My So Called Life

Five Fridays of Fun – Beautify the Neighborhood

/ Shane / Leave a comment

Initially, Evie was distinctly disappointed with our second Friday of Fun.

“It’s clean up time, it’s clean up time.”

Make your neighborhood a more beautiful place. Put on gloves and see if you can fill up the trash bag. Then, come inside and make a stepping stone that we can use to decorate.
Tip from the guy at Michaels: use slightly less water than directed & a hair-dryer can help it set if needed.

Compared to going to the zoo, I guess it was a little disappointing. She was definitely not jazzed about picking up trash. However, once we got going, we still had a lot of fun (even picking up trash!)


One advantage vs. going to the zoo is that we have something tangible to show for this one; a stepping stone. The kids were very excited to “stand on it”, but it had to dry for many days before that was possible.

The other thing tangible that we had was an enormous bag full of trash! We barely made it halfway down the alley before we filled our trash bag. The amount of trash around our house is absolutely astounding! Doesn’t anybody in Chicago put anything in the trash can?

Five Fridays of Fun – The Zoo

/ Shane / Leave a comment

This year for Father’s day, rather than get me one gift, Sara got me “Five Fridays of Fun”. Every Friday we would select a random box and open it, and it would give us materials and instructions on what to do for the day.

I had absolutely no idea what sorts of things were in these boxes, or even a ballpark estimate of what to expect. So on the first Friday of Fun we opened the box and saw:

The things in this box are a clue
as to what you might see and do.
Pack your lunch and bring it too
so you can enjoy a day at the…
…………(can you guess?)……….
…………………………………..ZOO!

I can’t remember exactly what was in the box, other than some animal crackers to take with us as a snack.

Evie in particular was very, very excited to open them up each week. Sometimes I was a little nervous, because I didn’t necessarily feel like embarking on some big adventure for the day. However, it always turned out great! It’s hard to explain, but here’s just something about having it all prepared with instructions that’s better than just thinking about it on your own. I would never just say, “Hey kids, lets just up and go to the zoo today.” It has to be a big thing that’s planned out in advance. But when the magic box says we have to go to the zoo, we go to the zoo. And then guess what? We have a great time! We probably should just up and do things like going to the zoo, and this was just the little nudge that we needed.

Also, it was a great gift because instead of just getting one thing, we had about a month and a half worth of enjoyment out of it. There was anticipation leading up to it, the actual doing of it, and then the retelling of everything to Sara later.

So for the rest of the week I will be presenting each of the Five Fridays of Fun, in the order we experienced them.

Strike!

/ Shane / Leave a comment

As you have most likely heard, the Chicago public school teachers are on strike.

You never realize how many schools there are, until they are surrounded by picketing teachers. It seems like everywhere we go there are teachers all over the place. I’m no stranger to strikes, but usually they are in one particular location, not everywhere you look. Even if there are just a few people at each location, it makes the strike seem absolutely huge.

Is it weird to say that seeing all the striking workers makes me feel nostalgic?

My dad is, was, and always will be a union man. He is uniformly and unquestioningly for any union that is striking. If he lived in Chicago, I have no doubt he’d join the picket line. I remember once when the union projectionists were striking, my dad would not set foot in the movie theater. He would drop us off and pick us up, but he would be caught dead before he would cross a picket line to see a movie. You’d be surprised at how often the topic of strikes could come up to a kid, but with my dad, the idea of it was always there, running just beneath the surface. Some kids went to summer camp; I went to union camp. They sang kumbaya, we sang “Solidarity Forever”.

I’m not like my dad; I don’t automatically accept that unions are always right and companies are always evil entities ready to gouge the worker if only given half a chance (coincidentally, a lot of them happen to be evil entities ready to gouge the worker if given half a chance, but I’m eternally optimistic). Unfortunately, I think the truth is more complicated: both sides are right, and also wrong. People deserve to be treated with respect at work. On the other hand, you can’t always squeeze blood from a stone. Both sides are stubborn. Both sides are a little bit unreasonable.

Right or wrong, there’s something comforting in seeing arms linked in solidarity for a common cause, whatever that cause is.

Or maybe that’s just my dad talking.

Quote Monday actually feels yucky

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Sara: “Do you feel yucky?”
Ollie: “No.”
Sara: “Do you feel good?”
Ollie: “Yes…actually, I feel yucky.”

Oliver has been saying “actually” a lot lately, and it cracks me up every time!

Me: “And how would you know if the man was a daddy?”
Evie: “If he was bald.”

Oliver: “BUUUUUUUUUUUUURP!”
Me: “What was that??”
Oliver: “A hiccup.”

Sing the Carillon Bells

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A short walk from our house lives the “single largest musical instrument ever built”. I guess it’s one of those things that’s too close to home, so you never appreciate it.

It was the last weekend of their summer concert series, and Sara said we should go check it out. I have to admit, I was a little reluctant. It just sort of seemed like a big to do, packing a picnic lunch and climbing all those stairs, not to mention that the kids were in particularly bad moods that day. All that just to see some bells?

I have to say, I totally had to eat my words.

Hiking up to the tiny little “performance room” to see the bells played was totally worth carrying Oliver up the 271 steps it took to get there. Seeing it played really was amazing. The tour guide said that the Carillon Bells were a “percussion instrument” and that was absolutely correct. I imagined someone playing a simple keyboard, but in actuality there are little mechanical wooden levers that must be struck. In order to play, you are literally striking the bells, and the harder you hit the levers, the louder the note.

The carillonist, James Fackenthal, did an amazing job, pounding away the 100 tons of bronze at an absolutely frantic pace, fists and sweat flying. I can’t really describe what is like seeing such an interesting and masterful performance in such an intimate room, high above the city of Chicago, for the price of $3. (that’s $3 total for all of us)

Even the kids enjoyed it, especially Oliver. At first we were sitting in front of the control console, and Oliver kept leaning around back to sneak peeks at Mr. Fackenthal playing. Evie enjoyed it, but after a few songs she was ready to move on. I think Oliver would have stayed and watched the entire concert.

Afterwards, we hiked up a few more stairs to the very top of the bell tower for some amazing views, before going back down to the bottom and listening to the rest of the concert from the ground. Even that seemed intimate, since the immense Rockefeller Chapel dwarfed the picnickers spread out in the grass below.

For anybody in the neighborhood, make sure you make it up to the top to see the performance at least once. Highly recommended.