I don’t know why New Zealand is the closest place to Chicago in the whole world, but my New Zealand Christmas present always arrives first, without fail!
Cookies From All Over The World
Tag: friends
Urinetown
What would you think about the musical with the name like that?
Yes, I thought the same, especially after reading the short description about the town where people were required to pay for the usage of the toilets, and how they decided to resist. I thought it might be just a comedy show, and I was going to skip it (ad not to subscribe to Theo at all this season), but my friend MaryAnn said she wanted to go, and I always use any opportunity to meet with her. And as it almost always happen to me, I went without prior reading about it.
Well, it was anything but what I thought. Very sad, very political, sort of hopeless by the end. I think I will discover something new till the day I die.
One of the great things about Theo is that they absolutely ignore the “official line”, and still do what they believe is right:
About the show itself. The built a lot of temporary constructs inside the theater, and everything looks amazing:
Below are official pictures from the Theo website, and I hope they will post some videos, and then I will be able to repost.
I was glad to spend time with MaryAnn; we stayed a little bit longer after the show, and she drove me home, and we talked in her car, and a little bit more.
Lyric Opera
Second day back to Chicago, and it’s a really long day! Escorting before work, work, nail salon, meeting with a friend for a quick bite before the opera, and finally – a Lyric Opera performance: Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci – two operas in one evening. Now that it’s already way past 11 PM, I realized I made a mistake – I should have taken Uber back home. But it’s still warm outside, and I hopped on a bus just after I got out of Lyric, and I thought that I would be home before eleven. But then, I waited for a train at Lake for 15 minutes, and now we are stopped due to the police activity on Howard – do not ask why we are sitting at Thorndale!
OK, we started moving!
Anyway, it was awesome that my friend Elina could come with me, because she does not go to Lyric as often as I, and it is always great to share the joy of music, conversation and an intermission dessert at Florian 🙂
A New Life Formular
I’ve changed the way I speak about time and the lack of it. For the longest time, I used to say: “God does not give me more than 24 hours a day, even though I absolutely deserve at least 30!!!” On Friday, when I was talking to one of my fellow escorts, I came up with the follow-up: “However, God does give me 24 hours, and I am determined to use every minute of it!”
The early morning Friday shift was unusually intense; five antis were out, and there were just three of us, so we didn’t have enough bodies to escort patients and shield them. And that was the first time I was the shift lead (why am I taking on more responsibilities – don’t ask!). But while there is a need in the morning shifts, and while it’s warm enough for me to survive these morning shifts, I will be there. That’s one of the meaningful ways to use these minutes :).
And summer in Chicago continues! It was the upper 80s today! I was finally able to meet with my friend Y; we had been trying to meet since June, and had to cancel for either her or my reasons. I was sad that she didn’t have a chance to visit me in the summer, but we got a summer day in October! We went to the beach, and sat there in the lounge chairs, and I swam in the lake (she didn’t). This time, it almost didn’t happen again because she was afraid to be out while the ICE agents were terrorising the city, but then she decided she would make it, and I am glad she did.
I do not know a single person who would be happy with what’s going on in the city these days. My hairstylist came to do my hair on Friday, and with all her being “neutral” and “not wanting to talk about politics,” she couldn’t keep it to herself.
And on the ICE/Trump topic, there was another shooting, although this time not lethal, and also, Trump quietly deployed 300 National Guards, and now the whole city is mad that police is not protecting the citizen from ICE, and they also mad at the Governor, although it’s hard to tell what he could do in the current situation (except for there are multiple lawsuits filed). Also, he froze the Red Line extension money, but to be honest, I had no doubts it would happen.
Keeping fighting, and keeping doing good whenever I can.
And More Chicago!
While Lena stayed with me over the weekend, I was constantly checking my phone for two reasons: to check what Trump was up to and to follow the moves of my friend from Kenya, who was arriving in Chicago to attend the same conference I was going to attend the next week.
I wanted to be the first person to show her the city, so after Lena left, I immediately headed to the conference venue where my friend was volunteering with the conference setup.
She didn’t even had a chance to check-in to the hotel yet, so we had only two hours, but the Wolf Point Plaza was a great starting point!
And she brought me a dress from Kenya – an amazing dress with gigantic pockets!
We did a lot of things together in Chicago this week – more to follow!
My Neighborhood
On the one-before-last day when my guests were still in Chicago, I made a bad decision regarding taking a bus instead of the L-train, and after an extensive waste of time, we ended up walking to the nearest Red Line station, which happened to be Fullerton.
I tried to make lemonade of the lemons life gave us, and said that at least they have a chance to see one more neighborhood, more upscale than mine, with beautiful houses. They immediately replied: Yes, the houses are beautiful, but there is not a single sign “Black Lives Matter”, or “Love is Love”, or “Hate has no home here!”
Love my neighborhood! Love my friends!
Glenwood Art Fest
More pictures from the Glenwood Art Fest, shared by my friends.
And the very last pictures: saying good-bye to our Great Sea:
One More Chicago Weekend
On Saturday, my houseguests went to Milwaukee to visit Anna and the girls. I thought I would work on my tutorial, but I ended up catching up on life: cooking and baking, talking with Boris for over an hour, home accounting, and Prairie Postgres business.
And then all of a sudden, it was their last full day in Chicago! It turned out that I didn’t have a chance to feed them an American breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon, so I had to cover that, and then we went to the Loop to check out old skyscrapers, which we also somehow neglected to include in our prior excursions.
Then we headed North, stopping at the Bridgehouse Museum:
Then we went to the Starbucks Reserve, because I ike to change people’s opinion about the Starbucks. The only problem was that it was a weekend tourist crowd, so it took a long time to get everything we wanted to eat in separate lines, but we go everything, including the expresso martinies:
Finally, we went to the Glenwood Art Fest. I made a mistake taking a bus from the Starbucks Reserve. It was the Chicago Air and Water Show, and the traffic in the direction of Lake Shore Drive simply didn’t move! After an hour of staying on a barely moving bus, we got off and walked to the Fullerton station, and finally arrived at the Art Fare.
I know that my friends took more pictures, so I will post more when they share!
Grant Park Music Festival
That was the last week of GPMF, and it was one of my favorite pieces (and to be honest, who doesn’t like Carmina Burana?!). I had two subscription tickets and an extra one, so my guests and I went. It was absolutely perfect, not to mention that I had a chance to showcase Chicago night lights! The photos are partially mine, partially my guests.
Photos With Friends
A couple of photos taken during my friends’ visit – there should be more~
Hettie's Reflections 