I told Liz that, while in New Jersey, I wanted to take a side trip down the shore to the Seaside Heights area, which was hit the hardest last year by Superstorm Sandy. She and I headed down there this morning and took a long stroll on the boardwalk. The businesses that are still intact on the boardwalk (there are lots of them!) are closed for the season and we were two of just a handful of people out there, not counting all of the construction workers who were fixing everything. As quiet as it was, I was able to imagine a bustling, noisy, funnel cake-smelling amusement area thanks to…
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Greetings From New Jersey!
I have been waiting for this day for what seems like forever (amazing how three and a half months can feel like forever!): I’m back in the same state–the same room, even!–as my sistuh-from-anuthuh-mutha. I’m so excited to be here I might possibly cry at some point. It’s been interesting, telling people before today that I was going to New Jersey. I got questions like, “Why would you go there?” and funny looks ranging anywhere from scowling to nose crinkling to head shaking. New Jersey has a bad rap. In fact, I was going to embed a video of Fred Armisen portraying former New York governor David Paterson on SNL…
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Scenic.
Everyone who travels has their favorite airports–and their least-favorite ones, too–and in fact while I was in Detroit I had a discussion with a friend who was highly opinionated about both categories. On her least-favorite list? Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. She said that in her experience she has found that every airport employee at O’Hare is extremely unhelpful and downright rude, and she had some other grumbles as well. Her opinion took me by surprise because I happen to like O’Hare very much, and it’s not just because it’s one of my two hometown airports (the other being Midway). One of the best things about traveling via O’Hare is the scenery…
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All By Myself
So here I am, at this awesome hotel in Turrialba, Costa Rica. Actually, it almost doesn’t even seem like a hotel. It wasn’t, always. It used to be someone’s house. Now it’s a “hotel” with twelve rooms and four suites, one of which Jim and I were given (yay!). I am in heaven, honestly. This is a working trip for Jim, and I tagged along willingly, knowing that I would be left to my own devices. I find that most people either don’t mind spending time alone, or they absolutely hate it. I rather enjoy it, to be honest. It’s not that I don’t like (or prefer) being with others–I…
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Escape To Key West: It Only Takes A Weekend
Each year before Hanukkah, Jim and I have a discussion about budgeting for the holiday overall as well as specifically how much our budget is for each other’s gifts. When the holiday rolled around last month, Jim (once again) proved himself to be quite clever, as he came up with a gift that was not only way below budget but was romantic and pretty awesome: plane tickets to Key West. No, our budget was not THAT high. He bought the tickets with airline miles: it only cost him twenty bucks! See? Clever! With a little research and some more budgeting, we found a nice, very reasonably-priced guest house where we…
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Displaying Artwork For Geniuses
When the boys were little, the amount of papers and artwork they used to bring home from school (not to mention what they produced at home) was ridiculous. I bought a plastic storage container for each of them and put select items in them to save for posterity. Every now and then, I’d come across something that I didn’t want to put in a time capsule. Of course, I didn’t want it laying around the house, either. I needed a place where I could look at it whenever I wanted to, but it was out of the way at all other times. Enter my kitchen cabinets. The insides of the…
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Marina City Obsession!
It’s been nearly two weeks since I spent a lovely Sunday morning in the city, enjoying a peek at some of Chicago’s most famous buildings as a part of Open House Chicago, presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. The charm of this special event, which debuted last year, is that the public is given access to parts of buildings that are normally inaccessible to those of us who don’t live or work in them. Oh, and it’s free, which is totally cool. Due to the fact that I had a very important date with my sister and Adam Ant that night, I only had time to see a few buildings…
- Amazing People, Best Thing Ever, Fun in Chicago, I've Got Mad Skillz, My Friends Have Mad Skillz, Pretty Pictures, Proud Moments, Shameless Promotion, Something That Could Change Your Life, Spreading the Bloggie Love
About Last Night
I’m having a little trouble. I can’t really wrap my head around the whirlwind that was LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER CHICAGO last night. I can’t keep using the word “amazing” and expect that 1. People will continue to take me seriously 2. People will believe that yes, I’m a writer …but the fact is, everything about this experience (well, not everything: there were a few snags in the planning process but everything shook out in the end) WAS amazing. I tend to be long-winded (or whatever that is in terms of writing), and although I can think of thousands of things to report to you about last night, I think…
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Chicago Love
Ah, Chicago. You know *I* love it. You may even love it, too. I can tell you that Chris Pritchard loves it. Chris is a filmmaker who is working on a timelapse series called “Places in Time”. Lucky for me (and, let’s be honest, YOU), he chose Chicago as the first city in the series. I dare you to watch this and try not to fall in love–for the first time or all over again–with Chicago. I dare you. Places in Time: Chicago from Chris Pritchard on Vimeo. Read Chris’ notes on the film by clicking here.
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Vacation, Revisited.
It “only” took three months, but I finally developed the waterproof cameras we brought on our cruise in January. As is typical, the quality of the pictures isn’t all that fabulous, but the quality of the memories is beyond excellent. These are the best pictures from the bunch: they were taken on the day we left the cruise ship in favor of a smaller boat, to sail to a “snorkeling and beach party”. I pumped up the color in the picture of the fish: the snorkeling wasn’t as pretty (okay, or as dangerous!!) in Cozumel as it was on my trip to the Bahamas in 2006 so I gave it…