Back to posting November 7. Got things to do.
One more pic from San Antonio for now. A Halloween inflatable I saw there last week. Much amused to see it.
Not bad staying power for a movie that came out nearly 40 years ago.
In Chicago, the week before, I saw this tableau, referencing lore older than a mere movie.
Three witches made partly from black paper. I assume they’re supposed to be witches. Why paper? The better to burn them, of course.
Despite the cold, we had about 40 kids show up yesterday to collect sweets, maybe half again as many as the busiest Halloweens of the past, though I don’t count every year. We ran through an entire box of full-sized candy bars plus some other smaller confections. Almost all of the kids came before dark, which has been the case for many years now. Another example of widespread nervous parenting that’s pretty much entrenched, I figure. When I was that age, we went out after dark in our Invisible Pedestrian costumes and we liked it.
Most of the costumes this year were buried under coats, but I have to say the best of ’23 was a tallish kid in no coat and a white-and-red full-body chicken outfit, complete with a comb as prominent as Foghorn Leghorn’s. The costume might well have been warm enough for him to go without a coat. The color scheme reminded me of Chick-fil-A right away.
I’m just old enough to remember sometimes receiving baked goods and fruit on Halloween; those vanished by about 1970, victim of the lurid nonsense stories about razor blades in apples, poisoned cakes and chocolate Ex-Lax being given to kids. We found the thought of that last one pretty funny, actually.
This morning we woke to about an inch of snow destined to melt later in the day. A small preview of winter.
The cold is an unpleasant contrast to South Texas last week, where it was hot for October. (Temps have fallen there since then, I heard.) Just after noon on Saturday, I headed over to the campus of Our Lady of the Lake University, OLLU. I’d heard of the school for a long time, but my knowledge of it never rose above the level of hazy.
Main Building, the sign says. A name refreshing in its simplicity. The building’s a little more intricate.
Mere steps away is Sacred Heart Chapel.
The school recently marked the chapel’s centennial. At your feet at the entrance, a date.
“The English Gothic chapel was the vision of Mother Florence Walter, Superior General of the Congregation of Divine Providence from 1886-1925,” says the university web site. “In 1895, she looked down from Prospect Hill at a swath of wilderness and declared, ‘One day we will have a chapel here. And its spires will be seen throughout the city of San Antonio.’ ”
That must have a good day for the superior general. Funding the chapel took 11 years, but eventually the Sisters, who had founded the school in 1895, were able to hire a renowned architect, Leo Dielman, to design the chapel. A prolific architect of sacred space – more than 100 churches to his credit – Dielmann had his funeral in 1969 at Sacred Heart Chapel.
When I went in, a funeral was going on. I gazed in for only a moment from the very back of the nave. Looked like this, except for the sacrament pictured.
OLLU borders Elmendorf Lake Park, with walking trails ringing a small manmade lake, created by the damming of Apache Creek. I took a walk. When the sun periodically came out from behind the clouds, it felt like it was about 90 F. It was a sweaty walk. Needed that hat I’d left in Illinois.
Thick foliage luxuriates on the lakeshore.
Almost no one else was around on what, compared with South Texas temps only a few weeks and months earlier, was merely a warm day. A Saturday at that. The place gave out no sense of being avoided out of fear for one’s person; just ignored. A few recreational fishermen stood on the shore, angling. One was in a small boat. That was all.
Another, more hard-surface part of the park includes benches. Parc Güell sorts of benches, but without the crowds.
No human crowds, that is. Birds were another matter. An astonishing number of birds occupied a handful of the trees in the park, ca-ca-ca-ca-ing with a resounding volume, especially on a small island I saw later is called Bird Island. Thinking on it, their Hitchcockian vibe might keep some people away. A lot of people.
Birds looking something like herons with completely black plumage. I couldn’t place them, but my bird knowledge is pretty meager. Crows? They look leaner of build than crows. But what do I really know about crows?
I do know enough not to walk under them. A few of the bird-occupied trees were along the path of my walk, so I took minor detours to avoid any direct bombardment. I passed through the park without being the target of any droppings.
I thought of a Red Skelton TV sketch featuring his characters, seagulls Gertrude and Heathcliff (I had to look the names up, but not that fact that he did those characters). One of the birds noted that the beach below was very crowded. The other responded, “There’s no sport in that.” Odd what sticks with you after more than 50 years.
Chilly nights, warm days. Such are conditions here in Illinois not long before the fall equinox. The trees are still holding on to their leaves, including our quaking aspen.
Goldenrod, seen here in the back 40 of my yard – that is, the back 40 square feet or so, and how is it farmers had back 40s? Something to do with a quarter of a quarter section, which would be 40 acres, though I expect the metaphorical sense long ago superseded the literal one.
Out on a northwest suburban street.
It isn’t until Saturday, but some local motorists have been ready for Mexican Independence Day since last weekend.
When I visited the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison in late July, I didn’t see this building.
Rather, I saw this one, late in the afternoon of the first day of my drive.
The beaux-arts capitol is actually Wisconsin’s fourth, replacing the one pictured in the postcard, which burned down in early 1904. The state tasked George B. Post to design a new structure, which took a while to complete, finally being finished in 1917. Post was known for late 19th-century mansions – paid for by robber barons who wanted to show off – but he also did other elaborate buildings, such as the New York Stock Exchange.
The gilded bronze on the top of the dome is yet another Daniel Chester French work, “Wisconsin.” French was a prolific fellow.
Like the Tiffany Bridge, this wasn’t my first visit to the capitol. That would have been sometime in the late 1980s. Wisconsin is, however, one of the few capitols, along with Texas and Illinois, that I’ve visited more than once.
So this visit didn’t change my vanity map of capitols, but I thought I’d update it anyway (green for interior visits, orange-pink for exteriors only, Hawaii gold because I don’t remember, but I might have seen it).
Lilly and I spent some time in the Wisconsin capitol during a December 2016 visit to Madison. It was cold that day, naturally, and visiting was a relief from the chilly air. This time the building interior was a relief because the day was hot and sticky. Besides, who doesn’t enjoy a view inside the dome?
The interior is as resplendent as the exterior. Badgers were in a few prominent places.
Those paintings are allegories. Liberty in this case, but also Justice, Government and Legislation, on the other three corners.
This capitol doesn’t feature a lot of statuary, unlike some, but there is a bust of Robert M. La Follette, no doubt considered a Wisconsinite among Wisconsinites.
I like these pics of him, lifted from Wikipedia. Fighting Bob all right.
The Assembly chamber was closed, but I could still see Old Abe through the window. He looks down on the legislators, presumably reminding them to do their duty.
I’ve seen Old Abe depicted before: on a tractor and a memorial at Vicksburg. Another Wisconsinite among Wisconsinites: He was the mascot of the 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment from 1861 to ’64.
“The regiment procured a large, shield-shaped mount and perch to carry the eagle,” says Atlas Obscura. “Old Abe witnessed all of the regiment’s battles. He was taken into combat with the regimental colors… Old Abe participated in 37 battles and skirmishes. The regiment mustered out of service in 1864. On September 26, 1864, his army comrades returned Old Abe to Wisconsin and gifted him to the people of the state.”
When the bird died in 1881, he was stuffed and put on display at the capitol – the one that burned down in 1904, reducing Old Abe to ashes. The one you can see now is another stuffed eagle, doing homage to the mascot. I didn’t remember seeing him on previous visits, but now I have. Huzzah for Old Abe.
I found out by chance on Saturday that Normal, Illinois, was holding its St. Patrick’s Day parade this year on that very Saturday, when I happened to be in town to pick up Ann for her spring break ride back home.
Compare with the downtown Chicago St. Patrick’s Day parade, a few years pre-pandemic.
Not that the pandemic made the difference. Many more million people in the area to draw from made the difference.
Still, the spirit of celebrating Ireland is there, and maybe the urge to feel alcoholic mirth as the day unfolds. Stereotype has these to be one and the same, but I won’t sully the good name of Ireland by suggesting such a thing, though Eire did come in at number seven highest in liters of alcohol per capita consumed among the nations of the Earth in 2016 and is forecast to be number four in 2025. Erin go Bragh.
Though it was a little cold, I enjoyed the more mellow Normal Irish parade. A few people standing around, a few more were in the parade, mostly in vehicles representing local organizations and businesses, and that was about it.
No high school bands or collegiate floats. The parade could have used a few of each, but maybe the Illinois State University administration worried about the possibility of civil disorder.
A few parade-goers were out and about in costume.
One more car in the parade.
The Space Force is recruiting. The slogan: “The Sky is Not the Limit.”
“Presidents Day” is here again, but no holiday for me. George Washington’s birthday isn’t until Wednesday, anyway. It’s all very well to honor the father of our country, but, like Dr. King, why couldn’t he have been born in some warmer month?
Here’s another banknote of mine without Roman lettering that I decided to identify over the weekend.
No Cyrillic, either. It turned out to be relatively easy to pin down, since most notes tend to feature one or the other, even if a country’s dominant language(s) are in another script. Another useful clue are the Hindu-Arabic numerals for the date, 2013.
It’s a two-taka note from Bangladesh, whose symbol is the curious ৳, which seems to suggest the Bengali script for the word, টাকা, but also a Roman t. Various sources say this note has mostly passed from circulation, replaced by coins. Also, its one-hundredth division, poysha, has evaporated in the heat of decades of inflation. In theory, a 2-taka note is worth just shy of U.S. 2 cents.
Speaking of fathers of nations, though a rather different example, father of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is on the observe. Next to him is the National Martyrs’ Memorial near Dhaka, commemorating those who died for independence in bloody 1971.
In the upper right corner, the national emblem of Bangladesh. “Located on the emblem is a water lily, that is bordered on two sides by rice sheaves. Above the water lily are four stars and three connected jute leaves,” Wiki notes. Jute may yet have its day as a green fiber.
On the reverse, another memorial to the dead. In this case, the Shaheed Minar (The Martyr Tower) of the Bengali Language Movement, whose day happens to be tomorrow.
Last Thursday temps were around freezing during the day, which is pretty good in Illinois for that oddity of an occasion, Groundhog Day.
The day shares more than one might think with Christmas, though of course it isn’t an all-consuming religious and cultural event in much of the world, just a relatively minor one. Still, it has pagan taproots connected to astronomical lore in northern Europe, an association with a Christian holiday (Candlemass), folklore imported from German-speaking lands, Victorians putting it in its modern form, a universal appearance on North American calendars (Canadians take note of the day too), and famed representations in mass media in the 20th century (e.g., Groundhog Day).
The closest show-marmot event to where we live seems to be the one involving Woodstock Willie, whose effigy I saw in the warmer month of July. We weren’t inclined to trudge all the way to exurban Woodstock on Thursday for the event, however.
Rather, we loaded ourselves and the dog in the car for the less than 10-minute drive to Schaumburg Town Square for a walkabout, after certain other errands. We knew that Friday was to be bitterly cold, so wanted to get out in the tolerable temps (still around freezing) before that happened.
No festivities going on there. In fact, no one else was there at all. Still plenty of ice on the pond and snow on the ground.
A Polar Trac stands ready to deal with more snow.
No venturing out onto the ice. Of course. I didn’t need a red flag to tell me that.
Hard to believe, but this patch of ground, a garden —
— is going to have an entirely different character –
— in only about four months.
On December 21, weather forecasters were all agog about an impending snowstorm affecting much of the nation. It’s their job, of course, to be agog at such times.
Still, it hadn’t happened yet, and I was glad we could drive without weather inference to the city that evening to attend a performance of the play Clue at the Mercury Theater. About as farcical as a farce can be, the play is based on the movie of that name, which I’ve never seen, itself inspired by the board game, which I never got around to playing. But I did see a high school version of the play, in which Ann had a part, only months before the pandemic. In the hands of a competent troupe, it’s a lot of laughs, and the Mercury Theater delivered the goods (and the high schoolers weren’t too shabby either).
As snowstorms go, December 22, 2022, wasn’t the strongest imaginable, at least here in northern Illinois. Instead of the eight or nine inches predicted, we got about four. Instead of the high winds predicted, we got almost no wind. Other parts of the country were slapped much harder, and it delayed air travel — more than any of us knew going into that day.
Both Lilly and Jim, from Seattle and from San Antonio, respectively, were scheduled to arrive the afternoon of the 22nd. As the afternoon unfolded, Lilly’s flight (on Alaska) was cancelled but she managed to get on a later flight, which was delayed repeatedly. Jim’s flight (on Southwest) was also delayed repeatedly, and eventually re-routed to Nashville instead (I think) of Dallas.
Well into the evening, their flights continued to be delayed, but not cancelled, without a specific landing time. Complicating matters was that Lilly’s flight was due into O’Hare, while Jim’s was scheduled for Midway. Eventually, Lilly’s flight left Seattle, so we had a definite arrival time for her, about 12:30 in the morning. Jim’s flight hadn’t left, but was also scheduled for around then. Someone would have to wait at the airport if that really happened.
Since Lilly’s time was more definite, we – Ann and I – headed for O’Hare at around 11:30. I was glad Ann came along, to help keep me alert on the cold but not entirely empty roads marked by occasional patches unplowed slush. The roads are never quite empty anyway. Back in January 2019, on the day it hit 24 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, I saw cars traveling on the major road barely visible from our back door.
When we left for O’Hare, the snow had mostly stopped, and temps were falling. That part of the forecasts was correct: near zero F. that morning.
Lilly arrived more-or-less at 12:30 a.m., December 23, at O’Hare. Jim’s flight was delayed again to an hour or so later, so that seemed to work in our favor. One thing that didn’t arrive with Lilly was her luggage, so she spent time filling out the paperwork involved. The bag showed up surprisingly early at our front door, around noon on the 23rd, or the same day.
We arrived well toward 2 a.m. at Midway, and — as Lilly and Ann waited in the idling car at the arrival lanes — I popped in for a look at the boards, since Jim wasn’t answering his phone, and searching for that info using a phone is a pain in the ass for this old man.
I’d say that Midway’s baggage claim area bustled with people that morning, but mostly it was a slow-motion bustle, with people sitting where they could, standing where they could not sit, and mostly waiting either for bags or in the hope of a flight somewhere.
Whenever there are major weather delays, TV news always shows the mass cancellations on the boards at airports. Row after row of CANCELLED next to flight numbers. That’s what I saw. I was too tired to take in much detail, but most of the affected flights were Southwest, since it is the major carrier at Midway. Jim’s flight wasn’t among the duds, but it did have a new arrival time: just short of 3:30 a.m.
Not enough time to drive home and back. Too much time to idle around the airport arrival lane. A 24-hour McDonald’s, not too many blocks south of the airport, provided a wee-hour meal, and its parking lot a place to eat it and otherwise wait. Only the drive-through was open at that moment. Visible within the window, bright lights and a collection of young, grim faces. Who can blame them?
Jim arrived, his bags not delayed, and we made it home by about 5. Seldom have I been so glad to start some time off and have a pleasant few days in a row, beginning when I got up around 11. Compared with stranded travelers, or the storm victims in Buffalo and elsewhere, our experience was only annoying, not traumatic.
Even so, when you participate in a national event, the urge is to put down some details. By Christmas, the nation was wondering, What’s up, Southwest? The storm is over. We were wondering too, since Southwest’s recovery, or failure to do so, would affect our plans.
After some fretting because the same Alaska flight as hers was canceled the day before (Christmas Day), Lilly made it home only a few hours delayed on Boxing Day.
The next day, the 27th, Jim’s flights seemed to be on the schedule, so we left for Midway after breakfast. The online check in system at Southwest didn’t work, however, which made me a little suspicious. My instincts were right. At the airport, we found that his flight was canceled.
Partly canceled. The Chicago-Dallas leg was fine. It was Dallas-San Antonio that had vanished into the scheduling ether. So Jim flew to Dallas, stayed with our brother Jay until the next day, when he caught a bus to Austin. From there, my nephew Dees gave him a ride to San Antonio. There it took him a while to find his car in the airport parking facilities (they must be larger than I remember).
All that represented some aggravating moments at airports. But surely we’d be able to forget it in Tucson and environs, where Yuriko and I planned to travel from the December 28 to January 1. We’d booked a package earlier, when it was clear we’d have the week between Christmas and New Year’s off. A package we’d arranged with Southwest.
So no. The Southwest FUBAR dragged on well beyond the foul weather, as everyone nationwide soon found out. For us, both legs to Tucson, Chicago-Denver and Denver-Tucson, were canceled. After spending time fruitlessly on the 27th with what I now think was a Southwest chatbot — but not billed as such — I did speak with a human being that afternoon, who look me through the steps in cancelling the air tickets, accommodations and rental car.
All that’s in the process of a refund, I understand. And, as I said, we got off fairly easy. But I can’t help feeling Southwest owes me, and the rest of the affected traveling public, more than a mere refund.
Christmas morning, 2022, before we opened any presents.
This year’s tree cost as much as last year’s, mainly because it’s shorter than most with a goofy bend atop, and while its trunk begins straight and true, it then detours in an odd direction, giving the tree a tilt usually associated with an impending fall. The stuff of Christmas movie comedies.
Also the stuff of actual falling Christmas trees, in the days when our tree was placed in a bucket weighed down with bricks and then filled with gravel. Stability not guaranteed. At some happy moment in the early ’70s, we acquired a tree-legged tree stand with three screws to secure the trunk, and it worked like a holiday dream. None of our trees ever fell after that.
I wax nostalgic for Christmases of yore, of course. Who doesn’t at least a little? But if I live long enough to be nostalgic about Christmas 2022, I’ll probably take a pass.
Not because of any family strife or other stereotypical situations. Yuriko and I welcomed both of our children home. It’s rare now to have us all in the same room, and a treasure when we do.
Bonus: my brother Jim came as well. I’m not sure why I made his picture at a Batman villain angle, but I did.
Once Christmas Day finally arrived, we had a pleasant time, sitting down to open presents, doing a zoom with more distant family members, and later convening at the table for Christmas dinner.
Some of the days before and after Christmas were a mite stressful, however, because of the great Southwest Airlines FUBAR. Media outlets are missing something by not applying that term to the situation, since it sums it up so nicely.
One more thing about Christmas. A few days ago, I happened on a posting by a fellow who devised a way to track the Christmas songs that a local (Chicago area) radio station plays. During the rest of the year, the station plays “light” music, but come early November sometime it becomes “Christmas FM.”
What did he find? The station played all of 187 different tracks, representing only 101 different songs during its run this year as a Christmas station. Out of a universe of what — thousands or tens of thousands of Christmas and holiday songs? — the station plays only about 100.
Mr. Program Director, how about expanding your list next by at least a few hundred more?
The program director would have deaf ears for such a request. He knows the radio biz, I do not. He has studies. He has focus groups. Or maybe he isn’t a he or a she, but an algorithm. Whatever the case, repetition is king. All I know is that FM radio used to be about variety, and used to be more interesting, and yet somehow made money.
As expected, full winter is here. Not much more to say about that till a blizzard comes. We’re overdue one, at least when it comes to my completely nonscientific feelings on the matter. Not that I want one, just that it’s been a while, and the Old Man might want to let us have it this year.
Christmas lights are up around the neighborhood and beyond. Have been, mostly since last week. So are ours, but I don’t light them. Soon. I haven’t even gotten around to replacing the white overhead front door light with a green bulb. Soon.
We visited the Elk Grove Village lights recently, which includes a glowing ball you can walk into. 
How could I not open an email with a subject line like this?
SAVE at our annual Holiday Open House! Details inside
Easy not to open, actually, and usually I wouldn’t, but since I did know the sender — a dermatologist we’ve visited — I took a look:
Don’t miss our biggest savings of 2022 on skin treatment packages and in-clinic products at our Wheaton/Naperville location. Oh, what fun!
Oh, what fun? Like riding in a one-horse open sleigh?
Ridding the house of excess paper is an ongoing task. Digital age, my foot. Today I found a form letter, undated, from the Schleswig-Holstein Park District. The head:
PARENTAL GUIDELINES
Followed by a lot of verbiage, but I didn’t need to read any more. Those days are over. Out to the blue bin with it.
Before I tossed, in the same blue bin, one of those cardboard triangles that Toblerone comes in, I noticed that the brand is owned by Mondelēz International, complete with macron. Wait, isn’t that the name of the president of France? How is it that the Fifth Republic has a diacritical mark as its supreme magistrate?
Never mind. When did the essential Swiss triangle chocolate fall under the sway of Mondelēz? Back in 1990, when predecessor Kraft bought Toblerone. Shows you what I know. Then again, that would account for Toblerone’s wider appearance in North America since about 1990. Back in the 1980s, the chocolate wasn’t just Swiss made, that’s where you found most of it.
Despite its Euro-sounding name — Iberian-sounding — Mondelēz is actually headquartered in the far-off, exotic city of Chicago.
