I Called Mom

I was driving around Indy and I saw a Cici's Pizza.

Back in 2004 I was driving back and forth to Indy and Bloominton at least once a month for a training program. Mom came with me for many of these trips and she took care of a very tiny Jackson while I attended sessions. On one of these trips we were driving around Indy and we saw a Cici's Pizza. Mom had heard about this place from Aunt Monica so we tried it. We were completely taken off guard when we walked in and the guy said "2?" and when we answered yes he said "that will be $7." We, had not even looked at the menu to decide what we wanted yet. He recognized our confusion, he probably saw it often, and explained that there was one price and it was all you can eat. So we paid and ate. And ate and ate and ate. There were not too many people there and the salad was delicious and the pizza was fresh and hot and the dessert was amazing. These days when we go to Cici's, only at Jackson's request, the salad is wilty and the pizza is pretty bad, but the dessert is still good, hence Jackson's request to go there.

So, anyway, I was still driving in Indy and I saw a Trader Joe's. Now I knew that this was the same Cici's mom and I went to all those years ago because I remember calling Rebecca from the car to ask if she wanted me to stop at Trader Joe's to get them anything. They were, and still are, making regular trips to Chicago just to go to Trader Joe's.

Keep in mind that these memories took only a second to come flooding back and since I was stopped at a light I flipped open my phone to call mom and tell her.

She didn't answer.

I hung up and cried quietly as I continued to drive. Then I hit Keystone and had to pull over to cry harder.

Pitchfork Revisted

And now Lyle's account: http://mypage.iusb.edu/~lzynda/pitchfork08.html

Chicago Day 3

I enjoyed my concert reprieve. I laid in the hotel room soaking up the air conditioning before heaing out to the metro station at around 3pm. I actually ran into a friend on the platform. He was not heading to Pitchfork (he had never even heard of Pitchfork), he was coming home from a trip to Germany, it was just a coincidence that we hit the metro platform at the same time.

Anyway, we had a great time over the last three days. I really enjoy being in crowds, well, loosely in crowds. I like being in crowded places, people watching and being part of the action. I don't like being so close that your sweaty body is touching someone else's sweaty body. I really liked my chair for this because it gave me a natural personal-space zone without touching anyone. Lyle has promised to do an post with pictures and videos of the various bands that played at Pitchfork. I will give you random bullets of things that struck me as interesting.

• Worst pair of shoes. On Friday night this was a tie between some suede, fringed, ankel mocasins and a pair of pink rain boots with hearts all over them. But, then on Saturday the rain boots so totally made sense that the mocasins won hands down.
• Worst tattoo. "May the jaws of death have cotton teeth."
• For some reason when men put on shorts they apparently need many extra pockets. Maybe it is because they are wearing a suit coat with all the secret boy pockets. Anyway, 90% of the male shorts on display were of a "cargo" variety.
• I only need to see the smallest sliver of Lyle to recognize him.

Chicago Day 2

As days for sitting in a park all day watching music go, yesterday was above average. It rained some in the morning and even after we got to the park at around 2pm, but after that it remained overcast and the temperature only got to the mid 70s. Perfect. It was crowded though. Waaaay more crowded than the last time I came to this festival. I remember it as being only about half full during the day and then getting really crowded at night, but yesterday it was jam packed all day long.

For the first few bands we stayed close to the stages, but then we wandered back to get some food and we stayed closer to the back. Well, I stayed back in the back but Lyle walked up to the stages to see the bands he really wanted to see. This is 2 minutes of one of his walks:

About 10 seconds into this video that Lyle took while walking to the front to see Jarvis Cocker you can see the family that we sat behind for a little while. The youngest was 2 1/2. I don't know that I could do that. At about 1 minute in you can see the MUD. Lots and lots of mud. Any breaks in the crowd means that there is mud there otherwise it is wall to wall people.

We will be there again today. Lyle is going at around 2 and I will go later at around 5. Woo hoo!! It is supposed to be much hotter today so that will make it that much harder. I took the day off of work tomorrow so we will probably lounge in our room until check out time. Hopefully I will have time to do my last Chicago post then.

Chicago Day 1

Our Hotel Room (filed under things I hate):

Who would make a bed like this. Giant bed with two tiny pillows. Our first call was to get more pillows.

The TV is humungous, but notice that it is bigger than the closet.

Yes, this is the closet.

And, over here where the closet should be, we have the bathroom.

I wanted to ask for a new room, but Lyle liked being on the same floor as the workout room. The elevators are ungodly slow and since we are only on the fifth floor we thought we would just use the stairs. Wrong! We started down the exit stairs on our floor and we ended up in the kitchen. Apparently they are for emergencies only.

At the concert, on the other hand, there were many things I found useful:

Best free give-away in the history of free give-aways. Not only did it work to cool me off when the breeze was not blowing but it worked blowing smoke away from me too. Why do so many people still smoke.

I just bought this folding chair and I love it. It was much easier to set up and knock down than I imagined and it was waaaay easier to carry than my traditional folding lawn chair. The cup holders (handy for Lyle, not so much for me) were a bonus.

Hi-fi earplugs. OMG this made the whole evening way more enjoyable. It didn't notice much of a difference putting them in, but when I tried to take them out the sound was unbearable. I think that is my ear in actual size. And, damn, I had no idea I had so much gray hair.

He isn't that blurry in real life.

6 Months

Six months is too long. I can't live without Mommy for six months. Except I did.

My friend Cathy sent me this picture recently. It is from my baby shower back in October 2003 and she found it when cleaning out some file. I know she agonized about whether to send it to me or not. I am glad she sent it. Reminding me of mom may make me cry but it is never a bad thing.