ChgoRed, Girl Editor

Garden Fresh

So I did the garden thing this weekend. And it was really cool. Possibly because it was 50 degrees and I was wearing shorts.

The actual doing was cool, too. Everyone was welcoming, and they were happy to show me the ropes once I explained that I knew almost nothing but wanted to help. They didn’t even make me carry manure.

Instead, I weeded a whole row of snow peas. (Weeding at this time of year is really hard, because everything is small and has two or three leaves--i.e., the weeds and the good plants look an awful lot alike.) I also planted dragon carrots (they’re red), planted more peas, helped tie down some raspberry canes, and weeded the garlic patch (much easier as the garlic plants are already good size).

My hands and knees got all muddy, my back got a workout, and like I said, I was freezing. But I enjoyed it. I got outside, met some people, forced myself out of my comfort zone, and got a little exercise.

Then I went home and took a very decadent looong hot shower.

I’m planning to go back next weekend. I want to see how the peas are coming.

Think About Anything Else

This time last week I was in Charleston, trying to help make my mom's life workable again.  I want to blog about it.  I should blog about it, if only as therapy.  But my brain is not ready yet.  Instead, it's trying the "Think About Other Stuff And Maybe a Resolution or Closure or Something Will Just Magically Appear" plan. 

It's a really crappy plan; I don't recommend it. 

Among the Other Stuff busying my brain...

— This recipe for harissa-marinated chicken with red grapefruit salad. My gosh this sounds good. Why have I not made this yet?

— Saturday morning, when I'm scheduled to start volunteering with Gingko Gardens, a community garden here in Chicago.  They are happy to have me join in even though I don't know anyone there and don't have much gardening experience.  I hope I don't dig up anything valuable.  Or poisonous.

They make the newbies carry manure, don't they?

— Puppy Cuteness Cage Match: Buster the Papillon versus Teddy the Welsh Corgi.  Oh the big ears, oh the cuteness. It is too much for my system.  I need a nap.  With puppies.

— On the bus ride home Wednesday night, I think I rode through the filming of a commercial.

As we pulled up an intersection, I saw some movie/lighting trucks, which are always a dead giveaway. On the left corner were a group of people wearing box-type costumes that looked like giant lottery tickets (you could see their heads, arms and legs). There were also a bunch of people on either corner, standing around with walkie-talkies (another giveaway). Just before we pulled up someone gave a signal and the lottery ticket people started running slow-motion style toward the corner. Then we got a green light and all the cars and bus started to move through the intersection. The lottery tickets couldn't cross the street (because of the cars), so they kept running in place, but in slow-motion. I think we interrupted their shot.  It was so weird to have a bunch of lottery tickets standing on the corner waving at me.  Like a dream sequence.

— Stamps.  I could make my own rubber stamps!  Because my collection of Half-Finished Craft Projects could always be bigger.

— These sandals, which have captured my attention somehow even though I am not at all a Sandal Girl.  I'm a Tennis Shoes All Summer Girl.  This will take some adjusting.  I'm pretty sure that if I wear them with a skirt, I'm required to check in to the nearest grocery co-op to complete my assimilation.  They are Tevas, after all.

Restoration

This weekend, we caught a break.

We all needed it.  My mom had another difficult week.  The leg is healing well, but all that forced inactivity led to pneumonia.  On Tuesday she stopped breathing and was rushed to ICU.  She spent four days there, but is now out of ICU and in a “step-down” room, something between ICU and a regular room.

Lest you get too worried, here is my mom’s description of the events: “I kinda blacked out a little for a minute, and everyone was running around all crazy, trying to get me to breathe.  I guess God spit me back out or something.”  You must admit—it’s certainly a fresh take on a near-death experience.

She’s doing a little better now.  The pneumonia seems to be on its way out, and her surgeon thinks she’s going to be strong enough to go directly to rehab, rather than a nursing facility first.  (The final decision is still pending.)

So we got a small break in the clouds.  And because I didn’t have to focus quite so much on There, I could actually spend some energy on Here, on home. 

Sadly, the Rev had to work both days.  So, Saturday morning I walked him to the train, then went to Dominick’s and bought myself two big bunches of flowers (pink spray carnations; burgundy alstromeria).  The walk home was like some crazy advertisement for “Spring! The Musical!”  It was the whole package—squirrels, people on bikes, strolling couples, crocuses poking up through the ground, soft breezes…  I came home, arranged flowers, and opened up a bunch of windows.  Then I squandered three hours on a silly craft project that still isn’t done.  Really, it was sublime. 

That night, dinner plans with friends got canceled, so we made dinner plans of our own.  They never tell you how cool it can be to date your own husband, how nice it is to walk to dinner together on a spring evening.  But it is.

Sunday, I cleaned.  Yes, there is a definite symbolic aspect to removing reminders of the past three weeks.  But it also just felt really good to clear out a bunch of crap—junk mail, old receipts, massed armies of dust bunnies—to get all of it into the trash and away. 

All this cleaning is making it harder to turn down an idea I really want to make happen.  I want to have a party.  This winter has been such a grind for us, and for our friends.  I want a hat party.  The kind of party that says, “Yes, we got through all that garbage.  We survived five months of bulky sweaters, salt-stained boots, and unflattering coats, and now we shall wear ridiculously oversized girly hats in candy colors.”  The kind of party with jazz music, iced cakes and fizzy drinks.

Maybe not this month, and maybe not this year, but next year, definitely.

The Return of Frank XYZ

If you've been here a while, you might remember this posting, the one where I may have stumbled on a hidden family scandal (and the follow-up). Since then, life has gotten in the way. There was a wedding, some cardy business, the finding of a whole new family branch, and various other time-consuming activities.

I had a relapse of genealogy fever last fall, and (after much hesitation) finally bought a one-year subscription to Ancestry.com. I'd had my doubts, since most of the records you can find there are public--what you’re really paying for is the engine that combs many, many linked databases.

I can now attest: This is so much cooler than it I expected. If you've ever researched anything using books and microfilm, this is like crack.  I've spent so much time there that my husband doesn't even call it by its name anymore—it's just "That Web Site..." As in, “Are you on That Web Site again?”

I’m not the most directed researcher. Mostly, I’ll pick a name from the family tree and just start digging...and I have found a lot. So where better to start digging up Frank XYZ? Maybe I’d sort this whole mess out. I mean, XYZ is such a rare name. If I could find anything, it would be my guy, right?

The mess is not yet sorted. In fact, it’s…well, it IS a mess. And it’s getting more complicated. So far, I’ve found 10 different documents referencing various Frank XYZs. Ten!

Between them they have three variations on the last name and five different professions. Making it more fun, they were all born within the same 10-year span.  I’ve actually had to create a spreadsheet and give them nicknames, just to tell them apart. I can see that some of the documents are for the same people.  However, there were definitely multiple Franks; it's not like all 10 documents refer to one well-documented guy.  Two of the references are death certificates: Hotel Scandal Frank, who died in 1914, and Ottawa Frank, who died in Ottawa, IL in 1918.

In other words, there were at least two guys with the same rare (OK, maybe not so rare) name, living in the same state within four years of each other.

Thanks a lot, Franks.

(My chart of many Franks: Franks.htm.  I haven't included all the information; just enough to give an idea.  The shadings indicate people who are probably the same person.)

It's Nelson Algren's Birthday

By nights when the yellow salamanders of the EL bend all one way and the cold rain runs with the red-lit rain.
By the way the city's million wires are burdened only by lightest snow;
When chairs are stacked and glasses are turned and arc-lamps all are dimmed.
By days when the wind bangs alley gates ajar and the sun goes by on the wind.
By nights when the moon is an only child above the measured thunder of the cars, you may know Chicago's heart at last."
Nelson Algren, "Chicago: City on the Make"

*****

There is a certain corporate chain bookstore at the corner of State and Washington in Chicago. I was in there last summer to find "The Man With the Golden Arm," by Nelson Algren. It's a big store—big enough to have a good selection of Chicago writers if it wanted to—and it had no Algren at all. In fact, I had to spell "Algren" for the clerk so he could check the computer and verify that they didn’t have any.

This wasn't just maddening because I wanted the book. What made it worse was the history.  That same neighborhood wasn’t always clean enough and nice enough to attract big corporate stores. In fact, for years that corner was part of a strip of seedy theatres, pawnshops and bars. It was exactly the kind of place Algren felt most at home and a corner that the man himself quite probably walked only 30 years before. Yet by 2007, one of the biggest bookstores in Chicago wasn't carrying one of Chicago's most important writers. Hell, they didn't even know how to spell his name.

It was just too much. Now I HAD to buy the book.

I'm so glad I did, because I loved it. I read a lot of books last year, but this was by far the best. "Peyton Place" was a fun read but "Golden Arm" stayed with me like an old dream. It was just so much more than I expected.

Here, let me show you. This paragraph—almost entirely slang—is about guy trying to win a dice game. And yet, it sings.

"He had the touch, and a golden arm. "Hold me up, Arm," he would plead, trying for a fifth pass with the first four still riding, kiss his rosary once for help with the faders sweating it out and zing!--there it was, Little Joe or Phoebe, Big Dick or Eighter from Decatur, double trey the hard way and dice be nice--when you got a hunch bet a bunch--bet a dollar and then holler--make me five to keep me alive--it don't mean a thing if it don't cross that string--tell 'em where you got it and how easy it was."

Happy Birthday, Mr. A.