Saturday on the Town

Finally got paid (after about six weeks that approached being about as dire financial straights as we're likely to know) and so took the gals out on the town today. While Cindy got her hair done, the girls and I strolled about downtown Park Ridge, picking up a few new books, new shoes, and for Aidan, a brand new "big girl" bike at Bob's Bike Shop, her very first.


Here, the Lawrence girls take a rest after a day of shopping, a scene their father fears may happen again and again as they get older.

Later, after meeting Mommy with the new bike, we loaded up the car and rolled on over to Evanston to catch up with Hans and Callie and their kids at some local neighborhood "fun fair" that was held in support of the elementary school there. A nice enough time, though the pony rides got stuck in traffic and were late to attend:


Aidan and Eloise, managing to make it look like both "today" and "ten years from now" in one photo. (Note punk-inspired hair coloring for both girls...)

Big Steps Forward

With the news that mother-in-law/mom/granny Kris is 100% cancer free marking the news that her physical rehab is complete and she's ready to move forward with her life, Cindy and I are equaly thrilled to get started on our own sort of rehab. We've decided on an architect and we're excited to begin moving forward as well. A big day all around.

The Gary View

Here's the view out the office window today:

It's a litle bit hazy out over the lake, though Gary is visible, as is Soldier Field, just to the left of the Board of Trade building, which our nerdier readership will recognize as the Wayne Enterprises building. Not the best view of our fair city, but for now, it's my view, and I'll take it.

Three Weeks

Yes, it's been three weeks since our rental van arrived in Chicago, surprisingly in one piece, considering my track record with those things. Each day seems like, well, not yet quite a "Gift," because gifts are typically less stressful, but there is great joy here in all the little things. Standing on street corners, riding the el, downing mai tais at the Chef -- it doesn't quite seem real, yet.

Cobra-La!

Two snapsnots of our day:

Buying a new computer bag today out at the Apple Store at the mall, the guy at the register who rang up our purchase had a big Storm Shadow/Snake Eyes tattoo on his forearm, the kind those figures had, with the red bars. That's a long way to go to remember the toys of days gone by, but I betcha Dan Lawrence can appreciate the coolness.

Also, for dinner, ran on down to Chef Shangri-La tonite -- fantastic! We've been there before, but nothing beats the Chef's potent combo of a)great tiki looks, b)great food, and c)a willingness to endure small children. The mai tais will also make the Red Dragon blush.

It's good to be home.

Luva Rainy Night

Eddie Rabbit may have loved himself a rainy night, but Friday night, disembarking the el at the Cumberland stop (wave "hi!" to ol' Dave there next time you're flying by on the Kennedy), I watched the Apocolypse roll in from the West. Well, not the real Apocolypse, because there would have been more brimstone, I'm sure, but a reasonable trial run. Tremendously awful weather. Rained like the dickens.

It also flooded my mother-in-law's basement. Just one more charming aspect of our proposed purchase. Still, staying positive. And buying mops. Have you seen this movie?

Lookin' Sharp!

They say it's bad luck to have a black cat cross your path. But what if that "black cat" is the Reverend Al Sharpton, who passed me with his entourage in the United terminal at O'Hare last night? Judging by how events played out after that, well, perhaps "even worse luck."

First up, five hours in the airport, delayed in 15 minute increments due to bad weather. An non-eventful flight, though upon arrival at Reagan National at local time 11:30pm EST, we waited and waited for our checked bags (more or less necesary and mandatory now) until about 12:30am, only to then be informed United had neglected to send the entire flight's worth of baggage, or had routed it elsewhere. Filled out forms until about 1:30am, then waited in a line of about 200 people for cabs to trickle in until about 2:15am, before catching one to the hotel. Caught a nice look at the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and USMC Iwo Jima Memorial on the way over the hotel, and will probably head off in search of the USMC Memorial in a little bit.

So here we are. Welcome to the traveling life, Mr. Man.

Here We GoGo!

A few months back, Cindy and I sat in our house in Golden Valley, saying things like "Man, my boss is a doof" and "Are we really happy here?" and even "Let's move to Chicago, we love it there!" And as we considered those things, one thought came up again and again:

"If we really want this life in Chicago, what are we prepared to do about it? What are we willing to do?"

So, we packed up. We moved. We hauled dust and dirt and detritus out of the basement of the 1219 house. We got the girls settled in. We got them into fun classes. We got them connected with friends. It's been a busy two weeks.

But the real job, the real test, starts here in just about two hours, when we roll on out to O'hare as a family and drop Daddy off to fly away to start the new job. Everything else was just preamble -- this is the real magilla. Like those posters you see taped to ceilings in dentists' offices -- the kitten on a branch mewing "Hang in There!" and the ubiquitous Ziggy pointlessly holding a puppy emoting "The Rest of Your Life Starts Tomorrow" -- well, life does Start again tomorrow.

The last time I joined Sapient, I flew west to San Francisco, a nice Gold Rush parallel if ever there was one, befitting the internet and the company at the time. I met my old friend and soon to be Best Man Cale Peeples down in Palo Alto for dinner, and ended up with some sort of pepper steak that haunted my bowels the entire night. Bleary-eyed, sleepy, and gassy is how that version of life started way back when.

This time, well, I'm not so gassy (well, less than usual at any rate) but there's still that knot in the pit of my stomach that hopes for the best, worries about the future, the decisions we've made, prays for the safety of the girls and the future of our family.

But it's here now. Time to answer the question: "What are you prepared to do to ensure that your family has the life you want, the life they want?"

We'll see. Not have the pepper steak, that's for sure.

New Tricks

So, a day for learning new tricks. For Aidan, it was ballet and tap, under the kind instruction of Miss Dawn, sponsored by the Park Ridge Parks+Rec District. Eight mothers and I watched our little angels be put through their paces, learning the steps. Adorable. And for her part, Reesie has learned the Art of the Tantrum as an attempt to get her way. It doesn't work, and it gives Daddy a crazy headache, but one has to admire her tenacity. For my part, I learned to post little photos here:

Ballet padawans learn the ways of the wise Miss Dawn.

Under the Cloud Gate with Reese.

This pretty much captures the spirit of these first few weeks.

Yes, it's been a very good two weeks. And work starts Monday.

Peace By Pieces

A rough night with the girls so far. First Reese, then Aidan, with the screaming night terrors. A weird night for sure.

More weirdness today. And sadness. News reached me of a former colleague's sudden and untimely death. A stroke. While out of town on business. Died on the phone talking to his wife, apparently. Very sad. I have memories of him -- a kind, gentle person, not too worked up about things, a good guy. Pieces of him, left behind with everyone he knew, I suppose.

Then, a discussion with another coworker, who recently traveled back to her country of birth to visit the orphanage where she was raised before her adoption. A woman at the orphanage had kept a scrapbook with photos and stories about all of the little lives that had passed through her care. How powerful and amazing, I thought, to travel half way around the world to find little pieces of your life in the care of someone else, pieces you might have never known existed.

We all pass through each others lives, much too quickly I'm afraid. We leave behind stories and photos and pieces of memory. What to do with those things? Treasure them. Guard them fiercely. Don't forget they're there.

So many lives touched ours while in Minnesota, and I don't think I've even begun to properly miss those pieces of our life, as it all seems still so close and sudden. But the memories we have we cherish and keep, and share with our girls. The screensaver shuffles through years and years of faces, of family, of friends. I'm glad for those pieces, both here in our hearts and flung to all the corners of the world. It makes life seem richer, broader, deeper somehow, less sudden, less horribly random.

The More Things Change...

Five years ago, after a weekend of debauchery that included some boozed-up and misplaced remarks to some coworkers during a chance run-in at the Lincoln Square Germanfest, I hung my head in shame and headed in to my job at Sapient, running later than usual. Located in Chicago's Loop, just a block from the Sears Tower, I enjoyed the job, but was not looking forward to the fallout from the Germanfest. As I got to my desk, I noticed a lot of folks getting up from their desks to head to one of the large conference rooms -- figuring it was some meeting I had forgotten about, I casually checked my email, and then sauntered down the hall to see what the hell was going on.

There, on a small TV, horrific images of New York, smoke pouring out of one of the World Trade Center towers. No one really knew what was going on. The coworker who had been on the receiving end of my stupid remarks at the Germanfest made some moronic comment about "those people on the TV having a 'bad Monday'" or something like that, and popular opinion of the room chased her out of there, leaving me feeling that at the very least, the "scales of stupidity" had been balanced.

As the image on TV continued to belch smoke, and the general consensus being that the building was simply on fire (for some reason, the whole 'airplane hitting the tower' part of the story wasn't know at that time, at least in the room I was in), I headed back to my desk to think about work. About five minutes of emailing later, word came we were all to get the hell out of the building and go home. I don't even recall if we knew why at the time, but leave we did.

That afternoon, I sat in our apartment on Sacramento and watched the rest of the 9/11 drama play out. Of course, by the time I'd caught the train home, all of the attacks had ended, but fear and panic ruled the day. I remember a phone call from Cindy, scared, worried when she couldn't reach me at work.

Now, five years later, back in Chicago, back at Sapient, back near the Sears Tower. And yet different today -- we took Aidan to her first art class at the local art studio (we made butterflies out of clay and painted them). With all the flying in my future, I can't say the memory of 9/11 doesn't worry the bejeebers out of me. But like everyone that day -- hero and martyr and all the rest -- I think each of us, each day, gets up and goes to work and tries to do the best we know how to do for the people that we love.

One Week

Last Sunday night about this time, we locked the latch on the Budget Rental truck and called it a day. It'd been a long day on the road, but we were, at long last, home. Certainly, it's going to be much longer before we're fully settled in, but we're here. Have a look at our first week.

Stollin'

Well, once again, Chicago shows us that people who need people are the luckiest people in the world. And they get served up to us because of a stroller. After a delightful morning drive with Aidan, who once again afirmed that even though I might be traveling quite a bit with my job, I can always "see here everday in my heart," and a delightful reunion with Monaco pals Dennis and Nicole for the birthday party of their son Daniel (younger brother to Joe), where both our girls had a great day, we headed on off to Germanfest in our old neighborhood in Lincoln Square. After the parade, and watching the Hudsucker dancers, a nice young couple introduced themselves, inquiring about our double stroller, which has been a blessing in recent months. Anyway, one things leads to another, we're chatting, we're letting the kids play together, we're exchanging contact information -- six days in town and we've made new friends. Why, that would have only taken, well, more than a year in Minnesota. Good stuff. Good times. Okay...gotta run...we've got Noon-O-Kabob waiting. Thank Christ we 're home!

Shelob's Lair

I swear to God, there are corners of this house that have not been cleaned since the Eisenhower administration. Today's task -- cleaning out the laundry/storage room on the unfinished side of the basement. Old doors and sliced up kitchen counters and ping pong tables had been balanced on old drawers from cabinets long gone to make a tower of Babel of storage. And some sort of Metropolis for the spider people. Sweet lord. Thick, dusty, old webs everywhere. And no Galadriel's Light to guide me -- just our trusty, tattered Shop Vac. Quite a day.

A quick shout out to Drew Dolan, who's gift of Harp has been greatly enjoyed at day's end for a few days running now. Beer, the gift that really keeps on giving. Oorah, brother.

It's the Little Things

Though considered the City of Big Shoulders, Chicago welcomes you home not with a big sweeping bear hug but in the little gestures that say "You're home at last!" For instance, we can once again buy liquor at any hour of the day, any day of the week. The political scandals are all familiar, and deeply profound -- no drunken teenage girls on an out-of-state bender to embarrass the congressman here, just six and half years in PMITA prison for the former govenor, who had it coming and knew it. Pizza is deep dish again, spinach is actually considered an ingredient, and the cheese topping comes toasty and brown like it should, not globular and white like a Scandanavian's ass.

And turning from arms and shoulders to little legs and feet, I should point out that in preparation for her forthcoming dance class, Aidan is now the proud owner of a little leotard, as well as ballet slippers and tap shoes, which she will proudly show you she can put on all by herself. A is for Aidan, and adorable.

You Should Buy Our House

We have one for sale you know. Check it out here.

Gotta Get Me Some of Them Tight Circus Pants

Time was, circus a'comin' to town was a regular doin's. Parades, marching bands, fierce creatures from far off lands, right there before your very eyes! My Grandpa Elmer once old tales of ol' Ringling Brothers coming to his farming community of Postville, Iowa, and vast excursion trains from as far away as Milwaukee and St. Lou bringing carloads of folks to see this once in a lifetime spectacle.

Now, your modern circus has been rendered small and cringing by lawyers and animal rights activists who leave pamphlets on your car window for you to find when your day is done to tell you that the fun you just had was not fun at all but mere brutality and you should be ashamed for sharing it with your children. No more freight trains -- just two eighteen wheelers and a handful of tattered RVs to mark the once mighty caravan. You celebrated circus performers of yore now reduced to working the "Animal Fantasy" act during the show (a labrador races around and hops over a camel and a llama) and offering kiddee rides on the elephant between sets; the ringmaster doubles as the carnie huckster operating the snake booth next to the ice cream stand. The whole show, in fact, no more than a fundraiser for the local school district.

Still, it was with some excitement and mystery we found ourselves at the Kelly Martin Circus today, tent propped up outside of Lincoln Middle School here in Park Ridge, the tickets a gift from Granny Kris. Aidan was excited, though mixed feelings appeared upon first viewing of the elephant, eight five year olds dropped in the bucket on its back. "I don't want to ride it!" she sobbed, and I assured her it wouldn't be necessary. Reesie and I watched the Mexican man pull kids off the pony ride and plop the next kid on with one swift fluid motion, while yet another man darted back and forth shoveling up their droppings.

And yet, for all the horse poo and probable elephant suicides, there was still magic to be found. Inside the big top, wonder still waited. Generations of circus folk had set tent poles in just the manner we saw on hand. A century of families had sat with awe and expectation, waiting as we did, for the show to begin. Images from Jimmy Stewart in "The Greatest Show on Earth" to the incomplete insanity of HBO's "Carnivale" came to mind. The girls giggled, munching popcorn and sipping from rapidly melting sno-cones.

And then the show started.

And instantly, you sort of remember why you haven't been to the circus in a long time.

And it's not just because you sort of wince at the horse that slips on the grass doing a spin and tumbles. Or that the computer nerd with his Dell laptop pumping out midi versions of 80s hits and accompanying himself on an elborate drum kit has replaced the Sousa-esque Circus band of yesteryear. Or that sno-cones cost five dollars.

It is, frankly, sort of boring. And I don't want to hear about Cirque du Solei Moon Frei either, because that's extravagant, but still sort of boring. The safety of it is boring. The rousties wearing tuxedos and looking all professional takes away from the haphazard drunken danger of it all. The safety cable the trapese artist attaches to her swing removes the danger. The climbing harness attached to the 5-year old tumbler boy who climbed his grandpa, then up a pole on grandpas head, to his dad balanced on that pole, then up another pole balanced on dad's head, to do a handstand at top, even that -- well, okay, that wasn't boring, but it was too "safe."

And maybe that's where the pants come in -- the too-tight, multi-sequenced, garishly green and gold, dress right or left we know your religion, my god we see it all, sort of tight pants -- maybe that's all that's left of the dangerous, freewheeling days of circuses gone by. Like Fabio in lycra, yet with skills, intelligence and a Spanish accent, these are the lions and tigers of the midway today. Yet not like Fabio, either -- at least half of these guys are middle-age and overweight (I'm assuming this is what the school fundraiser circuit gets you.) But they still wear those pants. And they still have that panache and dering-do.

So somewhere between midi "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go" and the clown and poodle act, I found myself thinking how stylish I might look in a pair of those pants. Yes, maybe that'll set the right tone at the new job. Yessir, gonna have to get me some of them tight circus pants.

They have the internet on computers now?!

Okay, we're back in the digital world again. Hot damn. We're back in Chicago, too. More on that soon.