She Wrote, He Wrote

CLAIRE WROTE:

It took me almost a whole week to convince Greg to spend election night downtown. He really wanted to stay home on the couch, watching the returns, yelling at the television, double-fisting his laptop and his phone, and not missing a moment of it.

I, on the other hand, wanted to be out, in the city, in Chicago, with all the thousands of other Obama supporters, whooping it up for change. I promised Greg that we’d find a cozy bar from which we could watch the footage. I advised him to wear something comfortable to work that day. I commented over and over again on what a historic night it would be and how lucky we were to be in Chicago for it. And when I scored tickets to the rally in Grant Park, he finally agreed.

The last two years (I’ve been an Obama supporter for a long time) have been a slow build to the last six months. Six months of intense obsession, of constant emails and a thousand clicks a day through all the news sites I call home. I don’t think a day has gone by in the last half year when I haven’t spoken about this election. It’s dominated my thoughts and my emotions to the point of paralyzation at times. And all because I have never so passionately believed in a leader as I have in Barack Obama. I believe in him in a way that I didn’t think my generation was capable of.

And to prove it, I’ve tried my damnedest to do my part for him this last year. I’ve given money, time, calories, words and more words in support of Barack Obama, and being there to see him win this presidential election was something that I knew I would never forget. As Greg and I left our cozy bar where we’d had dinner with friends as the early returns came in, we set out for Grant Park in awe of the streets around us. It felt like New Year’s Eve, Y2K. The streets were filled with people, filled with energy, with cheers and anticipation, and with more Barack paraphernalia than I’ve ever seen.

We stood in line for over an hour outside Grant Park, in a streaming river of people all waiting to get inside the park, to be part of this thing that we all felt part of. Cars drove by honking and waving, news traveled down the line about which states had gone blue, cheers and shouts erupting from those around us. Finally, amidst a human swarm of political passion, we slipped our way into Grant Park, crushing in amongst the thousands, all of us turning around and around, taking it all in, the crowd, the city skyline, the feeling that nothing like this had ever happened.

And just a half hour after we’d gotten inside, the giant screen showing CNN announced that Obama had taken Virginia. And then that he’d taken the presidency. I could hardly take it in. What, no fight? No contesting of ballots, or fraud, or of some other ridiculous thing? That’s it? Barack Obama has won?

Barack Obama has won.

We were all hugging and crying and the whole field tingled with something new, something no one had ever felt before, or at least hadn’t felt in a long time. My head was spinning. We’re going to end the war, I thought. People will have health care, I thought. The world will stop hating America, I thought. And then I realized how used to things I’d been, how resigned and unhopeful and uninspired I’d been these last eight years.

I’m still taking it all in. I’m still brought to tears thinking of it all, of all the different things electing Barack Obama means. I’m still taking in the idea of hope. And of what it feels like to be proud of my country and the people who live here.

CLAIRE WROTE:

I’ve truly had some disastrous kayaking trips. Well, maybe just one, in particular.

It took place several years ago on a trip to Thailand with a couple of girlfriends. Lucy and Holly and I were in Thailand for reasons involving a poorly executed and failed business plan, about which I won’t go into specific details. Nonetheless, one sunny morning found us on the island of Koh Chang wondering what to do with ourselves. Lucy decided to shower while Holly and I bickered out our plans and finally settled on kayaking.

The kind hotel staff, who had taken to calling us “Charlie Angel,” waved goodbye to the three of us as we set out on a kayaking mission to, what we thought, was a nearby island. Suffice to say, three hours later found us in the middle of the ocean, under the noonday sun, barely half way to the deceptively “nearby” island, all of us exhausted and arguing, Lucy keeping quiet about a fin she was sure she had just seen and me, actually toting a Coach purse along with me for God knows what reasons. I mean, really, who takes a Coach purse kayaking in Thailand?

Anyway, you would think I’ve learned my lesson about biting off more than I can chew when it comes to kayaking. Apparently not, because on Sunday when Greg and I showed up at the Chicago River Paddle boat shack to pick up our reserved kayaks for the day, I did my best to get us into another disaster of a kayaking trip.

This was our first time kayaking on the Chicago River, something we’ve been meaning to do all summer long, and only now have we gotten around to it on this the last weekend of summer. I really had my heart set on kayaking downtown to the Loop. It just seemed like such a cool idea and I felt strongly, before leaving the house, that nothing was going to sway me from getting to kayak straight through the middle of the city, all those enormous skyscrapers rising up around me.

So even after the kayaking guy told us that he strongly advised us NOT to paddle down to the Loop, as it would be at least a 5 hour round trip and there would be nowhere to use the restroom the entire time, and we would have to paddle upstream the whole way back, and they offered a lovely guided tour with a pick up at the end that we could take some time, I STILL put on my poutiest face and did a good job of *almost* convincing Greg that we should still do it, for adventure’s sake.

I’ll just say now that I’m really glad I listen to my husband sometimes. Or perhaps that he doesn’t listen to me sometimes. Needless to say, we did not paddle to the Loop and instead had a very pleasant experience paddling around for a couple of hours, heading North through our neighborhood, admiring ducks and turtles and blue heron and each other. On the way back, going downstream, my arms already sore, although I wasn’t quite ready to admit defeat, I was secretly very glad I had not won out on the adventure argument.

I think one should only have one disastrous kayaking trip in a lifetime, no?

CLAIRE WROTE:

It was Greg’s idea to take surf lessons in Costa Rica. We were in the Osa Peninsula, on a travel writing trip focusing on sustainable tourism, and we were trying to soak up (pun kind of intended) as much of the rain forest as possible. Surfing hadn’t been on the forefront of the things I wanted to do while we were there.

National Geographic calls the Osa Peninsula the “most biologically intense place on earth. Yes, on earth.” And it was. Full of monkeys and impossible-to-spot sloths, giant frogs and tree crabs…and me and Greg, sloshing through the jungle in big, black galoshes.

We were staying at an ecolodge called Lapa Rios and there was a daily list of guided tours and activities that guests could participate in. Had it not been for Greg, my eyes would have skimmed right over “Surf Lessons,” alighting perhaps on “Mangrove Kayak Tour” or “Rainforest Ridge Walk,” but Greg was hooked on the idea of taking surf lessons…and after some thought, I decided I’d rather take them too, than sit on the beach squinting at my husband as he attempted to stand up in the waves.

It’s funny that after four years of living in Venice Beach, California and watching bare-foot, sun-bleached surfers walk by my window every morning, I would try surfing for the first time in Costa Rica. But perhaps there’s good reason for that. The idea that my first attempt to stand on a moving object in the ocean would be witnessed only by strangers, rather than the potential disaster of having some cool Venice surfer guy privy to my initial foray into this competitive sport, made me feel just a bit more at ease.

We met up with our surf instructor on a pretty desolate beach around 10AM on our last day on the peninsula. His name was Oldemar and he was young and cut, with that ocean-water-scraggly hair that all surfers seem to have. He nodded sagely after speaking and said “Cali” instead of California, even though he was Costa Rican and had never traveled stateside. He tossed each of us a red surf shirt and I put mine on, feeling like one of my cats probably does when I try to make it wear some kind of outfit.

After that he threw a surfboard on the sand and began to demonstrate the various positions we would be using in our attempts to stand up on the board. I could feel my cheeks grow hot when he told us we all had to practice, right there in front of each other. There were five of us, by the way. Me and Greg and a dad with his two teenage kids, a boy and a girl. Why I would be embarrassed in front of them is anyone’s guess, but I think I would have been embarrassed to mimic standing on a surfboard in front of anyone.

As a side note, about a year ago, Greg made me pose with him in a fake surfing set-up at a festival here in Chicago. The three minutes we were on that board were truly some of the most humiliating of my entire life. However, I will always be grateful to Greg for forcing me into this, simply for the photo that came out of it.

It took both me and the other girl three tries to get the positions right, the guys only having to mimic our instructor once to feign their surf posture. Finally, we were ready to go. As I carried my board atop my head on our way to the water, visions of Keanu Reeves and Lori Petty swam through my head, the surfing lesson montage and Petty’s gravely voice saying “Pop, pop!” as Keanu struggled to stand and was mocked by the other surfers.

And then we were paddling out to the break and I quickly realized that I had no arm muscles to speak of. It was literally some of the toughest arm exercises I’d ever done. No wonder Oldemar (and every other surfer I’ve ever seen) was so ripped. Miraculously, I somehow beat everyone in our little group, husband included, out to the spot where Oldemar was waiting for us.

He immediately took hold of my board and spun me around. “You ready?!” he shouted, and shoved me off. It was so exhilarating that I literally forgot to stand up. Well, I forgot at first and then when I remembered that standing was the goal it felt like it was too late and I would look stupid if I did it now. I sheepishly rolled off the board, turning around to paddle back just in time to catch a glimpse of the teenage girl shakily rising to a crouch on her board as she coasted toward shore.

Her brother was next, immediately collapsing off his board as he tried to pop into standing and then Greg went, falling over immediately as well. The second time Oldemar shoved me out into a wave, I thought hard about the positions we had learned. Back foot forward, a planted hand, then another foot. I moved my right hand and then suddenly I was squatting on my board. Slowly, I rose up, until I was in that classic surfer pose: knees bent, one arm stretched out in front and the other in back, a sloppy grin on my face as I coasted along the wave.

I watched Greg stand on the next wave, and I caught half a dozen more myself, only finding myself standing when I really followed through with the positions our instructor had guided us through. Finally, I could paddle out no more and I took my last wave in, as close to the shore as I could get, before falling over on my side into the water, exhilarated and exhausted and totally surprised by how much fun I’d had.

CLAIRE WROTE:

Yo soy la Reina de las Cabras.

CLAIRE WROTE:

Day Three of Lollapalooza was, by far, my favorite day. We didn’t go.

Instead, I spent the most gloriously mundane Sunday at home. In the morning I made a frittata and watched Greg ice his ankle which had swollen up even more. Eventually I rustled up an ace bandage and wrapped him, good and tight.

Even though I didn’t want Greg to be in pain, I was secretly excited by his new club foot. I knew it meant that we probably wouldn’t go to Day Three of Lollapalooza, and even though I would be sorry to miss Iron and Wine and The National, I was much more enthused about a day at home.

In the late morning we got a new addition to the household: a young Russian Blue kitten that we named Lincoln. Getting a third cat was totally Greg’s idea and he was so fired up that he even put an ad on craigslist.org looking for the perfect one. Turns out he actually did a great job. One of our older cats, Reynold, has taken to Lincoln like a big brother, and the two of them can’t get enough of each other.

The rest of the day was spent amusingly watching Greg and his friends watch “Cable Guy” in preparation for their outing to Medieval Times. When they finally left, the house was blissfully quiet and peaceful. I nursed my summer cold (which had only been exacerbated by Lollapalooza) on the couch while I worked on our wedding photo album. I then read through a stack of magazines on the coffee table that I’d been meaning to read through, wrote a couple of of thank you notes and made a grocery list.

Perfectly mundane and boring. And so the opposite of hot, crazy Lollapalooza.

I don’t think that I’ll go back next year. In fact, I’m sure that I won’t. I’ll probably never attend another music festival unless there are special VIP circumstances involved. That said, I think it’s great for some people. I’m glad all those sweaty, college boys have a reason to go outside once a year. And I know that Greg has fun with his buddies, and I’ll fully support his decision if wants to go next year.

And I’m glad for the experience of it. I mean, it sounded really great — all those bands, one big, exciting weekend. I loved hearing Radiohead flood through the nighttime streets of Chicago. I’m glad I finally registered to vote in Chicago. I’m glad I now know that if I start to black out in line for tacos, my husband will make sure I’m okay. I loved tapping my flip-flops to Sharon Jones and I loved the tears that slipped down my cheeks listening to Wilco, huge against the night sky.

There are good things to be found in every experience. Some experiences are just a lot sweatier and more crowded than others.

Lollapalooza
Grant Park, Chicago
August 1-3





Medieval Times
2001 N Roselle Ave
Schaumburg, IL 60195
(888) WE-JOUST

CLAIRE WROTE:

When I first moved to Chicago I lived in this shitty apartment building on the north end of Lincoln Park. My apartment was on the second floor, sandwiched between a strange, young couple on the floor above me who were prone to 2AM alcohol-infused arguments, and a quadrant of DePaul college boys in a sprawling first floor apartment.

The laundry in the building was in the basement, accessible only by walking through the college boys’ apartment, which they graciously kept unlocked at all times. If I went downstairs to do laundry before noon, the boys were never anywhere to be seen. Quietly pushing open their half-closed back door, I would step gingerly over pizza boxes and empty cans of beer, maneuvering around a giant bong sitting in front of the big screen television in the living room, and being extra careful not to tip over a tower of beer cans near the window. All the bedroom doors would be shut before noon, and I could practically picture the boys, sprawled on their stomachs, still in last night’s clothes, their mouths open, perhaps a little drool edging down the bare mattress beneath them.

If I went down to do laundry after 2pm, they were usually awake. I’d push open the back door, and in the kitchen one or two of them would be standing in front of the microwave, shirtless, in a pair of shorts, watching little microwaveable pizza rolls go round and round and round. “Hey,” they’d mumble in my direction, transfixed by the pizza rolls. In the living room the rest of them, and perhaps an added friend or two, would be sprawled across the two couches watching “Wedding Crashers” or “Happy Gilmore” or playing “Guitar Hero,” all of them smoking cigarettes, the bong now on the makeshift coffee table between them. “Hey,” they’d mumble, never taking their eyes off the television, and I’d wind my way through them, carefully carrying my basket of dirty clothes down to the basement.

All this to say that I often wondered if they ever went outside, except to smoke cigarettes sometimes on the dingy little back porch, if they ever did anything beside drink and watch television and play video games.

And I’d forgotten about those college boys, practically erased them from my memory, just as I had that dark and depressing little apartment I lived in my first six months here in Chicago. I think I would have forgotten about them forever, had it not dawned on me, within my first two minutes of attending Day 2 of Lollapalooza, that if the college boys ever did anything besides drink beer, play video games, and watch television, they, without a doubt, they made one excursion outside each year and it was most likely for Lollapalooza.

I think the first thing I said to Greg, after ten minutes of pushing my way through a teeming sea of thousands of drunk, shirtless college boys so that I could find my way to wherever it was Greg and his friends were by the time I got down to the park on that second day was, “I officially hate Lollapalooza.”

Greg, with his sprained ankle, hobbled off to a tiny grass spot with me, looking a little dejected and disappointed by my proclamation, and I tried to put on a smile after that, but it felt good to declare my vitriol for this event. Our little group headed over to Budlight Stage after a while to catch a very good Broken Social Scene performance. On the way there I registered to vote at the Rock the Vote tent, which was something I’ve needed to do since my move, and may turn out to be the only redeemable aspect of my Lollapalooza experience.

After listening to Broken Social Scene for a while, I finally mellowed out a bit, mostly because they were just so good, and because we’d found a comfortable patch of grass on which to sit. Around 7:30, Greg and his friends headed off to see Rage Against the Machine at the other end of the park, where we’d seen Radiohead, and I stayed behind by myself to catch the Wilco performance.

I had some time to kill before Wilco, so I bought two glasses of red wine for myself and began wandering around, looking for a mellow spot where I could sit by myself. The funny thing was that as soon as I was alone, I felt more comfortable. Maybe there is something about trying to stay in a group at an event like this that makes it hard to enjoy yourself. When there was finally no one else to worry about, I no longer had a problem weaving through the crowds of people, the blue summer sky curving overhead.

I was about to just sit down in the grass to sip my wine and get ready for Wilco when I noticed the music coming from another stage. I propped myself up against a little wall and began to listen. There was a vivacious black woman on stage, strutting back and forth and just singing her heart out. Behind her, an ensemble band kicked out some fantastic sounds and before I knew it my foot was tapping.

“Who is this?” I asked a guy standing near me.

“Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings,” he replied.

“Thanks, they’re great!”

“I know.”

I’m not very good at writing about music but I will say that this woman was just electric. I don’t care if you don’t like funk or the blues, you would have liked this. The music filled up all the space around me and before I knew it, I was just happy. There with my two glasses of red wine and my solitary company, listening to Sharon Jones, was definitely my favorite moment at Lollapalooza.

By the time Wilco came on, it was dark out, I was more than tipsy, and hearing those old familiar songs that have been the soundtrack for so many days and events over my last few years instantly brought tears to my eyes. Jeff Tweedy’s voice, ringing out across the audience, the skyline sparkling behind the stage, I couldn’t help but have one of those moments in which I was nothing but grateful for my life and all the experiences I get to have while I’m here.

And if battling a sea of shirtless college boys was the price to pay for that, then it was well worth it.

Lollapalooza
Grant Park, Chicago
August 1-3

CLAIRE WROTE:
Sometime in the last week I began to grow nervous about Lollapalooza. I’d never been to a large music festival before, but when Greg asked me several months ago if I wanted to go, I took a look at the lineup of bands and said yes, without hesitation.

It wasn’t until this last week when I started wondering what it would actually be like to see these bands in the company of 75,000 people.

“I’m nervous,” I told Greg.

“Don’t be.”

“Will it be very crowded?” I asked him.

“Nah, not too bad.”

“Will I get dirty? I feel like I’m going to get dirty.”

“Nope,” he said shaking his head.

“Hmmm,” I persisted. “I just worry that the whole experience is going to be so unrelenting.”

“You’ll be fine.”

And then there we were on Friday afternoon, walking towards the gates and all I could see were the thousands of people streaming in, most of them already slick with sweat and intoxication, and all I could think was: This is truly my worst nightmare. As my three-day pass was tied onto my wrist and Greg turned around to take a photo…

… with a big grin on his face, indicative of his excitement for being at Lollapalooza, I attempted to fix a smile on my face and silently vowed to soldier on and at least give this thing a shot.

We wandered around, checking everything out. I couldn’t believe how enormous and crowded everything was. There were people everywhere. Most of them were white. Most of them were college age. Most of them were drinking. Most of them were sweating. Most of them were wearing minimal amounts of clothing. It was definitely good people watching, but nonetheless, I was trying to stay calm at the thought of three whole days of this.

We started off by watching Cat Power on one of the smaller stages. I’d been looking forward to seeing Chan Marshall live. The last time I did was about 3 years ago in Los Angeles at the Troubadour, a tiny little venue on Santa Monica Blvd, and I found out later that Marshall had just taken a couple of hits of acid before going on, hence her a capella rapping and obsession with the sound check during the show. I’ve since read a lot about her personal transformations her ability to overcome her crippling stage fright, so I was interested to see her again.

And while she sounded good and seemed quite comfortable on stage, there was something seeing her on this hot afternoon, surrounded by thousands of people, that actually made her kind of boring, or at least not at all what I was in the mood for. We broke out of the crowd, midway through the set and headed over to the snack area and while standing in line for a taco with Greg, I began to black out. It was an odd sensation. I just got nauseous at first and then my vision got all black and crinkly around the edges. Greg led me over to a picnic bench to recover while he went back for food. I felt better after a few minutes, but the experience didn’t add to my enjoyment of Lollapalooza 2008.

Next up we found a patch of grass and listened to The Raconteurs. This turned out to actually be one of my favorite bands of the festival. They sounded fantastic and it was exciting to see Jack White up on the big screens with the city behind him. I finally relaxed a little and tried not to think about the swarms of people all around us.

Before they finished, our little group all started to head over to the other side of the park so that we could attempt to find a good seat for the headliner that night, Radiohead. I was definitely looking forward to seeing Radiohead. I saw them once at the Hollywood Bowl four years ago and they were just amazing live. Walking across the park however, was an experience unto itself, with what seemed like all 75,000 heading in the same direction at the same time.

I’m sorry to be so whiny about this, but it’s just not my cup of tea. I enjoy seeing bands perform live… but just not with this many people, outdoors and in extreme heat. And I don’t think I have to like it either. After a lot of tramping around and weaving in and out of people, and after watching multiple drunk people trip past us, spilling beer on the people sitting below them, we finally found a little patch of grass to call our own.

And there’s no other way to say this, other than to say that seeing Radiohead under these conditions, was just not that enjoyable. They sounded pretty great, but I could hardly see anything save for the people all around me and there was nothing romantic or interesting about sitting in this shoddy patch of grass, trying not to concentrate on the weird hippie woman tripping by next to me.

I think it was only after we left, shortly before the Radiohead set ended, and we were outside the park, walking along Michigan Avenue and you could still hear the music, loud and floating, and the city was all lit up, and it was a warm summer evening, and there was space between me and those around me, that I was finally able to enjoy myself.

Lollapalooza
Grant Park, Chicago
August 1-3

CLAIRE WROTE:

On the 4th of July, Greg and I held a yoga party brunch on our spacious back deck. This idea was born one year earlier when I met yoga instructor and cranio-sacral therapist, Cat Kabira on an Independence Day flight from Los Angeles to Boston. Cat, with her wild hair and bright smile, was on her way back from Bali and, along with a row of seats, we shared a long conversation about yoga and traveling and how our pasts had led us to the very moment in which we found ourselves. It was one of the easiest friendships I’ve ever formed.

Frequently in Chicago to visit her dad, Cat was over for dinner a month or so ago and we (Greg included) got to talking about how perfect our deck was for yoga and how fun it might be to host a little yoga class. And because I’m always thinking about food, I threw in the idea of a brunch to go with it. At the time it seemed like a whimsical wine-induced idea that probably wouldn’t end up happening…

…Lo and behold, July 4th found Greg and myself perched on our yoga mats and surrounded by close to twenty people who had responded to our invite. As Cat asked us all to close our eyes and sit up a little straighter, I listened to the wind in the trees up above us and ran through a mental checklist of brunch items I had prepared.

The poblano chile and cheddar quiches were cooling on the counter. All the fruit for the fruit salad had been perfectly chopped by Greg’s lovely cousin Mandy and was chilling in the refrigerator. The fresh-baked carrot-zucchini bread had been cut into squares and arranged on a platter. The orange juice and Champagne were cold and waiting to be combined. Everything was ready. I breathed in deeply and let out a slow exhale, letting myself tune into what Cat was saying.

I thought about how hard it is to let go of the things that swim through our heads all day. Last year in Los Angeles I took about 6 weeks of private meditation instruction and it was one of the most profound experiences I’ve ever had. I never became very good at it – meditation is hard – but I was afforded a glimpse in to the purpose of it and that’s kept me coming back, kept me always trying to get to that space of nothingness and of peace. Until I started meditating, I had no idea that the constant chattering narrative in my head isn’t mandatory, that it can be quieted and quelled…but only with practice and persistence.

So, sitting there on our deck surround by at least a dozen people I’d never met, I tried my best to let go of all the swirling thoughts in my head. Cat is a Forrest Yoga teacher, which means that she works to help students hold intense poses for longer periods of time, helping them to work through physical and emotional stresses through the poses themselves. Finally allowing myself to really tune in to Cat, I moved through the sequence of poses she instructed us on, remembering what it is that I love about yoga – that centered-ness it brings me and the way it practically forces me to be present to my body and my feelings in the moment.

Lying there afterwards in sivasana, I took a moment to appreciate all that my life is right now and I felt the most intense sense of gratitude.

And later over bites of quiche and fruit salad, Cat and I looked around the deck at our friends – all of them exhibiting that healthy yoga glow that comes only after a good class – and we smiled at each other. Hard to believe that exactly a year ago we were just getting to know each other on an airplane. Maybe next summer we’ll offer a weekly prix fixe yoga bruch, we joked. Maybe.

(Photos by John Sheehan)

CLAIRE WROTE:

Saturday Greg and I went to Mayfest in Lincoln Square.

I’ve been living in Chicago for 9 months now. My first month here, aside from unpacking and job hunting, was spent letting the slowly creeping realization that I’d officially moved to the Midwest sink in. Truthfully it just didn’t really occur to me before moving here — that I was moving not just to Chicago, but to the Midwest.

I grew up in Atlanta which, if you’re not from the South, is officially the South. Just as if you’re not from the Midwest, Chicago definitely feels as though it is of the essence. After Atlanta I moved to New York City and then after that to Los Angeles — both of those cities quite regional as well. Los Angeles is as West Coast as New York City is East Coast.

And Saturday, at Mayfest, I realized quite how Midwest Chicago is. Nothing written here by me about the Midwest or Chicago is intended as criticism, merely as observation from someone who has lived in numerous big cities. People like to ask me which city I’ve liked the best and I always answer as I will right now: they’re all different and not really worth comparing. They are each their own city unto themselves.

Why the long introduction, you may be wondering to yourself? Is it because Greg always uses so many pictures in his posts causing me to expound in text? Perhaps. But really I suppose it’s just to get you ready for my assessment of what Midwesterners seem to like to do more than most things: eat bratwurst and drink beer during the day.

Ouch. That sounded a little harsh. I didn’t quite mean it that way.

Let’s move on.

Three things I’ve been exposed to more than anything else in this, The Windy City.

1. The Cubs. Don’t drive on Clark Street during Cubs season, I’ve learned. I tend to try to go somewhere using Clark only when there is a Cubs game, and each time I get stuck for half hours watching Cubs fans criss-cross said street in their sporty jerseys with rosy cheeks and hot dog-ready fists.

2. Book Clubs. I’d never been invited to a book club until I moved to Chicago. I’ve since been invited to 5 and have attended 3. Each time I tended to drink too much and talk too much and feel like that “Greg Boose’s weird girlfriend who just moved here from LA” too much.

3. Street Festivals. I’m not kidding: there is a street festival EVERY weekend during the summer months in Chicago.

Which brings us to Saturday. The Mayfest street festival that Greg and I attended right in our very own neighborhood, Lincoln Square. Lincoln Square is an old German neighborhood replete with a long standing German bakery and the occasional cantankerous German old-timer who claims that it’s nothing compared to what it all used to be.

Oh, and replete with the annual two-day drunken sausage/beer festival called Mayfest.

This probably sounds like I didn’t enjoy myself, but actually I did. Greg and I wandered right into the heart of it all, ordering up some brat sandwiches and grabbing plastic steins of Hofbrauhaus beer which we took into the tent so that we might better hear the German band in their lederhosen up on the stage. I kept getting flashes of that scene in “National Lampoon’s European Vacation” when they’re in Germany and Rusty makes out with that hot, boobilicious German girl, and then I remembered that the Griswold family totally lived in the Midwest and suddenly it all made sense.

There were guys everywhere wearing funny little German hats and double-fisting steins and there were moms with strollers and old cantankerous Germans who’ve probably lived in the neighborhood for half a century. There were terrible street festival games which we totally played and won and lost.

There was incredible people watching no matter where you turned your head, and by the time we decided to leave I was perfectly tipsy from my two beers. And in my Hofbrauhaus daze the Midwest seemed like a good place to have landed. A solid place where people like to watch sports and read books and drink beer in the middle of the day just to celebrate a long lost heritage.

(Greg included too many pictures. Again.)






























Mayfest Chicago
Lincoln Square
Last weekend in May
Free!

CLAIRE WROTE:

Greg and I just spent four days in Atlanta — the city where I grew up and the city I left over ten years ago. While I returned to this sprawling Southern city often in the initial years following my departure, I haven’t visited but twice in the last eight years. And although each street I turned down and each neighborhood I drove through I couldn’t help but voice my memories and history of that place aloud, this visit still felt quite different from the way I used to feel upon returning to the city of my youth. For the first time it ceased to feel like some lost home and rather it conjured a different era, another life once lived. For the first time I felt the gentle glimmer of objectivity, other cities having since become closer to my heart.

And for all those reasons, and for perhaps the first time in my whole life, I saw Atlanta for the beautiful and bountiful city that it is — the lush green, tree-filled neighborhoods, the wide clean streets and the sharply mirrored cityscape giving way to an Atlanta I’d been unable to see for a long time. It helped, as well, to see it through Greg’s eyes. As a first-time visitor he approached the city with a wonder that I never have, marveling over the size and the verdant landscape, the appealingly gentrified pockets and the ease of living.

On our first full day I drove him through Sandy Springs, pointing out the house I grew up in, my old elementary school, the first library I ever checked a book out of and, of course, stopping at my favorite vegetable stand on Mt. Vernon Road to pick up a sack of hot boiled peanuts.

My mother once said that hot boiled peanuts come with a lifetime addiction and deftly agreeing with her, I insisted that Greg try and enjoy this Southern delicacy. To my dismay, after sampling only one or two of them, he turned his nose and declared one of my favorite childhood snacks, just a bunch of “soggy peanuts.”

Huffing, I decided to press on in an attempt to make sure that Greg tried as much Southern food and culture as possible. And it seems that everyone we encountered had a similar agenda — Southerners take a lot of pride in their food and LOVE inflicting as much butter and mayo as they can on their Northern neighbors.

After a fantastic afternoon at the new Georgia Aquarium (whale sharks! sea otters! river otters! hicks getting temporary tattoos!) we went out to a new restaurant in Buckhead called Holeman and Finch Public House. I have to say that I’m really quite impressed with Atlanta cuisine — the city seems filled with stylish gastro pubs and sleek, modern dinner spots — and Holeman and Finch was no exception. Seated in a light-filled industrial bar area we feasted on pork belly served over grits, tender sweetbreads and collards, deliciously crispy catfish fingers and the most fantastic cocktail made from old-fashioned cane sugar Coca-Cola. The only thing I wasn’t impressed with were the deviled eggs — all three variations too sweet for my taste. Later that night we caught up with high school friends, first at the delightfully old-fashioned Highland Inn where we sat out on the Southern front porch amidst the humidity and fatly hanging ferns, and later at the wonderfully dark and dingy Righteous Room.

The next morning our hosts surprised us with a traditional Southern-style breakfast replete with grits, bacon, country ham, sliced tomatoes and biscuits. There was even an attempt at Red-Eye gravy that didn’t quite happen but that may have been for the best, seeing the damage already done to my intestinal system the night before. Following the surprise brunch we met an old childhood friend of mine and her husband and baby at Figo Pasta in Virginia Highlands where the only thing Greg and I could stomach, besides a giant bottle of sparkling water, was a simple yet tasty green salad. After that we hit for a couple of beers on the lively patio before retiring to a park for the rest of the afternoon where we stared up into the trees and I read my book.

The rest of our trip was spent attending a beautiful wedding in the affluent Vinings neighborhood, visiting with more friends, drinking sangria and swatting mosquitoes at a fantastic pool party in Decatur, and finally attending one last home-cooked brunch in Sandy Springs where I think I got my fill of grits for a while. (Although I have to admit that when you add enough cheese and butter to them, I’d be hard pressed to turn them down.)

As we drove south on 75/85 to the airport, at the tail end of this Memorial Day weekend, watching the skyline of Atlanta recede in the rear view mirror, I realized what I’d been missing out on all this time that I simply viewed Atlanta as the strange Southern city I happened to grow up in. I think it might be impossible to renounce the places where we grow up, try as we might, but I think it might be even more impossible not to find a way to embrace them again once you’ve truly found a new home.

Before we could get on the plane there was one more thing I needed to consume and a tip from a friend told me I’d find it on Concourse A of Hartsfield International Airport. All weekend my friends and I had been trying to make Greg understand that Chick-fil-A isn’t just some fast food restaurant. Quite the contrary, we insisted over and over again, but Greg just shook his head each time — it’d be like if I took you back to Ohio and insisted you go to Burger King with me, he’d say. And each time he said this myself and anyone else within ear shot grew positively incensed, all of us determined to make him see the light.

But by the time we reached our gate on Concourse A, my hand warm from the box of nuggets it held, I no longer cared if Greg understood Chick-fil-A. The South to me, and Atlanta in particular, will always remain a place of nurturing fulfillment — not just the memories I have there of my family and my childhood — but of the food and the smells, the winding streets and the fat, waxy leaves of the magnolia trees. If those things are for me alone to understand then so be it.