Least Wanted

Yesterday dh Eddie and I visited one of my favorite museums, Intuit. One of the current exhibits (they change what they are showing about 3 times a year) is entitled Least Wanted: A Century of American Mugshots, The Mark Michaelson Collection, and consists of old photographs taken of people "booked" at police stations across the country.



( enlarge)

These are unknown, everyday folks; no big criminals or other celebrities are shown. Some are funny looking, a few are kind of pathetic, and many, many of them are, well, ordinary-looking enough that they could be me ...


( enlarge)

The most recent photos in the exhibit date back to the 1960s, and as I looked I began wondering what had happened to these people after they were booked. Where did they end up? What became of their lives? Are any of them still living? Did they have children? What happened to their children and grandchildren? Alas, we will never know. But each one of those people, just like each and every person we come into contact with in our daily lives, has a story, regardless of whether we ever hear it or not -- which, while an obvious fact, can be quite startling to remember.


( enlarge)

If you have a chance to see the exhibit, do so. I highly recommend this museum in general: it's very small, highly funky, and appealing to both high brows and low. Every time I have visited the place I have come away delighted, enchanted, refreshed. [End of testimonial]

We couldn't use flash on the photos we took there, so the pictures didn't turn out as sharp as we wanted -- but I think that somehow the slight fuzziness adds interest to these photos.

( enlarge)

Reindeer Car

Okay, so one of my plans for 2008 is to update this blog at least twice a week. Here it is January 5th already, and this is just my first post ... buy hey, I'm here! Huffing and puffing and coming in the door at the very last minute, but I am here.

Beginning about a month before Christmas, dh Eddie and I started seeing a car that had little reindeer antlers and a bright red nose affixed to it. We figured its owners must live around here, since we saw it several times. It was the only car like that that we'd ever seen. The originality and whimsy of the thing gave me joy, but I didn't really think too much about the reindeer car until ...

... one day, about a week before Christmas, I was in Walgreen's and found they had some of these "car costumes" (as I later learned they are called) for sale -- and they were 50% off! They must not have been selling like hot cakes if they were on sale, but I snatched one up immediately, literally clasping it to my breast like a treasure while I waited in the check-out line. We put the antlers and red nose on the car a couple of days later and drove around like that until after New Year's. Call me silly, call me goofy, call me tacky, call me over the intercom, but riding in The Reindeer Car was exhiliarating. I feel very lucky to have a husband who not only isn't too embarrassed to have such a thing on the car, but actually enjoys it.

Here's a picture. The antlers would have shown up better against a less-busy background, but hey. (That's Eddie on the right.)

Do You Bake?

So yesterday I was in the supermarket in the baking aisle, looking at food coloring. Another lady, about my age, in the same aisle was looking at boxed cake mixes. Somehow I must have looked like I knew what I was doing, because she came over to me with a pretty standard cake mix in her hand and said, timidly, "Excuse me, do you bake?"

I answered, "Yeeeesssss ..." (reservedly, because I am far from an expert baker -- heck, I don't even make pie crust! and I wondered, during this split second between my answer and her next question, if she was going to ask me something really, really hard). She asked, "Can I use this mix to make cupcakes?"

Whew! I knew that one. I told her that yes, she could, but the baking time would be less than for a layer cake, and that she should check the instructions on the box because many times they tell you how long to bake it according to pan size or whatever and the time for cupcakes may very well be on the box. She look relieved, thanked me, and walked away.

Wow. I guess a lot of people really don't bake nowadays. At ALL. I envision the poor lady picking her child up from school and learning she has to take two dozen cupcakes to school the next day and being at a total loss, not knowing quite what to do ...

Mini-stones

So I was thinking today about different things that have happened in my life in the last year and how many months it has been since each one ... these are kind of like milestones but on such a small scale that the term "mini-stones" came to me.

One year ago my Dear Hubby and I were up here in the Chicago area scouting out a place to live, a job, etc. I moved permanently back to the U.S.A. on November 2nd, so the 9-month anniversary of that is coming up very soon. Nine months already? Time sure flies.

I sprained my left ankle very badly on February 23rd of this year, so the 5-month mark for that has just passed. The last time I got a similarly bad sprain (on the same ankle, 12 or 13 years ago), it was at least 6 months before I got back to normal, so I wasn't expecting a particularly swift recovery this time, either. I am happy to report that although I'm still not fully recuperated, I am defininitely out of the woods with my ankle. Yay!

I've been at my current job (cashier at The Home Depot) for nearly 4 months now. I no longer feel stressed out because of not knowing what I'm doing. (Whether that is because I now know what I am doing or because I just learned not to stress about it remains to be seen. :-P)

DH and I got a car nearly a month ago. We'd lived so long without one (decades, in my case) that getting our own little private means of transportion was life-changing. Tomorrow will mark the mini-stone of our return home after the first road trip in this car -- which went wonderfully, thanks be to God.

And so on.

I have much to be thankful for.

From the 'Burbs

Dateline: Melrose Park, Illinois

It has been over 3 months now since I moved to this western suburb of Chicago. The move itself and the adjustment has been very satisfactory -- much less difficult, in many instances, than I had anticipated. I'm still "in transition," though. A lot of normally mundane, everyday life things are still new and exotic. I still get stung by culture shock occasionally. But I must be making progress, since I feel I can blog about it now. :-P

Just off the top of my head...

Some things I like about living here:

1.) There's a small but fabulous public library, and I have a card! I can check out books and even movies free of charge. If my library doesn't have an item, I can usually get it through interlibrary loan. All this abundance still blows my mind.

2.) Although we don't have a car, there are several supermarkets within walking distance of us, and most of them have authentic Mexican food ingredients as well as lots of cool items for kosher, Polish, Indian, Italian, and other cuisines.

3.) Postal service is relatively inexpensive, reliable, and quick. Yeah, I know a lot of people complain about the U.S.P.S., but until you have lived in the developing world, you don't know good we have it here.

4.) This is the Midwest. We are not sophisticated like Out East nor cutting-edge trendy like on the West Coast. There's no ocean here, or mountains, or deserts, no canyons or glaciers or sleeping volcanoes ... just prairie (and a big lake, of course.) I love living in what truly is (despite its being a cliche) the country's heartland.


A couple of things I don't particularly like about living here:

1.) Folks always have the heating turned way up, and I feel like I am going to suffocate. Our apartment is so overheated that we regularly need to open the window -- when it's snowing outside! Even the public buses and subway have the heat way too high. I'm all for avoiding frostbite, but this is just too much. I wonder why the stores even bother to sell sweaters in the wintertime; inside, it's too hot for them, and when you go outside, you are all bundled up in a big coat anyway.

2.) That nasal Chicago accent. I suppose I will get used to it in time, however. I may even acquire one myself! lol


I'm sure more lists will follow.

Garage-less Garage Sale

Yesterday from noon to 6 p.m. I held a "garage" sale. It was actually in my apartment, as there is no garage here. I closed the doors to the two bedrooms and opened the door to the hall and did quite a brisk business. I sold most, though not all, of the "big" stuff, and a lot of smaller things.

And what were the first two items to go? The dvd player and the televison set. The most-asked-about items? The dvd player and the televsion set. The second most-asked-about item? The sewing machine -- which, while often talked about, still has not sold.

What sold the least? Books. LOL

Actually, that's not true. I sold quite a few books. It's just that I had so many that there are still many left. And it is true that they were much less popular than the dvd player and television set, and that many, many people looked over everything at the sale except the books.

It was an exhausting and nerve-wracking day, partly because I was only able to sleep 3 hours the night before. I was up early, trying to have everything ready by my noon opening time. I didn't have everything ready in time, but we went ahead and opened anyway, and somehow it all worked out. Actually, it worked out because I had several very capable friends there to help out and keep me sane. Without their helping hand, I have a feeling my sale would have not been very successful.

Before the sale, I had expected to have unpleasant feelings upon seeing strangers heartlessly going through my possessions. Strangely, that didn't really happen. Maybe because during the "rush" times I was too busy to think about it and during the slow times I was too tired to do anything but sit down and wish it were all over, but somehow I was able to distance myself from the "stuff." So much so, in fact, that what was left just seems like so much junk now, and I wish it were all gone. I wish the apartment were pretty much empty, producing an echo when I speak.

It will be soon. In a couple of weeks all the clutter will be gone, and it'll be just me and three suitcases. I'm looking forward to it.

Links to Enjoy

Here are a few more miscellaneous online places to go:

Vintage Images
"Vintage" (that is, old stuff) is all the rage right now. This site has free images from loooong ago for you to download for use in scrapbooking and paper arts, but I think the photos and ephemera are fascinating to just look at for their own sakes.

Neighborhood Profiles
Type in your zip code and learn all kinds of statistics about your town, from air quality index to income level.

Degree Confluence Project
"The goal of the project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location. The pictures, and stories about the visits, will then be posted here." Cool pictures of places no one else would ever have thought to document.


Mr. Picasso Head
Like the "vintage" toy of Mr. Potato Head (I had one of those, incidentally, as a child), you take pre-made parts and put them together to make a head. Unlike the old game, however, this is online, and the parts are Picasso-esque.

Collage Machine
Another fun art-toy thingy. Use this application to create an online collage.

Japanese Emoticons
Spice up your e-mail messages. These are lots more elaborate than just the classice sidewise smile :-) .

Remembering the Earthquake

Twenty-one years ago today an earthquake that measured 8.1 on the Richter scale shook Mexico City and other parts of the country, causing immeasurable damage. The following morning, an aftershock measuring 7.6 furthered the destruction. Official figures put the number of dead at "only" about ten thousand, but we will probably never know how many really died -- maybe three times that many?

(For more information read a brief Wikipedia article about the quake. See photos of the destruction at the National Geophysical Data Center site.)

I was living here in Mexico City when it happened, and although the whole thing was scary, I got off pretty easily. I was without power for about a week and without phone service for quite a bit longer, but I didn't personally know anyone who died, nor did I directly witness any dramatic events or consequences. Only one building in my neighborhood was seriously damaged -- and it wasn't mine. I think my parents --in the U.S.A. -- had it worse than I did, wondering if I were all right. After all, the news reports in the United States talked about how "the city had been destroyed," which was an exaggeration.

However, I do remember the event every year on September 19th ... which not everyone does. Those who experienced the earthquake say, "Oh, yeah, it's the anniversary ..." when I mention it. We then briefly exchange stories of where we were when it happened, and then the subject gets changed to something else. I'd say it has become a pretty dim memory for many, if not most, people.

But a lot of folks that I come in daily contact with do not remember the event. The vast majority of my students were either infants at the time or had not even been born yet. The '85 quake is not even a dim memory for them; it's ancient history. That is so weird. Why, everybody knows that for ancient history you have to go back at least to the 1950's! (I was born in 1964.)

Thousands died in this disaster (many of whose bodies were never recovered) and many thousands more were injured and left homeless. While not as dramatic in many ways as Sept. 11, 2001 was for New York, the earthquake left behind a somewhat similar feeling in that it marked a Before and After for Mexico City. Economic and political crises had become frequent in the years leading up to 1985, but it wasn't until the quake, El Temblor del '85, that a lot of people realized that the sunny 70's -- in many ways a heydey for this corner of the world -- were over.

Twenty-one years later, there are still people living in the "temporary" camps set up for those who lost their homes. Not all the collapsed buildings have had their ruins towed away yet, either, though parks and other lovely spaces have sprung up on some destruction sites. You'd think these daily reminders would keep the public saddened when they think about the disaster. I'm sure many people are bitter and have a right to be; however, among the folks of my acquaintance the things most remembered about the quake -- or at least the ones most reminisced about -- are the hopeful aspects of it all:

-- The amazing discovery and rescue, days and even a week after the earthquake, of several newborn babies who survived in the maternity ward of the completely destroyed Hospital Juárez. (Those kids turned 21 in the last day or two.)

--The sight of Spanish opera tenor Placido Domingo staying on for days to search for survivors in the populous and hard-hit Tlatelolco neighborhood, where he had had relatives; his plea for help for the area brought out thousands of volunteers.

--The way friends and neighbors and strangers came together in solidarity, if for only a brief time, until the emergency had passed.

--The outpouring of practical assistance from nations all over the world, despite the authorities' initial statements that "the Mexican government has everything necessary to face this disaster."


I think we humans hope instinctively. I think there is a "hope device" somewhere in our spirit that, unless somehow completely and tragically destroyed, continues to pump out a hormone-like stream of impulses into our lives until the day we die. So strong is this tendency that we even project hope onto the past, remembering the good things more than the bad.

It's quite amazing, actually, when you think about it.

Anniversary

One year ago today...









Happy Anniversary, Honey!

Olive Nut Sandwich

This is a great change-of-pace sandwich that I recently discovered. I originally got the idea from www.worldwiderecipes.com, though I've made some changes. For example, the recipe there called for parsley, which I changed to lettuce because I like the texture that lettuce adds -- and because I don´t usually keep parsley on hand!

Olive Nut Sandwich

2 slices whole-wheat, rye, or pumpernickel bread
2 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
6 pimento stuffed olives, sliced
2 tablespoons pecan or walnut halves, chopped
1/3 cup lettuce, very finely chopped


Lightly toast the bread. Spread on the cream cheese, then top with olive slices, chopped nuts, and lettuce chopped as finely as you can get it. Cut in two from corner to corner, and serve.


See a few more of my recipes.