Beautiful green

Chicago River: after
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

Well, the Chicago River looked beautiful the one and only time I went to see it dyed green, in 2009. Can't remember if I posted this photo or not. I missed it this year due to watching what turned out to be a heartbreaking Blackhawks game on Saturday, but the weather was so lousy I probably wouldn't have bothered to go downtown anyway.

I do remember that I meant to do a photoessay here on the South Side Irish Parade. 2009 was the second time I attended; I brought a friend along. It wound up being the last year of the parade, so now I've got to post more of those shots on my Flickr, for historical value. I'll post it here, too.

and this is another one of those photos

mysterious animals
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

...that I liked much more than everyone else. I'm finally posting shots on Flickr from my last visit to Iowa, August 2009. I posted them to get photos with blue skies up again (yes, not in this photo, I know, but most of my trip was sunny), since it's been so white and cloudy everywhere I've been in the Midwest in 2010.

Ironically, the sun is out today, but I'm wasting time with the NHL trade deadline on Twitter. Where, after a hockey player named Scott Walker got traded, I posted lyrics from a great song by Scott Walker the musician, "Little Things (That Keep Us Together)" and no one got the reference. I really expected some crossover. Or that one of my non-sports-fan followers would get it.

Wow, it's been three weeks since I wrote here? Apologies for missing the entire Olympics. I'm still catching up with them on my sports blog.

inaccurate business names of Buffalo, NY

Just Pizza, Buffalo, NY
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

"Just Pizza," huh? I think our language needs a word indicating "things that I find hilarious (or in this case, moderately funny) but no one else seems to." I face this often on Flickr, or elsewhere. Though, the person I was with when I took this also was moderately amused, at least.

I wondered on Twitter today if there's a word for "celebrities you weren't aware of until their deaths became a Twitter trending topic." For me, recently, Captain Phil Harris, and Casey Johnson. Not that I want to have more silly Twitter words--I can barely stand saying "tweets" (but have realized it's easier than saying Twitter posts or updates).

I agree with this booklet

Cooking is Fun
Originally uploaded by mod as hell

Didn't mean to have that previous post be at the top of the page for so long. Oh well. Tonight I finally got the rest of this 16-page recipe booklet from 1955 (1961 reprint) posted on Flickr (the full set is here). It's from the National Dairy Council out of Chicago...and does seem to have a lot of dairy in the recipes, now that I think about it. Adorable front and back cover, lots of basic kitchen tips, many decent recipes and some terrifying ones, as is standard for this era. (Well, prunes aren't bad per se, but "Prune Whip with Ice Cream?" For kids?)

I've made soup from scratch several times this year already and I'm quite happy about this. It's easy and it makes meals for days. Going to Soup and Bread nights at the Hideout in Chicago (okay, only been to one so far) has inspired me even more in soup-making.

Ugh, so much to catch up on. I might be inside a lot the next couple days blogging, what with the weather, and waiting to buy a CTA pass. This weekend is the last weekend (in over 20 years!) that Metra passes will be $5 (going up to $7, still probably the best transit bargain in the U.S.) so I need to make it out at least on Sunday...

it happens every winter

As I agonize over what to post next (all those end of year/new year posts seem more pointless by the day, but I still want to do them) I should take a hint from my sports blog (a little chippy) and just post something every day or so. I've been to Boston & Providence, Columbus, and Indianapolis since that last post (hey, four state capitals--that was unintentional) so...well, that's kind of an excuse. Today was dispiriting for various reasons, but this cracked me up, as it never fails to crack me up since last winter when I learned I get a fair number of views on my main Flickr page (katherine of chicago) from links on this forum:

Unfortunately since I'm not a member I can't see which photos it links to, but I'd assume it's the ones of me in a puffy winter coat. Who knew? I have not yet posted any photos of myself in the very cheap reversible brown/pink coat I got this winter (so cheap the zipper already doesn't work)...

welcome...back?

I worry that my year of barely posting has scared away the friends and followers I had--people blogrolling or commenting or "following" on Blogger (I could do that thing where I post the box with their images, but right now the number is so low, compared to the number I'M following, that it's just embarrassing). Of course, people might have other reasons for not being around here. Anyway, if you hadn't noticed (I tried to go a few posts without self-conscious stuff about how much I was or wasn't posting), I've been posting much more lately, enough that I feel I have to post something hours before I go on a trip, so that I won't go a whole week without anything new. I've changed nearly everything about how City of Destiny is designed and organized (it's easier than I'd realized. I think everything seems to run easier on Blogger now). Maybe a longer post about that later. And hopefully by mid-January, my 2009 year in review (of things I did). Welcome back! Feel free to comment, I'm getting tired of various forms of spam here (I guess listing something in your profile means people spam you about it). Why, I've even started/returned to commenting on some of YOUR blogs...

The image was found in the file cabinet of $3 photos at Grayland Station, a transportation collectibles store in Chicago. It's a favorite, and posted to my secondary Flickr account (mod as hell).

one more visit to Standee's

Standee's, Edgewater, Chicago
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago
I'm a little slow in posting about my visit Tuesday. Turns out they're open through this weekend, so I'll be going Saturday around noon, should you be interested/available. It'll be COLD here but I've got to visit one more time before they move (supposedly move--I'm still sad about Filter! though maybe they are opening? see the photo linked on the Flickr photo), probably not bringing the sign along.

edited to add: I meant for this to be an announcement I'd delete later because it's not "good" enough to be the first post of 2010 (but I'd repost the photo), but I'll leave it since I've been slow coming up with another post due to travel plans. That was why I turned comments off--wanted to save them for the "real" post. It's worth clicking on the photo to see the discussion of it on Flickr, if you missed that. Photos from my last two visits on the way...

last holiday-themed post

Maybe. These photos are just too sad for my Flickr account, so here you are. The lousy weather meant I didn't try to go to Iowa for Christmas. Then my family called on Christmas to see if I'd come the next day or later, but by then I'd given up on the idea of going, and besides I'd started coming down with a cold the night before (when I had a nice night out with an out-of-state friend here to visit her family, going out for a big dinner in Chinatown and drinks in an apartment in a former paper factory, I think it was). So I didn't go to my hometown, didn't have family here, and didn't know if it was okay to call friends (some of who turned out to be here, and would have invited me to dinner and to get glogg at Simon's [which was kind of my dream day if I was stuck here] if they'd known I was also in Chicago). But I was too sick, not very sick but sick enough I didn't want to make things worse, that I couldn't have gone out with them anyway. Nor could I go out and have fun seeing what was open in the Thai neighborhood, or ride Metra when hardly anyone was on it, or check out an unguarded abandoned building.

So on Christmas I had a cold, and only went out (because I needed to go somewhere, briefly) to the 24-hour Starbucks at North and Wells (open till 7 pm on Christmas, however). My breakfast was a large venti eggnog latte and lemon pound cake, and I spent a few minutes reading a coffee-table book on the past few decades of the Boston Bruins.

When I got around to dinner, I made some cheap staples (soup and macaroni and cheese) from Family Dollar, but fortunately I had salad ingredients from Treasure Island and a beer from Olde Main in my hometown, so the dinner wasn't too pathetic. Also, in the evening my friend in Boston called and it turned out he hadn't gone home (Albany) for Christmas either because of car trouble, so we had that to talk about, and hockey, lots of talk about hockey (I still don't have a Chicago friend to regularly talk sports with).

Dessert/late-night snack was hot cocoa (Penzey's mint mix) and cookies from another friend. I didn't get to make any cookies this year. What I didn't do for Christmas (cooking, decorating, sending cards, giving or getting gifts), and won't be doing for New Year's (though at least I'm going to the Blackhawks game, the last one I got a ticket for before the prices went absurdly high), would fill volumes. So, I'll try not to think about it too much. It wasn't a terrible day, but I can't believe I did so little. Except listen to the all-Christmas-music lite station incessantly for weeks (as noted previously). And it did switch, right at midnight, to a non-Christmas Tom Petty song.

Next up (what I should have blogged tonight, but I want to get back to that Bruins book so I can technically finish reading it in 2009): the impending closure of Standee's, the 24-hour grill in Edgewater. Which the Chicago media hasn't covered much, maybe because this happened so suddenly? And they're supposed to move across the street, but we'll see...They have amazing stories to tell there. And when I ate there with a friend the other day, the food was the best I'd ever had there. Go figure, I start to like the place right before it closes.

Rust Belt Gingerbread Spectacular 2009!

As good a time as any to explain what photos I post here and which I post on my Flickr pages. (This discussion takes place in the alternate universe where I've actually been posting 2-4 photoblogs a week here, not the real one where I'm so overwhelmed by the 1000+ photos I often take a week that I barely know where to start...) On Flickr I post images "artistic" enough to stand alone, and/or images that document an event or place I think needs to be documented in a way that will allow people to 1) easily search for it on Flickr 2) conveniently comment on it.

But photos that group well together and/or tell a story work well here (may include ones I've posted or will post to Flickr)...and that means I put some here that I don't quite want to "waste" space on Flickr for. Such as, well, a Stanley Cup in gingerbread, as you'll see later. Interesting enough to post, but I'm not putting a gingerbread Stanley Cup on Flickr unless it's one I make myself when--oh, you know when.

The first set of photos was taken in the Tower City shopping center in downtown Cleveland, after 7 a.m. on Sat. Dec. 5, after an overnight ride from Chicago on Megabus, long before the stores opened. Needless to say, this gingerbread display was a tad eerie at that hour.

After a Greyhound ride through Akron and Youngstown, both of which I once again really wished I could explore for real, I was in Pittsburgh, with all afternoon to kill in lousy weather before heading to Mellon Arena. I'd thought of going to the Heinz History Museum, but all the holiday displays downtown were tempting, especially when I saw a huge gingerbread structure exhibit. A lot of it was in window displays across from the ice rink and Christmas tree, while some was indoors with an impressive model train layout running through it.

LOTS of sports...here's PNC Park, where the Pirates play

 

And a Steelers fan

And where the Steelers play

Out of gingerbread, someone made...giant non-gingerbread cookies. Ridiculous? Brilliant?

The window display had a few trains running by

And a gingerbread trolley

And...yes. "Hail to the Chief"

And there's the Stanley Cup! But I didn't see a gingerbread Mellon Arena

But there's PPG Place, where the exhibit was

For comparison...

The Titanic? Wow. Okay, time to see the indoor display...

 "Christmas at McDonald's"

This was pretty nice

PPG Place again, this time more realistic

 

Gingerbread White House, with Santa stuck in the chimney

A diner! And other architecture, beautifully done

Gingerbread trains!

Real trains! Er, real model trains. This one, a streamliner, was my favorite.

ideas for a future Christmas/holiday post

Well, first off, Merry (what's left of) Christmas to those who celebrate. Hope all my readers (spammers who seem to be the only recent commenters here excepted) are having a great holiday season. I finally got back into blogging via my sports blog a little chippy but haven't transferred all that energy over here yet, so I missed out on the pre-Christmas posts I'd wanted, but I can throw a few ideas out here for the future and hope no one outright steals them...

 

First off--has anyone done any real investigation of the popular wisdom that the Christmas season (at least from retailers, radio stations, etc.) "starts earlier every year"? I'm just not buying it. I'm sure it's changed if you go back a generation, but Christmas products in stores soon after Halloween (or often before)--that's been around as long as I can remember. Yet every year people act shocked, SHOCKED, that Christmas stuff shows up well before Thanksgiving. I wrote a paper in 8th grade where I actually spoke to people at Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target and maybe the mall in town (this was in central Iowa). I believe Target said they put out holiday products in September. (Yes, I know that's anecdotal evidence, to put it mildly...) The earliest I saw this year--the Family Dollar store very near me in Chicago started stocking Christmas products the last day of summer. (I was in the same store the day earlier.) But I'm pretty sure I saw it that early as a kid, too. So, I'd love to see a story on "The Myth of 'Christmas Creep.'" I might not be the one to write it, but expect this little rant again next year. (I'm not saying I'm OKAY with stores doing this; I'd prefer seeing much less Christmas stuff, and not till Thanksgiving; I'm just saying I think it's been a problem for a long time, not getting worse all the time.)

The "War Against Christmas?" That's not even worth the space to refute...but, I grew up Christian in an overwhelmingly Christian town saying "Happy Holidays" (or at least sending cards that said that) because I took the phrase to mean "Merry Christmas"/"Happy Hanukkah" AND "Happy New Year" (and I was often a little late with my cards). I don't remember anyone freaking out about it then. Shakesville had a lively piece on the War on the War on Christmas, and an awfully strange reaction to the "war," Deck the Cross.

look, "Happy Holidays" in the title of a 1950s Christmas cookbook! does Fox News know about this?!

On another note...10 Things I Hate About Christmas, at Jezebel, is a reasonable, and entertaining, list, but...there's so much contrarian/curmudgeonly stuff out there about Christmas, I want to be a counter-contrarian (er, possibly not a word) and say: dammit, I LIKE cheesy Christmas music! I've been listening to the lite station since they switched to all-Christmas music, before Thanksgiving. (I wish they didn't end it right at midnight on Christmas; it should at least go another few hours...) I've grown to tolerate or like many of the songs I used to hate ("Santa Baby," even "Wonderful Christmastime," but there's no question that "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is a really disturbing song). And I love eggnog! Or at least Silk soy versions or the regular kind diluted with milk. And I even love fruitcake--or at least our family recipe for it, which is lemony and slightly boozy and delicious. I keep meaning to make it myself someday; I think I bought the lemon extract and candied fruits oh, 5 years or so ago and they're probably still in the pantry. I'll make the family recipe, I'll try to make a vegan version of the family recipe, I'll try a different recipe for comparison, and I'll write a "Fruitcake Isn't that Bad" post. (I'm sure some foodie blogs and magazines have already done stories like that...)

that's "Fluffy Fig Pudding," which may or may not be that bad  

(more holiday cookbooks of decades past from my collection)

More reading: the excellent blog Sociological Images had Fun with the 2009 Target Catalog and looked at Gendered Gifts Galore, as well as Santa's Evil Side Kick, Krampus.  The Sexist reports on a story on different stereotypes of unhappy women at Christmastime.

Now, I'm off to play my "A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector" CD yet again, which, if last year is any indication, I'll be listening to every day well into January...