The subtle signs of spring

In my neighborhood, there are a lot of nice old buildings, such as the one we're currently living in.  The people in these buildings often choose, wisely, to flank the entrances with small statues or other stone ornamentation.  It looks nice.  The most popular choice around these parts is a pair of small seated lions, about 18" high, that each have a paw raised in front of them.  They mirror each other, so that one is raising the right paw and the other has the left paw up.  I desperately want to purchase a pair myself and set them up so they are bumping fists.

Anyway, I saw this handsome fellow while walking to the grocery store the other day.  I wonder if he celebrates all the holidays with this much gusto.

Things you learn in the city

Pigeons will eat Silly String.

You're not helping anyone.

The U.S. Mint began taking orders today for the first coin ever to have Braille writing on it.  It's a dollar coin minted to commemorate the 200th birthday of Louis Braille. (Side note: this year humanity has already celebrated the 200th birthdays of both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin.  I want to know what the hell was in the global water supply in 1809, and where we can get more, because all society seems to be putting out these days is Dr. Phil and Miley Cyrus.)

Back to the coin.  The article I read describes, in laborious gotta-up-the-word-count detail, exactly what the coin says ("E Pluribus Unum," "In God We Trust," etc.) and FINALLY gets around to answering the big question:  what the hell does the Braille word say?  

You ready?

It says "BRL," which is apparently how you say "Braille" in Braille.  I'm no blind person, nor am I an expert in the needs and desires of blind people, but I'm thinking that if I were blind, I'd want my dollar coin to say "DOLLAR."

This is why I hate keeping secrets.

Because if I can't blog it right away, I'll forget about it for months and months.

Remember a million years ago when I crocheted an egg? Sure you do.  Well, the bizarre act of creating a food item out of yarn awakened a superpower inside me that I didn't even know was there.  The longer I sat and looked at that egg, the more I thought, "Huh.  I wonder what other kinds of food would look good when knitted?  What would go with an egg?  How about other breakfast foods?"  This is really what goes on in my mind -- I'm terribly sorry to have to expose you to that kind of ridiculously useless genius. 

So I sat down and made a piece of bread.  And some fried eggs.  And some bacon.  By then I had started to go on the internet to look for free patterns for other kinds of food, and simultaneously decided that if I was going to make all this food, I better have a use for it.  This is where my niece comes in handy.  Her second birthday was coming up in a few months, and what two-year-old wouldn't want a sackful of pretend food?   No two-year-old wouldn't want a sackful of pretend food, that's who.  A mission was born.

I had so much damn fun knitting food that when her birthday approached, I was so elbow deep in donuts and broccoli that I had to push the gift off until Christmas.  Before I sent it all off for Santa to deliver, I took some photos of the finished products.   Here they are!

More knitted food

Here is a video of my sandwich being constructed.

Look at that.

Plenty of cities in America host parades in honor of St. Patrick's Day. Only Chicago goes the extra ridiculous mile of dyeing their river green. Chris had school on Saturday morning, so I headed downtown to the corner of Wacker and Michigan with the camera to see the fuss.

Here you can see people lined up all along the river walk and across the lower level of the Michigan Ave. bridge.  I had started out on the other side of the river, but there were some trees in the way.  Also, it's about a billion degrees colder in the shade.

I know the river is already green.  Dang, shut up.  It gets better.

After an hour of us waiting, the Plumbers' Union boats finally came trundling up  (down? it's a backwards-flowing river, so what is it?) the river, each outfitted with a man at the back sprinkling orange powder into the river.  As the official website cheekily points out, it is indeed  a true St. Patrick's Day miracle that the orange (read: Protestant) substance is instantly converted into true Irish green (read: Catholic) before our very eyes. I laughed, you should too.  At any rate, the dye is touted as environmentally friendly, so that's nice.

The boats make a few passes between Michigan and Columbus, but it only takes a few minutes for the dye and water to commingle...

And look like this. I think it stays that way for a few hours before washing downstream (they may have to reapply the stuff from time to time).  Once this spectacle was over, I was cold, tired of being jostled, and in no mood to head over to the parade, especially when presented with the logistical nightmare of meeting Chris somewhere along the route.  

Besides, there's always next year.

I even made a little video!  The quality's a bit crap because I didn't realize I had the resolution set so low.  But still.

Bad Copy of the Day Award

Chris' dad sent us a copy of a CD that my brother-in-law did the artwork for.  It's a charity album put out by the same record label that the BIL has already done a lot of work for.  The artwork is great.  The copy?  Not so much.  As you read this blurb, taken from the back of the CD, your assignment is to tell me what this organization does.  That's it.  Okay, ready?  Okay.

"Take Action was founded in 1999 by Hopeless Records in connection with their non-profit organization Sub City to encourage young people to make a positive impact in the world.  A portion of the proceeds (equaling 5% of the suggested retail price) earned by Sub City from the sale of this release will be donated to DoSomething.org, a national not-for-profit that believes that young people have the power to make a difference.  They inspire, empower, and celebrate a generation of doers:  young people who recognize the need to do something, believe in their ability to get it done, and then take action."

YEAH!! LET'S GO! Let's go take action and do something! Something resembling anything! I was actually so vagued out by the above terrible copy that I went over to DoSomething.org to see what exactly is the something that they do.  Turns out, it's a pretty comprehensive, well-designed little website.  It categorizes, indexes, and filters a ton of different causes that young people might be interested in, suggests actions to be taken to bring about desired results, and provides tools to help people mobilize themselves, friends, and family members in their own homes and neighborhoods.  

I believe that copy has the power to make the difference.  I would celebrate the opportunity to take action and make this copy do something by saying something. Anything. 

Hobos love my dog.

I don't really mean hobos, necessarily, but that subject line length is limiting.  I will rephrase and say "people in my neighborhood who seem to have several hours a day with nothing more to do than hold down a bench in the park and chat with each other or, in some cases, with themselves."

Other people in my neighborhood keep telling me there are loads of greyhounds in the area -- so far I've met just one, and he is a charming old man who gets to wear boots outside to alleviate his arthritis.  Judging by the hobo reactions, though, you'd think I was parading the queen of England around on a leash three times a day.  In the last three weeks, I have gotten received the following bits of feedback from my socioeconomically challenged brethren:

• "Greyhound!"
  
• (sung to a familiar tune you will no doubt figure out) "You ain't nothing but a greyhound..."
  
• "What's that?" This last one happened today, when I was about 50 feet away from a lady (who was, unbelievably, sitting on a bench hanging out with a friend).  I didn't think she was talking to me, but she continued on.  "Hey miss!  What's that?"  I turned around -- "My dog?  This is a greyhound."  "a-HA!"  She was very pleased to find this information out.
  
• There was also a very nice man who liked the look of her coat and wished he could figure out a way to make it fit him. That sounds sad, but he had a perfectly good coat, so I know he was joshing.
  

Now, people in my particular station of life (white people with dogs) also rightfully declaim on the subject of my beautiful dog.  It's just awesome that all the other city folk take time out of their day to admire Maggie too. I'm happy to give them something to smile about.

Please be tongue-in-cheek.

I'm going to be filing this one in the same area as the bitchy "Deal with it" weather forecast.  Last night, we were watching the weather forecast.  They weather guy started with some outlying areas of Wisconsin and Indiana, I suppose to make these folks feel less inadequate for not living in Chicago proper.  Here's the forecast for Valparaiso, Indiana (about an hour outside of Chicago) -- I can only pray that this is what passes for weather-related black humor in these parts:

Yeah.  That says "43, Partly Sunny Skies, Get Out the BBQ!"  It's kind of how we feel at this point, though.  Early March is the part of the year that feels like spring (let alone summer) will never, ever come again, and that any past summer memories are simple hallucinations brought on by wind chill.

Muy rico.

Have I mentioned the amazing array of unique ethnic foodstuffs available here in Chicago?  If not, allow me to do so now.