With the library closed and my Kindle picking the absolute worst time to break I ran out of fiction pretty quickly after I read my last four library books, a mystery I had bought at a dollar store and never read, and a few books from the laundry room shelves. I tried reading one of my saved Book Bub books on the Kindle app on my iPad but I just don’t like reading books that way – magazines yes but books no. So I’ve turned to the books I often read if I’m out of new books or during times of change – my Nero Wolfe collection. I usually dip in and read a few in no particular order and at first I started that way and read one of the novella trios. But then I figured since it seems we’re in this for a long time and we’re listening to our cd’s in alphabetical order perhaps I should read the Nero Wolfe books in an orderly fashion as well. Obviously chronological is the way to go in this case, I just finished the first one and will begin the second one tonight.
We went to our last live concert on Monday March 9 – a blues show at the Logan Center at the University if Chicago. There was already talk of not going to events but it still seemed like people were overreacting. I continued to live life as normal that week going to the gym and volunteering at the children’s museum on Thursday but by Friday it was clear that we needed to take precautions. We had tickets to see one of my favorite singers Liz Mandeville on Sunday the 15th at Buddy Guy’s Legends which we were excited about as we haven’t gone there since we moved to Chicago. Even though the show did go on we reluctantly decided to not to go.
The next day I came home from a social distancing walk in the park to the sound of a cd I didn’t immediately recognize. It turned out it was the Alabama Shakes and my husband had decided to begin playing all our cd’s in alphabetical order.
While that should probably keep our ears full if the stay at home order extends for years, we would really miss live music so I was glad when Paul from Watermelon Wednesdays sent a page of links to old concerts. I immediately watched the Hot Club of Cowtown one followed by The Sweetback Sisters and sent a donation as requested each time.
There is something about coming together in difficult times though so we were glad when we got a link to the new Signature Sound’s Parlor Room Home Sessions. So far we’ve seen Taylor Ashton and Rachael Price (apparently they’re married!), Dirk Powell and his daughter Amelia, and the Birds of Chicago live from their homes. It’s great to be able to support them through the tip jar and the concerts have all been entertaining. It was really fun to watch JT of Birds of Chicago watch himself making faces.
There are other platforms for live concerts so I think we’ll be checking some of them out too.
While I have listened to Pandora in the car I haven’t really gotten into streaming. With so many cd’s and a good stereo system, I just haven’t seen the point. But with so many people working from home we’ve been asked to keep the sound down so I’ve been using my earphones and listening to Pandora during the day. “Ob la di, ob-la-da, life goes on”!
I started doing yoga for physical reasons. I was wondering aloud one day how a person could avoid becoming bent in half like some older people I had seen and my sister and my mother said in unison, “Yoga” so I basically started taking a class at the Y the next day.
I feel so lucky that I had Anna as my first yoga teacher. Her approach eased me into appreciating the mind and spirit aspects of yoga as well as the physical. I’ve since had many other wonderful yoga teachers at the Y in Northampton and at Lakeview Athletic Club, the gym I joined in Chicago, and I can’t even imagine not doing yoga now. So when the gym closed because of the coronavirus I knew I would have to find a way to do yoga at home.
I was lucky again because I found Yoga with Adrienne on YouTube. Just like Anna was the perfect first studio teacher Adrienne is the perfect internet teacher. She’s not new to offering yoga over the internet and she makes me feel comfortable not stupid doing yoga in my living room. I had been going to the gym two or three times a week for classes of an hour to an hour and half long. Adrienne offers a variety of classes including 45 and 20 minute ones so I’ve begun doing yoga more often alternating longer and shorter classes. I think this is a habit that might continue when I can return to the gym so that on the days I don’t do yoga at the gym I’ll take a short class with my new favorite teacher – YouTube Adrienne!
Right before the coronavirus hit the United States and right after an Alexander Girard exhibit ended there Liz went to Palm Springs. Although the exhibit “Alexander Girard: A Designer’s Universe” was no longer at the Palm Springs Art Museum vesitages remained and since she had often heard me speak of Girard and of the restaurant La Fonda Del Sol, Liz texted me some photos.
The exhibit from the Vitra Design Museum in Germany doesn’t seem to be scheduled anywhere else soon but I’m going to check every once in awhile. I wonder if it is the same exhibit I saw many years ago with my parents that led me to plan a trip to the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. In any case I think I should plan a trip to Palm Springs when life returns to normal.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw dry cleaners on the list of essential businesses that are allowed to stay open during the “stay at home” COVID19 order. I was surprised when I first moved to Chicago by how many dry cleaners there are here. In the short 1/2 mile walk to my gym there are three (there actually used to be 4).
And if I turn the other way on Broadway towards the supermarket I see three more. Even more amazing to me is the fact that they all seem to have tons of clothes waiting to be picked up. They also all do alterations and minor repairs. A lot of them also have awesome neon signs.
Spring came on March 19th a day earlier then the earliest I would have expected it. I hadn’t begun decorating yet although we had brought the Spring totes up from the storage room. When I realized it was the first day of Spring I opened the totes and got out the trees and the ornaments.
At the end of the season last year my youngest daughter found two more of the trees I could only find one of so I put them in the dining room windows.
I was excited to hang the last of my Evanston sidewalk sales purchases – the purple and green plaid bunny at the bottom of this tree.
That cute (vintage?) egg basket with the painted cherry design also came from an Evanston sidewalk sale.
I hung the eggs on the wooden tree again this year. I couldn’t resist the one with the yellow duck and flowers when I saw it at Michael’s a few weeks ago. It reminded me of the duck in The Golden Egg Book – one of my favorite childhood books.
Even though we don’t know when baseball season will start this year I added the baseball glove to the kitchen ornaments this year since it’s a bit heavy for the new Spring trees.
I decided to leave the rest of the Spring decorating for another day and went for a walk in the rain since I can’t go to the gym. I was excited to see a true sign of Spring!
Ever since I first started seeing articles about them last year I have wanted to see these trolls by Danish artist Thomas Dambo at the Morton Arboretum but since they’re a bit outside Chicago we never managed to get there. But with everything else closed because of the coronavirus today was the perfect day for a short road trip.
Made mostly of recycled wood the six trolls are 15 to 30 feet tall or in one case 60 feet long. A few of them have hair made from branches.
I walked past this Unitarian church the other day. The first thing I noticed was that it was called The Second Unitarian Church, I had only ever seen “Firsts” before but never thought about what that meant (Another “You’re living in a big city now” moment). Then I noticed that it had a little library that looks like the church. Unfortunately the little library while attractive leaks so all the books inside it were a bit wet including the one I chose.
Since I taught Sunday School classes at the Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence for a couple of years, it is fitting that the book is about Godly Play an Episcopalian Montessori Religious Education curriculum I have been curious about since a friend told me about it.
Because it is behind glass it’s kind of hard to take a good picture of it or of the amazing collection it holds but Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle at the Museum of Science and Industry is reason enough to go to the museum or to stop by for another look every time you go.
Colleen Moore, a silent movie picture star, commissioned her dream doll house in 1928. It was planned by set designer Horace Jackson and interior designer Harold Grieve. It took over 7 years to build and cost over $500,000. It can be broken down into 200 modular pieces and when it was finished it toured for the benefit of children’s charities raising more than 650,000 between 1935 and 1939. In 1949 Moore donated it to the Museum of Science and Industry.
The castle follows the standard one foot to one inch doll house proportion and contains more than 1500 minatures including music scores copied in tiny notes by their famous composers, minature books by Noel Coward, Sinclair Lewis, Thorton Wilder, Sir Arthur Conon Doyle, Edna Ferber, and John Steinbeck, a minature painting by Walt Disney, the tiniest Bible ever written, ancient statues more than 2000 years old, and 1/4 inch hollow glass slippers that would fit a 5 inch Cinderella. It also has amazing wall murals, tapestries, ivory and rose quartz and jade floors, and etched glass windows. It really does need to be seen to be believed!
We have been exploring watercolors in the art studio this Winter. In addition to the traditional watercolor palette and brushes on the tables there are also a series of large collaborative floor paintings being created with liquid watercolors and large brushes, sponges, and droppers.
Liz talks to the visitors especially school groups and their teachers about using the brush to create varied painted lines and about the importance of small motor development citing a New York Times article about how the decline of art experiences in childhood is affecting the ability of surgeons. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/well/live/surgeons-hobbies-dexterity.amp.html
