Daytripping, part 2 of 2

When planning our daytrip to Carlisle, I found out that the Dickinson College Theater and Dance Departments were putting on a free outdoor adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's (1898-1956) play Mother Courage and Her Children [Mutter Courage und Ihre Kinder, 1939]. Sometimes described as the greatest play of the 20th century, it discusses the all-around tragedy of warfare through the rhetorical distance of the 17th century.

A. went back to the car to nap with a headache while K. and I gathered in the courtyard outside the theater arts building with a sizable crowd (of 50-60?) to enjoy the pandemic-safe performance. It took place entirely outside at 12 different spots around campus, with mobile scenery and the actors miked. The scenes were interspersed with dances by two different troupes, and some tableaus. It was quite well done, and the rain had cleared up. Here we are looking down over the railing of a walkway onto the action.

Dancers in orange overalls and plaid shirts on the left, action on the wagon on the right.

This was my favorite dance piece, involving a different group in blue and white. Too bad it involved beginning on the (wet) ground in slow motion as each dancer gather momentum, finally processing out through the gate with the college's name.

The scene that happened next in the courtyard involved a good bit of humorous staging involving the checkerboard in the foreground.

Interlude with both companies.

As the Thirty-Years War (1618-1648) drags on, Mother Courage loses her children one by one, including a son who was on the right side of the law as long as he was raping and pillaging during a campaign but was found to be a war criminal when a brief cease-fire was declared. This was a particular "Brechtian" moment of satirical irony. Meanwhile, Mother Courage wheels and deals, always trying to make a buck while avoiding any but the most superficial political allegiances.

By the time of the last dance piece, it was full dark. (Daylight Saving Time had ended the night before.) The last couple of scenes were done here in the original courtyard, in front of the white house in the background and then around the corner at this lawn.

Then it was back in the car for the half-hour trip back to Harrisburg, where the brewery I had picked out actually closed at 7pm, so we opted for my second choice, McGrath's Irish pub. It was amazing. (See my Yelp review.) Finally, I boarded a Greyhound bus back to Pittsburgh. Bless him, Dear Husband came to pick me up after midnight so I didn't have to walk to my car in the garage alone or drive myself home after a long but good day. I am really glad K. extended the invitation and that I was able to make the time and the trip.

Snicker-Doodles

Tomorrow our county exits quarantine after 11 weeks. I figured this was a good time to take stock. I worked from home for 3 (4?) of those weeks and worked at the hospital or clinic for the rest. There still aren't that many patients, and neither Dear Husband nor I is ready to eat at a restaurant or even to take a walk without a face mask. We've spent so long disciplining ourselves (and others, in our minds) that I wonder what kind of culture shock it will be when the stay-at-home orders lift and we stumble outside in the heat of summer. Since we returned from our Spring Break trip to Los Angeles and Santa Monica--perhaps with mild cases of COVID-19?--the following things have happened:

Goods baked:
Raspberry scones
Chocolate chip cookies
Snickerdoodles
Blackberry oatmeal coffee cake
Peanut butter banana bread
Chocolate chip banana bread
Mixed berry pie x2
Cherry pie
Strawberry pie x3

I baked the snickerdoodles according to a recipe from family friend S.H., my Brownie Troop leader. It was a gift at my bridal shower in 2005, at the very end of the era of recipes written down on paper or cut out of newspapers or magazines. Nowadays you can search the internet for any combination of ingredients you want (or have on hand), but there's something heartwarmingly personal about a note at the end about liking soft "snicks" better than crunchy ones.

1. Mix 1 cup shortening, 1 1/2 cups of sugar, and 2 eggs.
2. Separately blend 2 3/4 cups flour, 2 tsp cream of tartar (purchased especially for this occasion), 1 tsp of baking soda, and 1/2 tsp of salt.
3. Mix everything together.
4. Roll into 1" balls, and then roll on a plate with 2 tbsp sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon.
5. Place 2" apart on an ungreased sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes at 375 F.

"They puff, then flatten. (Makes 6 doz.)," she wrote. They certainly do puff, but my idea of 1" must have been generous, because I only got 48 cookies!

Settlers of Catan: Created a character for myself, grew wheat, mined ore, and traded brick up to Level 20! I am now a Master of Catan. I was "Lord of Catan" among my friends here when quarantine started, but I forfeited my kingdom by choosing to stay home and nurse the rest of my illness instead of defending my title when the rest of them gathered for one last round before stay-at-home orders went into effect. We plan to renew the conquest tomorrow during our graduation celebration, now that the county is entering the Green Zone.


Movies watched:
Contagion (2011)
War Games (1983)
Cast Away (2000)
Jaws (1975)
Dial M for Murder (1954)
The Shining (1980)
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018)
Knives Out (2019)
Godzilla (1954)
Snakes on a Plane (2006)
The Towering Inferno (1974)

The very last weekend I had a 24-hour shift (last ever!) that obliterated the weekend. A friend form church H.G. who enjoys theater invited us to a Zoom "staging" of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice over two days. Unfortunately, we only got to watch the first half, because by the time we could get back to it, Pittsburgh Public Theater had taken down the recording of the live feed in preparation for the next week's offering. I'm trying to temper my disappointment by remembering that they will put the money we donated for "tickets" toward keeping their lights on and actors employed until we have passed into whatever comes after the Green Zone, when live performances will again be allowed.

Until then, stay safe. What hobbies or skills did you find during your quarantine? And how much longer will you have to stay at home?

Rememberlutions 2018: Here's to the Year that Was

I have a tradition of collecting good memories throughout the year to look back on at the end. 2018's jar was full of ticket stubs and little scraps of paper. Here they are, in no particular order, with some as-yet unpublished photos.

In January, Dear Husband and I thumbed our noses at the frigid temps of the "bomb cyclone" with tropical drinks and friends S.B. and R.B. I also visited my paternal relatives in Charlotte, NC, for MLK Weekend.

In March, we visited family (and alligators!) in Florida for Spring Break. Then M.A.P. (My Awesome Parents) visited, and we ate our way through Allentown.

In April I treated myself to "Potted Potter," a comedic abridged version of the books/movies. We also watched a local production of Jane Eyre at WQED's Fred Rogers Studio. Unfortunately, their Jane was much too feisty for me. In my head, she was quieter and mousier.

In May I traveled back to Champaign for two retirement parties and to see old friends. I want to remember the smell of lilacs there in May.

In June we laughed our @$$es off at The Reduced Shakespeare performance.

In August, DH and I celebrated 13 years of marriage, and in October, 20 years of being a couple. (Flowers above.)

Over Labor Day weekend, DH, friend A.S., and I visited the Art of the Brick exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center, where we geeked out at the amazing things Nathan Sawaya can do with Legos.

In October we memorialized my grandfather with military and Sokol honors (right). Also, being an Elite Yelper for the second year in a row entitled us to attend the best Halloween party in the city.

In December, DH and I joined friends J.H.R. and K.R. at Peter Jackson's British Great War documentary, They Shall Not Grow Old.

I want to remember...
- The intern who thought I was so good I must be a third-year resident (I was a second-year at the time).
- That time I predicted a patient had "sick sinus syndrome" and the electrophysiology fellow disagreed--at first!
- Every time another resident sought my opinion as a colleague.
- Being mistaken for a new attending because of my Palliative Care phone skills.
- How it felt to be challenged to speak to medical students the way I talk to patients.
- Every attending, fellow, intern, and medical student who told me how pleased they were that I was their senior resident.
- Seeing my first Acute Tubular Necrosis (ATN) muddy brown cast under a microscope.
- The second time I took the microphone for Chairman's Report, I did better than the first.
- Playing "Marco Polo" with my attending in his office building.
- When the care manager told me, "You are the best resident at running rounds."
- How much personal growth I underwent while rotating as the Neonatal ICU triage on the way to pediatric Emergency Department sedation resident.
- The repercussions after improperly supervising a medical student doing a HEADS exam.
- The sound of Haendel's Messiah with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and Mendelssohn Choir.
- Every nurse and every patient who thanked me for my enthusiasm and good doctoring.
- The patient's wife who kissed me on the cheek after  I comforted her.
- That one attending complimented me for writing "fellow-level notes."
- The 90-year-old patient who called me "Dr. Magic" and teased that I had a healing handshake.
- When a colleague stopped me in the hallway to say he doesn't study very much but always enjoys my Teaching Rounds posts.
- That I knocked my research presentation to the Internal Medicine Department out of the park.

Once, three different people in three weeks described me as "a calm team leader." Other compliments included "lifesaver" and "consummate team player." Then there was the time a genetics fellow complimented me months later on doing a really good neurology exam on a patient.

Yes, I really posted a picture of a battery with the caption,
"On RED team, we're positive" in the team room.

I finally lost my Rocky Horror Picture Show virginity.

I also went to trivia sometimes on Wednesday evening. Once I won both a free drink and third place in the competition with a team called "TiKel Me Kristen."

The friend who sent me this note: "Lady, You are valued. You are a force to be reckoned with. You are amazing. Thinking of you."

Baseball games:
Pittsburgh Pirates vs Philadelphia Phillies at Spectrum Field (Largo/Clearwater blog post)
We also watched the Baltimore Orioles lose to the Toronto Blue Jays at Ed Smith Stadium (Sarasota blog post)
Milwaukee Brewers vs Pittsburgh Pirates on Johns Hopkins Alumni Day
Pittsburgh Pirates vs New York Mets on a HOT day at the end of July
Butler Bluesox vs Kokomo Jackrabbits with new friends in the Home of the Jeep

Also, we attended Pitt Gymnastics vs North Carolina State, Temple, and Towson University. This was a neat date, since our third date ever was to a Towson gymnastics meet. We also had a hot date at the hospital cafeteria together.

DH and I shared the experience of a lifetime with some artistic friends at a concert called "Into the Earth" that literally took place IN A CAVE. These are some of the same people with whom we went on retreat, retreat! to Raccoon Creek State Park.

Presenting in Los Angeles with the American Association for the History of Medicine and in Pittsburgh with the German Studies Association. I'll be at both conferences in 2019, in Columbus, OH, and in Portland, OR.

Enjoying the floral displays at the Phipps Botanical Garden for Valentine's Day, in the spring, and the holiday decorations with friend J.B. [post and pics coming!].

Finally, DH and I adopted Rosamunde "Rosie" from the local humane society. She has fattened up nicely, has a beautiful coat and glorious purr, and there will surely be many more photos of her on this blog.

I had HOPED to share I had finally gotten my first solo academic history piece published, but it still hasn't happened yet. I am looking forward to being recruited to join the Pitt faculty without the need for further training (i.e. a fellowship, a medical education degree).


Editor's Note: You can find previous years' blog posts here: 2017, 2016, 2015 Parts 1 and 2.

What I got for Xmas this year: TIXXX

Tickets #1: Dear Husband and I treated ourselves to a fancy dinner and then a show at Heinz Hall: Händel's Messiah. The Mendelssohn Choir and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra have been performing this work together for years, and it shows. I teared up a couple of times before intermission from the beauty of the music. Some of the conductor's choices of what to leave in and what to cut were a little eccentric, but we really enjoyed the whole production, and especially the counter-tenor who sung the alto parts so effortlessly.

Tickets #2: The next week we treated ourselves to Randy Rainbow's first touring show. He sang along to some of his videos, took questions from the audience, and then released his latest comedic mashup. It was okay, but I've already watched most if not all of his YouTube videos. I was hoping to hear him sing something else--Broadway, maybe--while others in the audience laughed (again) at the jokes. It wasn't amazing, but I'm not sorry we went.

Tickets #3: The next weekend we extended our range to John Waters' "Holier & Dirtier," a stand-up routine hosted in Pittsburgh by the Andy Warhol Museum. Apparently he's been touring for a couple of years and always stops here. Acquaintances of ours happened to be seated across the hall from each other, and they had attended the first two years, but the jokes were too similar, so they waited a couple years to buy tickets again. It was definitely R-rated and sometimes offensive content, but now we can say we've seen this Baltimore icon in person.

Rememberlutions 2017

Since January 2015, I have kept a decorated glass jar on a shelf as a place to store reminders of things I want to remember about the previous year. You can find my posts about 2015 and 2016 by clicking. Because these early years of medical training tend to involve a lot of doubt and self-recrimination--as well as long working that seem to preclude having time for fun and relationships--I like the idea of pausing to look back at my accomplishments and positive experiences. This blog post is mostly a personal exercise in gratitude, but I share it with you in case you are curious about what went on with me over the last year. I don't expect you to read all of it, but maybe leave a comment at the end with one of your favorite memories of 2017.

To be honest, my favorite memories from 2017 are every time I hugged a crying mother, or when a patient, family member, or attending thanked me for being a good doctor. There was the catastrophizing teenager who assured me I had calmed his fears about his prognosis. Multiple children of old and sick patients in the hospital expressed appreciation for how I conducted family meetings, answered their questions, and grieved with them. And my heart just melted at the way the mother of a newborn with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome called me "Dr. Kristen." I hope most of these memories were left out of the jar more out of concern for my patients' privacy than because of exhaustion. I did collect encouraging feedback from my superiors to come back to when something goes wrong, or I (inevitably) fail at some task:

"Thanks for all your great work on neurology. You have great attention to detail even working overnight as a guardian angel of neurology. Hope you will get some good rest after your overnight."

"You have good clinical judgement." (From none other than the guy who literally wrote the textbook on pediatric clinical diagnosis.)

"Special thank you to you for always going the distance: your willingness to step up in a lot of ways from this project [on reducing burnout] to your [history of medicine] noon conference and the stuff from this morning [sitting up front at Chairman's Rounds after an overnight shift in the pediatric emergency room] is inspiring!"

"I just wanted to let you know that you did a great job this week. The patient that you saw today was very complex from the ID standpoint and you did an exceptional job of collecting all of the information and putting it together in a coherent fashion with an excellent plan. I usually try to come up with some critical feedback but you really did an exceptional job and I can't think of anything specific for you to work on."


In other news, I was made a Yelp! Expert and have had two of my reviews featured as Reviews of the Day. My Yelp! account is another repository of memories from the past year, from the sketchy froyo place in Shadyside (Happy Berry) to our marvelous 12th anniversary dinner (Altius).

Now on to the Rememberlutions jar. It is not big enough for all my good memories: there was a whole stack of programs in addition to the tickets and scraps of paper stuffed inside. Here they are, in approximate chronological order:

We started the year by using our new Carnegie Museum membership to visit the Art Museum to see Brazilian artist Helio Oiticica's work.

Then there was a Duquesne University studio production of local faculty musicians performing late-19th-century French, Weimar-era German, and mid-20th-century American cabaret pieces called "The Art of Cabaret."

Probably my favorite musical performance of the year was the organ and vocal concert "Choral Fantasy" at East Liberty Presbyterian Church in January 2017. The melancholy sounds of the singers' voices drifting down to us from the balcony still haunt me.

Watching Hidden Figures with a group of Black women leaders in Pittsburgh.

Any year that includes Dale Chihuly glass is a good year. (Columbus, OH)
Other criteria: good food, fun games, beautiful music, friends and family.

While playing a pre-show ice-breaker game before a WordPlay performance at the Bricolage Theater (like The Moth, but with a live-DJed soundtrack), Dear Husband and I (Delilah) met Mary (Sampson), who invited us to attend the 19th annual Summit Against Racism at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, which she was organizing over MLK weekend. I later went back to the Seminary to watch "Unfinished Business: From the Great Migration to Black Lives Matter," a documentary about Pittsburgh's Black community.

The Pittsburgh Opera's Pennsylvania premiere of As One, a two-person operetta about a transgender woman's coming to terms with herself, had some of the best music for string quartet I have ever heard.

A "Welcome to worship card" from Third Presbyterian Church with the verse, "Jesus spoke to them saying, 'I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.' John 8:12"

Beauty and the Beast, which was beautiful to watch but involved so much CGI that it wasn't really an improvement over the original cartoon version

Nefarious, another of our favorite new games this year.

Woody's Order, a one-woman show about the play-write and actor's older brother, Woody, who was born with cerebral palsy and "ordered" a sister from his parents. At the Pittsburgh Playhouse.

Pilobolus' Shadow Land at the Byham Theater, a review of which I combined with some of my own nocturnal dreams at the same time: What Dreams May Come.

A worship concert, "The World Beloved," at First United Methodist Church, one of our three faith communities.


This hand-written note from the Chair of the Pediatrics Department that came with a gift card to Millie's Ice Cream: "Have a couple of scoops on us. I am so grateful for your hard work and caring ways! Best, Terry" (Everyone got one, but still.)

At some point I went back to the Bricolage for WordPlay and played a game of bingo that involved finding someone who had never attended one of these shows and someone who had hands larger than mine. If I can, I like to attend on Friday nights, because the American Sign Language interpreter is really good.

Visiting the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston with friend FN while there for a conference in April.

I completed two jigsaw puzzles this year, one of a Bengal Tiger by myself (click for photo and short story), and one of the constellations and zodiac with my family over Christmas.

Treasured memories from our trip to Copenhagen and Scotland at the end of May so I could give a conference paper include walking on the beach in Aberdeen and touring the grounds of Balmoral Castle, Scottish Home to The Royal Family. Most interesting tidbit: watching Queen Elizabeth age from a perfectly ordinary-looking young wife and mother in their early photo Christmas cards to the wizened, white-haired old lady as I have always known her. We had actually attended church with her that morning(!). Also riding the funicular part of the way up Cairngorm Mountain and then hiking to the summit.

I gave the first Pediatrics noon conference for the new interns, a history of medicine talk about using food as medicine.

Staying up late on a work night to watch Moonlight with our "friends": someone shared to a list-serv I'm on that there would be a viewing of the film at a local theater, so we showed up, only to discover that it wasn't a public event at all: the owner of the theater had invited people he knew to his "home" to see the movie projected on a large screen over the stage.

Celebrating my birthday with dugout seats from one of my residency programs that were close enough for the Pirates Parrot to wiggle his butt in our faces.

Of all the game nights with L & R, apparently my favorite was the time we played the ever-expanding game of Concept. Second favorite: Carcassonne. Third: Starfarers of Catan.

The Pittsburgh revival of In the Heights, the Tony-Winning Best Musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda advertised with his picture (but a different lead actor in the show). Heart-felt but not particularly memorable for me.

Laughing our butts off from the cheap seats at An Act of God, an irreverent religious comedy written by a former Daily Show writer for a local comedian. Unfortunately, the home-town crowd appeared to have found ticket prices too high, and they ended up closing the month-long run 3 days early, before we could recommend it to anyone else.

Attending "On Green Dolphin Street," the September 2017 Jazz at Emmanuel vespers service


A note from friend JR, who hand-made my new Halloween earrings in the shapes of candy corns, spiders, and pumpkins: "Dearest Kristen, I hope that this week is going better for you. I also hope that you enjoy the earrings. I love and miss you and am always here if you need me." (I went as a Smarty Pants for Halloween; those are Smarties stuck to my pants with double-sided tape.)

The Carnegie Museum of Natural History's Power of Poison in the Natural World exhibition. I should get around to writing that blog post... Did you know the Mr. Yuck sticker was invented at the Children's Hospital here?

Then there's the program from the jazz concert by our neighbor at a suburban Presbyterian Church containing the following written conversation: Me: "We need spinach for Cajun chicken." DH: "We also need to cook rice." I guess that's what we had for dinner, which reminds me, I should post the recipe sometime, as it's one of our favorites.

Watching Murder on the Orient Express over Thanksgiving.

A ticket the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's superfluous and mildly offensive mini-operetta staging of Haydn's Creation. The music by itself was worth it, however.

Probably my favorite theater experience was Dodo, an "immersive" theater experience put on by The Bricolage in the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History after hours that began as a surrealist comedy and became a meditation on memory, loss, and preservation.

From the jar I also retrieved a ticket to see Rogue One at Christmas 2016 (we later re-watched it with FUMC friends over dinner) and our stubs from a community theater production of The Music Man back in November 2016. Big events from 2017 that didn't make it into the jar included a c-c-c-cold visit to Fallingwater and a warmer one to Columbus; hearing the Junior Mendelssohn Choir sing and also the Bach Choir's War concert; going to Kennywood amusement park and tubing down a crick with my pediatrics colleagues; planting trees with the Pittsburgh Redbud Project and wandering Main Street in little Cambridge, Ohio, all decked out like a Charles Dicken's novel (blog post coming!).

Happy New Year, Reader. What are you going to remember about 2017?

What Dreams May Come

One recent Sunday afternoon Dear Husband and I drove down to Oakland to watch Woody's Order, Ann Talman's autobiographical one-woman show about herself and her older brother, Woody. The title--which I hate--is imprecise; you have to know the joke already to get it, and at first I didn't know that I would be interested in this play about growing up in the 1950s and 60s with a sibling with cerebral palsy. Once I found out what it was about, of course I bought us tickets! Maybe I would have been more excited if I had known who Ann Talman is. Anyway, she uses her considerable acting talent to portray a cast of characters that ranges from herself at various ages to her drawling West-Virginian parents to an abashed neighbor to Woody's roommate. She plays Woody himself, who is minimally verbal, with facial expressions and grunts or whines that taken out of context could be seen as derogatory but here are clearly a loving and accurate representation. According to Talman family lore, Woody wanted a younger sibling, so he conjured one up by pointing suggestively to his parents' respective reproductive parts. Their mother wrote "Woody's order" on the bottom of a Polaroid of Ann after her birth.

Ann became her brother's keeper. As a child she adored him, and for the most part she accepted this role with enthusiasm, until her acting career and marriage drew her to the coasts, but Woody lived here in the Pittsburgh area. When their father's health declined precipitously, she was suddenly caretaking for both of them as well as jetting to LA or NYC. The climax of the piece comes during this vignette, when Woody refuses to eat the favorite dish she has prepared for him, and she tears around the house ranting about how much she dislikes the stress of always caring, planning, doing for him. She then realizes she had forgotten to take his mouth guard out so that he could eat. There are so many rich details in this dual biography of herself and her brother. One that stands out to me is when Talman reveals that the strain of her responsibility as Woody's keeper initially manifested itself in recurrent dreams, in which she is faced with the choice of saving herself or drowning with Woody. She comes back to this thread a few times in the play. Finally, one night, Ann releases Woody in the water...and to her surprise, they both float.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

In my dream, I am canoeing around an island in an unfamiliar lake. My father's parents are with me as I stroke furiously for the shore. I am dissatisfied about something, but I cannot remember what, as the canoe ploughs up onto the dry land.

In another dream I am running--jogging, I think, although that is not something I do--down a city street. The sidewalk is raised above the level of the road, with a metal railing. Only the public path seems to run right through the first floors of the townhouses on the street, as if the private living space begins upstairs. I might be running up and down some of these stairs, front stairs, back stairs. I don't know if I am chasing or being chased, good-naturedly or not.

Photo by Fairy Godmother

In the last act, I visit The 1840 House, a now-closed museum in Baltimore, MD. It is closed in my dream, too, turned into a historical research archive, I think. The first floor is open to the public, and there are cases set into the walls holding objects from the collection. We (who am I with?) look at them as we walk down the corridor, which empties into...a shopping mall. The first store, which sells expensive evening gowns, is set up like an open department store. I make my way up to the second floor, then ride the escalator back down. On my left I see a rack of gorgeous peacock gowns. I reach over and pluck one from the rack. But the feathers in the train get caught in the gears of the escalator, and by the time I reach the bottom, the machine has eaten this whole beautiful dress. Just before I find out from the saleslady waiting for me below how much I owe for something I coveted but can never wear--I wake up.

 ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

The protagonist in Pilobolus' "Shadow Land" has a dream, too. She has rebelled against her parents, fallen asleep in a huff, and is carried off to a strange land, where a magician turns her into a dog-girl. She then hitchhikes through the country, is kidnapped by a circus, swims in the ocean, is almost cooked in soup, and finally finds herself in Pittsburgh (a very clever epilogue designed to please the local audience). The performance Dear Husband and I saw at the downtown Byham Theater was sold out. We art patrons had packed the place to watch a troupe of very fit dancers use their bodies and a few props to create marvelous scenes both in front of and behind a shadow screen.

(Click here to watch a trailer for the show.)

Afterward we stayed to listen to a Q&A with the performers, in which I learned that the troupe formed in 1971 from a group at Dartmouth; that the dancers learn the choreography from each other as one generation eventually moves on and another comes up; that they have a whole set of dancers who are affiliated with them for projects that need more bodies; and that there is another group touring Germany right now doing Shadow Land II, which is similarly structured with vignettes but has a different premise (they didn't say what). Basically Pilobolus members work collaboratively with improv until they have enough material for a piece. "Shadow Land" is their first evening-length piece among the ~125 in the repertoire; the group typically comes up with 2-3 new pieces a year. Also, after previews they changed the staging of "Shadow Land," because early audiences thought some of the material had been pre-filmed and was being projected onto the screen rather than being created live. So, they removed the borders around the stage so the audience can see the wings and props and know that these people are using a few pieces of equipment and their bodies to make everything that we see. Sometimes I wish someone would peel back the curtain on my dreams, but other times I just revel in them as they are.

Toys for Adults at the Art Institute of Chicago

I recently had to take a big medical exam in Chicago. The test would take all day, so I took the train up the day before and stayed in a hotel near the testing center so I could study and not worry about arriving late. However, once I discovered BBC America was playing a Star Trek—Next Generation marathon, little studying happened. The big day went fine, and after picking up my bags from the hotel, I hopped on the L into downtown, where I met Dear Husband at a different hotel. Located in a “historic” building one block from Millennium Park, our room was small, with a window-unit air conditioner, questionable internet, and no mini-fridge. We were paying for location, location, location.

Dear Husband had been cooling his heels since his train arrived and wanted to go out, do something. So we shared an entrée from the Thai restaurant under the hotel before heading out to the Art Institute of Chicago. The last time we were in the Windy City, our flight to San Francisco had been delayed, so we concocted a mini-religious arts tour to amuse ourselves before flying out the next morning. As luck would have it, we were once again at AIC on a Thursday evening = free admission for Illinois residents! Neither a little rain nor a thick line damped our enthusiasm.

Once inside, we took advantage of the breadth of the Institute’s collections, starting with the Paperweight Collection. (Yes, you read that right.) Arthur Rubloff made such a major hobby of collecting these blobs of glass, that he was able to donate 1,200 to the AIC, and there is a whole room devoted to the various styles, from abstract mosaics of color to be-dew-dropped roses to little insects captured within the glass orbs. As you may remember, I am a sucker for art glass. Still I found most of the designs--made in the nineteenth century--to be crude.

Next door is the Thorne Miniatures gallery. Narcissa Niblack Thorne (1882-1966) had researched home furnishings in Europe (France, Germany) from 1275 to the mid-1900s, and in America (Virginia, Massachusetts, Maine) from the 1700s to the mid-1900s. Essentially doll-house rooms with historical accuracies, the dioramas made for interesting comparisons and many instances of “I spy.” DH liked to point out the various musical instruments and whether they were anachronistic. I delighted in finding details such as portraits or firescreens.

Finally, before the AIC closed for the day, we explored the small Muslim gallery. Panels there explained common influences in Islamic art, from calligraphy and arabesques to geometrical patterns and even figurative designs. The next day we tackled the Field Museum, sunned/swam at the lakeshore, ate dinner at a diner, and then watched a Second City show. Because I was going to be too busy in August around the time of our anniversary, this counted as our annual Midwest trip. We celebrated our first anniversary with Second City, too--and here's proof!