Three things make grocery shopping in summer fun. First, I need to shop less because I decided to keep both of my CSA sign-ups (a half-share with Urban Canopy and a small share with Nichols Farms), and both are delivered to my house.
The second is that Glenwood Street Market moved back to its location right by Morse CTA station, so it is now super-close to my place, and it operates on Sunday! Saturday markets are always challenging because there are too many things happening on Saturday mornings!
The ribbon-cutting two weeks ago
And the third one is that I can bike to the stores. Earlier this year, Boris found a perfect bike “saddle” bag: it is extremely spacious, easy to attach to the bike rack, and perfectly balanced.
This season, almost everybody in our building beautified their balconies, and the courtyard looks just splendid.
My balcony
Also, at the end of last summer, one of the neighbors put together two large planters using the pieces of old furniture that those who were moving in and out were throwing away. This neighbor has also moved since then, but the planters were ready to be used.
Eight people from the building including me were interested. We bought the solid together, and one of the neighbors fixed the planters (they were too low). And thus, we opened our first urban gardening season.
As you can see, I am trying yet again to grow dill. Maybe it will work this time???
Continuing on the topic of cultural activities. Last week, when Boris was in Chicago, we went to two CSO concerts, both with Esa Pekka Salonen conducting. I like him a lot and didn’t mind at all that after a couple of ticket exchanges I ended up having two pairs of tickets to two concerts just a day apart.
It was a very exhausting week in terms of work, and I was not sure whether it would be a good idea to make myself sleep-deprived for two days, but both concerts were exceptionally good!. One piece which stood out was Dessner’s violin concerto performed by Pekka Kuususto. On my way home from the concert, I found a recording of this very piece performed by Kuusisto with a different orchestra.’
If you watch it, I guarantee you would feel what I felt!
Don Quixote at Joffrey – just perfect. Every single little detail was just perfect. Such a treat! Can’t go to bed although it’s super late – remembering details of the performance and smiling 🙂
Most of my neighbors saw this article, and I had the post in Drafts for a while. This article in SunTimes makes me proud of my neighborhood, and reminds me why I love living here so much!
It turned out to be challenging to copy the whole article here, so I hope that my friends will be curious enough to follow the link!
And one more musical – the last one from this subscription. I am so glad I became a Broadway in Chicago subscriber (and so glad that the live shows are back!). As always, the question is how to find time for all the shows which are out there!
I was surprised to find, that all the Broadway in Chicago venues quietly stopped checking the vaccination status, and also, the voice message from the CSO which I received today about the upcoming concerts, states the same. It is not necessarily a bad thing, considering that although the infection rates are currently high, we hospitals are not overwhelmed. I hope it will stay that way!
My girls visited over the weekend, and we had tons of plans. The plans got almost canceled because Nadia started to get sick on Thursday night, and both Anna and Nadia arrived partially sick. Then we didn’t go anywhere on Saturday because Nadia was getting sicker and sicker, and Anna was about to go home right away.
We finally decided to wait till Sunday morning, and to my surprise, Nadia woke up mostly normal and ready for adventure.
We went to the Field Museum as we originally planned to do on Saturday. This weekend was marked by the opening of the new Native American Galleries. The whole exhibit space was completely re-imaged; both the content and the presentation became more meaningful. There were several activities related to the new exhibit. One was the native storytelling with Karen Ann Hoffman. All I can tell – she was amazing, and I am not going to try to retell the stories. We all sat on the floor and listened for half an hour.
Another great activity was basket weaving. We looked at the demonstration, and later, we could stop by, and get our share of materials and instructions. We came back for the next two strings, and then the last time to finish the project. All of us (except probably Kira) enjoyed this activity a lot – we worked together and ant the end, we had this cute basket!
Finishing touches to our family basket
Once again, we spent almost the whole day in the museum and came home with barely any time left to have leftovers dinner before the girls went home.
I went to see this play at Netherlanders Theater on Wednesday. I do not know why I didn’t check details in advance – probably because I was sure that there can’t be anything unexpected – but I didn’t realize that this is a play, not a musical. Until some time into the show 🙂
It was a splendid production, and very true to the book, except for adding some references to today’s situation (like “seventeen shots”).
The theater was packed (and they do not check the vaccination cards anymore, although masks are fortunately still required)? and the audience was completely taken by the performance.
At some point, however, I got a feeling that not everybody in the audience was familiar with the book (although it seems impossible); or maybe they forgot since school. It’s just that the reaction to some scenes (like announcing the verdict) seemed to be a little bit like they didn’t expect it.
On my way home, on the Red Line, I heard people talking about the play – some of the passengers saw playbills in other passengers’ hands, and that started the conversation. When this happens, it always feels very good, like we are indeed one city. One Chicago.
Hettie's Reflections 