Saturday, it finally felt like June here in Chicago.  It was hot.  Ice cream melted instantly.  Eggs fried on the sidewalk.  Mac and I took a walk to the bookstore, and the air was slow, sweaty, sticky, gross.  I was slow, sweaty, sticky, gross.  I turned to him and said, “ok, summer, we did it.  I’m ready for winter now.”

Mac’s gaze remained steady on the hazy horizon.  ”Nope,” he said, “I could go another week or so.”

Break out your sundresses, kids.  It’s (finally… finally?) summer.

Chicago, Illinois. 

Shana and Mac are at an art fair in Hyde Park.

It is so cold out that Shana can see her breath. 

Also, the blog is back.

June 6.

Mark it.

It’s a nice sunny day out, and I’m once again looking for a nice place to sit and hit at my keyboard while eating/drinking something delicious.  Truth be told, I was wanting to go to Phoebe’s Cupcakes… not that I’m dissatisfied with Molly, but Phoebe’s right down the street and brand new… so new that in fact she’s not open yet.  Mac was going to be meeting me, and since he’s not so much in a coffee mood, I suggested somewhere else: of all places, a candy store.

Windy City Sweets, actually even closer down the road than the soon-to-be Phoebe’s, has been a standard “we don’t do this often but it’s a special day” choice for us, with their wide array of candies for every person and every occasion, if a bit pricey. 

(Mac particularly likes their sponge candy. I got him some for his birthday, which was Monday.  Did you forget?  Don’t worry, he’s still accepting presents, and will be, until his next birthday.)

Anyway, I saw walking past today that Windy City Sweets had outdoor seating, which means they must serve food or drink of some kind, right?  Sure enough, in addition to ice cream sundaes and hot chocolate, they boast a line of malts, shakes and smoothies. 

I decided on one of the no-dairy smoothies, listed at the top of the right (not left) panel.  You must understand, with all respect to vegans, that the most important thing to remember about my interest in the eight different smoothie flavors labeled as “no dairy” (with a mysteriously unnamed #9) is that they were 75 cents cheaper than the smoothies advertised as having ice cream or yogurt.  Imagine my surprise then, upon ordering the raspberry smoothie (#3) when the nice but methodically slow man behind the counter asked if I’d like ice cream or yogurt.

I stood for a full six seconds (actually a long time), searching for words to express my confusion.  “Um,” I finally said, “I was just actually looking at the dairy free smoothies,” the ones, I wanted to add, that are 75 cents less.

“Ok,” he said… pause… “that would be the yogurt then.”

Now you know, and I know, that yogurt is dairy.  But the second most important thing to remember about my non-dairy choice is that I actually would’ve preferred dairy… which is why I replied, “oh, ok.”

He proceeded dump a big scoop of white stuff labeled “fat free vanilla yogurt” into my cup and blend it. 

Non-dairy frozen yogurt?

Might’ve been.  I didn’t press it, and I’m thoroughly enjoying my raspberry smoothie… but the vegans among us might want to dig a little deeper before indulging.  Something like, “but isn’t yogurt, um, still dairy?” 

As far as I’m concerned, at the end of the day, and the man behind the counter’s methodically slow approach to smoothie-making aside, this little quirk only adds to the charm of the top-class candy store we’re proud to call our neighbors.  

And meanwhile, if you happen to see Molly, there’s really no need to mention this whole Phoebe thing… thanks…

This was a good idea. 

Molly’s Cupcakes

2536 N Clark St, Chicago IL 

Get the peanut butter nutella.  Or anything.

And there’s a sprinkle bar.

Do it do it do it.

What do you think, peanut butter nutella or key lime?  Call in the next 10 minutes if you have any strong feelings either way…

Of course, not everyone in Chicago is excited about the idea of Chicago hosting the Olympics.  Like the people whose houses are going to be torn down to build the Olympic Village, or the people whose taxes are going up to pay for the houses being torn down… the police are actually leading the protests, if you can imagine that, taking advantage of this opportunity to highlight their discontent over contract negotiations with our fair mayor, Mr. Daley.  Others simply say they would really like it if Chicago spend money on things like education and housing before taking on this additional responsibility.  I wonder how the protesting in Chicago compares with the reaction the other bid cities (Tokyo, Madrid, and Rio de Janeiro), and if this is pretty common when a city considers hosting a major international event involving lots of capital and infrastructure investment… 

I was actually in Beijing in the late fall of 2005, as they were really getting going on their Olympic prep work for 2008.  They were already selling t-shirts and were halfway through remodeling national landmarks, not to mention tearing down hutongs and the like.  China tried for a whole etiquette makeover too – when I was there, they were handing out brochures to locals to teach them about Western manners so as to make a good impression – things like shaking hands and not spitting all the time and the like.  Very interesting.  

November 2005, off Tiananmen Square

Anyway, the IOC is coming to town, and with such sports heros as Michael Jordan and Oprah (?) on their side, the Chicago 2016 folks are all geared up to show the boys around town and see what they think.  Everything downtown is covered in Olympics ads or protest flyers.  With all this tension in the air, all the e-mails and news articles flying, I don’t know how much longer I can take it til someone makes a decision!  

Sadly, here’s the news on that front: 

(minus however many seconds/minutes/hours, etc, it’s been since 8:56pm on Thursday)  Aaahhh!!  

Fortunately, Mac and I came up with an impromptu song for the day to help cut the anticipation, and it goes like this: 

Shana: Oh, you better watch out, you better not cry

Mac: Cry! 

Shana: You better not pout, I’m tellin’ you why

Mac: Why!?!

Shana: The IOC is comin’ to town.  

Still Shana: They’re makin’ a list and checkin’ it twice

Mac: Twice! 

Shana: Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice

Mac: Nice! 

Shana: The IOC is comin’ to town! 

Mac: Hey, hun?  I’m actually on the phone… 

First, from the BBC: 

Sometimes, people are stupid.  Sometimes, really, really stupid.  Sometimes, that person is a beauty queen.   Apparently she went to Guantanamo as part of a goodwill trip to visit troops stationed around the world.  Apparently, when she was writing in her blog about it later, she forgot that Guantanamo is a detention center where the US holds suspected terrorists and tortures them without charging them (not that that would make the torture ok), and wrote the following: 

Yeah, she really said that. You know, if she’s serious about not wanting to leave, she could always plot or participate in a terrorist attack of some kind.  Geesh.

Next, from Chicagoist: 

Swarovski crystals on his tank top and everything, and we totally missed it.  I don’t know what we were doing yesterday that was more important than sweatin’ to the oldies at Union Station.  Dang.  Note to self: get on that mailing list!  No way we’re going to miss it next time!  ;-) 

And, finally, from the Chicago Examiner: 

A review of the cafe where I work, one of 13 of its kind in Chicago.  The review is favorable overall and accurate enough, if not a little over-dramatic (ha, I’m reviewing their review), and most important was the following line: 

That’s right, young and hip.  Write it down: Shana. Is. Hip. 

So that’s really all you need to know about the world for right now.  If anything else important ever comes up, you can count on us to let you know.  Maybe.

Editor’s note: none of these stories are April Fool’s jokes.  Not even the last one.  

Munch, one of Oslo’s most renowned artists from the turn of the last century (bonus points to anyone who can name another without wikipedia-ing it), is best known for his famous “The Scream,” a really depressing but really striking representation of, well, existence, I guess.  Anyway, I went to the museum dedicated to his work when I was in Oslo a couple summers ago (because besides eating fish and buying little troll figurines, there’s not a lot else to do in that town…), and I was surprised by how much I liked a lot of his stuff.  So I was glad when this exhibit came to my new town. 

The exhibit featured stunning works by Munch and a few by his contemporaries (Monet, Gaugin, you may have heard of some of them?) and is all about his development as an artist throughout his life.  I was disappointed to learn about his unfortunate femme-fatale obsession, like so many of those hopeless late 19th century artists, novelists, poets, etc (Baudelaire, anyone?).  Seriously, guys, get over it.  But other than that, I was quite pleased with the exhibit and glad I went. 

I was further going to endorse getting you butt down to the Art Institute anyway, before they raise their entrance fees again.  Ouch.  Tough to move anywhere from DC, the city of a million great free museums, but still, tacking on another 50% seems like a lot… 

Anyway, all of this was in my head, including that picture of the ad I took downtown so I’d have something visual on the blog (no photography allowed in the exhibit, bummer), when I heard a song coming out of Mac’s office.  And then I heard it again.  And again… 

Apparently, it’s been in his head for weeks, and he apparently does this every now and then – play it over and over – it’s just that this is the first time I’ve been home for it.  

The song is: Forever Young

He listens to the (original) Alphaville version, even though it’s Rod Stewart whom you’re most likely to hear singing it on your favorite local light rock station, of course, among many others who’ve covered it as well.  Who’s ever heard of Alphaville? 

So I decided, what better case for endorsement is there than Mac happily bopping his head and singing along at work all day?  And there you have it: Forever Young it is.  Happy Monday. 

Springtime in Chicago

It was actually reported a couple weeks ago, by Combos (yep, those weird stuffed hard pretzel things, and no, I’m not sure why), but apparently it’s taken the RedEye, the Chicago Tribune’s free daily paper, until now to dig it up.  And here it is: 

We’re ranked 47 out of 50 cities across the country, behind Dayton, behind Milwaukee, behind Buffalo, just barely behind DC, and ahead of NYC, LA, SF, and Portland, Oregon. The article itself is not really worth reading, unless your bus is stuck in traffic and your forgot your book at home… and you’ve already read all the other things there are to read on your phone and checked the weather twice… 

Somewhat interesting, however, are the little factoids of information you can gather from the “man-o-meter” rankings… yeah, there was a man-o-meter.  Things that worked in our favor?  There are obvious ones, like the Sears Tower (though I think we lost some points for the recent “Willis” development) and all of our sports teams… but did you also know that it is a Chicagoan who holds the International Federation of Competitive Eating’s record for hands-free blueberry pie?  9.17 pies in 8 minutes!  (Just so we’re clear though, as impressive as this surely is, if I ever bake you a blueberry pie and you consume it in its entirety in less than a minute, “impressed” is not what I’ll be feeling.)  The same guy apparently also holds the record for chocolate hearts, corned beef and cabbage, grits, and more… I’d imagine some of the blueberry pie skills cross over to other food types.  We also eat a lot of hot dogs – about 100 million Vienna beefs alone are produced and sold in Chicago each year. Apparently – this was one of my favorite tidbits - 

“travelers at O’Hare consume six times more hot dogs than Los Angeles International Airport and New York’s LaGuardia Airport combined.”

Thankfully, all of this bodes well for our manliness ratings.  All you aspiring manly men, eat up!  

Things that ranked against us, however, were our Starbucks-saturation levels (114 in the city), our low numbers of fishing licenses, Hummers, and Harley Davidsons per capita, and our smoking ban.  

Of course there are things to be said about gender stereotypes and the impact these have on the health and well being of not only the readers of the RedEye, but the overall subconscious of society and its institutions… honestly though, I would’ve guessed there were more than 114 Starbucks in Chicago.  Maybe that’s the really disturbing part…

And just so you all know, Mac totally instantly recognized Mike Ditka in that picture from the RedEye, I definitely didn’t have to explain to him who it was.  ;)