Tag Archives: Ann

The Graduation-Industrial Complex

Posted on by

A cap and gown catalog for Ann, a senior this year, came today. Except it’s pretty hard to find an actual cap and gown to order in it, assuming there’s even going to be a need for them this year, considering how cluttered the catalog is with other junk — I mean precious mementos to remind you of your high school years.

Was there this much graduation-related stuff on offer when I was a senior back in the benighted late ’70s? I don’t think so. I did get a class ring. It couldn’t have been that expensive, or my mother wouldn’t have paid for it. But now the prices seem a tad excessive for all but the most basic model made out of some cheap alloy you’ve never heard of.

“These are so ugly,” Ann said, flipping through the catalog. “How can something so ugly cost so much?”

How indeed? The two-tone items especially. The ring variety is staggering: standard high school rings (at least what I think of as standard), bands and signets with an array of stones and many possible engravings — you want a religious symbol or an astrological sign or an animal or a sports/hobby/club emblem or a state outline or maybe even your school mascot on it? No worries.

GEMSTONES says one page, offering various options. In smaller letters above that word, “simulated.” Cut glass, in other words. But real gemstones are also available for considerably more.

Rings are only the beginning. You can also get class of ’21 “senior gear” (clothes), necklaces, key rings, lockets, bracelets and nipple rings. No, I added that last one. Maybe that would be special order.

A Sunday Drive + Phishin’

Posted on by

The last day of August? Even this pandemic summer has sped by like an ordinary summer. I’ll post again on September 8.

We were out and about on Sunday, including a drive on I-90 between metro Chicago and Rockford. Here’s the highway as seen from the Belvidere Oasis, looking west.
tollway oasis BelvedereThat is, at a large rest stop on the toll road. They seem to be unique to Illinois.

On the whole, we did a classic Sunday drive — a trip just for the sake of driving, except that it was also driving practice for Ann, who has a learner’s permit these days, and not much experience on highways. We made it as far as Rock Cut State Park near Rockford, then headed back.

As part of our return, we stopped at Gabuttø Burger. Formerly located in Rolling Meadows, the Japanese-style hamburgerie is now in Elgin, near the Randall Road exit on I-90. Not very convenient for us most of the time, but we were in the area.

Eating in was an option, but instead we found a small nearby park with a picnic shelter. Good eating. We are fortunate indeed.
Gabutto BurgerFor some reason while we were out on Sunday, a number of phishers came calling. Our voice mail captured 13 messages. Actually all from the same source saying the same thing: Your X account has been breached…

How thoughtful of them. They provided a phone number to call, and I’m sure for a small fee — what’s that credit card number again? — they’ll be happy to fix a problem with something I don’t even use.

Also, an email (all sic) pretending to be from a major financial services company came on Sunday:

Your account security is our priority.
To validate your account, click here or the validation button below.
The link will expire in 24 hours, so be sure to use it right away.
failure to confirm your record will result in account disabled. Please confirm your records.

Such is life among the digital wonders of the 21st century.

Return of the Zhu-Zhus

Posted on by

“A line of severe storms slammed through downtown Chicago and surrounding areas Monday, downing trees and power lines, which sparked fires in the city, officials said,” CNN reported last night. That, and there was some riotous looting too.

“More than a million homes and businesses in the Midwest are without power, including a third of all of customers in Iowa,” CNN continued. “The wind was so strong when the storm passed through Perry, Iowa, it blew pieces of boards from other buildings into the walls of a house.”

So we lucked out. As I mentioned, the winds were fairly tame in my tiny corner of the world. After such wind and rain as we had had passed yesterday, I went out in the yard to pick up items that moved around a little, such as one of the deck chairs. The sun had returned and I noticed the rain-speckled hibiscus picking up the light.hibiscusToday we opened up a box that has been sitting in our laundry room for a good many years, tucked under a few other boxes. I call it a laundry room, but being home to the washer and dryer is only one of its functions. Crap we don’t want to put partly out in the elements — in the garage, that is — goes there.

On Saturday, since this is a Summer of Nowhere, I spent a fair number of hours in the garage, till the trash bin was mostly full and garage crap had been rearranged somewhat.

Back to the box. Among many other things, it contained five Zhu-Zhu Pets. Mechanical hamsters, since I’m not sure they rise to the level of robot hamsters.

Ann marveled at them. Her 17-year-old self reflected on how important they were to her seven-year-old self. She got her first one for that birthday. Like most toys, they were important until they weren’t.
What amazed me was that the batteries have held out on all of them. They all still move around and make various preprogramed noises.

That’s about 20 seconds of randomly selected Zhu-Zhu Pet sounds, squeaks and whirs coming directly from 2010 to you in 2020.

Thursday Tidbits, Including Doggerel

Posted on by

Usually it’s bad to brag about your ignorance, but there are exceptions. I didn’t know this until recently and I’m not sorry. It’s an example of the ridiculousness I miss by not paying attention to social media memes. That is, by not being one of the callow youth who use social media as the thin straw through which they obtain all their information, a practice that surely stunts their brains.

Speaking of callow youth, when I was a child I thought the prestigious journalism award was the Pulit Surprise. When I typed that out, I laughed at the thought of it. Then again, it might be a surprise to some of the recipients.

As mentioned yesterday, we’re watching more movies than before. Toward the end of March, I discovered an bunch of pre-WWII Universal horror pics on demand, and we watched those first. In order: Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolf Man and The Invisible Man. All first times for Ann, but not me, except I couldn’t remember whether I’d seen The Invisible Man, though I read the book years ago.

Ann said she enjoyed all of them, but The Invisible Man most. The main character wasn’t just a murderous psycho, he was also positively playful while committing less-harmful pranks, she noted, which humanized him a bit.

Since then, our viewing has been less thematic. Along with the aforementioned Groundhog Day, we’ve watched Intolerable Cruelty (a lesser Coen Bros. effort, but not bad), The Terminator, Space Jam and The Death of Stalin.

We also watched an oddity called John Mulaney and the Sack Lunch Bunch, which is as long as a short movie, but more like a TV special, which I believe it was. As a pseudo-kids show, it had many entertaining moments, and on the whole was slightly demented, like Mulaney’s comedy.

Some silly verse I wrote last year. My entire output of verse of any kind for the year. I’d forgotten about it until the other day.

Blake was a flake, and
Shelley ended up in a lake.
Byron was mad, bad and a cheater, while
Coleridge was a lotus-eater.
Wordsworth really liked his abbey, and
Keats’ odes were none too shabby.
In doggerel about poets Romantic,
Best not to wax too pedantic.

See also “The Krystal Cabinet.”

The Next Generation Watches Star Trek

Posted on by

Woke up to a light blanket of snow this morning that slowly melted as the day wore on. Still cold out there. Sheltering in place is better when you can spend time outside comfortably, but the weather doesn’t care about merely human concerns.

Beginning in mid-March, at Ann’s request, we’ve been watching more TV shows and movies together than we usually do. As an old-timer, one of the shows I’ve suggested is the original Star Trek which, remarkably, she’s enjoying a lot, though only two episodes so far.

She likes them, she says, because they’re fun. Many more recent shows are too serious. So I think she’s taking them in the right spirit, which is to say, as entertainment. She also commented that the character dynamic between Kirk and Spock is particularly strong, which of course it is.

The two episodes we’ve watched so far are “Mirror, Mirror” and “Devil in the Dark” (last year sometime, we also watched “The City on the Edge of Forever” and “The Trouble With Tribbles”). They are all particular favorites of mine, so I recommended them. Who doesn’t like Spock with a beard?

As for “Devil in the Dark,” it has a special place in my recollections. It’s a solid episode, but that’s not it. In 1973, a San Antonio station started showing Star Trek in the afternoons, part of the cascade of reruns that kept the franchise alive, though no one would have put it that way then. I was in junior high, the perfect age to start watching Star Trek. The first episode the station aired, for whatever reason — such inattention to correct order would probably outrage fanboys these days — was “Devil in the Dark.”

7 & 17

Posted on by

What’s good about February? Just that we’re shed of January, though winter so far this year hasn’t been that bad. Also, you can sense by now, even if you aren’t paying close attention, that the days are getting longer.

Ann got two confections recently for her 17th birthday. One was a pie. She asked for that, along with the question-mark candle. After all, who knows what comes after any particular birthday?

 

The usual suspects came over to celebrate and help her eat the pie.

The event was on the Saturday ahead of her birthday. On her birthday itself, her mother made her an artful creme-and-fruit cake. The pie was just a fond memory by that time.

This year being 2020 and all, I decided to look at my 2010 photo file to see what I had in the way of birthday pics for that year that I didn’t post at the time. The cake was a little different, I discovered.

So were the usual suspects, though most of them aren’t pictured here.

One thing that hasn’t changed: the essential cluttered nature of our dining table. But what’s a table for, if not to clutter it up?

Christmases Past (No Need for a Ghost to Show Me)

Posted on by

I opened up one of our boxes of physical photo prints the other day, when I moved it from the space that the Christmas tree, bought on Saturday, now occupies. The photos are only partly organized, but even so I found some holiday images from the days before digital photography.

December 1997

The first time we took Lilly out, who appears here in one of those baby-hauling slings. We went to Lincoln Park on an unusually warm December day, including a visit to the conservatory, which had a display of poinsettias.

December 2000

One of the Christmases in the western suburbs.

December 2003

First Christmas in the northwestern suburbs, and first one for Ann.

December 2006

Ann and Lilly with a Santa Claus — maybe the one who used to appear at the office of the Realtor who sold us our house. That’s pretty much a Realtor sort of thing to do for the holidays. By this time, Ann was learning about the jolly old elf; and Lilly had given up on literal Santa, but was game enough to visit with her sister.

Virginia ’19

Posted on by

Some time ago, I noticed that Ann not only had October 14 off — for Columbus Day, that barely there school and post office holiday — but the next day as well, one of those days on which the teachers come to school, but students don’t. According to the way I think, that meant an opportunity to go somewhere.

So on Friday, October 11, Ann and I flew to Richmond, Virginia, returning on the 15th, for what amounted to a U.S. history trip. Fitting for her especially, since she’s in an AP U.S. history class this year. Fitting for me, since the trip included destinations that I’ve wanted to visit for a long time, but never gotten around to.

On Saturday, we spent the day in Richmond — partly downtown, at Capitol Square, where we toured the Jefferson-designed capitol, and at the newly opened American Civil War Museum, which includes part of the ruins of the Tredeger Iron Works, cannon and locomotive maker of the Confederacy.

Navigating downtown Richmond in a car proved to be pain in the ass, with its high volume of traffic, limited parking and numerous one-way streets. Every other street seemed partially blocked by construction, either of buildings or the street itself. Also, the Richmond Folk Festival was that weekend — and a lot of folks showed up for it, crowding the area near the riverfront, where the American Civil War Museum happens to be.

Downtown, as seen from the steep banks of the James River.Downtown Richmond

Despite traffic snarls, Richmond struck me as an interesting city, full of life in the present and echoes of its storied past. A day wasn’t nearly enough, but there were other places we wanted to see in Virginia.

On Sunday, we drove to Charlottesville, with Monticello as the main destination. For Ann, a completely new experience. For me, a second visit. But the first time was in 1988, so I’d forgotten a lot. And some things have changed there.

We also visited the University of Virginia that day, which I didn’t do more than 30 years ago (not sure why not). See one famed Jefferson site, best to see another close by. Closer than I realized: from Monticello you can just see the white dome of the Rotunda, the school’s most famous structure.

On the third day, technically Columbus Day Observed, we drove the other direction from Richmond to Williamsburg. More specifically, Colonial Williamsburg, the open-air museum of large scale and ambition, an odd amalgam of past and present.

There’s a lot to Colonial Williamsburg, including structures and displays and artifacts and craft demonstrations, but also programs by reenactors. The high point of the visit was one such, held at a reconstructed 18th-century tavern and featuring the Marquis de Lafayette and James Armistead Lafayette.

Afterward, they were willing to pose for pictures.
Colonial WilliamsburgOn October 15, we flew home in the afternoon. In the morning, I drove by myself to a place I’ve wanted to visit for years, the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, a stunningly beautiful cemetery perched on a hillside above the James River, populated by numerous historic figures.

After Ann woke up and we checked out of our room, we visited one last spot in Richmond: the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, small but compelling, managing to convey the misery of his life and the legacy of his art.

Ann at 16

Posted on by

After the deep freeze at the end of January, we had some warmer days — above freezing, quite a relief — and more recently just ordinary winter cold. The sort of persistent chill that makes February both the shortest and the longest month.

On Saturday, Ann had friends over for her 16th birthday.

She requested a birthday pie. Chocolate and peanut butter, made by a local grocery store that does fine pies.

Which reminds me of the question — something I’ve wondered about occasionally — why cake? Why not birthday pie? I suppose since cakes don’t need refrigeration, they trumped pies in pre-refrigeration days.

But why cakes at all? Know who I suspect of inventing the custom? Victorians, of course.

I’m not sure how reliable this source is, but it implies that while birthday cake had antecedents in German lands before the 19th century, the Victorian middle class made it the popular custom we know today. Like the Christmas tree.

In fact, birthday celebrations themselves, especially children’s birthdays, became popular in their modern form during the mid-19th century. Can’t say I’m surprised.

Cow Ride at the Mall

Posted on by

Australia Day has come and gone. Oz is reportedly suffering a viciously hot summer this year. Adelaide, a pleasant place in my recollection, seems to be getting hit especially hard.

Meanwhile, here in North America, or at least my part of it, after being a slacker for most of December and part of January, winter is hitting hard. Dead ahead, according to the NWS on Sunday evening:

WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 9 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 PM CST MONDAY… Heavy snow and blowing snow tonight with freezing drizzle and blowing snow likely at times Monday. Snow rates overnight into early morning are likely to reach up to an inch per hour at times. This will result in very low visibilities and rapid snow accumulations into the early morning commute. Total snow accumulations of 3 to 7 inches and ice accumulations of a light glaze expected.

This after subzero temps on Friday, and ahead of temps as low as minus 20 by Tuesday (Fahrenheit, the only scale that’s made for humans). Still, on Saturday things had warmed up to low double-digits, so we were out for a while. The three of us and a friend of Ann’s, on the occasion, not quite precisely, of Ann’s birthday. Nice to get out of the house.

We ate at Gabuttø Burger at Ann’s request. Since I discovered the place at the Mitsuwa food court, the Japanese burgerie has moved into a small strip center on a busy street in Rolling Meadows and seems to be doing well there. We visit a few times a year.

Then to a northwest suburban mall. Not the biggest one, the 2.1 million-square-foot Woodfield, but a smaller one. The one we visited isn’t a dying mall, but it has lost an anchor or two, along with some of its inline stores.

Still, the mall is doing what it can. It now sports a number of places to take children and entertain them, for instance. Not playplaces in the middle of the mall, but small entertainment venues that used to be more conventional retail.

Including a place where you can rent animal-ride scooters for a few minutes. She’s not in the main demographic, but according to Ann, it was a birthday thing to do, so she and her friend spent 10 minutes tooling around the mall.

She picked a cow. Looked like she had a jolly time of it.