March 2021
I have been
consuming Chicago-related media lately. The Frau and I watched Judas and the Black Messiah recently.
I will admit
to being taken out of the story a few times when street scenes just didn't look
like Chicago. Later I discovered that it was shot primarily in Cleveland.
The other
bit of Chicago entertainment lately is the impending release of season 2 of Bronzeville,
a radio drama set in 1940s Bronzeville, Chicago.
I am
planning on listening to season 1 again in preparation for the new episodes.
********
About this
time last year I figured that I had reached a certain age and income level and
thought it was the appropriate time to commission a piece of stained glass.
Besides, I thought, the people who makes stained glass could probably use a
boost with everything being closed and the pandemic building in strength. So I
hired a woman named Kristy at The Vinery. It was finally finished in December
– I guess they weren't hard up for work, after all – and I recently hung it in
one of my windows.
Hopefully
the Frau and I will be able to get to England sometime soon where we will tour
a church or two that have some Green Man architectural ornaments. Plus I'd like
to pretend that I remember more than a couple bits of trivia from those medieval
church lectures I attended. I will dazzle the Frau with my commentary –
"Here we are in the narthex!" and "Let's have a seat on one of
these here misericords." Afterwards we can retire for an ale at a pub
called The Green Man. I understand that they exist outside of movies like The
Wicker Man.
My
wanderlust has been stoked this month by a couple podcasts. Two weeks or so ago
we got a few inches of snow. While shoveling, I was listening to an episode of
the Ideas podcast from the Canadian Broadcasting Company called "I Travel Therefore I Am: The
Philosophy of Travel". It was hard not to dream about being somewhere else as I cleared the
sidewalks of what will hopefully prove to be the last snow of the season. There
was a lot about travel broadening the mind and the like discussed. Not long
after this another podcast I like, The Medievalist Podcast, had an episode
called Travel in the Middle Ages which only made my desire to hop on
a plane more intense.
I suspect this is why I've been drinking English style beers lately. A friend of mine who spent time in London during his college years adores their ales so we are always on the lookout for a fine mild or bitter. Or porter, for that matter. He lent me his City Walks: London cards and I've been looking over them lately.
But since
London is still on the back burner, the Frau and I are planning on going to the
Upper Peninsula this summer. We'll be staying at a hotel called the Fitzgerald
on the shores of Lake Superior. Plus we'll be down in Chicagoland as well in
2021.
I took a day
off in the middle of this week and did a little walking. On my trek at the
Acewood Conservation Park, I saw a smattering of mallards and lot of Canada
geese.
I then went to another conservation park – Heritage Sanctuary - nearby
that I'd never been to. The trails were covered in snow but the rest had mostly
melted.
I saw a red
bellied woodpecker on my walk but was an epic failure at trying to get a
photograph.
On my way
home I went by the Alexander Smith House which is only a couple miles from us.
I've always known it was old as it sits on a large lot and, well, it looks like
an old house. But it was only recently that I learned that it was built in
1850.
The bonus
photo this time is of some life-sized Minecraft figures in someone's yard down the street from us. Minecraft is a video
game. The youngest was totally enamored of it when he was young.
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