I wish I had some gum...

Boy. Who would have ever thought that gum and beer could buy so much beautiful land! I took a drive up to Lake Geneva today to tour the Lake and in particular Black Point Estate. My SpecialFX friends and I lucked out. The day was a perfect example of Fall. Beautiful blue skies with a few fluffy clouds floating overhead made the Lake look even prettier than it already is. This is the time of year to go to a place like Lake Geneva. A few weeks earlier and it would have been a crowded tourist trap. But this time of the year, the waitresses are glad to see you walk into the restaurant, the guides are happy to give you the full guided tour and the docents at the historic homes like Black Point are generous with their time and knowledge. Geneva Lake and Lake Geneva, the town and lake respectively, are the summer home to some very successful people from the Chicago area.  The Wrigley Family have several homes on the Lake, just to name one famous family.  People have spent millions of dollars on lovely 'summer' homes.  Not as lavish as places like Newport or the Cape, but certainly the Lake is truly a lovely place to vacation. And one of the most impressive homes on the lake is a victorian estate called Black Point.

Black Point is a home of unusual distinction. It is a survivor of a by-gone era. In some ways, the whole town of Geneva is a throw back to another time. It is a reminder of what vast wealth and the good old American dream can buy you. The Black Point home was a family home. It was built by German immigrants who made large sums of money brewing beer. The American Dream come true. The brewery in Chicago no longer exists, neither does the family home in Chicago along Lake Michigan. Both are long gone. But the 'vacation' house still looms over Lake Geneva. The house was donated to the State of Wisconsin by the surviving members of the Conrad Seipp family.  The family had owned the estate and used it as a summer escape since it was built on the South Shore of Lake Geneva in 1888.  Unfortunately for Conrad, he didn't really get to enjoy the house. He died shortly after the house was finished.

The house sits on the highest point over looking the lake and has been the site of many a weekend romp.  Now if you can climb the more than 100 steep steps, you too can get an idea of what the rich and somewhat famous of the Midwest used to enjoy on a hot August weekend.  The house has not changed much over the years. It is filled with mismatched victorian furniture. In my opinion, it could use a decorator. It is a bit dark and doesn't really seem particularly comfortable.  But with a good glass of beer and the right company, it could be a lot of fun.

For me the most enjoyable part of seeing the house was the boat ride to the house.  A young teacher gave a very nice guided tour of the lake. The weather was perfect and I was with friends who are easy to travel with. This is not something that is always true about friends as I am sure many of you know. That is the best part of any field trip. Throughout life we have friends that we play with, friends that we shop with, friends that we dine with, friends that we laugh with and friends that we cry with. We have friends that we share memories and stories with if we are truly blessed.  I value my friends.  They are a necessary part of a full life.  You can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends. I think I am really lucky to have some wonderful friends.  And I am even more lucky to say that many of my friends are flexible enough to go at the drop of a hat. By the time you reach middle age, the reality hits hard that if you are going to do something, there is no time like the present to do it when someplace interesting or new comes along.  So to all of you friends out there, pick a new place and lets get going.

Travelling with the SpecialFX

Tomorrow I am off on another adventure with my SpecialFX Tour Group. We are off to Wisconsin for the day to explore the back roads, catch a little color, ride a boat in hopefully not too gusty winds on Lake Geneva and tour a true Victorian Mansion. I hope my feet will get me up the 100 steps from the boat to the house!

Nothing like a road trip with friends!

More tomorrow.

A bit of balance goes a long way

It is always a lot of fun to see an artists' work in person. Books are wonderful. Film is great, but nothing does an artists work justice like the opportunity to see it in person. I ventured into Chicago on the El to see the new Calder Show at the MCA with some friends. It was a beautiful late Summer day. The weather was perfect - 70's, the sky was blue, the El wasn't crowded and my friends are a fun loving group. A good start to the day. We arrived at the MCA on a Friday morning. I like the MCA. It isn't a large museum. It doesn't wear you out physically and sensually when you go there. You can see everything and then sit and have a latte on the terrace and feel good about the visit. Some museums are so large and the collections so diverse that I often feel over-stimulated and exhausted after a visit. But the MCA is not one of those museums.

I don't have a degree in art. But I have always loved art. And I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to have seen a lot of it. I have read a lot about art. And I have three daughters who are full or part-time artists who have taught me a great deal about different art periods and movements in art. I have to admit that I am a contemporary art lover. I never get tired of seeing and learning more about this type of art. I find it so very interesting and thought provoking. I don't really think of Calder as a contemporary artist. I did enjoy the show. I love the seeming simplicity of his work. The cleanness and balance. I was sorry that there wasn't a very slight breeze in the museum to set the work in motion. I tried blowing up at a few of the small pieces and got a dirty look from the guard and stopped. But what fun is it to see a mobile just hanging with absolutely no movement. Just a study in balance. It was interesting to think about when Calder was making some of his pieces. Especially when he was sculpting during WW2 and did not have access to sheet metal. He had to be green and use a lot of reclaimed materials. The bronzes and wooden pieces that he created during that time period have a very interesting feel to them. There was a small bronze piece on display that was very interesting to me. I wasn't certain whether it was actually all one piece or was a work of balance. The signage didn't say. But if it was a work of balance, wow!

In conjuction with the Calder is a show of 7 Contemporary Artists who were influenced by Calder. The show is called Form, Balance, Joy and features works by Jason Middlebrook, Martin Boyce, Nathan Carter, Abraham Cruzvilligas, Aaron Curry, Jason Meadows, and Kristi Lippire. This show was well worth seeing.

The MCA has a show with Redmoon Theater called The Astronaut's Birthday. It looks very interesting. It is interactive comic art that is being projected on giant screens and viewed through the museums windows to an outdoor viewing audience. The short video that they had describing the show made me really want to see it. But unfortunately, it is only being shown on weekends and only at night in September Not possible right now, but worth watching for if you have the time and are down town this weekend or next.

I spent the rest of the day with my friends exploring Michigan Avenue. We saw a great street performer who looked like a modern day tin man - silver duct tape and silver body makeup. Really funny to watch. And then shopping. Shoes seems to be a universal attraction for most women and we saw some beautiful examples. And chocolate. We made our way to the Hershey Store before hitting the El to come home. They have a dark double chocolate cookie that is very worthwhile. No free samples like Hershey PA though. Too bad!

All in all a fun day. My friends are so easy going and fun. A good group of women from diverse backgrounds who like to do new things. We all agreed that more adventures are on the horizon.

Bella Italia - shopping in my mothers shoes.

My mother told me that I would love Italy when I was 18. Did I listen to her then? Of course not. Who believes their mother knows anything when you are 18! My mother went to Italy for the first time the summer that I was leaving for college and came back raving about the city of Rome, the beautiful churches, the fantastic shopping - something that my mother held a master's degree in- the lovely people, the shear joy of exploring new territories etc. That was my mother's first major worldwide trip. She ended up seeing more than 90 countries in her lifetime. And loved all of them. She started thinking about travel at her own grandmother's knee while reading the National Geographic.

I have inherited her love of both travel and shopping. I know that I have instilled a love of some of these adventures on my own children. It is amazing to me the influence that our parents have on us. Even when we sometimes try our best to be nothing like them, we/they seem to be there in funny little ways that we don't even think about. For instance, I was looking at pictures that my daughter took of my in Venice. I was standing in St. Mark's Square, smiling, with my hands in front of me at the waist, exactly like so many photos I have of my own mother at roughly the same age and we are even wearing almost the same jewelry. Certainly not done consciously, but there is her subtle influence. There is another photo taken at dinner in Padua and I noticed it because I have a photo next to my desk of my mother, which was taken in China during the late 1970's, and we are both holding our eating utensils in exactly the same way! I wonder if one of my own daughters will discover a photo years from now, with something similar and if they will recognize the similarities. I wonder what their reaction will be - pleasantly surprised or a little dismayed that they are turning into their Mother!

I found myself thinking a lot about both of my parents when I was travelling. Part of it was because I was lighting candles for them in every church that we visited -and we were in a lot of churches during our short stay in Europe. We averaged at least two a day in Italy. But the other reason for thinking about my Mother in particular were all of her stories of her wonderful adventures. I found myself wondering as Katie and I toured Rome if my mother had shopped along the same streets? I know that we visited many of the same sights and it made me smile to think that I was walking in her footsteps. Maybe an angel named Sara guided us to that shop with the beautiful gloves in so many lovely colors? I was sorry that I didn't have the chance to see these sights with her, but so grateful that I was able to share them with my own daughter.

Oh, to be enjoying Seattle on a clear dry day! or Go West Young Man, but be sure to bring your umbrella.

I have visited quite a lot of states in this great country of ours. I have been to all of the original 13 colonies, all of the deep south, midwest and southwest. But I had never been to the great Northwest until a few weeks ago. Last year when I was visiting Boston, I had a chance to get bumped for a later flight and a free ticket to anyplace in the continental US. I jumped at the chance. I spent a lot of time trying to decide where to go with the ticket. My daughter had moved from the East Coast to the Midwest, so that trip was out. I thought about going to the Keys - I've never seen those cats that haunted Hemingway-but then came the hurricanes and oil spills. I settled on a visit to the Northwest Coast. Years ago I had worked on a Northwest Coast project at the FIeld Museum and so I had read a little about the history, but had never actually been there. So I decided to Go West Young Man! or Go West, Middle-aged Woman! It also happened that one of my daughters was going to be in Portland for a conference, so we agreed to meet in Portland and do a little exploring. Portland was a little like going back in time. Young, long haired, backpacking hipsters everywhere. It had that 70's feel in some areas. I also couldn't help but think DOH! with all of the Simpson's reference points everywhere you looked. And then being a person who works in a library, there were lots of those monuments in that area - now I know what Multnomah Falls is and I understand the charisma of Powells Book Store. I also understand a little better about the line of clothes that Columbia designs and sells. You definitely need a nice raincoat when you walk up the hill in Portland to go and smell the roses.

There is beautiful scenery in Oregon and Washington. Those mountains are everywhere and certainly impressive to someone who resides in the flat Midwest. But can anyone explain to me why you can't find a really cute raincoat in an area where it is raining all of the time? I had expected with all of the young, smart, creative people living in the Portland and Seattle areas that I would find really cute rain gear - but alas, no. We found the basic Columbia and Northface that is available everywhere and is very functional, but not really very exciting. Young clothing designers, there is a niche market waiting for you here!

I do have to say that the area is certainly filled with wonderful coffee. With all of the rain, and gloomy days that sometimes go with rain, coffee is a must. We managed to drink some wonderful brew that doesn't happen to be on every corner of the U.S. Coffee that didn't taste like the beans had been burned. A favorite was Stumptown Coffee. Really flavorful - it actually tasted the way as good as it smelled! I had some good fish in Portland, but I have to say that the some of the cooks in the little diners in New England could teach the waterfront cooks in Seattle a thing or two about how to fix a really good, cheap, fresh fish sandwich.

I do envy the Seattle residents their wonderful markets. Such good looking produce and some of the most BEAUTIFUL flowers - I would buy them every day if I lived in Seattle. And if you stroll down the road a bit you can view a really nice scupture garden without charge. Bravo to you lovers of the arts for making them accessible to the public.

If you are looking for some new and interesting terrain to explore, this part of the country certainly has a lot to offer. So grab your raincoat, put on your walking shoes, have a nice cup of joe and go and explore the great Northwest!

Miracles in March

Many miraculous things happened in the month of March. Little Butler made it to March Madness and almost took the cake. We survived the winter and welcomed spring in a big way. One of my co-workers had a beautiful baby boy who is the apple of the departments eye. I met a cousin who I am really happy to know. And I tried something really unusual and fun. It is something really amazing and it has a long latin name - Synsepalum dulcifucum - better known as the Miracle Fruit.

This fruit or berry has the ability to turn the taste of sour things into sweet things. The quote that I have heard repeatedly when someone talks about the miracle fruit is "turning lemons into lemonade". And I can attest to the fact that this most certainly does happen. The fruit contains an active glycoprotein molecule, with some trailing carbohydrate chains, called miraculum. (Can you tell I work in a library?) When the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongues'taste buds, causing sour foods to taste sweet. For a more complete explanation of the scientific workings of the plant, you can find it in wikipedia. The fruit can be purchased in a few different ways. Fresh or freeze dried. I tried the freeze dried version in the form of a tablet. I was with a group of friends when I did the taste test for miracle fruit. We placed a very small part of a tablet in our mouths and waited for a short time while the tablet dissolved. We then sampled several different types of foods to see what the difference was in taste. Kind of like being back in the 7th grade and doing a science fair experiment. (I haven't done my poster yet - when is it due?)


This is a lot of fun to try and I would recommend getting together with some good friends and doing a taste test for yourself. The best part of the taste test was being around people that are full of interesting ideas and not afraid to have some fun. Now if we could only find something that would make all of the sour parts of life turn into sweetness wouldn't that be great! I guess that is what the good friends are all about. They help turn the sour bites into sweet memories.

February I am glad you are a short month!

February was not the easiest month to go and explore new things. We had snow and cold and it kept me closer to home than I would have liked. Not that being home isn't a fun place to be, but in terms of exploring it didn't leave a lot of new options. I did manage to try a few new recipes. One of my favorites was a simple stir fry with baby bok choy. It always amazes me how many wonderful tastes you can get from mixing garlic, onions, herbs and a few green things. I really like this type of simple food. Very clean and green.

Along with this way of thinking, I did discover a series on PBS called Cultivating Life. They did a program on growing microgreens. Microgreens are the sprouts of things like lettuce, and other green leafy veggies and they are full of both flavor and nutrients. If you have never tried them be warned - the flavors are wonderfully intense because the plants are just babies. I am starting some and I can't wait for Spring and for the Greens!

I did manage to venture out in all of the bad weather and go to the new wing of the Art Institute of Chicago - the Modern Wing. It is a beautiful space and you have to envy their collection of modern and contemporary art. The space is very clean and filled with light. Even on a gray February day, the rooms felt bright and airy. I also had the pleasure of seeing my daughter Katie Hargrave and her friend Amber Ginsberg's show at the School of the Art Institute Betty Rymer Gallery. It was a show exploring who Betty Rymer was. Very interesting. And very tasty. I didn't realize the stigma that diseases like diabetes carried with them. You can learn more about this show at http://www.bettyrymer.com/.