Rockers

It's been a while, but of course with Luismi here visiting, life was not quite tranquil. We have enjoyed St. Louis very much...out to dinner with friends, sampling, funnily enough, the Spanish-style fare (Modesto has some great tapas - the only difference with Spain is that they charge you for raciones and literally give you tapas, and a server positively dotes; in Spain, a server would NEVER suggest "Hi, my name is Manuel, and I'll be taking care of you this evening"), and, on Sunday the 18th, we took in a concert at the fabulous Fox Theater...Neil Young!

Talk about fabulous. Neil came out alone to do an acoustic first set, just Neil and his circle of guitars, his harmonicas, and keyboards. After the Gold Rush is one of my long-time favorite albums; it's been with me through a lot for I'd say at least 35 years. His passion, his voice, his presence...I cried at the familiar (like the title track from my all time favorite album, as well as "A man needs a maid") and fell in love with the songs I hadn't heard before (like "Love art blues"). The second set was a highly energized full-band rock concert, again mixing old with new (like "Oh, lonesome me", on the one hand, and a jaw-dropping new "No hidden path"). Sigh, sigh, sigh....I would hear him again tonight, and tomorrow night, and the next night. I wonder if he will ever tour in Spain?

Two days later, Luis, Diana and I hit the road. We took off Tuesday late afternoon for my brother John's house in Michigan. To break up the trip a bit, we stopped for the Tuesday night in Indianapolis. Remember the car we got after the pumpkin went through the window of the previous one? Well, before we left on our trip, the Optima had shown some low tire problem through an indicator light on the dashboard. So Mary Sue helped us to fill all the tires with air (the air pumps here in the U.S. are quite different from those in Spain), and the right rear tire was especially low. About halfway between St. Louis and Indianapolis the light came back on. So early Wednesday morning, we visited the nearest Firestone, who patched up the tire. Good thing they were located right near a Walmart, as Luis had forgotten to put our coats in the car, and they were left behind on the sofa in St. Louis. So, while the tire was being fixed, I got a new very warm down jacket - we left St. Louis at 75 F (24 C), and we were heading into Michigan's first snow fall. Indeed, as we rolled into Lansing, Michigan Wednesday afternoon, the temperature was dropping. And as we drove to Lansing airport that night at 11:30, to pick up Elisa (flying in from Boston) the snow flurries started. We woke up the next morning to a silent white world, and a flat tire! Yes, that rear right tire was like the proverbial pancake. Off to Firestone again. They found a hole, and a nail, which I now have as a souvenir. We think now that it is patched, finally.

There was a lot to be thankful for on Thanksgiving day - 1) probably just short of miraculous that Elisa flew in right on time in a storm on the eve of Thanksgiving, and after having to change planes in Chicago O'Hare's airport; 2) a white Thanksgiving - just beautiful! Luismi loved the run he, Elisa & John had at Hawk Island Park; 3) the delicious turkey, playing Monopoly, and spending time with John's family; 4) that John has fun musical "toys" in the basement, allowing Luismi to play the rock star:









Luismi, Elisa, Diana & I left Lansing on Friday and headed for Chicago. The four of us had such a great time. We stayed at a posh hotel in downtown Chicago, went to the Signature Room on the 96th floor of the John Hancock building and enjoyed a beer while looking out over the city lights, saw the Christmas windows at Macy's/Marshall Field's, strolled along the lakefront to Navy Pier where we ate some good ole' American hotdogs, took pictures at Cloud Nine (The famous Bean) at Millenium Park, had dinner with my college mates (Marie, Donna and Mark - who amazed us all with his ability to pull a cork out of an empty bottle -, Terry, Cathy) at Park Grill, in Millenium Park, watching the skaters whiz around right in front, had breakfast on Sunday in Downers Grove with wonderful friends...we even took in a grade school basketball game (Fran - nee Molloy - & Desi Jones' daughter).

It has been so hard to see Luismi back off to Spain this weekend, and get back into work. It's almost the end of the semester, and so much to do before I go!

Smashing Pumpkins

Can you believe this? This morning at about 8 p.m. the doorbell rang here at 3866 Russell Blvd. It was the neighbor, Sharon, saying “Did you know that your car window was smashed in last night?” An expletive spilled out of my mouth as I rushed outside to see what had happened. Sharon went along with me, and we saw the broken window and a broken pumpkin inside the front seat of the car.

Simple, unmitigated vandalism. There was a digital camera in the glove compartment, and Luis's sunglasses in a door side pocket that were still there - so obviously someone just wanted to test lobbing a pumpkin into a car window. Sigh. All's well that ends well, however, as the rental car company has now given us a Kia Optima, a slightly bigger car, and one with automatic locks and windows. This car will be better for our trip up to Michigan this coming week to spend Thanksgiving with my brother John and his family.

Yes!! Luismi is here!! We're having such a great time. While I was working Thursday he went with Marina, a friend of Diana's from Madrid who is visiting St. Louis, to the St. Louis Science Center, where there is an exhibit called Body Worlds 3, by Gunther von Hagens, on. Not for the squeamish, like me, so it was good Luismi had someone to go with. It's an anatomical exhibition of real human bodies...I'd rather go to the art museum! Today we went to City Museum with Diana and Marina - now that's a real treat. It's not REALLY a museum - more of a great big playground ("where the imagination runs wild"), made with bits of pieces of found stuff from all over St. Louis, such as old chimneys, salvaged bridges, construction cranes, two abandoned planes, and a yellow school bus perched on a corner of the roof. There are stairs everywhere, and chutes and slides to clamber up or woosh down (that's Marina to the left, clambering up to one of the old planes). I did a bit of wooshing and climbing...and found myself smiling the whole time. Luismi was not feeling too well (Diana gave me a cold which I've passed on to Luismi) so he walked around and watched us be silly, and then sat and watched an acrobatic show, which we caught the end of.

And here's Marina & Diana deep inside the museum...

Luis & I have also been doing some shopping, sampling of restaurants: Italian (near the university on Wednesday night after my linguistics class, as 5 students from the course last spring in Madrid came to the class to talk about their final research projects), and Ethiopian, a placed called Meskerem (which I now know refers to the first month of the Ethiopian calendar) on Thursday night, with Cody and Travis (both of whom had been students on our campus, and had gone to Ethiopia on separate occasions with the English language teaching group that Hamish organizes), Travis' Dutch girlfriend Stina (who Luis recognized - it turns out she works at the Majestic, a bar here in St. Louis where Diana had taken Luismi the night before while I was teaching), Colin (former SLU student, who now works at Kingdom House, where Diana and I volunteer on Mondays in their after school program), Diana and Marina. The food was quite good - nice spicy sauces, the ingera different from any bread I've had before, and it was fun eating the food with it. The atmosphere was delightful, as was the Ethiopian beer. We've also been a couple of times for breakfast at the City Diner...in the same area as Meskerem, the South Grand area, which I've mentioned before.

The other morning, when we pulled in to the street next to the diner to park the car, we noticed a police car stopped, and a policeman talking to a guy who was walking his dog. We drove a bit further on, parked the car, and started walking up the street. We noticed the policeman behind the door of the police car, holding up some kind of largish weapon. He shouted to us "get back to your car!". That caused us both some alarm, and then he pointed to a spot a few car lengths away from us and shouted "there are 2 pit bulls loose!". I turned around and ran, and hid behind our car door, with Luis behind me, until he realized that this other guy who we had just passed in the street was saying "here doggie". The dogs went up to him wagging their tails - though they weren't his - they were quite docile, really. Then the health officers swooped in and captured them and whisked them off in a van. We went on to our breakfast at the diner. Really, it's never a dull moment in this city!

Luismi, Polly and I get to Tower Grove Park in the mornings. Fall continues to be amazing here. Just thought I'd let you enjoy these bushes turning red out in front of the porch to our house, and these trees across the street. It IS fall, and I'm trying to ignore all of the Christmas trees and decorations out already (what IS with that?). We'll enjoy Thanksgiving first...

Fall....changes

I've spent this week reveling in the changing colors of fall, and in my expanded capacity for understanding temperature. I was surprised one morning to see the temperature (according to the internet) at -3 C (29 Fahrenheit), and even wondered about the wisdom of jaunting off to the park with Polly. You see, in Madrid, -3 C is about as cold as it gets. I have seen the thermometer plummet to – 7 (about 19 F) but not very frequently. So I wound my scarf around my face, put on my hat and gloves and several layers of clothes, and off we went on a chilly November morning. Polly is so excited at the beginning of the walk that we end up running a fair bit, so fairly soon I was pretty warm. And mostly the weather has been warmer than that…this morning a good 12 C (a pleasant 54 F).
You will have noticed that I have become familiar once again with Fahrenheit! I had forgotten, and in Madrid if someone suggested it was 54 degrees, I would not have known what to wear. Now I am bi-thermometal. Note that what I mean by that is not that I can do some kind of mathematical conversion, but rather that my body knows how it will feel to be out in the given temperature, and thus what it needs to keep it comfortable. As soon as I saw it was 54 this morning, I knew I could go for the walk without gloves or scarf. Note that it is supposed to get up to 70 tomorrow…gosh, I’ll just need a sweater later in the day!
The nice weather is making the walks in the park that much more enjoyable…as are the changing leaves.

It's probably time that you met Polly...Polly meet the world

and the view of the tree in the backyard from my window...

I went to listen to the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra yesterday, and that was quite a treat! I went with Jody (fellow Madrid campus SLU worker, who's moved back to St. Louis) and her husband Eugenio. Powell Hall is an elegant concert hall, and Czech conductor Jiri Belohlavek (currently chief conductor of the BBC Symphony) directed soloist American mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard in singing Mozart and Mahler. She has a not very strong but incredibly clear voice, a delight to listen to. I kept imagining my morning walk, with the brilliant leaves, as I listened.

And speaking of changing colors...do you notice Diana's early x-mas present from her friend, Marina, who's visiting from Madrid?

Chicago, Chicago!

I had a great weekend in Chicago. Jessica (former grad student and teacher at SLU Madrid) picked me up from O'Hare, and we made our way downtown (somewhat slowly - I had forgotten about big city traffic; yes, I know, St. Louis is a big city, but it is so spread out and the roads are all so wide that traffic jams are not very much in existence). We had some delicious flaky-crusted Chicago style pizza at Pizzeria Due, and then set off for a map exhibit at the Newberry Library...except the exhibit it turned out wasn't starting until Saturday, as the weary from repeating this information security guard informed us. We had fun browsing in the bookstore there, and then we set off for Michigan Ave to see the sites. I especially liked seeing The Bean, whose real name is Cloud Gate, a 110 foot high stainless steel sculpture whose shape allows for some very interesting reflections of the Chicago skyline, and of oneself wrapped up in itself. Jessica and I are actually in this picture...I took it.




And in the one at the beginning of this post, for that matter.

This kaleidoscope one below was taken from just underneath the arch, so under the Bean...

After our long stroll around downtown, Jessica and I went to Downers Grove, where we met her parents, Bob & Patty, at Emmett's for some welcome ale. My college friends Cathy Molloy (who also lives in Downers Grove) and Mo Jordon came along and picked me up there. Off we were for a real Clarkie weekend of non-stop talking, laughing, getting teary-eyed, and then laughing some more. We went out to dinner and were then met by Cathy's sister, Fran Jones, who was also a student at Clarke College with us, also living now in Downers Grove. I have always loved spending time with the Molloy family...they are all so easy-going, caring, and compassionate, and we got to catch up with more of Cathy's family as two more of her sisters live nearby as well on Saturday. And Saturday evening, a group of Clarkies got together for dinner. I hadn't seen Cathy, Fran and Mo for 8 years, and some of the others I hadn't seen in, well, we couldn't quite piece that bit of information together...but a good at least 20 years! Marie (Gaudette) had been in Madrid in 1990 or 91 (and if someone can tell us the name of the guy that Luis and I invited to have dinner with the three of us - he definitely didn't speak any English!! - I'd be happy, though I would like to exercise those memory cells and get them working).

It was such a fabulous treat to be able to enjoy a good meal (at Emmett's again!) and catch up. I really felt like I had just seen everyone, we found it so easy to talk. I have such wonderful friends, from Madrid, from Rockford, from my Clarke days. I know that they have all been so important in helping me become who I am, and I can see myself reflected in each one - what beautiful mirrors you all are!!

Left-to-right: front row: Marie, me, Cathy; back row: Donna, Lisa, Mo, Fran

Hooray! ... it's Halloween!

The last time I spent Halloween in the U.S. would have been 1978, so I was quite excited at the thought of kids trooping up to the door, doing the "trick or treat" thing (only because I probably really shouldn't be dressing up and traipsing about, ringing doorbells myself...though I don't know why not, actually - it is somewhat of an ageist thing to think that only kids can do this!).

Anyway, Mary Sue, Diana & I got dressed up for the occasion. Mary Sue found this really cool cow costume complete with an udder. Diana dressed up like a gypsy, and me like a hippy. I will say the kids seemed to like the fact that we were into it just as much as they were.

And so many kids came to the door! We actually ran out of candy, which was a real shame, as I was counting on some of those Reese's cups and little Hershey's bars coming my way afterward. The kids started coming in a trickle, so we gave them handfuls. But after a while they came in carloads. Some were really into the costume thing... Spidermen, Princesses, a tiny Ninja Turtle, one Hannah Montana, witches, vampires, pirates...(interesting...we were the only ones dressed as a cow, a gypsy and a hippy). Some told us jokes, Hannah Montana even sang for us. Others didn't even bother with the costume (maybe we should have withheld candy in those cases, as we deserved it more than they did!), and some were a bit pushy about the candy. But for the most part it was the spirit of Halloween, just as I remember it when I was growing up. The kids were so excited about their bags and plastic pumpkins full of treats, and the streets were full of people, as moms and dads, older brothers and sisters, escorted young kids eagerly about.

Since we ran out of candy, we turned off the front porch light and closed the blinds in the front of the house. But after a while, at around 8:45 we started hearing a commotion. I heard sirens and a helicopter overhead, and Mary Sue came into the kitchen and told me that she thought she had heard gunshots. We looked outside and could see lights flashing. I raced up to Diana's 3rd floor gable window and saw just a few hundred feet away (we're on the corner of Russell and 39th, and this was about half a block up on 39th) an ambulance, a hook and ladder truck, and a half a dozen police cars. The 3 of us (at this point no longer a cow, a gypsy or a hippy) threw on our coats and dashed out. When we got to the scene, a young man who lives a block over explained to us that there had been a shooting! The guy who had been shot was in the ambulance (and apparently not very seriously injured) and 4 guys had been seen running from the scene of the crime, which explains why the helicopter was roaming above with its search light on. While we were standing there a police canine unit pulled up, and a crime lab van, but the police just kind of stood there chatting, and a few seemed to be looking around for shells or something. So we kind of lost interest, talking to the neighbors. We actually walked up the street a bit to look at one neighbor's Halloween decorations in his front yard...complete with a graveyard, Dracula in an open coffin, skeletons, and a fog machine (I'm surprised so many trick-or-treaters made it to their front door!).

This morning there was not a peep in the newspaper about this shooting incident. That added to our cavalier attitude about hanging around the scene of a shooting kind of worries me. Are these incidents so commonplace right in the neighborhood where we're living that it's not really that newsworthy? It really is shocking to think that on the one evening when the streets are full of kids this would happen.

Rather an eventful Halloween. Perhaps that's what I get for letting almost 30 years go by!

Rockford (2)

So that was Saturday night, taken up with catching up until 2 a.m. (staying up til 2 a.m. is an easy feat in Madrid, but this was the first time I managed to do that here in the U.S.). We got up Sunday morning for a fantastic brunch buffet at Cliffbreakers, with everything from roast turkey to canteloupe, all kinds of eggs (Florentine, Benedict, scrambled, fried, poached...), and a hot fudge fountain with strawberries and marshmallows for dipping. Of course, we needed a lot of time to go back for food and to talk, and we needed a lot of food as we invested a lot of energy in talk...in our own private room, so plenty of time, space and energy to catch up with Patte, Carla (and her daughter Alyse), Linda (and her sister Sue), Beth Purfeerst (Paul-Petersen), Cathy, and Colleen. Of course, my Mom and Diana were there...the story of the cuff of my pants catching on fire in Ruby (Patte's red push-button transmission car that Carla and Joe Kelly drove into a ditch...but, of course, that was after the pants incident) and everyone throwing me into a snow bank to stomp out the fire surprised my mother (who insists she always thought I was so quiet and so good) and has given Diana a story (among others) to tell her Dad and her sister...I'll never hear the end of it!

It was hard to end that fabulous brunch ...but I do have promises from some of the gang that a St. Louis road trip is in the offing...

While Colleen and Nicky Joy attended another brunch for Colleen's Dad's 89th birthday, Mom, Diana and I drove around Rockford. We drove past Boylan, my high school, and down past 3627 Huffman, the red brick rach home where I grew up, and currently adorned with 5 or 6 huge plastic Halloween figures in the front yard. Our house is on a hill, which seemed so long and steep when I was growing up, and now seems like a short stretch with a slight incline. We drove around and visited other spots...including 2339 Harlem, my grandparents' house when I was growing up, and then my parents moved in just as I was moving out to Spain. It is the house Elisa & Diana grew up visiting every summer, and they (and their cousins) have great memories of times spent there. The house is up for sale...so the whole family since has taken a virtual tour on the real estate agent's website, with talk, especially amongst the kids, and Luis - who loves that house! - of why not buying it? Sigh. It does have its attraction. Rockford was the place where a lot went into my becoming who I am, and I had a lot of fun going back for a visit. One of the funnest parts was sharing it all with Diana, who patiently put up with the road trip, the reminiscing, the stories, the introductions to old friends...not only patiently, she genuinely seemed to enjoy it. One of my favorite pics from the trip:

Sunday evening, the road trippers all piled back into Colleen's van, and headed down to Springfield. Mike Doran had us over to his house for pizza, and more reminiscing (he conveniently had a yearbook from 1975 so we could look up all those people whose names had been woven into conversations, yet whose faces didn't always come clear). Monday morning, Colleen and Nicky Joy dropped us off at the train station (thanks, Colleen & Nicky Joy, for the great company, the great ride...and the pics!) in downtown Springfield where we parked our suitcases while we went off to visit the Lincoln Musem. That was quite interesting (I especially liked the 1860 presidential campaign TV coverage and the Mary Todd Lincoln special exhibit)...although the "God Bless America" motif grates after a while.

We then had an uneventful train ride back to a rainy St. Louis...though these last couple of days have been absolutely exquisite - brisk fall days, and, yes, the trees ARE turning nicely, thank you (though that does mean that I have to sweep bunches of leaves off my car in the morning!). I even saw a flock of ducks flying overhead when I was leaving the park yesterday morning.

Tomorrow's Halloween...I haven't been here for Halloween since 1978...I am looking forward to giving candy out to the trick or treaters...

Home to....Rockford (1)

For all of you who don't know, Rockford, Illinois is where I spent the first 18 years of my life - rather important years. Rockford gets lots of bad press... I still remember one of my students in the Linguistics class of Spring 07 who, when I mentioned in class my origins, told the story of Hulk Hogan stating that Rockford was the second best city in the U.S., all other cities coming first. And apparently, on various lists ranking cities in the U.S. for quality of life, Rockford has been known to come in last or near last. Frankly, I trust Hulk Hogan and those kinds of lists people put together for whatever reason they have about as much as I trust politicians, certain administrators, and students who don't do their homework and can't own up to it. I think Rockford's great, and we had a great weekend there October 19-21.

The occasion was Sue Deery (Trixie)'s 50th birthday bash. Mom had come to St. Louis, and high school chum (and partner in bikeriding around Rockford, crime, and carkissing) Colleen Brophy (now Karstens, but aka Broph and/or Shirley) and her 10-year-old daughter, Nicky Joy, swung into St. Louis on Friday afternoon in their van to pick Mom, me and Diana up, and thus started our road trip across the Mississippi and northwards through Illinois.

The trip up was uneventful in terms of scenery, just as well, as Colleen and I jabbered away in an attempt to catch up on a good 20 years of our lives. When we arrived to the outskirts of Rockford, Mom, Colleen and I were all taken by that odd feeling of "this is SO familiar, then why is it SO different?" Cherry Vale used to be a mall on the southwest edge of Rockford, out in the country all by itself, and now it is surrounded by businesses, new streets, housing developments, cars everywhere. Progress!

I was delighted, though, when we arrived at our destination - the Comfort Suites hotel connected to Cliffbreakers, right on the Rock River, on Riverside Blvd., a mere mile away from the house I grew up in on 3627 Huffman Blvd., and right next to North Towne...a strip mall where I spent a good amount of time during my teen years, and where I held my first jobs at the age of 16, first at Key Rexall Drugs and then at Noble Shoe Store. OK, so the memory synapses were in overdrive...as they were all weekend!

After we got something to eat, Colleen and I took off for Finnegan's Cottage, a bar owned by old highschool mate John Waugh. I swear I don't remember him every being that talkative (or maybe I was so shy around the opposite sex in high school that I thought everyone else was!). We had a great time catching up, and John can tell some pretty funny stories!

We woke up to a beautiful morning on Saturday, and I got a couple of walks (one with Mom and one with Colleen) on the bike path which runs along the Rock River. It is a spectacular walk, especially at this time of year, with all of the trees turning to bright yellow and burnt orange, yet still a lot of green about. Mom was having a leisurely lunch with her bridge club at Cliffbreakers (coincidentally). So Colleen and I tooled about the town with our daughters in tow, reliving more of our past lives, getting ready for the big event that evening...Trixie's 50th.

Diana, Colleen and I giggled as we were arriving to the bash about the jumping around and "oh my god"s that were bound to take place, although...NOT US...never in that overexcited valley girl style...which, I would say, characterizes fairly well what DID happen when we saw wonderful people like...Trixie (that's Colleen, Trixie & me in the photo)

And ...with me in this photo Patte Armato (Lund) (who brilliantly provided the music for the evening) and Linda Marchese (Schuler)

and more of the very cool people I went to school with, and who I had a great time catching up with (and once again partying with...).

Missing from these pictures are other good friends, like Carla Saieva and Cathy Conti...who will feature in Part 2 of this exciting Rockford series...