Like a Marriage

Summer's here, Memorial Day style.

I like when things are as they should be (that's not subjective, is it?) and so when Chicago hit the 90's on Memorial Day weekend, we packed the car to the brim with lawn chairs and drove up and down Lake Shore Drive looking for any beach front park entrance that would allow just one more car.

Chicago and I are like a marriage these days.
When another flaw, fault, or weakness shows itself, it doesn't change much for me.
I love Chicago so much that seeing her shortcomings is satisfying in a "I like knowing you better" sort of way.

I got this "I like knowing you better" connection this weekend when we spent our first Memorial Day on Lake Michigan.
The Memorial Day- on- Lake Michigan experience seems like a simple rite of passage for any Chicagoan, or even Midwesterner.

Rite of passage, yes.
Simple, oh.
No.

All  I can say is I've never seen more cars, more police closures (well, that's not true #NATO), more bodies, more lawn chairs and BBQ's than at Lake Michigan that day.
The whole shore was populated for miles along LSD and by 11:30 in the morning, parks were nearly shut at capacity.
It was a day where you were like, "Yeah, I guess 9 million people do actually live here."

The day was hot and gritty and as packed with summer as the lake shore was with residents.
Chicago isn't usually on time with things like a hot Memorial Day, but in loving Chicago the surprises are sweet as often as not.

Chicago, I've seen your Memorial Day face, and I like knowing you better.
Here's to summer in the city!

Memorial Day Preview

It's back to work, has anyone noticed?

Besides work, I tried to refresh our apartment today after we tired it out with all our comings and goings this weekend.

Here's one instagram tonight from Memorial Day before I hit the bed for work tomorrow.

I hate going to bed.

It's just a thing I have.

Everyday Scenes

Happy Memorial Day weekend, all!

We're spending the weekend with our Chi-town guests (husband's parents, love them!) and we'll be hanging out with my brother too.

The biggest decision of these lazy couple days will be whether to BBQ tomorrow at Montrose or Lincoln Park...

In the meantime, here are a couple everyday scenes from the second week of summer.

Our street in summer charm, and a little hour break from all things mid-week at Montrose.

Rise & Shine

I know it's summer when the day starts here.

Rise and shine.

(Thank you husband's phone for these photos from this morning.)

The View

The view for the next 3 months.

Classic Chicago, classic Montrose, classic summer!
What's your summer view?

Congruency

It's been a heck of a week here in Chi-City.

Sun, 60's, 70's, 80's, and more sun.

You need to understand the import of this kind of weather to Chicagoans in May.

We've been waiting, and we've been burned for months (not by the sun).

The congruency of the first week of our summer and this summery weather is downright therapeutic.

I can always use more congruency in my life.

As well as quiet, sunny park dates.

Congruency and park dates.

Life's a bowl of cherries, huh?

Well, let's just say there are cherries in the bowl.

Up, Up, & Away

Summer 2012

Montrose Harbor, Chicago IL

Up, up, and away!

Nouns and Their Meaning

Husband took these photos on his phone earlier this week.

Speaking of mapping the city, these are views that the average American could probably identify as "Chicago."

I look at these photos and I see not only Chicago the proper noun, but Chicago the abstract noun.

 The space within these sky-view photos holds the abstract noun of our life spent in hundreds of hours, thousands of footsteps, book pages, shutter button-releases, restaurant tabs, smiles tossed back and forth between the streets, thoughts and thoughts and thoughts ricocheting.  

Ricocheting between buildings, Nike Free footprints, spinning bike tires, Vespa rides, new people, places, and things.

Shifts and changes in ourselves, in our minds, our bodies, our lives, our world.

If those concepts can be located, it would have to be here.

Le Colonial

Le Colonial on Rush St. is marked on our Chicago map.

We have x's and circles, stars and hearts creating a constellation that I can easily make out as the Chicago life of the boy and the girl and the red Vespa.

Me and husband have hardly any circles around fine dining locales in the Windy City, and conversely have countless stars on places to go for a good burger and fries.

But when we mark it, we mark it in red, and Le Colonial is marked with a heart.

Le Colonial is French-Vietnamese fine dining and is an absolute Chicago must, in our opinion.

Stepping inside is like stepping into a beautiful vintage french rowhouse, with a dark wood staircase to the upstairs and chandeliers downstairs.

I've spent a couple birthdays here and have loved the French-Vietnamese dishes just as much as I love Rush St. itself.

It's great for residents and visitors alike.

And afterwards, you won't even need a map to find a Starbucks.

Awkward

Mid-May is a calendar location I feel disoriented to right about now.

Students are moving out, and I'm still asking them things like "Is it next Tuesday you're coming over?"

They're like, "Um, no.  I'll be in (fill-in-the-blank around the globe) for summer break."

Within a few short days, husband and I will have a quieter Chicago on our block.

It's a strange week, this one.

My head tucks to somersault into summer, and at the same time I dig my heels in to delay the momentum.

This is as awkward as you are imagining it.

In our little family, we are big into paying attention to shifts in life rhythms.

If I know anything about our own life, we will most likely debrief the school year past and anticipate the summer to come over a large Rudy's Special pizza and icy coke at Pizano's.

For as much as things change, they stay the same.

Saturday

If you're rolling back the sheets this morning and starting slow, you rock.

Do you have a Saturday?

I want one.

On the whole, I think I have a fairly decent maneuvering of new places, people, and things.

For a year I've lived a week of no Saturdays and hardly thought much of it.

That is other than when summer wedding season rolls around and I need to ask off work for an ungodly amount of said Saturdays.

But lately I feel myself starting to drag a bit on the Saturday work coverage thing at the hospital.

I think I can recover from this slump all in good time, but spring has a way with making one want to fly the coop.

Spring breaks winter's will, but it breaks mine as well.

Work?  No thanks.  I want to go to the park in the morning.

And then out to breakfast, like this one day.

This one day was not a Saturday, but its costume was pretty convincing.

Tell me, what does Saturday mean to you?

Small Changes

Husband and I both finished The March last night.

We took turns reading the last remaining chapters.

I miss it.  Read it.  I'll be jealous!

Here' s a quote I loved from the book,

"Most people don't really look at what they're looking at.  But we have to.  We have to look at things for them... Time goes on, things change from moment to moment, and a photo is all that remains of the moment past."- E.L. Doctorow, The March

Here's some moments past in Lincoln Park this spring.

No buds, to buds, to blooms.

Spring seems all about small changes, does it not?

The Big City

I've looked at this picture a hundred times today.

My sister's sweet baby loves came to visit their auntie on Sunday.

We went to the Lincoln Park Zoo, and otherwise jumped on my bed when we got home, since that was the best baby toy in my apartment.

Here they are looking out my bedroom window taking in the big city, a far cry from the cornfields and quiet pond that sit serenely in view at their house.

Just looking at the back of their sweet heads makes my auntie heart melt.

Garrett, Lilly, Connor, and Kaden, you take "I love you" and "You make my day" to a whole other level.