A few days in New Orleans

Thurs 8/6- I comfortably arrive to the muggiest place in the USA. My
sweat glands were sweating. I check into the ritz Carlton - elated
and impressed and seek out a toenail polish change. My last job got
smeared working out - grr. Nothin makes a girl feel cheaper than ugly
toes. Feet shod with class I head for happy hour in the fancy hotel
lounge and restaurant - the Melange. Enjoyed a wonderful meal of
redfish and lobster risotto. As well as the bars personally invented
cocktails. Blueberry and Basil muddled w sugar in vodka. Delicious!
Hit "the Library" for a cigar. Got a wondeful recommebdation on a
lovely cigar. Which I smoked, in it's entirety, in the humid inner
courtyard at the Ritz. One really need never leave the place. They
have everything. I has a few older gentleman smokers join me. I was
the only one out there except a few couples intwined in their own
conversations. Film and video convention in town. Lots of polos and
khakis. I was in tattered jeans and a tank top. It screamed rock n
roll. And as we all know, rock n roll is for the young. So I had that
going for me

Fri 8/7 - tried to sleep in but my heart was pounding inside my chest.
It was a cacophony blaring. I hydrated and tried to brush the tobacco
cotton mouth ling my mouth -- to no avail. Got dressed, made hotel
coffee and headed out to explore the big easy!

It was hot. I was dripping sweat within minutes. Pouring. I walked
down the main drag and headed to the grand Mississippi! The river
itself is impressive. Churning barges bustled up and down the
rivetway. It's a true causeway. Had biengets and coffee at the in
famous Cafe Dumond. It was packed. The service was slow. The servers
were exclusively Asian or old women. They patiently waited in line to
get my coffee and fried dough. Onto a 2 hour steamboat ride aboard the
Natchez. Hit Flea market and lower French quarter. Scooped up
interesting gifts for the kids then made my way back to the Ritz using
the riverfront cable car. Checked out Saks, made a potty stop then my
melted self made it back to homebase. Phew! This heat takes a lot
outta you.

Refreshed, made up and ready to go I headed to Frenchman for sushi.
Finally out of the hustle and bustle of downtown! The housing is
tight. Homes are old, old and have gorgeous functional gas lights
burning. It is very charming. Street very quiet. I walked the 1.5
miles back to the hotel and crashed

Sat 8/8

Checkout at noon. I sleep and languish in bed til 10. Hit ihopr at
noon for awesome breakfast. Hopped St Charles cable car to Garden
District. There is a crazy Red Dress race going on it's really a
stroll. Women and men are all wearing red dresses Nd drinking alcohol.
It's hilarious. The race route bisects our path so I've been sitting
here for about 30 min - blogging. Time to get out and walk

Oh yeah. I walked Bourbon and Royal streets. They suck!!! Bourbon is
all strip clubs. It backs up to Royal which is all antiques. I hated
it. Cramped old. Smell of urine and with the looming premonition of a
foreboding con. But I saw it. Now onto the arts. Airport and
alligator claws for the kids

Still gave lots more to see. Such a unique place.

Beck. From iPhone.

Urban Adventure

We took our bikes on the L. Indi took her 2-wheeler and I had Ais in a
seat on my bike. We transferred at Belmont to Red Line on our way to
Wendella - Mag mile and Chi river. We made it w time to spare. A huge
thanks to the indie looking young man who carried my mommy bike all
the way up the subway stairs to daylight. I had indi's and indi was a
good big sis and held Ais's hand

Girls got bored w the 1hr boatride after 30 mins. Pretty good! So
explored the boat and hit the potty at least 4 times. Their fav piece
of architecture on the tour? Navy pier and the bridge houses!

Carefully navigated our way Dow Mag mile to Millenium Park. Tourists!
$&!@

Had lunch on towels after waiting in potty line again (notice a theme?)
Then off to splash with a zillion other squeling-with-delight kids in
the spitting fountains. So far no pervs, drunks or weirdos. Just
those pesky environmental volunteers asking if I gave 2 mins (and $10)
to save the environment. Grr

I'm taking the 145 x bus on our return. Won't have to worry about the
bikes too much- just load them up front. Trying to get all I can out
of everything they are taxing in Chicago these days. I wouldn't be
surprised if they passed a pollution tax-- farting equals fine.

Look for picks on my facebook now.

Beck. From iPhone.

Junkies and Songs and Lessons in Perspective

Living in the city has it's benefits and drawbacks. A benefit and drawback all in one is the close proximity of, well, everything. Sunday was a warm day -I woke up hot and stifled from blazing humidity.

It was a nice day but too hot to be in a church sanctuary. I dropped the kids off at Sunday School and headed across the street for a pick-me-up at Starbucks: my double skim latte. Sweet wakefulness in a paper cup!

Walking back toward church I noticed that Starbuck's outdoor patio was pretty empty as was the one of the restaurant next to it. One thing that is awesome about our church NOT having an air conditioned sanctuary is that they have all the windows open. This means that the community song of the worship service floats and wanders all over the streets of Chicago. I love this effect. I encourage you all to take a break from the sanctuary during worship and have a seat at Starbuck's outdoor cafe. And Listen. Smell the air, view the sites, drink a fav beverage.

While sitting with my cup-of-ambition, I pulled out my sketch pad (which I carry with me everywhere). I drew the parking meter right in front of me, a portion of the patio umbrella. Boring! But good exercise. Then I started working on perspective practice and sketched out the street scene.

While sketching out the street scene I noticed a man coming out of the alley and around to the side of an adjacent apartment building. The man was rail thin, wore a scarf around his head, Lynard-Skynard style, and had tiny red dots all over his arms. This was all from a small distance so the detail wasn't crystal clear. Having been outdoors painting the entire weekend, I thought they could be mosquito bites. I'm such an optimist. Then the city chick in me kicked in and I realized, they had to be track marks. In a rather lovely, but not obnoxious sing-songy voice he was calling up to someone's apartment window. Kind of waking them up (this was about 10:30am - time for the morning hit). He wasn't scarey or loud. He was rather pleasant. Hey, manipulation 101 (or marketing 101, you choose, hehe)

Literally on one side of the street there is a church service in progress. People praising Jesus, quite beautifully, in song. Across the street, is another song being sung.; a junkie waking up a drug dealer. Interesting cosmic perspective to think that maybe (not all people) are singing for the same reasons. To connect with something that makes them feel good. I , personally, think worship songs are praise to God. But I KNOW that people take refuge in singing them. A comfort for weary hearts. It's the intent that matters, right?

Across the alley, on the junkie's side, is a woman, skipping church, drawing and sipping coffee. On the junkie's side of the road. Where was my song? Regardless, I like to think that the church music influenced the "wake up style" of the skinny man. We'll never know. Or perhaps we will... maybe he'll walk into church for Coffee Connection and I'll show him my sketch.

BTW - I'm not very good at drawing people, but I want to be. It's been said, "if you can draw a person, you can draw anything". So I'm working it. Need to get to classes too. I'll get there someday.

Busy, dreary week in Chicago

It's been quite an eventful week for the Anstee girls. Being the last week of school for Indigo, there have been many year-end festivities and outings. Saturday, during our neighborhood garage sale, Indi and Ais were invited to a classmate's bday party. There was a trampoline, real pony rides, and even beer for the adults. What a blast. Indigo thoroughly enjoyed the pony rides and was enamored with the ponies and their cute little names (Cinnamon, Snowball...)

Indigo's Kindergarten class continued their annual trip to Foster Beach. It was cold and rainy. It was a misty day at the beach. The only thing missing was the brine. Our hair still got tangled in knots.


There was a break in the misty, rainy weather when the sun came out momentarily. Indi made the most of it by filling in the outline I made of her on the sidewalk. No crime scene here. Notice how she colored in exactly what she was wearing at the time! Great job Inda!

Summer Fun

I've mentioned many times in this blog that I love Winter and snow! This is very true. But now that Summer is here, I love it too. Is that so wrong? I love all the seasons. Although dreary with no rain is pretty depressing and unenjoyable for me.

I live in the middle of Chicago, Il. I am an urban dweller. My property lot is 25 ft wide by 125 long. All that claims a house, backyard and garage. Not a lot of room to expand and enjoy. I have been told by many people with HUGE city houses "wow, you have a backyard". I don't have a McMansion hogging the lot.

Many, many years ago when my backyard was nothing but a bunch of grass I decided to try my hand at gardening. It gets a lot of sun back there so I was a bit worried. The first couple years I used the wrong plants or did something incorrectly, because the lot of the plants got scorched. I learned. I planted hearty perennials (lavender, sage, sedum, black eyed susans, day lillies, dianthus). And lo and behold the landscape theory of sleep-creep- LEAP took hold. As my back yard gardened bloomed, blossomed and grew, so did my sweet little girls: Indigo and Aislin. Soon to be ages 6 and 3 respectively.
Being early June, the garden is taking shape. You can see some of it in the photos of Indigo eating smores on her swingset. I'm glad 1) my kid loves to make smores and be outside (usually) 2) I'm not too uppity to keep the swingset and kid toys in my awesome garden.

More pics as thing bloom. Raspberries and strawberries come next. Then day lillies. Hopefully by early July it will all be in harmony together!