kitties up for adoption.

Also for the France trip, I've decided to get some tutoring to brush up my French, which I haven't used to any extent in about 30 years! Ack! I start next week. I have a feeling that I'll be mixing up French and Italian.

Over the last couple of weeks, since my last post, there have been a lot of interesting cultural events. A big Picasso show just opened at the Art Institute, and I went to a lecture about that. Two days later, I was back at the AIOC for a curator's talk with Kara Walker, whose installation, Rise Up Ye Mighty Race!, also just opened.

In between, I went to hear Garry Wills talk about his latest book, Why Priests?, over at Seminary Co-op.

And opera! I got to go to a dress rehearsal for Lyric's production of Rigoletto, which I'm seeing tomorrow. (Fabulous soprano, not so fabulous tenor.) Also went to Die Meistersinger on Sunday, which was all around excellent. It's Wagner's bicentennial year, so the Symphony did a program of the prelude and Act II of Tristan und Isolde. Chicago Opera Theater just did a production of Philip Glass' The House of Usher, which I liked a lot. The director gave it a homoerotic slant that served the production well. In the midst of all this, it was time to renew Lyric and CSO for next year! Time does fly.

My older sister has gotten involved in a new art gallery in Cleveland, which will have its grand opening the first weekend in April, so I'm thinking of driving out for a few days for that.

It's a rather odd coincidence, but before the Pope announced his retirement, I had been reading a couple of papal-related books. Two were books on the Borgias, and it's been interesting to see how journalists doing their obligatory potted histories of the papacy have been uncritically repeating all the old unsubstantiated gossip. I also read the extremely odd Hadrian the Seventh, about a failed priest who is unexpectedly elected Pope, by the extremely odd Frederick William Rolfe (he liked to abbreviate his name as "Fr. Rolfe", so that people would think he was a priest, but, according to one book blurb, "his vices were considered spectacular, even in Venice, where he died.").

The Latke-Hamentashen debate finally happened. It's usually the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, but there was a brouhaha at Hillel, which had always sponsored the debate in the past. The Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi, took it over, so it was delayed until mid-February, close to Purim. That, however, did not help the hamentashen; as always, latkes won the popularity contest!

Y'know, if I updated more often, these posts wouldn't be so long.

I'd be enjoying the 50º weather. However, this being the last day of May, I ran around this morning closing all the windows, and will probably hunker down with a pot of tea and my current read (Derby Day, by D.J. Taylor). I do have to go out later to replenish supplies and I will be annoyed that I have to wear a coat. It's also supposed to rain.

We're supposed to get around 8", which is nowhere near as bad as last February! I had a meeting downtown after my Italian lit class, and so ended up driving home in the mess. But my drive was on a main road, so it could have been worse. On the bright side, I parked downtown in a lot where I had a discount ticket ($12 as opposed to $33), crossed the street to the store formerly known as Marshall Field's, and walked the few blocks to my meeting underground via the Pedway. I love the Pedway!

We're interviewing for a new Managing Director for Teatro Vista, and we have an appointment for tomorrow with a guy who's driving up from Indianapolis. I called him this afternoon, and he still plans on driving up, so I gave him all my numbers just in case. I wouldn't have blamed him one bit if he'd asked to re-schedule.

I've just been out getting the accumulation off my car, and the maintenance guy from one of the buildings across the alley was also out doing some shoveling and he offered to help. I did not say "no"! He said this was about the fourth time today he'd been out shoveling, trying to keep on top of things.

Now I am going to go fix myself a cup of tea.

Wow, I just realized that I haven't posted anything substantive since I talked about my New York trip.

Since then, I've started my Italian literature class (as well as the regular language class) and my "Queens of Crime" class continues. Both are quite enjoyable. I attended the annual Printers Ball, sponsored by the Poetry Foundation, which is really just an excuse to pick up free copies of 'zines, literary journals and some books. I did restrain myself, as I really am trying to free up some space on my shelves. Unfortunately for that plan, I also went to the Newberry Library Book Fair, where I did not restrain myself.

We'd been having really hot weather, but about a week ago we had a big storm overnight, and since then it's cooled off (that is, it's in the low 80s rather than the high 90s). It had been way too hot to do any real walking, so the next day I did a long walk along the lake, which was still stirred up from the storm, and was showing an amazing number of different shades of blue:



I observed Do Nothing But Read Day on Saturday (though I did take a break to go buy groceries!), and finished up the book I had in progress, as well as a couple of others (one very short). On Sunday, I went up north for a picnic. We went to a park near my friend Cheryl's where there is quite a nice shelter. It's fully enclosed, but with windows that are nearly floor to ceiling that open up, so you get the air, but are protected if, as happened to us, it suddenly decides to thunderstorm! From there, I went to another friend's for a small get-together.

On Monday, I had to be downtown for a planning meeting for a seminar in October. It was held in a building right across from the Daley Center, which houses some courts and city offices and has a Picasso in the plaza:


In the summer, all sorts of events are held there, and this week they're having the Chicago Sister Cities International Festival, with food and vendors and performances. So before the meeting, I lunched on jerk chicken and watched some kids demonstrating Taekwondo.

West Side Story is playing in Chicago, and I'd been debating whether to go (tickets aren't cheap). I finally decided that I really wanted to see it as a) I love it, b) it's gotten good reviews, and c) this is the bilingual version. Verdict: B+. I wasn't terribly impressed with the woman who sang Maria; I don't know if it was the way she was miked, but her voice was a bit shrill and thin for my taste. Tony and Anita, on the other hand, were excellent, and I thought the bilingual experiment worked really well.

I had dinner beforehand at one of my favorite local restaurants. Very inexpensive, as they had sent me a gift certificate for my birthday which resulted in a three course meal with two glasses of wine costing me just over $10 (just over $20 with the tip).

Today is the first day of my retirement.

I highly recommend retiring (or otherwise leaving your job) for finding out what people think of you. I was taken out to lunch twice in two days, and colleagues kept stopping by my office yesterday telling me they were going to miss me and thanking me for my help and my work. After my last case in court, the judge led a round of applause for me. To my utter astonishment, the former State's Attorney (now an Appellate Court justice) showed up at my going-away party Wednesday night, when there was no political percentage in his doing so. The party was delightful in all respects. We went to a local casual restaurant which has a patio, and, as the weather was glorious, that is where we hung out. Scads of people showed up, from my office as well as the prosecutor's office, and also a number of people with whom I used to work (one of whom brought me a bottle of champagne).

Last night, a friend invited me to a wine-tasting at her church (it was a fund-raiser for one of their summer youth programs). They had quite the variety! About 15 different winemakers, from the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, were represented, with several varietals each. (I did not sample all of them!) Ordinarily, I'd have taken the bus home, but as there were a few of us from the neighborhood, we decided to share a cab. And thank goodness. About ten minutes after I got home, we were hit by a major thunderstorm. It was coming down in sheets, and in some areas they got hail so thick it looked like snow on the ground. Sadly, one of those areas was the neighborhood where the Garfield Park Conservatory is; the buildings were badly damaged, and they have had to close indefinitely.

This morning, I woke up about 6:30 and promptly turned over and went back to sleep. ;-))

It was supposed to be horribly hot today. Instead, it was extremely overcast, and threatening rain again. I debated going to an outdoor jazz concert at the local shopping center. In the event, I did go, and we got in well over an hour's worth of music (two hours were scheduled) before it started to rain a bit. Since you don't want to be playing electrified instruments in the rain, however slight, the concert ended, and I went and had a light lunch.

The rain stopped shortly thereafter, but it was still overcast, and when I got home I encountered my downstairs neighbor who was mulling over whether she should go to Taste of Chicago. I hope she did go, because it's cleared up quite nicely now, and the sun is out. The cat and I hung out on the porch while dinner was in the oven. Dinner, by the way, was excellent. I did a pork tenderloin with cardamon, mint and dried apricots, and had a green salad with it. Yum.

Here's an utter travesty. I will be taking a course on British women mystery writers, and we were supposed to read Dorothy L. Sayers' Gaudy Night, one of my favorite books ever. Today, I got an email from the instructor with a syllabus change. Seems that Gaudy Night is out of print! (And so are the two Ngaio Marsh books we were going to read.) I'm appalled.

It was supposed to be in the '70s yesterday and the '80s today. It is currently somewhere in the low '60s. Which wouldn't be so bad, except that it is also raining. Just like yesterday. Seriously, both days, I'm thinking I should head downtown and run a couple of errands and enjoy the weekend. I plan my timing to miss a) the Memorial Day Parade yesterday, and b) Bike the Drive today. And both days, the minute I think it's time to get ready to go out, I hear the patter of little raindrops.

If he doesn't come through with tomorrow's promised 90º and sunny, he's fired.

However, I am taking advantage of this to get a lot of stuff done around here. In the process of switching out the summer and winter clothes (between the bedroom closet and the hall storage closet), I have piled up a ton of things that I don't wear or that don't fit and have accumulated about four bags (so far) of clothes and other items to take to the Brown Elephant Resale shop. (I haven't taken them up there, though, since there are Cubs games every day and that always screws up traffic and parking in the area.)

Before the weather turned to complete shit yesterday, I went over to the library to pick up a book ("The Hare with Amber Eyes", which was recommended on Bookcrossing. I'm think I'll spend the dreary afternoon finishing up my current read (Arthur Phillip's The Tragedy of Arthur by William Shakespeare, and start the new one. I also went by the farmers' market. Not much variety yet, though you could have fed an entire town on all the asparagus available!

NOTE: this is my first attempt at posting to Dreamwidth with a cross-post to LJ. Hope it works! (I've imported all my LJ to Dreamwidth, too.) Which reminds me. I have three invite codes to Dreamwidth. If anyone wants one, drop a comment!)

I think winter might be really and truly over. (Having said that, it will probably snow.)

Yesterday, it was 60-ish. I went off to my AAUW meeting, a wine tasting, so what if it was only 11:00 in the morning? Well, maybe 11:30 by the time we started pouring the wine. Then I headed over to the Chicago History Museum, just a short bus ride away. See, my courtroom partner is a Civil War re-enactor, and he let slip that his troop was going to be participating in an event there. Naturally, I said I'd have to stop by with my camera, which got him all flustered and embarrassed. But when I got there and found him, he was quite the actor. He posed for me with a rather inauthentic empty plastic the vodka bottle, which was highly amusing, because he never drinks.

(My partner is the guy standing up.)

In the evening, I went to a lovely concert of 16th-century Italian vocal music, with three fantastic sopranos, a harpsichord, and a variety of violins and lutes.

Today, it was at least eighty, and sunny, and gorgeous. I was inspired to heights of cleaning, mostly because I want to get the place straightened up before I leave for Washington. This afternoon, I went to a rather curious opera, Death and the Powers, by Tod Machover, with a libretto by Robert Pinsky. It's got robots performing an opera within an opera, about a very wealthy guy who dies and goes into "The System", which he has invented to immortalize himself through technology. I kind of liked it, but I don't know. When an entire page of technology notes precedes the synopsis, I have to wonder about the priorities involved.

It was a short opera, just one, 90-minute, act, and because it was such a fabulous day, and the Park Grille's outside seating area was open, I treated myself to dinner there. Salmon tartare, risotto con pomodori secchi e salsiccia, and a sweet potato chiffon (like a mousse) for dessert.

I also managed to finish two books this weekend, Laurence Cossé's A Novel Bookstore, about a shop that sells only good novels, chosen by a secret committee, and James Cain's Mildred Pierce, which contains one of the best passages ever: "Are you insinuating that my daughter is a snake?" "No -- is a coloratura soprano, is much worse."

Now you must excuse me because it's time for the new Upstairs Downstairs!

Last night was weird. It was blowing really, really hard, and then there was thunder and lightning! It blew so hard that I thought we'd luck out and not have our cars buried. Ha. My car's the one in the middle:



I went out around 9:00 and started to dig out the rear end of the car, and was joined by a couple of kids who had been digging tunnels in the snow. They were very excited because the schools were closed, an event that the older one, who is 11, pointed out had never happened before in their lifetime. (The last time was twelve years ago.) They didn't last too long, but it was sweet of them to help. A couple of hours later, after it had snowed some more and then stopped, I decided to go and tackle some more of the snow. This time, I was joined by a young woman who was walking down the alley with her shovel slung over her shoulder. She had intended to dig out her car, but found she had no place to throw the snow without blocking someone else. So she left it, and plans to take the bus to work. (She'll have an extra day, though, because she's a teacher and CPS just announced they'll be closed tomorrow, too.) Between the two of us, we basically finished the job, and I invited her in to warm up and have a cup of tea. I paid it forward later this afternoon when I went out to finish the last bit and make sure my car would move. The neighbor kid was digging out her family car, so I helped her out with that.

I still may not get to work tomorrow, because, although we dug out the car and it does move, the alleyway still has a serious amount of snow and it's unlikely I could get from my spot to the street. Public transportation is an option, though a difficult one. It's two buses to the train, and then a bus from the train to my office, and that bus wasn't running today and they're not sure if it will be tomorrow. Not to mention that the temps are supposed to be in the single digits. So I may just call in.

Actually, had I followed my instinct and not parked behind my building but in the diagonal spaces on 53rd about a block away, I would have been okay. But who knew?

I must say that people pretty quickly got most of the sidewalks cleared, and I saw a lot of people helping others dig out. This morning, I wandered over to the park that's down the street. The dark bit to the left of the sign is the only bit of a park bench not buried in snow!



They're calling this the "Groundhog Blizzard".