I barely saw my friends this week! On Tuesday, I hosted a Chicago PUG meetup, which meant a thirteen-hour workday. On Wednesday, we went to the Grant Park concert, but it was with only two of them and today, I have a Howard/Evanston Community Board meeting (and I had to stop to see my mom between my work and this meeting!). Everything is important, and I knew that week was going to be like that, but still…
My friends are leaving tomorrow, and I have a feeling that we didn’t have time to do at least a half of the things I wanted to do with them!
This week, I didn’t take any time off, and moreover, I had something after work almost every day, so my guests were mostly on their own. I am glad that they finally realized that biking is a way to get around, that they were at the beach pretty much every day, and that they could explore the city on their own.
Today, the interested parties went to the Grant Park Music Festival concert. The highlight of today’s show was Rachmaninov’s “Rapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” with Clayton Stephenson as a piano soloist. That was an outstanding performance, and the audience was ecstatic. I bet my friends never heard Rachmaninov that way! Clayton Stephenson said that he thinks of this piece as American music (and he has good reasons for that if you ask me). And the way this piece was performed today – OMG, it was something! And definitely American 🙂
Before the concert, I took my friend to the Riverwalk, and then they finally had a chance to taste Chicago Hot Dog, so two more boxes were checked!
We had severe weather for two days in a row, or I should say, for two nights in a row, because the most spectacular part happened at night both times. I made videos during both nights; here is the second one:
And that’s what I saw yesterday’s morning when biking:
I wrote one more blog post for Elpha community, and I believe that’s the first time ever I blogged about my timesaving strategies in English :). Honestly, I was shocked to see how long it ended up being!
Yesterday was very hot, but today’s weather was going to be wild, so I tried to squeeze in as many out-of-the-house activities as possible. Some of my house guests objected, saying that they wouldn’t survive and that it would be even worse, so whatever I wanted to do with my guests this weekend had to be done on Saturday. It was great to spend Saturday doing fun stuff in the city instead of catching up with life as I do too often these days.
Here is how it went. As always, I started the day with a bike ride (a relatively short one, just an hour). Then I made breakfast: a baked apple pancake, scrambled eggs, and breakfast patties. Then we went on the Architectural cruise. It was already burning hot by 10 AM, and Sonia could not possibly sit on the top deck for the whole duration of the tour, so I spent most of it sitting with her downstairs:). The rest of the party was entirely exhausted by the heat, but they still loved the views.
After the cruise, we cooled down in the Architectural Center
And then walked to the Art Institute because the Rayan Center was closed last week, and Sonia didn’t get a chance to do art.
As it often happens, parents do not mind doing the art either 🙂Sonia drew Rogest Park BeachAdults took turn to see the actual art exhibits.Taking the bridge to Maggie Daley Park
And after that came Maggie Daley Park, and no matter how hot it was, those who wanted to do the climbing wall climbed, and those who wanted to explore Ship did so, and those who wanted to splash in the fountain, did so as well.
We finished the day at Acanto, and my highlight was a new dessert called lemoni. From the first glance, it looked like a lemon:
Yesterday, I took my friends to see “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” at the Goodman Theater. Goodman rarely stages musicals, and when it does, they are priced way more reasonably than Broadway shows. I had four tickets left on my “Whenever Goodman” subscription, which gave me very good mezzanine seats – I do not think you can have the stage view as good as that in any of the Broadway theaters!
The show was spectacular! I always enjoy seeing the reaction of people experiencing an American musical live for the first time! I remember my own experience of feeling never-ending happiness following the perfect movements of the dances and enjoying every bit of music.
The pictures below are official photos of the show from the Goodman Theater website- enjoy!
On Wednesday, Igor and I attended one more WTTW event in the FIRSTHAND: Homeless series. This event was dedicated to the migrant crisis. I was extremely disappointed with it. I had to leave to return to my guests, but Igor stayed to talk to the participants., soI might have more updates from him when we talk. My disappointment was mostly because I do not think this event achieved its purpose.
The purpose, as I see it, was to make more people aware of migrants’ challenges: why things are so difficult for them, what obstacles they never thought about, and why they are fleeing their countries in the first place. None of these questions were answered. To be honest, I do not even think the documentary covered “homelessness” specifically. There are multiple (too many) challenges these people face, and my feeling was that the questions of getting work permits and enrolling kids in schools took preference, and the horrific housing crisis was sort of left on the back burner. (Waiting for Igor’s comments on that).
I started to write this post two months ago, but then things became more interesting, and I held off on posting it. Now, the whole process is finally in progress, so I can at least report on the current status.
How it started. Last year, there were talks about painting porches, but they died away with no outcome. I planted everything I wanted to plant, and life was happy. This spring, I planned to hang up my flower baskets while Boris was here in April because it’s a job for two people. But shortly before he came, we received a notice from our association that this season, we are definitely having the porches painted and repaired, so “please do not take the deck furniture out and do not plant anything; we hope to be done in May.”
How did it turn out. I didn’t plant anything, but my furniture is always on the deck, just covered for winter. At the beginning of May, I started to suspect that it would not happen in May. In mid-May, they told us that they chose contractors. At that point, I decided that I would be planting, and when my girls were here during the first weekend of June, we went to the Windy City Garden Center. Right then, another message arrived stating that the work would begin “after the holidays.” This was a total crush because my friends from Finland would arrive just before July 4, which would mean that they would have this construction for the whole duration of their stay! Also, I felt so miserable without the plants that I decided that I would be happy even if they would hang on there for a month!
Development. Since then, the dates have shifted multiple times. Finally, this week, the work began. I know that my tier won’t be started for at least three more weeks. That means that my flowers will last for two months! My only regret is that I listened to the “do not plant” statement and wasted almost a month!
The equipment is arriving
My guests are saying that so far, it was not that noisy and they can survive, so I hope it will be all OK!
