A little trip to the big city

Well, as typical inhabitants of the Frozen Tundra, we went south for spring break... to Chicago. OK, so that is not so South, but we did end up experiencing one inch of snow instead of the seven inches that fell on our fair town in our absence!!

Here is our itinerary:

Thursday
Drop off dog at Dog Spa
Arrive at noon, eat lunch at The Chicago Diner, a great vegetarian diner north of downtown
Check in to hotel, the Hyatt Regency on Wacker Drive
Walk to The Art Institute, see the Hopper/ Homer exhibits, discover Lionel Feininger (below)



Go to Millenium Park, see Cloud Gate (below) a fabulous work of public art, really wonderful


Walk around downtown, notice all the big tall buildings with lots of windows:


Dinner at The Berghoff (I know, touristy, but close to the theater), I had a great iceberg lettuce salad with Maytag dressing
Drink at the Palmer House Hotel, which has a very pretty bar, drink was okay
Watch live taping of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!, which was hilarious

Friday
Breakfast at the Tempo Cafe, highly recommended
Walk around Michigan Avenue, realize we don't like shopping, at all, buy a few things
Hang out at Barnes and Noble for a while
Drink at Miller's Pub in the Loop
Dinner at Cafe Iberico, great tapas restaurant, although the tapas are too big! we only ate four
Drink at the Drake Hotel bar, called the Coq d'Or, drink was very nice
Shop at Border's, bought Granta, think about getting subscription

Saturday
Breakfast at The Oak Tree Restaurant on Michigan Avenue, great view, great fruit plate
Drive back to the Frozen Tundra
Pick up dog from Dog Spa

Say Hello to Stanley!

At least that is his name for now, I am sending him to a friend. She may decide his name is something else.

Yes, I got sucked in to another hobby: amigurumi. This one is from the following book, which is my favorite amigurumi book so far:


I like it because the animals are smaller than in the other books I have, so they are both cuter and quicker to make.

I think I might make a whole series of little bunnies, same pattern, different colors. Or maybe I should do cats, or bears, or mice..... they are all so cute it is hard to decide!

Movies saved my life this winter

In 1973 Michael Lesy published Wisconsin Death Trip, a book that combined photographs of settlers in the state in the 1890's with excerpts from local newspapers. The photographs showed mostly tired and hardworking people, sometimes large families with worn-out parents, often a baby or two in a small coffin, or simply people with a haunted look in their eyes, like the photo below.



The newspaper excerpts, on the other hand, were selected to show that our image of past settlers playing the fiddle or reading the bible to while away those long winter nights, might not be so accurate. Instead, they may have been going insane, burning houses down, drinking themselves to death, attacking family members, and engaging in other such pastimes, driven mad by the isolation, poverty, and weather.

Luckily, due to advances in electricity and home heating, there will be no repeat of that winter wildness this year, although I personally came pretty close a few times to completely losing it. Movies saved my life this winter.

Our decision to buy a 32 inch HD TV was very fortuitous, because I don't think I would have made it through the winter with the 12 inch one we had. I watched more movies this winter than I have in years, and it is a good thing too. Otherwise our 90+ inches of snow and colder than average temperatures would have had me at least tormenting our pets, if not worse.

Recently I watched three movies, all worth seeing.

1. Nurse Betty. Off-beat quirky flick with Renee Zellweger, Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock and Greg Kinnear. A bit violent at times, but fun nevertheless.

2. and 3. Ladykillers and Kind Hearts and Coronets. These are both Ealing Studios movies from the 1950's, both with Alec Guiness. I preferred Kind Hearts and Coronets, although they were both good. They are just little slices of life in a totally bygone era: "civilized" England. An England full of little old ladies with umbrellas, sherry, and polite criminals.

Now that the sun (!) has returned, and the snow is melting (!), I think I can safely say that I will not kill anyone, maim anyone, destroy my liver, or burn anything down. At least not until next winter.

Solution to scarf problem: get an expert to help

Well I took advantage of my mother having as a friend an expert knitter. I took my scarf over to her and she frogged the six screwed-up inches and managed to get all 74 stitches on the needle in the right orientation. I had no problem with the idea of ripping some out, I just didn't trust myself to catch all the stitches before they ran away. Thanks, Harriet!

And she even gave me a pair of cherry red wrist warmers, which are awesome...

Normal people leading Freaky lives

That is how I would summarize Marie Antoinette, the 2006 movie by Sophia Coppola starring Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman. Actually, I liked it quite a bit. I got it from the library, after thinking, "Oh, that got really bad reviews, didn't it? What the heck, it will be fun to watch a bit of it." And in fact, the $40 million dollar movie only made about $15 million in the US, so I guess it was not a success.

Of course, it tells the story of Marie Antoinette, the famous French queen. She was only 14 when she was married off to the Dauphin of France, Louis XVI, made queen at age 19, and was killed at age 37.

First of all the movie is GEORGEOUS. It has the most stunning style, all cotton candy colors, bows, ribbons, pasties, pies and feathers. Beautiful food styling. Fantastic costumes, lighting, and set decorations. Probably one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. Shot at Versailles (mostly), the indoor scenes are breathtaking, while the outdoors scenes are equally beautiful, even without the gold trim and mirrors. Check out the pastries on the table in the back of this shot:


Or the color of Marie's gown in this picture:


I think the idea that Sophia Coppola had was that these were just two ordinary people, put into the most unnatural lives imaginable. Marie didn't even dress herself, apparently it was an honor and a badge of rank to be able to put on her underwear for her. There were people to greet the royal couple every morning when they got up, which made it even more excruciating that their marriage was unconsummated for seven years (apparently Louis's fault...) and they ate side by side, not facing each other, in a large room where they were gawked at by the court, only getting a drink of water when aided by two people. They were forced to marry total stranger, and had no control over their own lives.

I know that of millions of French women living at this time, only one had such a life, so maybe it is not worth all the attention we give to royalty, given that they are such a tiny minority of the total population. But the fascination remains, because I can just not imagine a life like that. Worse than today's celebrities, these people lived under a weight of protocol and tradition that was just crushing. Also, Marie is expected to be a diplomat, even at age 15. She was married off to seal an alliance, and she still is expected to care about politics and act in Austria's (and France's ) best interests.

I think the movie does a good job of relating how extraordinary these lives were, even when the people living them were most ordinary. Jason Schwartzman does a really good job at this, as his Louis seems most nebbish, ordinary, and totally uninterested and unprepared at being king. The man does not even know how to make love, much less rule the most populous country in Europe.

One of the main criticisms of the movie was that it was not politically aware enough, but to me, that is almost the point she was trying to make, how can you expect political awareness from a 14-year old, who was treated like chattel and completely insulated from the real world. Apparently even at age 12 was almost unable to read and write, so little schooling and practical learning had she been given.

Now, don't expect a masterpiece, but if you like pretty clothes, fun music, and things to think about, then you might like it too!

P.S. It was released on my Birthday, October 20, a fact which I just found out from reading Wikipedia.