After many nights of home cookin’, we were ready to dine in the city.

As Mom and the Captain and I drove into Chicago in the early afternoon, I made a reservation for four at a posh place in Streeterville. “Best New Restaurant” this and “Winner of” that were words splashed around its description in the magazine I happened to have had with me. Ceviche was described; plaintains were mentioned — it sounded great.

We had just enough time to freshen up and collect D.W. who had come back to Chicago the day before Christmas. It was a happy reunion and we … Read entire post

I found myself at the mall tonight, briefly.

After a long-overdue, largely pleasant but still ever-so-slightly disconcerting dinner with a friend, I decided to go see a movie. I enjoy seeing movies by myself and rarely get the opportunity to do so. There I was, near a big cineplex at 8:30pm in Des Moines: it seemed an excellent idea. I recently read The Golden Compass and thought I’d take my chances and try to catch a showing.

Alas, my movie wasn’t playing at the theater. What was playing at the theater and across the entire Jordan Creek Shopping Centre encampment was adolescent … Read entire post

I’ve got my head in two different books.

Three, if you count the passages I’ve been reading here and there from The Fran Lebowitz Reader, which is delightful and bite-sized for those moments when I can’t choose between my primary selections.

One of said selections has surely been passed over time and again due to its excruciatingly dull title, Daily Life in Russia Under the Last Tzar. It’s too bad that more people haven’t read it: it’s tops. Tops, I say! Henri Troyat’s fictional account of a young Englishman’s journey to Russia around the turn of the last century is page-turning. The … Read entire post

We went to the candlelight service tonight and Mom, the Captain, and most of the other adults fell asleep in their pews when the pastor read the children’s story because it was way, way too long. My sister and I stayed awake and watched the faces of the kids as they listened and fidgeted.

The message in the story was, “Don’t fixate on what you lack; be grateful for what you have.” It involved a girl named Josie, a blue sweater with pearl buttons, her recently-widowed mother, a pair of strangers in the barn, and several fervent prayers. The story took … Read entire post