Friday, September 24, 2010

The Roof, The Roof, The Roof Is On Fire...

Trevor, Henry, and I had an anxious experience in the wee hours of Friday morning. We'd spent Thursday night hanging around at Juli and Matt's new crib, drinking some beer, eating some pizza, and watching the start of the new season of NBC sitcoms (Outsourced was d.r.e.a.d.f.u.l.). We were home and in bed by a little after ten and sleeping soundly.

At about two in the morning, our neighbor, Doug, pounded on our door, waking up Henry and Trevor instantly (I took a bit longer, as I tend to do...). When Trevor answered the door, Doug was already back down the hall, having banged on everyone's door, and he shouted, "Get out of the building, there's a fire on the roof." So we quickly got dressed, grabbed Henry, and were out. Our hallway was full of shattered glass from the door leading out into the parking lot, but otherwise, there wasn't much noise other than our muffled footsteps and the murmurs of confusion from us and our next door neighbors, Poppy and Jason. But as soon as we got outside and looked up at the building, this is what we saw:



The street was lined with fire engines, ambulances, and police SUVs. The men from Ladder 19 had their giant ladder up to our roof and they had the fire out in about thirty minutes (see some footage on the NBC website here and another story about it from CBS here). We saw right away that no one was being carried out of the building, and the ambulances weren't going anywhere, so we just stood around, watching the flames and smoke filling the sky, and then watching the firemen to firemen-type activities for two hours. Henry was in a state of pure excitement since many of our building's residents have dogs, and he was trying to get to all of them. We were finally let back in with the rest of the pajama clad residents at around four in the morning (and I was finally able to use the restroom--that'll teach me to say, "No, I'd better evacuate the building instead of waiting to use the facilities, because I might die in a fiery inferno," and blah blah blah).

The next morning--or, later on that same morning--Trevor took some pictures of the damaged deck from our common deck on top of the six floor roof.






The rumor in the building is that a coal grill turned over, setting the deck on fire. I wouldn't be surprised if that was true, since the wind was blowing like mad that night. Thankfully none of the other decks--and no roofs of adjacent buildings--caught on fire. Some of our neighbors, the ones in the center of our hallway around the same place as the fire four stories up, got a lot of water damage in their units, but we, thankfully, had none. The management company set to cleaning up the damage pretty quickly on Friday morning, and they worked on it all day yesterday as well.

We were exhausted at work all day--I usually don't go to campus on Fridays, but I had two meetings, one of which I'd called, so I needed to go in. And we of course had plans on Friday night to go see the MCA/Redmoon Theater collaboration, "The Astronaut's Birthday," on the steps of the museum. Here are a couple of pictures of the production:



They'd set up three levels of puppeteers in the front windows of the museum, and bleachers and empty space on the front. We were lucky enough to get bleacher seats instead of plunking down straight on the concrete (though our butts were achy nonetheless after a very long hour). The graphics and presentation were terrific, but the story left quite a bit to be desired. The show did, though, remind us of how much fun we'd had at a previous Redmoon show and that we should go back again soon, especially since their space is just a few blocks from our place.

By the time we got home that night, having both worked full days on just a few hours of sleep, we were ready to crash. And we certainly did.

So, that was our mid-week excitement! Friday morning on my way in on the train, there was a pedestrian accident at the Barrington Metra station, so my train was delayed--only about twenty minutes, while the in-bound trains were delayed over an hour. I was on pins and needles all day, thinking, "These things come in threes, isn't that what people say?" But thankfully there wasn't a third disaster; or at least not one in my immediate circle of life.

Well, now I've got to go, since I spent most of yesterday being a vegetable to make up for my lack of vegetableness on Friday (a day usually reserved for me doing 3.47 hours of work and then being a couch zucchini [a much lazier vegetable than a potato, f.y.i.] for the remainder of the day), which means that I didn't get much done. I'm doing laundry at present, and blogging instead of working on tomorrow's lesson plan, grading the forty-odd papers I have to grade, and working on my tenure portfolio. Yikes. I'll sign off, and here's to hoping that the temperature doesn't drop much below sixty for at least another month!

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Some Things I've Been Forgetting

First:

Trevor was at work last month, minding his own business, when he received a phone call from a fellow named Lucas, an artist and writer of the Meaning In Art. Lucas asked Trevor a few questions, and, for being such a helpful chap, Trevor got quoted in this piece! (scroll about halfway down the page) We were very excited about this, and even more excited that Trevor was called a "nice gentleman." Of course we know he's a nice gentleman, but it's always lovely when someone else recognizes it.

Second:

Trevor and I were home a few weeks ago, and we noticed some odd stirrings in the alley behind our building. For those of you who have never been to our place, or those who have never been in our bedroom (probably many of you have been to our house but not in our bedroom. too bad.), just outside of our bedroom window is an alley we share with a charter high school and a church rectory. Not bad neighbors. But, since we're also at street level on the first floor, we do get our share of weird passers-by.

But last month, we witnessed what was certainly the most hilarious spectacle we'd seen or heard in the past five years. It involves a middle school-aged boy with a great imagination and lots of time on his hands, some empty milk crates, and two total voyeurs with a video-recording feature on their camera (that's us). That's all I'll say, because now, YOU MUST WATCH THIS VIDEO. Thanks to Sean Power for the amazing editing and soundtrack.




We fondly call him Crate Boy, and we seem to constantly see him in the neighborhood, riding around. He lives somewhere on the street behind us and we share the alley. I've never been more thankful for that alley. I hope you enjoyed it; I know we did. That jerk near the end of the video is us bursting into hysterics and Trevor dropping the camera for a second. Please share it with your friends. But don't tell them what's coming. Let them experience it for themselves.

Third:

The 2010 issue of our literary arts magazine, Voices, came out a couple of weeks ago, and I must say that I'm pretty proud of it (though there's one typo that will drive me crazy for the next year, if not forever). Check it out on our website in the PDF or Flash editions.

And that's it! I think. If I remember anything else, I'll let you know. Until then, goodnight Maya, Gabe, Olympia, Jameson, Sadie, and Bosco!

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Playing Catch-Up

So, of course school starts and I absolutely neglect the blog. This is the story of the blog, and those of you who are regular readers know it by now. So I'll catch you up on the happenings around here since the end of August.

First, a few weekends ago, Mom and I had a lovely breakfast at the Palmer House restaurant, and then moseyed on down to the Gold Coast Arts Fair for some...art.
The lobby bar at the Palmer House

Mom in "front" of Buckingham Fountain (the mini-van snuck into the picture)

Me, with some art
Making a purchase
It was hot, so we only stayed at the fair for about an hour. Mom headed home and I went up to After-Words, where my friend Angie had just taken in bags full of Agatha Christie paperbacks. Of course, I left with quite a few.

The Choices
My Take-Home

Later that day we went to a Bears pre-season game against the Oakland Raiders. The tickets were thanks to Mr. Neill Power, and we brought along our friends Juli and Matt. The Bears lost the game, but we had amazing seats and a terrific time. Although the first interception/touchdown by the Bears caused the row directly behind us to fly into a frenzy, spilling beer down Juli's back (the guys responsible bought her a beer for her damp-shirted troubles), and dumping an Italian beef sandwich on Matt's leg (he was not bought anything for his wet-legged troubles).

The Crowd

Our Amazing Seats
 Matt and Trevor

Trevor, Matt, and Juli--celebrating our non-victory in the urban tunnels of Chicago



The next morning, we had the gang over to watch the Man United game. We had coffee, donuts, bagels, and a lot of cheering.


We spent dinner that night hanging out with new Bosco Bork. And a lot of other Borks. He's gaining a little bit of weight and his tiny cheeks are rounding out the tiniest bit. He's even getting big enough to sit in his own chair. Not very stably, but he fits!

Mom is not too thrilled that I'm making her do this to her new grandbaby


And although Bosco is much, much too small to wear this shirt, Trevor and I couldn't resist getting it for him. We'll wait until he's in kindergarten to get him License to Ill.


Uncle Trevor and Bosco
Grandma Nichols
 Labor Day weekend, Rachel came into town to surprise Pop Power for his birthday. We headed down to Bridgeview with Pop, Rae, Angi, and Sean (Sadie had a babysitter), and we met up with Fran and Neill for the Chicago Fire game at Toyota Park. The seats were in the "Party Deck" and we were practically on the pitch. The Fire played the L.A. Galaxy, so we got to see beady-eyes Donovan, although I was supremely disappointed to come back from the bathroom to find that I'd missed his corner kick about twenty feet from our seats. I missed my chance to heckle him from close range, so I made it my job to heckle him later on when he missed a goal attempt.











Stupid Donovan


I got to play on the practice pitch after the game. It's my first cartwheel in about ten years




We ended Rae's trip with some Smart Ass and Apples to Apples playing at Angi and Sean's. And Neill tried on Sadie's new NASA bib from Auntie Rae.

We finished up the Labor Day holiday weekend with a luncheon to celebrate Bosco's forty day blessing (who knew such a thing existed?!). And we got some nice pictures of the new parents and the new great-grandma.

The super attractive new family

Great-Grandma Bosco with...Bosco!

I'll leave you with a little something from my life as a commuter. Sometimes the bus is late to campus in the afternoon and I'm a few minutes too late for the train, which means I've got to wait about an hour until the next one. If it's not too late and the weather is okay, I don't mind doing this, and that was the situation the week before last. I'd gotten a Starbucks gift card for presenting at our fall faculty workshop, so I wandered through downtown Crystal Lake to the coffee shop for a totally gratuitous toffee mocha something awesome, and then I went to a fantastic little gift shop to spend some time...and some money. This was the result.



I'll make it an extra special point to keep the updates coming. For now, everyone enjoy the perfect weather, because as soon as we get used to the idea of Fall, it'll start snowing.