Kirk the Conductor

This summer, there was a conductor who worked on the train i took home from work everyday who had a crush on me. i was in his car about once a week, and he was always very excited to take my ticket. Sometime between summertime and now, i stopped seeing him, probably because he changed his schedule and didn't work on that train any more.

This morning, I took a later train to work than the one i usually take. An old man conductor came and collected my ticket, and i was sitting there reading my book when i heard the clinking i usually associate with the conductor coming up the aisle. He stopped next to me, and I looked up, thinking another conductor was trying to take my ticket again, and it was the conductor with the crush on me. He must have seen me get on the train and come looking for me. We exchanged pleasantries and he introduced himself. We chatted for a minute, then he handed me a train schedule and walked away.

I thought it was odd for him to be giving me a schedule unprompted - then i realized his name and phone number are written on it.

catching up

Here's the summary of my trip to Savannah:
BabyBaby and learning to knit
Baby
And some quality family time, and some dogs and a cat.
Since then, i've done ... well, not much. Some knitting. Some working.
Yesterday i baked pumpernickel bread. i didn't notice that it gave me devil's farts, but maybe it's too early for that. i made parsnip-beet burritos for dinner - a surprisingly good combination with black beans and salsa. i spiced the beans with some Cajun seasoning i got for Christmas from my brother-in-law... i refuse to be a Northerner afraid of flavor, as he claims we all are.


i'm trying to decide if i will go to my Irish session this afternoon, or down to the Cultural Center for a Taiko drumming show ... Taiko is amazing, and it's a free concert ...

also yesterday, i made it to the PO in time to fill out an application for a passport, and i find it quite terrifying that they took my birth certificate and sent it off with the application .... especially as Rachel said they lost her birth certificate when she got her passport. she didn't mind because they reissued her birth certificate and it's prettier than the old one .. but still, it was a weird feeling, handing off this precious piece of paper.

i suppose it's time to figure out what to do with my day ... this beautiful sunny day - spend it inside cleaning, or blow off my responsibilities and wander around downtown Chicago??

off into the sky

i had a wonderful day today - i worked from home all morning, working on the poster that i won't have to have done until May or so ... but i'm realizing that my predecessor was not exaggerating when he said sometimes you have to *look* for work. it's a bit cyclic, with all the work coming at once and not much happening between, so i'm trying to frontload the rest of my time with POC by getting done everything i can right now.
I am using Adobe Illustrator to make the poster, and it is so much fun. my predecessor did his poster in PowerPoint, which is the way that most colleges teach kids to make their nice glossy scientific posters, because it's hard to mess up. it is also hard to be unique, though. scientists don't worry so much about that, and don't tend to want to spend a lot of time learning complex graphics programs. i guess i'm not all scientist - but we knew that. this poster is much more arty than the past posters ... i'm not sure if my boss will hate it or not. i decided that there was no real reason that it had to be formatted as if it were the poster for a scientific paper or talk, as most of the people who see it are laypeople. so i am going for pizazz instead. trying to be chic and sophisticated instead of precise and wordy.

i am leaving in 10 minutes for the airport. i think i am being unnecessarily nervous. i cannot think of what i could be forgetting to do or bring. i might just go early just so i can't sit here being nervous any more.

i'm vindicated

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17429734
"'Generation Next' in the Slow Lane to Adulthood - a story about how 18-to-25-year-olds aren't really adults, we're 'emerging adults' and we shouldn't have direction.

Dance Dance Party Party

I recently resolved to do at least one new thing a week. This came about because i realized that i don't have that much fun at my job and i'm only in Chicago for a year, so, since i'm not here just for the job, i need to take advantage of being in this place and stop going home and going to bed when i get home from work.

This week, my one new thing was, instead of going to Nevin's, i went down to Rachel's neighborhood (Lincoln Square/Ravenswood) and we went to a 'fitness class' that she had read about in the Chicago Reader, the free arts/entertainment/what's going on paper. This 'class' wasn't so much a class as a jam session with bodies - you pay $5 to cover the cost of using the studio space, someone brings an iPod with an hour-and-a-half long dance mix, the lights go down and the music goes up, and everyone dances their butts off. The only rules are no boys and no judgment.

I had a very good time, and got a great workout - my abs hurt today! i expect Rachel will go pretty often, but i don't know about myself, as it's kind of a hike to get back home.

Oh yes, and it's called Dance Dance Party Party. their slogan is "we dance if we want to."

letter from grandma

i sent grandma a letter a week or so ago, just because, and i just got a letter back from her.
she is sassy - i talked a bit about my plan for the springtime, and the possibility of working on the Denison's CSA farm. to that, she replied, "I don't see why working for the Denisons would be much of a career enhancement. But what do I know?" i guess as far as she's concerned, farming would be a waste of an ivy-league education.

weekend wonders

so, quick update:
my saturday was awesome. i got up early and went to the Green Cities farmers' market and got delicious relatively-local food with my friend Rachel, then went to the Chicago Cultural Center with Rachel and our friend Zach. The cultural center is awesome - in the old Chicago Public Library, built in the late 1800s. half of the building used to be the Grand Army of the Republic headquarters - that's a club for Civil War vets. In the 1920s, the library took over the GAR half of the building, and then the library had to move out in the 70's because it outgrew the building. instead of razing the building to put in a skyscraper, as was fashionable in the 70's, Mayor Daley decided (or rather, his wife decided) to make it a public exhibit and concert space, and a home for city-based NGOs and not-for-profits.
the building itself is absolutely gorgeous, with the Library half being Roman architecture and the GAR half, Greek. Both sides were built at the same time, and each side has a Tiffany dome - incredible works of art! and the one is the largest Tiffany dome in the world. in one of the domed rooms, the walls are all mosaic, with each mosaic chip set at a slight tilt to its neighbor so that the walls sparkle as you move your head. it's pretty amazing, all of the tiny details that went into this place.
what we actually went there to see, though, was an exhibit of a crochet version of the Great Barrier Reef, done as a visualisation of hyperbolic space. it was pretty incredible. the exhibit taught us about math, handicrafts, and the biology of coral reefs.
then we went to Rachel's house and made mozzarella cheese, from my new book called Home Cheesemaking. this was my first attempt at making cheese, and i definitely think it was a success. lactose-intolerant zach ate a bunch of the cheese and didn't even get sick, that's how good it was. we also made ourselves very popular with the kitten that lives in Rachel's house.
we then headed out through the snowstorm to a benefit concert of folk guitarists, held at a coop called Stone Soup. it was a great hippiefest, full of dreadlocked people with high ideals for the world.
now i'm baking bread and trying to get things done, but i'm getting distracted by reading the newspaper and loooking out the window at the beautiful day - it looks deceptively nice out, as it's very sunny on all the fresh snow, but i know it's cold as the dickens and windy. maybe i will still brave a trip over to the lake.

oh what a beautiful morning ....

i got up early this morning and took the 6 am train to work. There's no shuttle from the early train, so i walked the mile to the North End of the garden, then the half-mile to my building at the south end. it took me about half an hour, and it was incredibly, subtly beautiful - it was just getting to be dawn, and it was so peaceful.

but i want to work somewhere without the constant roar of the freeway.

tollway, i suppose. it's definitely not free.

Peaches

It was raining on the way home from work today, so i was using my umbrella (which is fantastically leopard-spotted - i found it in a shrub this summer). I got home and set it down by the door so i wouldn't drip water everywhere. i went in the kitchen, and when i held still a second, i heard a quick little scraping noise. It was the sound of Peaches licking rain off my umbrella!Adorable.
Plus i'm reading a book about heirloom peaches and trying to make a living off of growing them. a very peachy day.

Pearl Harbor Day!

I've been going around reminding people that today is a very important day in the history of our country.
You can't exactly say "Happy Pearl Harbor Day" to people, though ...

relief

today was one of the biggest days at my job - it was our annual Advisory Group meeting, where a bunch of land managers from around the region get together and we tell them what we've been doing for the past year and they tell us if we're doing okay and what we can do better. My boss is a very detail-oriented person, and she takes this meeting very seriously, so the past couple of weeks have involved a lot of intense data analysis and data checking, making arrangements, and making a pretty powerpoint. the group is about 25 people, all of whom i'm pretty sure are smarter than me and i am positive have more experience both with natural areas management and with POC than me, so it was a bit intimidating to stand in front of them and tell them about the data analysis i've been doing. at the same time, it was gratifying because i apparently explained it well, as they didn't have too many questions, and since they're smart, they understood what i was talking about.

then we had a nice party for Lara and Marcello, the Australian couple who have been working for the garden for the past 6 years, because they're going back to Australia tomorrow - it's a pretty sad time for the garden, as they are very much loved - they and their two sons, one of whom just turned 1 and is always around. he is an incredibly adorable baby, with huge pouty lips - the first baby i ever held, and he helped me get over my fear of babies. i will miss him.

it is snowing again, and supposed to snow at least a couple of inches tonight. i think i will go for a walk just to hear the snow.

i can do stuff!

I tried to make yogurt, and i actually succeeded! it both yogged and gurted! it is tasty as well as the right consistency. i am pretty darn proud of myself.
next stop, cheesemaking. i haven't dared to go down that road yet. maybe tomorrow - i'm trying to convince myself to go back out in the cold and on the slippery, unshoveled sidewalks to play music at Nevins. i'm not sure it's going to happen. but i'll feel so guilty - i'm so faithful, they worry when i don't come.

first snowstorm!

it started snowing around 3 yesterday, and snowed all night, from what i can tell - not *that* fast, we only have about 4 inches, but it's so pretty! it seems to be really windy up here on the 3rd floor, but not down on the street level - the snow is unmoved on the shrubs and cars. it's supposed to snow a couple more inches today. i bet my boss will come in late, if she comes - she is quite terrified of bad weather. this is yet another benefit of taking public transit to work - someone else worries about getting me there safely

what a productive day!

since getting home from work, i made my first batch of yogurt, wrote a letter to grandma, and completed both my first crossword and my first sudoku by myself!!

the arrival of winter

so today marked the first real winter here in chicago.
i got up this morning at 6 and biked to my friend rachel's house, 3 miles south, to help her move 3 more miles south. when i got to her place, she was off picking up the uhaul pickup, so i sat on her front stoop, read my book of Billy Collins poetry, drank tea, and watched the sunrise. it was wonderful. so many dogs passed by on their morning walks. then rachel, her friend zach, and i moved rachel's stuff - we were done by 11 am, and then she took us out to lunch as repayment. as we sat in the sandwich shop eating our soup and sandwiches, we watched the snow begin to fall. by the time we left, there was already at least a quarter of an inch on the ground. by the time i left rachel's house 3 hours later, a half-inch had fallen, and the snow turned to freezing rain. it's still doing that, 10 hours later. it's quite horrendous, but i love it. it's real weather.
today i also baked some delicious pumpkin-walnut-oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies, which i brought to a farewell party this evening - they got totally rave reviews. that made me feel good.
i also got rave reviews on the turkey soup i made this week. apparently all those hours in the kitchen are paying off.