Chicken in a Car

So the crappy thing is that effing cancer did not go away. It is still there. Hanging out. Making her sick. I hate it and wish I knew magic. Sky is doing okay; he’s very brave and taking care of himself. I’m trying to support him the best I can.

That gotten out of the way, ONWARD (or backward) to Chicago!

Sometime in my life I heard the phrase “You put the chicken in the car and the car won’t go – that’s how you say ‘Chicago’!” I repeated this to anyone who would listen in the weeks leading up to our trip. I also said it a lot in Chicago. It never got old (to me).

1/2 of MONDAY & ALL OF TUESDAY
We left Seattle after work on Monday evening — had a nice dinner and then hopped on the new lightrail that took us most of the way to the airport. We got to the airport around 10:30 and waltzed through the shortest security line, ever. We napped a bit on the 3 hour flight to St. Paul, Minnesota, then had questionable vegan carrot muffins once we landed. A couple of minutes later we boarded a second plane and landed in Chicago around 8:30am. It was fun sitting on the el, all bleary eyed and sleepless while watching commuters drinking their coffee and reading their clever little daily paper. I loved watching the spindly little backporches speed by our windows. I haven’t been to Chicago since I was very, very small – I was suprised by how European much of it appeared.

We napped at our hotel, under cozy heavy down comforters. After 3 hours we were ready to rumble so we took a walk to see what we could see. We saw a crazy looking Baroque-y building down the block – you could see the roof from so far away! We got closer, and Sky thought it was and old building, while I disagreed and thought it was new. I was right, though, it was brand spanking new(ish)! We realized it was the library and giddily went inside. We went up to the top floor to look out at the city and met a super fun clerk named Markus. Markus showed us all of the differences betweem neighborhoods and communities in Chicago, recommended places to eat, and chatted with me about libraries and unions. It was an awesome bit of patron interaction and it was fun to be on the other side.

We got caught in a big super rainstorm! Then we saw the bean (okay, okay, “Cloud Gate“). And the fountain. We sought refuge in the John Hancock building. We had drinks on the 17th floor. It was very surreal because we were socked in by clouds most of the time. Your body knew you were really high up (the building sways), but you couldn’t see anything. For about 5 minutes, right toward the end of my boozy hot chocolate, we could see all of Lakeshore Drive spread out before us. Then it went away again.

We wandered the streets looking for good food, and finally asked a nice looking tattooed girl where to get some good pizza. She pointed us around the corner to a cozy place that was packed to the gills. We were happy to be inside and warm and reading menus. We got the butter crust (tattooed girl insisted on it). Delicious. We sloshed back to our hotel and prompty crashed.

WEDNESDAY

We took the el down to IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) to see some Mies van der Rohe buildings. He designed much of the campus while working as a professor there. Crown Hall was beautiful. We happened upon the Archictecture School‘s library and met our second Wonderful Librarian in Chicago, Matt Cook. He’s the head of the library and we had fun chatting about both libraries and archictecture. We had lunch in the new Rem Koolhaas building on campus. It made me sick. I had some weird vertigo/stuffed ear thing happening and something about the lines in the building (and all of the textures) made it launch into hyperdrive. I can now say that Rem Koolhaas made me ill.

After IIT we felt like another acronym, so we treked to the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) and enjoyed an interesting and varied exhibit of Italian works. There was a really fantastic dark room full of white strings the moved, a bizarre video about embroidery (set to an 80s pop song), and set of photographs of butts and chairs.

On our way back to the hotel to grab our stuff, we happened upon Christkindlemarket: a crazy German marketplace in the middle of Daley plaza. We went to see the Picasso, we stayed to eat potato pancakes and gingerbread. And how. We also snuck past the guards of the Rookery building to see the second floor. Okay, I didn’t. Sky did. I hate breaking rules like that. Sky said it was amazing.

Once we were all full of art we met up with Jimmy and Diane (Sky’s dad and stepmom) and had some very tasty Indian food. We enjoyed a chilly walk back to our abode: an empty, very shiny modern house on Lakeshore Drive. Our hosts had just moved to a new apartment and their house was for sale, so the four of us had the place all to ourselves. Sleeping in an immense empty house is very surreal.

THURSDAY (THANKSGIVING)

We met up with some familiy and had a nice brunch ni the Lincoln Park neighborhood. Everyone agreed to go see “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” – I loved it. It seemed as if it had been made by Roald Dahl himself in the 1950s. Now that there was room in our tummies, we headed to the new apartment for the spectacular main event. This particular arm of Sky’s family are serious art collectors, so walking through their apartment was like visiting a museum; there was a Picasso sketch above the toilet in the bathroom. I had a great time meeting everyone and am happy to say I felt very welcome and cozy sitting side by side with my new people.

FRIDAY
Jimmy, Sky, and Sky’s half-brother Tyler walked over the zoo to visit some animals. We saw some roaring lions (you could hear them throughout the zoo) and a depressed polar bear. It was fun to hang out with the brothers and Jimmy. Being in an uncrowded zoo on a cold day was very charming.

We had leftovers for lunch (Thai sweet potatoes!) and then headed to meet the rest of the family at the Art Institute. I was pleased to see the Thorne Miniature Rooms (68 miniature rooms and settings) – I remember visiting those rooms with my grandmother when I was little. We also took in the Victorian Ladies Collage exhibit. Also loved that day: Phillip Gustons all packed in a room, and a fascinating little painting by Georg Baselitz (never heard of him before, but I liked that painting an awful lot). I also grabbed a 2 second peek at a great de Kooning I’d never seen, as we dashed for the exit. We had drinks with Sky’s cousin Rachel who had just started her own nonprofit when I first met her 3 years ago. We caught up and had dreamy talks about San Francisco. Next was dinner at a cozy American restaurant (4 kinds of macaroni and cheese!) where I sat with a different group of the family than at Thanksgiving. Sky’s uncle Dan regaled me with stories of celebrities and general LA weirdness (he’s a dentist to the STARS, dear) and I had a good time talking to aunt Deb about art and our life here in Seattle. How much did I luck out with Sky? Not only is he all matchy-perfect for me, but his family is also incredibly interesting and neat. All of ‘em.

SATURDAY

Ah, Saturday. The end of the road. Sky and I broke off by ourselves to revisit the Art Institute since we didn’t see nearly enough the day before. We wandered the Impressionist rooms and had a Ferris Bueller moment in front of Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. We found the Surrealists, which made me happy. I saw a bunch of Max Ernst stuff I’d only seen in books or not at all: they had a metric ton of his stuff. Not that I am complaining. I’m a big Ernst fan. He’s my favorite Surrealist and that’s saying a lot. Next we met up with Tyler and bussed down to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House. That. house. was. amazing. Modern before modern existed. Built in 1910, but with crazy cantilevered concrete flat rooflines. I loved it. The interior was pretty great, too.

After a quick bite of leftovers, it was back to the el to get to the airport to get on the plane to get on the lightrail to get oh wait, we wimped out and took a cab home. To get home to warm cats and warm bed. The End.