Of Green Rivers and Great Films (March, 2012)

Lacy and Jeff visited for St. Patrick’s Day.  Since I’ve been here and first told Lacy about the dyeing of the Chicago River, she has talked about seeing it.  It is something to see – the way they pour dye out of the boat and the river becomes a brilliant Kelly green.  I had been so excited that they were coming up, not having seen any of my family since I was there at Christmas.

They arrived late Thursday, I picked them up at Midway, and after dropping the bags off we headed to the Hop Haus to see if anyone they had previously met was working and to get a bite to eat.  Friday we were up early looking for new things to do.  One thing I wanted to show them was Union Station, which is beautiful and amazing.  We took the 11 bus, which is the same bus I take most mornings that I ride the train to work, jumped off at Adams, grabbed a Dunkin’ Donut, and walked across the river to the “new” side of the station.

 The South entrance is right by the river, and leads to the food court and Amtrack station.  An escalator or stairs takes you down to the bowels of the station where the trains arrive and leave.  Continuing under Canal Street, you end up in the magnificence that is Union Station.  Lacy and Jeff were duly impressed by the grandeur, and how the trains arrive and leave underneath the main floor of the station.  The biggest thrill, however, was seeing the steps that were part of the movie “The Untouchables”.  It’s one of my favorite movie scenes.

Lacy had not seen, or did not remember, the scene where Elliot Ness and his cohorts confront Al Capone’s gunmen on the marble stairs while a baby carriage slips down step by step to be saved by the cop played by a young Andy Garcia.  Jeff pulled it up on his phone and we watched while at the foot of the staircase, amazed at the actual smallness of the site that looks so spacious on the big screen (or even little screen).  We went up and stood at the same place Kevin Costner stood during the scene, pointing out where the other characters would have been.  In the movie, the use of camera angles makes the staircase look more expansive than it is.  In real life, it’s only maybe 12’-15’ wide.

This makes me wonder about scale in other movies.  I’ve seen pictures of the house used as Tara in “Gone with the Wind”, and it’s a very small place compared to how magnificent it appears in the movie.  The streets of Chicago look much wider in movies like “The Dark Knight”, especially under the El tracks.  I think it would be interesting to be on a movie set while the filming is going on, and then see how the same set appears on film.  Of course, movies make everything larger, more intense, more colorful or bleaker.

But back to the weekend….we next drove out to Oak Park and toured the Frank Lloyd Wright house  and studio.  Interesting, particularly if you’re a fan.  I was intrigued by the various innovations developed by Mr. Wright that became more or less standard in future architecture, such as open floor plans and continuous views to the outside.  He also designed much of the furniture in the house specifically for the space it occupies.  The playroom upstairs had to be a fun place to have as a child – lots of nooks and crannies, built-in benches, and an upper level that could be used for performing plays or just reading privately.

On Saturday, again up and out early for breakfast and the river.  Fortunately, or rather, unfortunately, the weather was amazing – warm, sunny, unusual for March.  With such great weather came great crowds of people into downtown.  People so thick we could hardly move around; there were lines to get up and down the steps to the river walk, lines to get across the bridges, lines at every restaurant and bar, Irish or not.  We jumped on the El and headed to Wrigleyville, hoping to find less crowded crowds.  We tried to visit every bar along Clark and did a pretty good job of it.  Eventually, hunger, beer, and walking took their tolls and we headed back to town to rest up for the evening.  Resting up turned into passing out, and we stayed in all evening.  Probably a good choice considering the number of people still milling around the streets having had way too much fun all afternoon.

Sunday was a quiet day.  It started with a grand surprise for me – breakfast at a restaurant Lacy had found online called “The Southern”.  Grits, country ham, gravy and the like.  Very good if not quite truly southern, and a bit pricey.  Sitting on the patio enjoying the sun and good food was a great start to the day, and I really was tickled by the whole surprise of it.  How “Lacy” it was to actually look for a place to take me serving southern food.  She knows how I love my grits.

I always have so much fun when family or friends visit, and have so much sadness when they go.  I love sharing this city with them but the heartstrings pull every time they leave.  I want them here always, to share in the grand adventure, to discover with me the new things yet to see and do, and to just surround me with the love that is family and friends.  Ah, well, we still have times to come, and then I’ll be back home, at times wishing I were here in Chicago.  Maybe I should try another adventure sometime down the road.  I mean, why limit myself (and my family) to one great city when there is so much of the world to see?

Adventures on the Rails (From February 2012)

I realize that there are still, after almost 2 years, so many new things to see and do here in Chicago, but sometimes I am just amazed when I stumble upon a new thing that I really like and will miss when I don’t have access to it any more.  My latest is the commuter train.

The company I work for moved its corporate, and division, offices to a huge, shiny, new/old “campus” late last year.  I say new/old because it was formerly the offices of another large company, abandoned during the recession, and purchased by Navistar for a sweet price.  After months of renovations, people started moving in last November, and continued through January, until the place filled up almost to capacity.  That might sound simple, but you have to understand – this place consists of 9 buildings, 5 which are older, 3-story (actually 4-story as there is a lower level underground) office spaces, each holding hundreds of workers, 3 that make up the newer “front” buildings, glass and steel modern constructions with a huge, ugly front feature that resembles an enormous satellite dish, and one “building” underground.

In the middle of all these buildings is a large pond – large enough that I could actually call it a lake.  Glassed-in walkways that look like hamster tubes over the pond connect buildings 5 and 8 to 1, where the cafeteria and training rooms are.  There are Starbucks and Red Mango “break” areas which threaten to break us all who have become addicted to the afternoon coffee or smoothie break.  There are 2 fitness centers that offer classes throughout the day, open areas for informal exchanges of ideas (meetings), and the whole place is designed to encourage collaborative thinking among the various divisions and departments of the company.

The office is really nice, although many managers have had to adjust to cubicles or un-ceilinged offices, and for those of us that live in the actual Chicago area, our commute has doubled.  To help alleviate the pain of commuting, the company arranged with the suburb bus service to provide a pick-up/drop-off service between local train stations and the office.

At first I thought taking the train to work would be too expensive and time-consuming, but once the first real snow was forecast on a Friday, threatening my ability to drive from work without extreme anxiety, I checked into what would be involved in becoming a Metra commuter.  After some research, I found the nearest bus to my house that would deposit me at Union Station, where the train to Lisle would depart.  A 3-block walk at 6:30 a.m. is doable, and in the evening, there’s a stop only a block away.  Sweet.

Next was the train schedule and price.  My bad luck is that the rates were increasing as of February 1, so I only had a couple of weeks to enjoy the lower price.  Still, I could get a monthly, unlimited pass for about what it would cost in gas to drive back and forth 5 days a week.  The cost of the bus on each end morning and evening was a small addition, not much more than the toll for the toll-road I had to take when driving.

So far, so good, but then I realized that taking the train limited me to a pretty strict time table.  Getting to work in the morning was not the problem – I had the option of a 6:30 (if I really had insomnia), 7:01, or 7:20 train out, and they were all express, which meant I would have only a 30-minute ride.  In the evening, not so great.  The bus pick-up at the office was a choice of 4:40 or 5:15, to catch a 5:08 train to the city that was also express, or to catch a 5:40 train that stopped at every possible place between Lisle and Union Station, taking just over an hour.  Should I have a need to stay at work past 5:15, someone would have to drive me to the station to catch a 6:40 train, and if I missed that, the next train was not until 8:40.  Seems most people keep regular 9-5 work hours.  At my office, a 5:30 meeting is not out of the question, and when you drive, is not a problem.

Okay, so I could manage the “early” day most of the time, but what about those long days during quarter-end close, or when there was a meeting, or training offsite, or whatever??  Well, I’d just have to drive some days, which makes the monthly pass not so desirable.  My best option is a 10-ride pass which is slightly discounted from pay-as-you-go tickets.  This would allow me to train it 2-3 days a week, and drive the rest, at a reasonable cost.  Especially considering the near $5 price of gas in Chicago.

That’s a lot of explaining to say how I became a real city-fied commuter.  And I have found a way to make my day a little less stressful by having an hour of quiet time, albeit bumpy and swaying at times because those express trains move pretty fast.  I can read, play on my ipad, or just stare out the window.  When it gets warmer and the days are longer, I can actually walk from home to Union Station, and back, and save the bus fare along with getting exercise and more relax time (I find walking very relaxing).

I’ve also had an excuse to explore Union Station and the surrounding area West of the river, which I had not yet done.  Union Station is in itself a delight to see.  Built in the early 1900’s, it’s grand hall is magnificent – open, grand, with a huge vaulted skylight atop the 100’ expanse to the ceiling.  The marble staircases and carvings and statues surrounding the hall are beautiful, and the layout is a real architectural achievement.  The station extends underneath the street and buildings to the actual train tracks, which enter both north and south of the station, but do not join.  The clanging of the trains as they enter the station takes you back to a time when train travel was more commonplace.  You can imagine the porters and the shouts of “all aboard”, and of course the black coal dust that probably covered everything.

Nowadays, there’s an annoying voice continually calling out the track numbers, which I guess is for the benefit of blind passengers.  As you walk past each track entrance, you hear “track number 2, track number 2”, then “track number 4” and on and on.  You also don’t want to be caught at an entrance when a train arrives as you’re likely to be mowed over by the crowds coming off the trains from the suburbs.  But getting on the train car, flipping the seat to your desired direction, and settling in for a 30-minute read, or nap, or reverie, is a now welcome part of my day, 2 or 3 days each week.  I’ve come to know some of my fellow commuters as we share the bus to the office, or wait outside the office in the afternoon.

Driving is generally close to an hour each way, sometimes more, rarely less.  Taking the train usually is a about an hour twenty, but I can’t read while driving, or play euchre with an imaginary partner, or just close my eyes and relax.  The cost is roughly the same either way, and the excuse of taking the train forces an early day which is very nice.  Traffic may be laughably light in Huntsville compared to here, but if I could, I think I’d take the train at least occasionally should it be an option.  Of course, it will never be an option in Huntsville, and it’s just another thing to add to the list of “what I will miss” when I leave here.  That and having Starbucks right there in the office.

Bad Lynn

Yes, I've been badly behind in documenting my adventures in Chicagoland, but I do have a couple of entries that I wrote some time back and need to add.  It's not that the adventure is less so, or that I've become bored with either Chicago or writing, but I've been bad.  For a long time - at least a couple of years, I've not been able to read.  I've pretty much always had a book going, usually switching from an "easy" read to something requiring more thought and concentration.  For some time, however, I've not been able to get into a book, or to finish one, which is unlike me.  Even if I didn't particularly enjoy a book, I would finish it because not doing so seemed disrespectful of the author's effort.

A couple of months ago, a co-worker told me she was reading a series that a friend had recommended, and she felt almost silly about doing it because the books were marketed as "young adult", meaning teenagers.  But, she said, the books were so good she couldn't put them down, and was now on the third and last of the series.  I ran across the first one in Target one day, and thought why not give it a try?  I was immediately hooked, and continued to finish that one and buy the 2nd.  By the time I was into the 2nd book, I heard about the movie.  Hugely anticipated by the world of "hunger games" enthusiasts, a movie on the first book was imminent.  Yep, I was reading the hunger games series, and deeply engrossed by the story and the writing.

I've never read a "young adult" series of books; never tried Harry Potter, though I've seen all the movies, or the vampire-werewolf series that also became movies, though I did see the first installment of that.  There seems to be a huge market for books geared toward teen angst and adventure, which I think is great as it encourages reading, and forming the habit of reading.  With the advent of video everything, I feared reading was going the way of big gas-guzzling, steel-bodied vehicles.  But just like monster SUV's have maintained a fan base, reading is still alive and well among all age groups, even if it might be via a tablet, which is not a paper tablet but an electronic one.

I have an ipad, and I have books on it, mostly for convenience of transport (on the train, or plane), but there is still something satisfying about holding bound paper pages and flipping eagerly through them as you sink yourself into the fantasy world of whatever you happen to be reading.  There's something about a library; a bookshelf filled with various sizes and titles and to say "I've read them all".  I'm glad reading is still going strong, but something inside me dies a little each time I see a kindle, or nook, or even when I pick up my ipad and tap to turn the page.  I truly hope that "real" books never become completely passe', and that the futuristic films showing people reminiscing about the time when books were on something called paper never really happens.  But if it does, at least reading will not be something that goes the way of 8-track tapes.

I'm glad that I've been able to rediscover the joy of a good book, even if it does take time away from my little blog, or the quilt I started, or many other things I had been doing instead of reading.  But without writing, there is no reading, and if I'm really going to someday produce an actual book, or at least, a story, to be published and read by others, I have to practice writing instead of just sinking into someone else's.

Bad Lynn is not really bad, it's just that there are so many fun things to do, and those things take up time that is short to begin with.  Spending Sunday afternoon on the sofa engrossed in a good story is not really bad - it just takes away from things I feel I should be doing, or things I would do if I weren't so darned engrossed in what happens to Katniss and Peeta.  If you don't know them, I highly endorse reading "The Hunger Games" to find out.

Decisions, decisions

I am not happy with my co-workers; those 2 that were out part of last week with colds.  I don't get simple illnesses like colds very often - I get the weird, unheard of things, like an allergy to sesame seeds that suddenly has me worrying about the bun my hamburger comes on.  Nevertheless, I woke up this morning with a pounding headache, stuffy nose, and chills.  With my luck, I'll feel like crap all day today (Sunday), and wake up tomorrow just fine.  I have things I want to do today, and I would be fine staying home in bed tomorrow.  Hopefully the "cold & sinus" pills will allow me to feel well enough to at least finish cleaning house.

I have to clean house because I received an email last week from the owner of my lovely 12th story condominium, asking what day would be good for an appraiser to stop in.  Two thoughts immediately entered my brain - the first being "oh shit I have to clean the house", and the second being "oh shit why are they getting the place appraised".  Having an excuse to clean is not a bad thing - I need an excuse more often.  But having an appraisal done when I'm 3 months from the end of my current lease is worrisome.  Are they selling it?  Are they raising my rent?  Are they booting me to the street just months from my planned return to Alabama?

I wrote back as cooperatively joyful as I could muster, saying "sure no problem Monday would be great!".  And oh by the way, I am really hoping to be able to stay on a bit longer....hint hint.  Thankfully the response was that they love having me here and are sure we can work something out on the lease.  Whew.  I really would hate to be forced into a move only to have to move again in a few months.  Besides, moving is expensive and finding a suitable place as wonderful as this one would be a pain.

It's really hard for me to believe I've been here in Chicago for almost 2 years.  My original plan was a 2-3 year stint before moving back home, and I've talked with both my current and former bosses, and it seems that a return is in the plan for late this year, if not earlier.  Great.  Fantastic.  Home.  But....but......I love it here.  So it seems my choice is to stay on another couple of years in a different role that would give me even broader experience before returning, or to stick with my conviction of moving back to the bosom of my family and friends in the South.  It's a truly difficult decision.

When I embarked on this grand adventure of leaving all that I have known my entire life to experience life in a foreign land (well, foreign to me), I was certain that 2 years would be all I could handle.  It wasn't so much the hills and rivers of North Alabama that would pull me back, it would be family.  I've joked for years that my kids couldn't manage to be very far away from me as they seemed to follow me wherever I went.  When I moved to Huntsville, here came each of them.  And until they were both married, I threatened to put a revolving door on my house, because if one was moving out, the other was moving in.

Even though they were out and on their own (finally), we were all still within a few minutes of each other, and I really thought that being hours apart would quickly wear thin.  The truth of it is the hours are not that many, and I still see them often, and they love coming to visit Chicago, if not me.  And now the 2-3 year adventure is coming to a close and I'm uncertain.  Can I go back to the country life where there are no skyscrapers and trains and food of every imaginable type and actual professional sporting events and concerts and shows and all of the things that are available whether I can afford them or not?

I dream of a house with a dog and a cat and a garden and flowers and trees and a porch with a swing and a view of the mountains.  I dream of Saturday morning coffee with Lacy and Sunday evening dinner with Seth.  I dream of having my grandson and future grandchildren running around me playing games and baking cookies and learning to quilt or knit or crochet just like I did with my grandmother.  I dream of having a happy place and being the fun gramma that everyone loves to visit.

When I dream of my future life and my slow-down years, there's no Michigan Avenue or elevated trains or Willis Tower or Wrigley Field.  There's no city outside my door, only grass and June bugs.  There's no exploration of man-made architecture, only Mother Nature's.  I love this city, and it has given me so much that I never would have had.  In years to come, it will still be my city to share, if only on short trips.  There are so many other places to visit and enjoy, but only a few that I know and love and that feel a part of me - Gulf Shores, Auburn, DeSoto State Park, and most of North Alabama.  And, of course, Chicago, Illinois.

Will it be hard to go back?  Of course.  Will I miss this place?  Definitely.  Will I feel that pull in my heart every time I hear "Chicago" in the news or see a movie with a familiar backdrop?  Absolutely.  Will I remember my time here fondly as I mow my yard in 95-degree humid hell?  You betcha.  But I know where I really, really want to be, long-term, and it ain't here.  I'll make the best of the time I have left here, and skip home with a smile on my face, and in my heart.  :)

"blow, blow thou winter wind.."

Snow.  Magical, delicate, beautiful snow.  It floats past my window this Saturday morning adding to the inches already pushed aside by plows and shovels down on the street and sidewalk.  Winter has finally come to Chicago, making as delayed an entrance as summer did last year.  Earlier this week the mercury was pushing 60 degrees, and this morning it was 14 when I awoke at my usual 5 a.m.

I've come to realize that I'm a winter person.  Not the wet, messy, cold-but-not-cold-enough-to-snow winter of my native North Alabama, but the oh-so-cold and blustery winter of this mid-west mecca.  Donning boots and scarves and down and hat and gloves to make a simple trek of 3 or 4 blocks can be exhilarating.  The cold wind seems fresher, the icy particles in my face are invigorating, and the warmth of returning home for hot chocolate to ease the chill is a treat not so enjoyed otherwise.

Winter days also invite quiet, reflective time inside, whereas summer days make me feel I should be out, doing, going, "enjoying".  I'm more an inside, quiet kind of person.  Reading, knitting, stitching, painting are winter activities, and things I enjoy much.  Not to mention that if I am out on a winter day such as this, there's a different beauty to the trees, the river, and even the buildings shrouded in white.  There is as much laughter of children in the park as there is in summer, although muffled beneath the layers of wool.

Of course there are down sides just as in summer - the piles of snow on the streets turn ugly and gray with soot and slush in time, maneuvering is tricky on foot or on tires, frozen toes and fingers and nose are fun only so long.  Nights are long, and sunlight rare, and eventually the cloudy skies become depressing.  But there's always the promise that Spring is coming; it may come later here, but it does come.

I saw a quote, something like "walking on snow makes me feel like I'm walking on clouds", and thought how nice it is to see a positive remark about winter.  Not the "now is the winter of our discontent", or the "winter of our life".  But, then, the winter of discontent is turned to summer by the "son of York" (from Richard III), and the winter of our life is followed by the eternal light of heaven.  It doesn't have to mean a dark end of days but instead can mean a time to enjoy.

Even "old age" should be as much a time to enjoy as the spring of youth, and for one watching the leaves of autumn begin to fall, I can't see that my life is any less remarkable.  There is still much to experience and learn, and it is done with so much more understanding of what's important.  Any obstacle is just something to get around or over, not a reason to stop.  Winter is just a different season, with beauty of its own, if we stop looking at it as something to dread and rush by like a cemetery, reaching at us with bare-branch fingers to hold us in its cold grasp.

I would not relive my youth any more than I would relive last summer, knowing I couldn't change anything or do anything differently.  And so I would not miss this winter any more than I would purposefully miss whatever is left of my life.  I will not go into the winter of life fussing and moaning about the cold and snow and wishing for it to be over soon.  Or that I could skip it altogether.  All seasons are wonderful, joyous times with their own flavors and scents and lessons, whether we're talking weather or life.

And now I bundle to brave the winds and snow and cold - must get some milk so that I can make that hot chocolate to enjoy when I get back from getting the milk while braving the cold so that I need hot chocolate to warm me up. 

5 a.m.

I have a disease.  It's called the "no matter what time you go to bed you still wake up at 5 a.m." disease.  It's bad enough that during the week I rarely set an alarm, but on the weekend when sleeping in even an hour seems delectable, it just ain't happening.  I still get up and make coffee, but at least I don't have to do anything but crawl back into bed and check email, or read the paper, or goof around with the ipad.  On the weekends I can also take a nap in the afternoon like tots and elderly, and not feel guilty about it.  That's a pleasure in itself.

This morning as I awoke and peeked out into the dark of early morning in December, I found that it was snowing.  It's still snowing 2 hours later; just a light, easy snow that doesn't require the plows and salt but just blankets the rooftops with a nice batting.  The expected high today is around 35 so it may keep up most of the day.  It's a good thing, because I need to do some Christmas shopping (which I've not done at all) and this may put me in the mood.

Christmas is a week away.  I'll be driving to Alabama next week sometime for the holiday, and back to Chicago a day or two afterward to spend the rest of that week in lazy luxury.  I will work on the quilt I've started, and knit the scarf I've started, and finish the book I've started.  The book may be finished, but the others will take more time - especially the quilt.  But until then, I need to get in the spirit.  I put my fake tree up last weekend with all the little ornaments the kids love from their childhood and lot of lights.  I set out my collection of santas and snowmen.  I drank hot chocolate.  I sat and looked at the tree and the santas and tried to work up a feeling of ho ho ho and holly jolly.  Then I thought "I have to look at this for the next two weeks then pack it all back up without sharing it with anyone - what's the point?".

From the time the kids were big enough to care, we would trek out into the woods off a back road with a saw and look for the perfect cedar tree to steal.  We didn't think of it as stealing, but that's really what it was since we didn't know who owned whatever land we were on, and we would have been in trouble had we been caught.  We were poor and couldn't afford to spend money on a nice balsam fir.  I would NOT allow a fake tree into my house, but preferred to enjoy the needles on the floor and the barbs on the hands as we decorated our Christmas tree.  Sometimes the pickings were slim, and we ended up with a Charlie Brown tree that you could see right through.  It really didn't matter - it was the experience that I was after, and the tradition and memories for the kids.

Even after they became young adults venturing out on their own, we still did our best to carry on.  A week or so before the big day, we would gather and go out to cut down a tree.  I did finally resort to paying for one at a tree farm, but there was still the trek and the hunt and the saw.  We borrowed a truck, or stuffed the netted tree into whatever vehicle I had at the time, and made our way back to my house for the party. 

Our tree-trimming festivities consisted of Christmas music, homemade cookies and candies, crackers and cheeses or chips and dips, hot cider or chocolate, and the joy of dressing that tree up just like we had done since they were small.  As we pulled out each ornament - particularly the ones they had made in day care or school, and the little wooden ones we had bought somewhere along the way - each of us would ooo and ahh and reminisce as to which were our favorites and which we had forgotten about, and the stories behind a few of them.  There was the "Lacy's 1st Christmas" crosstitch one that Aunt Juno had made for her.  The jar-ring-picture-frame-on-a-ribbon ones they made in day-care.  The sleighs from popsicle sticks Aunt Darlene had made.  The birds Nana had given us.  And on and on and on.

While this tradition was special as the kids were growing up, and they always happily participated even through the years when kids can become opposed to such things, it came to mean even more after I divorced their dad.  Our split occurred on December 13, a Friday of course (my lucky day), which was too early to put up a live tree in a house with a wood stove that dried everything out quickly.  That year I worried about how we were going to manage, but we did.  There have been a couple of years that one or the other wasn't available to help, but most of the time we managed to be together for the annual event.  It's only been in the last 3 years or so that we've broke tradition, and in 2009 I didn't even have a tree at all.

I think that's why I drove to Target last year and bought a 7-foot plastic tree-in-a-box.  If I couldn't have them here to help with the trimming and sharing of memories, I could at least have them here in spirit as I hung the well-worn ornaments myself.  I look forward to next Christmas, when I'll hopefully be living in Alabama and they can join me once again to ooo and ahh over the memories as we pull them from the box.  Of course, we'll be hanging them on a real tree, with the Nutcracker playing in the background.  I'll have to add a few for family expansion.  And as I get older, and grandkids become plural, I hope that a visit to gramma's to cut and trim a tree will be an event each year.  That would make me eternally happy.

For this year, however, I will do my best to enjoy the tree I have and what it represents to me.  I'll trek out into the lighted trees on the mag mile (without cutting any down), snow gently kissing my face, humming the old songs Nana used to sing, and look forward to being together with my family in a week.  However cold it is, and however alone I am, I have the warmth of their love and the memories of Christmas's past to keep me company.  I trust they have the same.

double dose

There's nothing more beautiful than a double dose of something beautiful.  And there's nothing more frustrating or painful than a double dose of something frustrating or painful.

Sunsets in colors of deep orange and coral and rose can be breathtaking.  You want to breathe it in and hold onto before it fades into night.  When that sunset is reflected so that you get a double dose, it can sometimes be so overwhelming that it's more than you can absorb.  I have seen sunsets reflected on water - lake, pond, river, ocean (actually, gulf) many times in my life.  A new experience for me is a sunset reflected in the glass and steel of multiple buildings, which can also be a magnificent site.  In the city, I see that sometimes from my balcony - when I can't actually view the sunset on the western horizon, but know its beauty from the reflections in buildings near me.  Last Friday, driving home from work, I headed east on the Ike (I290) and saw such a sunset in my rear view.  As I approached downtown, the tall buildings along the Chicago skyline were afire, reflecting the colors of the sunset.  The Willis tower, Trump, and others shown gold and red just for a moment and were more beautiful than I'd ever seen.  One of those moments when I wished I could pull over and capture the sight - but traffic was heavy, and my camera was sitting at home.  I took a snapshot in my head of both views, the rear and forward so I keep it even though I can't share.

For the past few weeks, I've struggled with allergies.  My sinuses drain down my throat and nose, causing constant sniffing and ahem-ing.  It's aggrevating, but Allegra keeps things pretty much under control.  Something new, however, is I seem to be afflicted with an allergic reaction in my eyes.  Not so much in as around, with itching and swelling of the skin above and below my eyes - redness, bagginess, scaliness, and all-around ugliness.  It comes and goes at odd times, and I'm starting to think I've developed an allergy to either a food or environmental irritant.  Two weeks ago, I was on a cruise ship, doing fine (after my luggage finally arrived, but that's another story) until the final evening.  After dinner, the skin around my eyes started burning and itching, and swelling - one little welt was particularly visible.  Thinking back over what I had eaten, the shrimp seemed a likely culprit.  My dad developed a sudden seafood allergy when he was around my age, so it makes sense.  I dosed up with Benedryl and Allegra over the weekend, and by Monday was all better.

Yesterday, I walked the several blocks to my massage place, enjoyed my monthly kneading of knots, and walked back, stopping off for some breakfast.  When I got home, the itching, burning, and swelling started up again.  There was no seafood in the skillet concoction I had eaten, so whether it was food or something in the air, or the oil the massage therapist uses, I can't say.  The skillet contained eggs, potatoes, cheese, peppers and onions.  Nothing that I can really relate to the dinner on the ship.  Dairy?  Olive oil?  Peppers??

My double dose of allergy symptoms is driving me a bit looney, but more importantly, is painful and mysterious.  Seems I'm always coming up with something oddball that warrants a visit to the doctor.  Maybe it's time to see an allergist and find out what it is that I can't eat or do without consequences.  Having enjoyed a fairly allergy-free life so far, other than the usual spring and fall pollens, I consider myself lucky in comparison to those that suffer from birth with dairy, nuts, and other such allergies that will affect them for all of their life.

There are worse double doses - losing loved ones in multiples, being out of work and out of a home, crashing your car and being injured, or causing pain for someone else, which causes pain for yourself.  But there are good double doses too - having your cake and eating it too, reading a good book that has a sequel, enjoying a movie along with someone's company, chocolate-filled chocolate.  Loving and being loved back.  Life regularly hits us with multiple doses of both positive and negative, and our hope is that the positive comes out on top in the end.