A Restful Weekend

No, not this weekend, which is rainy but warm and sticky. And which will only get more so, what with the remnants of Ike on track to bluster through starting sometime tomorrow.

Now, LAST weekend, that was a keeper. The perfect last gasp of summer at the Michigan shore, our annual weekend at Gintaras Resort in Union Pier.

Although at first we had to contend with the remnants of a previous hurricane--Gustav--that brought some clouds, some sprinkles, and some very rough water. This year, our room overlooked the beach, so we were lulled to sleep by the sounds of the waves. Thing is, they were so loud we could hear them even through the closed windows!

The next morning, though, was lovely. It was sunny, but not hot, so rather than swim, we decided we'd go antiquing. Or rather, I dragged an accommodating Jeff with me to explore the local treasure hunting.

He was rewarded by a chance to strum down memory lane on an old Silvertone electric.

The only treasure I found to take home was a small print of a cabin amidst a snowy birch forest (it was a comforting scene, and comfort is very important to me these days...), but the photo ops were rich this trip.

Skeery dolls AND bronzed baby shoes... ah, a tableau after my own heart.

At close to two grand apiece, I could never afford to have my own Timothy Treadwell Memorial (and yes, I know that these are black bears and not grizzlies), but a girl can dream, can't she?

This is one of the great joys of treasure hunting: discovering the bizarre juxtapositions of American culture placed just so for our edification.

I don't think anything can beat this strange assemblage: a reading primer, its cover graced with a frightening clown and the title Many Surprises,, presiding over the head of a roughly decapitated mannequin. I think the placement of the head was not really intentional, as I could not find a price tag anywhere on said cranium. But you knew I looked, right?

It was a lovely, calm weekend spent with an eclectic mix of folks. Bittersweet, because we were still aching from losing Shelly (and we are still), but restorative. A nice walk on the beach can soothe many an ache.

Around the 'hood

A few weeks ago, I took a little constitutional around the neighborhood carrying the camera. I thought I'd share a few snapshots from the photo foray.

These buildings are one block to our east, right on the lakefront. As you can see, a couple of weeks ago the trees were still winter-bare. Now they are budding like crazy. Spring was late in Chicago this year, but it's catching up!

The building directly across the alley is covered in ivy. In fact, every year the landlords (it's an apartment building) have to cut the ivy back to reveal all the back windows.

Here's something we didn't see much of in Chicago this winter!







And here is a peek (tantalizing, I hope!) of one of the most fascinating buildings in the neighborhood. It's three blocks south of us, and it's the tallest building in our part of the neighborhood. I'm going to devote my next post to the amazing details on the facade of this building. Let's just say that you don't see work like this anymore on anything. Stay tuned!

A Winter Walk and Other Random Thoughts

This afternoon the temperatures climbed into the thirties (heat wave!), so Jeff and I decided to take a long walk up into Evanston to visit the comic book store (where I discovered in a book about the worst places to live in America that I had actually lived in TWO of them--Allston, MA, and Syracuse, NY) and to take in the Irish session at Nevin's Pub.

The lake was just beautiful. As you can see, it's been a cold winter so far. The shore has really iced up. The photo above is of our little neighborhood beach--the northernmost beach in Chicago.

Here's a view of the lake just about at the Evanston border:



Check out the "icebergs"!

One of the most interesting parts of the walk around the lakefront curve was realizing just how shallow the water has become. When we first moved to Rogers Park eight and a half years ago, the tops of the tallest of these pilings were mostly underwater.



The walk was invigorating, the temperature above freezing, and the sidewalks had been cleared (well, most of them), so we made pretty good time. Once we got to Nevin's though, we had worked up big appetites. Usually, we only opt for a couple of beers and maybe an order of chips and gravy or "harp strings" (fried onion tendrils) to split. Today, though, it was fish and chips for Jeff and bangers and mash for me. Except for the order included EIGHT bangers! Yikes! But you know, I was hungry. Weight Watchers be damned, I ate them all. I'll go back to counting points in the morning.

Alas, when we left Nevin's, the temperature had dropped considerably. At least, it felt like it had. We hoofed it home, though, making better time than we did on the way up to Evanston because we were just so daggone cold!

A nice way to spend a not-all-that-cold Sunday afternoon. Well, not all that cold for a while, at least.

Other random thoughts:

Last night we finished watching The Cranes Are Flying, the fifties Soviet classic about love torn asunder by World War II. I first saw this movie YEARS ago, when I was a college freshman studying Russian. The professor brought this film and several others (Ivan the Terrible, anyone?) to class for us to watch. I remember loving the movie and crying my eyes out. It was a ten-tissue tearjerker, and no mistake. I have owned the Criterion Collection DVD for a couple of years now, but we just never got around to watching it until this weekend. What a wonderful film. It still holds up, after all these years. I cried my eyes out. But the most fascinating thing about the film is the glimpse it gives into Soviet life during the war--the terrible sacrifices, the horrific losses. We pride ourselves on having won that war, but without the involvement of the Soviet Union, Allied victory would have been impossible. Anyway... check it out if you get the chance.

I have a new printer!! My old one died a couple of weeks ago, so I purchased a new one that scans and copies as well. The first thing I printed? The first 100 pages of the novel so that Jeff could start reading and commenting. He gets first dibs! Scary, though.

It's snowing again, although "they" claim it will turn to rain by morning. I am tired of snow. But the idea of rain ON snow. Ugh.

Gintaras Revisited

Once again, on the weekend after Labor Day, we headed over to Union Pier, Michigan--the land where the sun sets on the lake rather than rises out of it--for a last gasp of summer sun and beach time. You can read about our first foray into this distant land in the September 2006 archives, but as you can see from the picture above, the resort cottages rest on a bluff overlooking the lake. While last year's visit was marred somewhat by cool temperatures and rain, this year the weather was superlative. The only minuses were the ravenous mosquitos and black flies that congregated on the beach or by the log cabin door, waiting patiently to feast on any human undoused in DDT who happened by. Oh well. Can't win 'em all, but we came close this weekend!



As you can see, the surf was respectable. The water was the perfect temperature: a bit chilly upon first blush, then nice and comfortable once the swimmer was acclimated to it. And--I'm kind of embarrassed to confess after living in Chicago for more than a dozen years and a block from the lake for seven of those--I took my very first swim in Lake Michigan on Saturday morning. Well, swim would be forcing the issue a bit. I waded out far enough to get wet from head to toe, and I floated around a bit on the swells. Although I'm a good swimmer, I'm a bit wary of rough water. And to get to a depth conducive to actual swimming would have taken me farther away from the shore than I wanted to venture. Still, it was great fun.

This year, I did some googling before we went, searching for a diner or breakfast place within walking distance from the resort. And man, did I find a good one. The Blue Plate Cafe was about a mile and a third west of Gintaras, and we hoofed it there both mornings. We worked up an appetite on the way there and worked off our eggs and bacon on the way back! We visited the same shops as last year and added a few more to our roster as well. Much of this trip, though, was spent soaking up the Michigan rays or lounging in the cottage, reading or chatting.

Of course, there was the usual watching of the sunset...

At first, we didn't hold out a lot of hope for it. After a crystal clear day, the clouds rolled in and obscured the sun, diffusing its rays into a subtle prism.



Pretty, yes. Soothing, definitely. Spectacular? Well, not really.

Still, we gathered on the beach, heartily enjoying some liquid refreshment and Jeff's version of the yummy carrot dip we first tasted in Marfa last month, and waiting to see if the sunset would deliver.



The kids were still running around the shore, writing missives in the sand,



And splashing through the waves.



And even though the sun was still behind the clouds, the horizon was turning a lovely gold. And then we noticed it--something we really didn't expect to see...



I know it's kind of fuzzy and pixilated because it has been enlarged so much, but see that, um, thing sticking up out of the lake? That thing is the antenna of the Sears Tower! Yes! The air was so clear that we could see CHICAGO on the horizon, more than fifty miles across the lake.

Eventually, the sun appeared beneath the cloud cover for just a brief moment before it sank beyond the waters of the lake,



and we all headed back up to the house for our traditional Saturday evening potluck feast. Yum!



Primed by lots of good food, good wine and/or beer, and a guy with a guitar, most of the females of our group (being of a, um, certain age) started singing Beatles songs... much to the consternation (I'm sure) of the bizarre christening party of wedding-like proportions (right down to women in what can only be described as bridesmaids' dresses) taking place in the largest house on the resort grounds. Damn! We were loud. Not good, necessarily. But loud.

Sunday afternoon rolled around all too soon, and we packed our beach gear into our new Saturn (which did quite well on the highway, thank you very much!) and headed back to Chi-town.

Farewell, Gintaras, until next September.

Life on the Lake

This afternoon after work, I decided to forego the Nordic Track and take a walk along the lake. It was a very windy evening, and the lakeshore looked more like the ocean, with breakers rolling in from far out in the water. I walked south today... a change from my usual running route that takes me north around the curve on Sheridan and along the Evanston lakefront. No, today I ambled south along Eastlake Terrace, cutting through an alley to Fargo to look at one of my favorite courtyard buildings in all of Chicago. I was surprised to see that it is still an apartment building, since so many of the really lovely apartment buildings in Rogers Park have been converted to condos in the last five years or so.

Anyway, on the way back home, I decided to sit on the "seawall" at Juneway Beach (the nearest beach to us and the northernmost beach in Chicago) and watch the waves roll in for a while. There, on the beach itself, were a man and his golden retriever playing fetch in the water. Well, the dog was in the water. The man had some kind of a device by which he could send a tennis ball wa-a-a-y out into the water, and the retriever would swim out to it, bobbing on the incoming swells and breakers and swimming diligently and single-mindedly to reach the ball, take it in his mouth, and practically body surf his way back to the shore. Time and again, he would emerge from the cold lake water, shake himself off, come up the beach to his master, drop the ball, and then make his way back into the water before his master could even fit the ball into the contraption and launch it into the lake. Finally, it was the master, not the dog, who tired of the game. He gave a signal, and the dog bounded back up off the beach and onto the grass, where the two played more catch. They were still doing so when I left the park and headed around the corner and home.