Chicago longings, a cooking weekend, and some good visits

 

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View from Chicago's Lower Wacker Drive
How can I, who dislikes skyscrapers, be homesick for those tall buildings?
But I am.

Jordan Elisabeth Alter Burton (you know how when you’re angry you call kids by their full name? That’s what I’m doing here!)—that girl! Is besieging me with pictures of Chicago. Today it was several, including at least two of her enjoying drinks, apparently taken along lower Wacker Drive by the Chicago River. When I lived there, I never went anywhere near the river, but when my kids and I went for a visit six years ago, we had a hilarious time on Lower Wacker Drive, including a picture of me in front of Trump Tower (Colin tricked me into it) and the river architecture tour. Even worse, she sent me a video of what she called “my lake” in one of its better moods, with the water a deep blue and fairly gentle waves splashing against the shoreline rocks. That naughty child knows she’s making me homesick for my hometown.

I know all I have to do is damp down my dislike of flying, and I could be in Chicago for a long weekend. Any or all of my four kids and maybe some others would go with me. We’d stay at the Palmer House and drive by my childhood home, which Jordan apparently didn’t get to do this time. We’d take the transport chair, so walking wouldn’t be a challenge for me—though when we were there before, my sons took turns in seeing who could push me up and down ramps the fastest. But it’s doable, and I am tempted, and Jordan Elisabeth Alter Burton is tempting me all the more. She knows it too.

As is often the case, this was a cooking weekend for me. Friday night, Jean came, and I made Salade Niçoise with smoked salmon. I set it on a bed of spring mix greens and dressed it with sour cream diluted with lemon. I loved the salad ingredients, especially the smoked salmon, but the dressing didn’t work for me. Too thick, too hard to spread. Last night, Christian and I were home for supper, and I made a pot of spaghetti sauce that I’d been craving—good but heavy. I still have leftovers in the fridge.

Tonight, a friend had to cancel our dinner plans because of serious illness in her family, so I fixed part of what I would have fixed her—the turkey tonnato, but without the baked spinach casserole and broiled tomato I had planned. Instead, I fixed myself a salad of lettuce and avocado, dressed with Newman’s Own Vinaigrette and grated pecorino cheese. A good meal, but I was glad I hadn’t served it to a guest. I requested quarter inch slices of turkey from Central Market and got paper thin slices that are hard to deal with. It wasn’t the dish I’d envisioned. Tonnato sauce basically combines mayonnaise, tuna in olive oil, a bit of anchovy, some lemon juice and some capers—whir it in the processor. It’s good but a strong flavor, and you either like it or you don’t. I do.

But it was lovely to have visitors over the weekend. Jean and I had a good, catch-up visit on Friday night, and I think next weekend she’s going to force me out of my cottage to go to dinner. I’m looking forward to it, though I have a bad habit of backing out at the last minute. Not this time, I tell myself.

Saturday night, Jaimie and Greg walked up for happy hour, bringing granddaughter Ophelia. I had purchased a Beto yard sign; then I gave him some money—that $37 which is the mysterious figure he’s arrived at that will put him over the top—and he sent me another sign. So, I offered it to Jaimie, who was glad to have it. They came to get the sign…and stayed to visit. Ophelia was appropriately shy in a house she didn’t know with an adult she doesn’t know (thanks to Facebook, I know her a lot better than she knows me). When I asked if she liked pre-K or days with Grammy better, she said, “Both.” That child is a diplomat. Jaimie thinks of all kinds of creative activities for her, like cooking their way through the alphabet. Ophelia is also one of those children who early on looks like she understands the secrets of the universe in a way that most of us mere mortals never will. I had a child like that, and I recognize it.

So it’s been a pleasant weekend, hot but not too hot, good food, good company, some writing done, but I didn’t beat myself up about it. I am ready for Jordan to come home, but this coming week is shaping up to be busy. And that’s a good thing.

How does your week look?

Going way back in time and memory

Photo by Marc Monaghan

A great blast of nostalgia hit me when I read my email this morning. One message from the Hyde Park (Chicago) Historical Society contained an article about Promontory Point, the scene of many of my happiest high-school memories, although in retrospect they are tinged with a bit of adolescent awkwardness.

Better known as just “the Point,” it is a finger of land that juts out into Lake Michigan from about 55^th Street on Chicago’s South Side. Daniel Burnham, the architect behind the city’s recovery from the Great Fire and the man still, all these years later, responsible for much of Chicago’s architecture, envisioned a city park in a thin strip along miles of the waterfront. The 40-acre Point made entirely of landfill and completed in the 1930s, long after Burnham’s death, was the southern most part of what became Daniel Burnham Park.

Aerial view 1940

Chicago Public Library

Along with an abundance of native trees, two things mark the Point in my mind. One is the pavilion, partly open shelter and partly one large enclosed room. Sometimes our church youth group reserved the pavilion for a picnic supper or some such, and I think maybe I went there with the Girl Scouts. I know we all used the smelly restrooms (I hope today that feature has seen improvement.)

The other feature emblazoned are my memory are the revetments or retaining walls of huge blocks of stone that kept the Point from dissolving back into the lake. When I was in high school, my friends and I rode our bikes to the Point where we spread our blankets and unpacked our snacks, radios, and suntan lotion on the grass above those rocks. If you wanted to swim, you jumped in off the rocks, watching carefully for those that were submerged. The water was cold and deep.

I was probably as good a swimmer as any of the others, but I had learned to swim on the sandy beaches of the Indiana dunes where the caution was always, “Be sure your foot can touch the bottom. Never get out over your head.” The big fear was the undertow which could drag you out too far to swim back. So I swam, always parallel to the shore, always touching my foot down. No way I was going in that deep water with nothing to hold on to but slippery, moss-covered rocks. I was always afraid the other kids would think I was chicken—and they would be right.

A family on the stone revetments

photo by March Monaghan

The kids I met at the Point mostly came from my church youth group, but my friend Eleanor Lee and I were kind of the hangers-on with the group, most of whom were older. We knew them all well because frequently when they weren’t at the Point, they gathered at Eleanor Lee’s house, thanks to her older sister Elizabeth. Neither a raving beauty nor an accomplished flirt, I felt like a bit of an ugly duckling and longed to be “cool” enough to be casual with those kids, probably high school seniors.

Years later, when I actually dated one of those older boys fairly regularly, we must have outgrown the Point. I don’t recall that we ever went there. I think too by then it was less safe than in our day, when there were people spread all over it on weekends. I think by today it has been reclaimed and residents feel free to go there, stare at the lake, sit on the stone benches.

It is such a place of strong memory for me that I managed to work it into my new mystery, Saving Irene. Henny and her next-door, good-looking, not-interested-in-girls neighbor, Patrick, ride bikes to the Point and picnic.

This morning it was like magic to see those scenes again. I hope you’ll like these pictures from the Point.

Thankful Sunday

Mark and his brisket

So much to be thankful for this sunny Spring Sunday. First and foremost, the New York Alters—both Uncle Mark and Aunt Amy have had the corona virus but are recovered. Mark says nothing heals like a brisket from Angelo’s in Fort Worth—his nephew, my Colin, sent it. And we are all thankful and offer continued prayers for my niece, Emily, who is an R.N. at Lennox General in New York City. In recent years, she has worked on an orthopedic unit but now it has been converted to COVID-19 unit. That’s Emily in the picture above, the one in the foreground without her cap. Every night at 7 p.m. crowds gather in the streets outside the hospital to cheeer medical personnel as they leave their shift.

My mom used to tell me all things end in some good, and that’s generally the message we’re getting about the pandemic. We will never go back to normal as we knew it but will carve out a new normal, which most of us hope will be much improved. One of the encouraging signs pointing in that  direction is the renewal of the earth due to quarantine. Without so many people running around, driving cars, flying planes, the earth is restoring itself—the air is clearer, the waters purer, animals are returning to national parks and other areas where they had disappeared. Thanks to Regina Rosier for one of the most stunning pictures I’ve seen: Lake Michigan’s waters have turned clear revealing hundreds of wrecked ships on the lake floor. Having grown up almost on Lake Michigan’s shores, that’s especially meaningful to me.

A shipwreck on Lake Michigan's floor

Jordan and I “went” to church together, and once again I am super impressed by the creativity our church staff shows in these online services which combine pre-filmed segments—the senior minister preaching, other ministers leading us in prayer and thanksgiving and communion, a special message each week for children—with beautiful photography, sometimes of the sanctuary and other times of the natural earth. Today one scene carried me mentally back to the Smoky Mountains, though I don’t know for sure that’s where it was. For a hymn, they re-ran a segment from November 2018 of the entire congregation singing—for a moment  you felt like you were in the sanctuary again.

A neighbor, mother of one of Jordan’s grade school chums and today’s close friend, sent me a loaf of homemade bread. Jordan sliced it this morning, and we used it for communion for the online service. It smelled so good and reminded me of the bread my mom used to make. I can hardly wait for breakfast tomorrow when I will toast it and slather it with real butter. Jordan made herself a piece of toast at lunch, and the smell was wonderful.

This morning I read an article about how they deal with the elderly during the pandemic on the island of Sardinia in the Mediterranean. One village has had only one case of the corona virus—someone who returned from an overseas trip. The elderly live with their children, not in nursing homes which, as we’ve seen, are petri dishes for the virus. The grown children manage the household, feed the parents, minister to their needs, and visit with them to stave off boredom and depression. It struck me those are all the things Jordan does for me. I just didn’t have to move to Sardinia, and I am beyond grateful for not being in a nursing home—I watched my mother deteriorate rapidly in such a setting. I am sheltered and safe, blessed beyond belief, and eternally grateful.

Lots of gardening going on this afternoon. I think the Burtons are clearing out old supplies, shelves that collect junk, a plastic wading pool once used to house a lonely fish. Jordan has planted flowerpots along my patio, and this week the yard crew will deliver two fountain grass plants and will plant colorful penta in front of the deck. I love Spring in Texas.

Living the High Life

St the airport ready to go

My children and I flew to Chicago today. Being older has ots advamtage, and I have decided never to fly again unless certain conditions are met like they wwere today: we had a driver to the airport (Jordan couldn’t cope with me, luggage and wheelchair); we met Jamie in the admirals Club; we had first-class seats. A minor disappointment: the first class lunch menu didn’t appeal so Jordan got me a club sandwich to go from the Admirals Club. When I opened ir on rhe plane, the bacon was raw.

O’Hare Airport makes DFW look wonderful, and we had a bit of a wait and confusion getting the rental car and meeting up with Megan and Colin. But we finally arrived at the Drake Hotel—another of my childhood dreams. The Drake was always a symbol of luxury to me, and it remains a gracious old hotel—the best kind. Our rooms may be a bit in need of updating, but it’’s a suite—two bedrooms and a living aarea, on the 10^th floor, with a panoramic view of Lake Michigan and  the North Shore. As I write I’m sitting looking out at the lights of night traffic and the lights on the beach. It’s breathtaking, and nostalgic for me.

Tonight we wwent to dinner in what was the meat packing district. A trendy restaurant called Publican. Had avocado salad, trout, farm chicken, chicken liver pate, a wonderful corn dish, suckling pig, and pork rinds. Everybody tasted some of everything, except Colin and I were the only ones who ate pate.

Although we have a rental car, we  used an Uber driver to and from the restaurant. Turned out to be a man named Leo, who gave us a wonderful tour—Buckingham Fountain, the Magnificent Miles, the water tower that survived the Great Chlicago Fire.

We have a two-sided approach tothis trip.The kids told Leo they were bringing their mom back to her hometown because she hasn’t been here in years (I have neither family nor friends left here). I think of it as a chance to show them where I grew up. Tomorrow we will tour Hyde Park, my South Side neighborhood and I will show them my house, the homes of friends, even the home of President Obama. And the University of Chicago, the hospital where my dad worked, who knows what else.

Lake Michigan, sand dunes, and nostalgia

Whenever I feel the need for a place of retreat, I go in my mind to a certain spot in the Indiana Dunes. It was about halfway between the shore of Lake Michigan and our cabin on the top of the ridge. At twilight, you could watch the sun sink behind the skyscrapers of Chicago. Sometimes you could listen to the lake gently push small waves ashore; other times you could hear louder sounds of waves crashing. When storms came, you could watch them roll the length of the lake, to end with whitecaps thundering on shore and sometimes reaching dangerously close to the first level of cabins. I used to go to my favorite spot often with our female collie mix, inappropriately named Timmy,

Our cabin was rough to say the least. No plumbing, no electricity. The front of the house faced the lake; the back, a lovely deep woods—except the outhouse was down the hill in the woods. I hated to go at night, even when my mom went with me. The refrigerator was a box on a pulley, so it sank deep in the ground; once a week, the iceman cometh—literally, to drop a huge block of ice down the hole. You always put the milk in the bottom shelf where it would stay coolest. For lamps we had kerosene or Aladdin, though my dad worried constantly about turning them too high, so we never had enough light to read by at night. But the nighttime smell of the woods and the lake was so tranquilizing—I’m sure I never slept that soundly since.

We had to hike a mile, through the woods, from where we could park our car to the cabin, carrying in clothes, groceries, etc. I think I could find my way through those trails even now, though it was another thing I didn’t like to do at night. The family with whom we shared the cottage walked the beach, but we weren’t really beach people except for swims and baths in the lake. I sunburned easily and after a bout of sunstroke was never again comfortable in the sun. But I loved the woods.

Those days were magic to me, and I am often overcome with longing for them. Sweet corn fresh from the field, buckets full of raspberries for 50 cents—everything tasted better. Today, the state of Indiana has torn down all the cottages—yes, Thomas Wolfe, you really can’t go home again. And I’m not sure I’d feel safe in those woods. But I think everyone needs a retreat to which they can go in their mind. And that’s mine—my spot of refuge and renewal.

The glories of rain in a Texas summer

Normally in North Texas we have rain in April, maybe May, but we didn't get much this spring, not enough to do any good. But this week, we've had glorious rain, almost unprecedented in a Texas summer. Yesterday it was gentle steady rain all morning. I took a nap and woke up to a sunny afternoon. This morning was sunny, and I thought they were fooling about rain, but this time when I woke from my nap, it was storming (did I mention I come from a napping family?). And I mean storming big time. Some thunder and lightning but not a lot--apparently in surrounding areas there was a lot of lightning. But oh, my, did it rain in sheets and blow--I watched my old elm tree, which anchors my property in front, and it swayed but held firm. Friends nearby have two limbs down in their backyard. And it kept raining--I can't remember the last time it rained that hard for that long. Apparently we got about two-and-a-half inches. And they say there's more to come in the next two days.
About forty miles from us, the level of a lake rose five feet overnight--of course with the damn system they'll release some of that, but it was so sad to see piers and docks sitting on bare ground and boats dry-docked. I hope they keep enough water for water sports this summer. I doubt this has broken the back of our drought but it's sure a help.
My week started off peacefully but has gotten complicated for the next few days. Jacob is visiting his grandparents in Coppell and I miss him a lot--suppose I have to share. He's still is afraid of storms, so I hope he's safe and happy tonight. On the other hand, I enjoy a good storm, though I am leery if tornados are possible (they weren't mentioned today).
When I was growing up my family had a cabin high on a dune (three flights of stairs above the beach--from which we got our pure drinking water). It sat right at the bottom tip of Lake Michigan, and one of my fondest memories is of watching storms roll down the lake bringing dark and thunder and enormous whitecaps on the lake. I guess that's why I still enjoy storms, and I sat and watched the one this afternoon in awe. Then I went in my backroom to do my yoga workout--something lovely about doing yoga with the wind and rain blowing outside a wall of windows.
Glory and praise for the rain be to God.