Lincoln Park Zoo and Other Chicago Sites

Here are some photos from our trip to Chicago a couple of weeks ago:

For Einstein, Newton, and Darwin

Nora and I check out the Giraffes


Meercat Madness for Natascha
Anouk gives Jason and Nora the 411
Jason blasts off in Anouk's rocket

Strolling around the Northwestern Campus

But How Will She Ever Hear The Gambler?

It was when Jason asked this that I realized how ill-equipped we were for the task. He had proposed that we compile a sort of "greatest hits" of our lifetime for Nora's benefit. I'm still unsure if he intends this to be an album of songs that we think are great or if they merely reflect the soundtrack of the time of our childhood/teens/young adult years. I guess more of the latter, since she will have access to our music collection and is already listening to it all the time. Anyway dear readers, it is clear that we are not up to the task, since after 2 hours of discussion and a great deal of lost sleep and insidious ear-worms, we still don't have a list. Nor are we even sure that this can be a single compilation, but perhaps a series of compilations - perhaps done by decades or in the footsteps of the great call now! infomercials, there could be an arena rock disc, a disco disc, a country disc, a metal disc, a Europop disc etc. Clearly we need your help. We welcome suggestions for how this project should be organized as well. Possible candidates already tossed into the ring include: the afore mentioned Kenny Rogers standard, Big Country's Big Country, David Bowie's, Space Odyssey, Led Zepplin's When the Levee Breaks, The Cure's Love Cats, Cindy Lauper's Girls Just Want To Have Fun, REM's Driver 8, The Police's Message in a Bottle, Paul Simon's Graceland or Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes, Nina's 99Luftbaloons, KC and the Sunshine Band's Shake your Booty, and a gazillion others have been tossed about. We've agreed that no Rush or Styx will be included but we are in debate over whether Boston's More Than a Feelin' has a place. Jason is adamant that Trio's Da Da Da be included. Obviously there are some gaping holes. We can't decide on which Bob Marley and Indigo Girls need to be included and the Pogue's are lyrically problematic so we'll wait on them till she's older. Fortunately, Jason has not insisted on Hall and Oats. We know several of you have opinions on this already, so start posting.

Fallen Behind

It's been forever since I've posted, and I really have no excuse. But here's a run down of what we've been up to lately. Last weekend (not this just past one, but the one before) we made a mad dash to Chicago to see Anouk and Christoph and their parents. We had a wonderful time visiting the zoo, Northwestern University, watching the kids, and eating delicious food. Oh, and there might have been a stop on the way home at Ikea that was way too expensive and time-consuming, but one of us had a lot of fun. Nora generally felt that Christoph was just fine, despite his fondness for baseball bats, but that maybe Anouk should keep her distance a bit. I've got excellent video that I will eventually post.

This past weekend, I was baby showering in honor of my cousin Leah, who is due at Thanksgiving time and then Todd and Natascha made an amazing brunch for us that was made even more amazing by Nora sitting in a big person chair and eating all of her waffles (graciously made vegan by Todd) while the rest of us actually got to eat and talk! She then tried to put her syrup sticky hands on everything and everyone, but fortunately the kitties were too quick for her, or else there might have been some grooming nightmares.

The weekends prior to these two were spent painting all of the furniture in the bedroom and then re-arranging said furniture in the bedroom and then deciding one of the bookcases looked better in the living room which resulted in more furniture moving in there. Big thanks go out to Todd and Laura who got in on the rearranging (Todd actually got talked into it twice!). Jason is completely sick of the upheaval, but we've got to get it all back in shape (which it's not) before Friday when his parents arrive. And I'm working all day Saturday. Whew. So that's where September went. Do I have any pictures of all this activity? Yes? But of course not handy. I will eventually post them....

In food news, I've been proceeding with the Isa recipe testing. Sunday I made some black bean soup in the crock pot which we didn't get around to eating until last night, so it was a perfect opportunity to test Isa's vegan cornbread recipe. I loved it, but I should warn readers that this is not quite like southern cornbread (it has more flour) but nor is as sweet as northern cornbread. Perhaps it's a happy medium. I did it in the 9x9 cake pan as Isa (a New Yorker) instructed, but I think I might see what happens if I were to do this in an iron skillet, which is how I do regular non-vegan cornbread or maybe in muffin tins. If you aren't a cornbread purist, or if maybe you think of this as something else entirely, I'd recommend giving it a shot.

Given the eating of black bean soup and cornbread along with the date on the calendar, you might think, ahh fall is here. Unfortunately, it is not. Yesterday it was 90 degrees and the rest of the week plans to hover around in the 80s. I am so very sick of this non-fall weather. It is the time of long skirts and boots and cute sweaters. I'm still here in my capris and tee shirt, although I did put away the sandals, but still, this is definitely not office wear (although I get away with it in the summer). What am I going to do? It's bad enough we don't have any apples due to the late freezes this spring, and I'm sneezing my head off with allergies (seriously, every hour!) but I could handle that if there were some crisp weather.

Sweets

Todd's post about the knitting cupcakes was timely for me. I've recently become enthralled with knitted play food. Really all play food made from fiber (crochet, felted, sewn, etc). I think Nora might be getting some for her birthday, especially if I ever find the perfect play kitchen (that's really a topic for another post). I give you this amazing sundae as an example, although if you search Etsy you will or Hyena Cart you will find many crafters who are all about the play food. It's making me wish I could crochet, but maybe I just need to find a way to carve out sometime to make something out of that pile of sweaters that I've been meaning to felt. Since I finally got around to painting my furniture, maybe this is next on the list.

This is Not a Soccer Blog

Nevertheless, I give you this photo of Jason because it makes him happy.

This was taken during his man-date with some soccer cultural blogger who was road tripping across the US on his way to grad school. Inexplicably, Jason is not wearing Spurs gear, despite the intent of going to this sign to take a photo and despite the grad student/soccer culture blogger being an Arsenal fan. I would have thought that was a perfect opportunity to "support the team", but Greece got the shout out that day.

Recent Rural Property Purchases

I thought I'd better update you on the status of some of my old posts. Since some of you have inquired, I have indeed, bought the farm. It came in last week (was it last week?) and I couldn't be more pleased. It was one of those great eBay snares and here are my gloat pics. Note the fabulous condition of the lithos on the sides of the barn, silo and tractor, the presence of ears on the animals, and most glorious of all -- floor boards on masonite instead of plain green plastic. This is the farm of my childhood and not one of the later models. Oh, yeah, Nora likes it too.

Here's the whole farm, note that the orange pen and it's creatures do not belong to this farm set, but they came with the e-bay listing, along with that cute, wooden(!) truck up front and the boat in the back by the silo, which was not part of the original farm set, but was part of the houseboat set that I also had and thankfully my parents saved - this boat is going to their house to join the bigger houseboat, yellow lounge chairs, and red table set with lobster dinner that survives.
Close up of the farm animals and the fabulous inside of the barn. This picture is not detailed enough for you to see that the fence pieces have a rough-hewn texture - detail completely lacking from today's FP toys. Also missing from this picture (and modern FP farms) but not from my set is the happy sound of "moooooooo" that happens when you open or close the door (or when you spend several minutes triggering the mechanism: moooo, moooo, mmooooooooooooooo). Note the Pennsylvania Dutch Hex Symbol on the side of the barn in the pic below.

Nor do the modern sets have nearly the number of figures/pieces. While the modern figures are more detailed, they are perhaps too specific. Like many modern toys they eliminate the use of imagination by filling in too many of the blanks for us. Or maybe I'm just too blinded by my nostalgia for me to warm up to them. Here's the modern FP person and the vintage for your comparison:

In other news, I finally installed the Dutch Kinder on my mom's old pantry that she refurbished for Nora. This project went incredibly well. I fully expected the decals to crumble given their age and for me to have a royal fit. But they performed as their 50 + year old descriptions claimed and slid off their paper backing with water and adhered to the doors as if they were brand new. Actually, given the state of recently manufactured things, probably better than brand new. My lesson from these two experiences - go vintage. Better quality, more detail, and it keeps stuff out of landfills.


This is my favorite decal, sorry it's so blurry!:

Here's Nora and Grammy having a tea party in front of the pantry, by the way that cute tea set is from Lillian Vernon Kids and is NOT vintage, but it is perfect for little hands with it's soft fabric construction although it is perhaps a bit pink. Despite the horrors of the regular Lillian Vernon catalog, the Kids catalog has some neat stuff (as well as too much Disney Princess crap):