Another Good Friday

We took Friday to go downtown again this week. We started with lunch at Frontera Grill. If you get there about 20 minutes before they open at 11:30 a.m., you can get a table right away when they open. I had a duck that was to die for. Amy had pork tacos that were incredible. We've eaten at all three of Rick Bayless' restaurants located there--all astounding--but this is my favorite. I can eat that guy's food until I'm hospitalized.

We then went to the Field Museum, where they are celebrating the 10th anniversary of their Tyrannosaurus, Sue. I had been there another time for a fundraising ball, but I didn't realize how great the place was until Amy and I went yesterday. We took our time--which I normally hate to do--and saw just about every bit of the place. It's a very old school, Teddy Roosevelt natural history museum with thousands of mind blowing examples of taxidermy, much of it from the 19th century and early 20th. In fact, most of it seemed to be done before 1935, but they are so well preserved that they still look very much alive. I'll include a few here along with another of my choppy videos of the robot dinosaurs (which were actually very cool in person; they had motion detectors that allowed you to incense the robots).

Messing around

iPhone sucks in that it is really great. I love messing around with it. About the same time we paid a pound of flesh for the Canon, I paid about $4 for an iPhone app called Hipstimatic that takes prematurely aged pictures, complete with 70s flares, etc. It's fun. This first, as an example, is exactly how a bar used to look to me at about 2 a.m.. (It's actually at Piece in Wicker Park last week.) The next two I snapped while waiting for Amy to get ready for her friend Dorian's wedding. The last is one of infinite times I have annoyed my wife.

Arboretum and the end of my weekend

I don't really care for these steel root sculptures, but there is something Lovecraftian about them. Amy and I went to the Arboretum today and messed around for a bit before going to the mall in Oak Brook, which is my favorite. I played with the camera, and Amy was very patient. I really need to sign up for a camera class and begin figuring out the other 99.9999 percent of how this things works.

Ficus alert

The photo to the left is NOT my ficus, but one I lifted from a local website. I'm guessing it's reasonably mature because the trunk looks thicker.

My own ficus is not doing terribly well, which is distressing, but I've got plans. I'm looking up everything I can on it and making sure the soil never completely dries out, at the same time not over watering it. I'm also going to my first Bonsai society meeting, which, as luck would have it, actually meets at my place of work about two buildings away. So ideally, they'll have more info for me.

Right now my ficus sits in a very sunny window. It's not supposed to be in temps less than 65 degrees, and I noticed an air conditioning vent nearby, so I'm covering the vent with a towel.

I also found a pretty good Bonsai website called Bonsaigardener.

Grandma's 90th

I attempted to use my Canon Rebel T2i to capture some video of my grandmother's 90th birthday party last month. I then tried cobbling some of the pieces together using a simple software option that came with the camera. Was sort of like using a croquet mallet and phillips head screwdriver to shape a diamond. The ultra-choppy result is that I've visually mangled a very nice event. Too many more of these and Canon is going to demand their camera back, lest I drive away business. Thank you again, Judy, for organizing all of this. It was a really good time.

Myopic Books

Completely forgot that while in Wicker Park, we came across Myopic Books. Not as edgy as I'd hoped from the street (I don't really know that for sure, as we weren't there long) but nice people and a good collection that I could have browsed for some time if we didn't have a movie to get to.

Good times

I spent the early morning Friday entertaining the dogs with a 3 mile walk while I listened to "Gentlemen of the Road" by Michael Chabon. This was followed by fussing over my bonsai trees and repotting for the first time an old, long-armed green leafed house plant that has refused to give up on my in the 10 years I have owned it and moved it from home to home, city to city, job to job.

I then did some actual work at the computer for a couple of hours, afterwhich Amy and I had a good Chicago Friday. We went downtown for lunch at ate in Wicker Park at Piece Brewery and Pizza, which is a New Haven style pizza place owned (or partially owned, I'm not sure) by the lead singer of Cheap Trick--thus there are a few ridiculous multi-necked electric guitars from his famous collection cast about a slightly smug loft environment. Our service was very good. I ate a gigantic amount of pizza and spent the rest of the day nursing ginger tea trying to get over it.

The Pizza is very good and, for Amy, a true relief, as she does not care for Chicago deep dish and apparently never will. The New Haven style is a flat but chewy wheat crust, someone bubbled and with light use of sauce. I personally like it very much, and it's a nice change from the
cheese-bucket-o-heart-attacks you get at Gino's, Giordano's, Milano's, crappy Pizzas Uno and Due, etc. We started with their guacamole and chips and then had a medium pepperoni and mushroom.

Then, we were off to Landmark Cinema in Lincoln Park to see Cyrus, a new sad comedy with John C. Reilly as a lonely guy who finds the perfect girlfriend (Marisa Tomei) only to walk into the buzz saw of her neurotic 22-year-old son (placed so well by Jonah Hill that he's possibly my new favorite actor). The entire cast is awesome, and we loved the movie.

They made very nice use of a technique I see sometimes in movies from the late 60s and early 70s in which you listen to the characters talk to each other while watching film of them doing something else together like laughing or drinking wine. It's effect can be magical. I can't think of an original example but Faye Dunaway comes to mind.

So what can I say? It was a good day ended with a lot of reading and too much sleep. It's now Saturday, and I have nothing pulling me in any particular direction. My dogs are fed. My wife is sleeping in. I have a kindle with great books on it. I did some tai chi and now hope to primarily laze and perhaps read at the Morton Arboretum. It doesn't get much better than this for me. I didn't even mention seeing Winter's Bone the other night. It will surely be nominated for best picture next year.