home

I am on the Interstate. Alone.


(no, that's not me; I'm the one with camera, remember?)

No one to take charge of the camera in the back seat. Just me. And loosely packed bags thrown about. With dirty laundry.

I search the airwaves for the appropriate song. Maybe the one about going home? To the place where you belong? So, do I belong here, back in the condo?

Sure, yes, but I would like, for once, to come home and not find that in my absence, the furnace has taken a vacation. So that the place has a lovely chill – fitting with the mood of a person leaving behind two weeks of daughters and their hilarity and facing a brief period of intense work and neglected chores.

Coming home. There is no heat, but contacted persons are awfully nice about it. Niceness counts. Home. Home, home. Facing the bright side now: home. With sunlight streaming in, so that the absence of a working furnace is barely noticable. (Until the sun sets.)

By the way, did you ever notice how difficult transitions can be? You have? Really? You too?

from Chicago: cold blast

How do you photograph a blast of Arctic air without spending much time in direct contact with it?

Intense dark blue sky of dusk, remnants of snow on frozen branches – that’s the best I can do.





And forgive me for the brief posts in the next handful of days. I’m returning to Madison tomorrow (sob, no more daughters) to catch up with stacks of papers – all of which must be reviewed and attended to before my departure on Monday. Where to then? Keep reading.

P.S. Ocean is four years old today. Ocean View is one year old this week. Ocean Store is opening for business this month. Is it all driven by a restless winter impatience? Or staying in from the cold? Maybe. So, thank you, Arctic air. And thank you to all who read Ocean. Posting daily makes sense to me so long as I have at least one person who likes to see what I’ve come up with. To all of you – commenters, readers, lurkers, friends, family, occasional traveling companions – thank you for peeking in now and then. It’s utterly wonderful to have you here.

from Chicago: is it about the Eve or the Day?

Without doubt, in Poland, it’s all about the Eve. The Day is only for recovering from the Eve. Maybe under the market economy people now make resolutions – to earn more money, to eat less junk food, that sort of thing – but I doubt it. You greet the New Year and then you forget about it.

I’m not sure where I fall on the Eve/Day dilemma. Which counts? The review of the past and the anticipation of midnight?

Maybe. Last night, the snow fell gently, the taxis were snatched faster than I could say, and we made our way, as last year, to Crofton on Wells – a downtown restaurant, where Suzy Crofton presides over a wonderful kitchen. (We have a tradition of saving the very best eating experience of the year for this evening.)

So, snow, a family frolic and finally, a feast. Not bad.












potato blini with smoked salmon, quail egg custard, etc.


After dinner, a quick glance at the postmidnight crowds (as seen through the window of a moving cab)...




... and then sleep. Had the ride been five minutes longer, I may have begun my night's slumber right there in the taxi.


Today, the snow still fell gently and the day moved gently as well. Here's what I could take in from the back patio of a third floor condo:





It was the kind of day where my big excitement was a trip to the gym, followed by a purchase of coffee. There were many many people buying coffee today. And taking it easy.





Someone sent me an email asking if I made resolutions. I’m on the fence with that as well. I, like millions of others, do believe in self improvement, but I also know that piling it on (be chipper, moderate indulgences, spend less on travel, etc etc) will freeze me in much the same way the computer freezes when it has too many applications open and running. Still, the “do better” slogan stays with me and I get to pick and choose which elements of it are pleasant enough to incorporate into the day.

Day is forward looking. Eve is full of nostalgia. Looking back is sad. Looking forward and doing better is optimistic.

There’s much to be said in favor of Day. Oh, but when I remember last night's mushroom and sunchoke soup...





Happy days ahead to you. And many evenings of good eating!

Chicago confection

I walk over to Pasticceria Natalina on Clark. I love that place. It’s authentic-young. She takes her talents from her Sicilian grandmothers, he brings them from his family bakery in Lebanon. And they create magic.





I wait in line. They’re baking like mad.

When we run out of stuff, we’ll close for the day. For the week actually.
Taking time to welcome the New Year with your family?
Family? Oh no. Not them. Christmas is for family. New Year’s is for fun!

I just want four Sfogliatelle, with ricotta and candied orange peel (right next to the stars below) and a bag of cookies con limone, but I’m enjoying watching others buy boxes and boxes of lovely creations.





Sweeten this day a little! It’s the end of a year and we’re all here and ticking. Celebrate! And hope for an even better 2008. I’m wishing all my readers a tasty ending and a delicious beginning.

To you, straight from my favorite Sicilian bakery on this side of the ocean:

from Chicago: walk

I started out early. On the El, taking it south, beyond the Art Institute. And from there, I turned around and walked back. Miles and miles of Chicago streets, until I was too spent to walk any more.

Here is a handful of photos, chronologically, from the walk, for Ocean:


































































Good night.

from Chicago: city life

In the late evening, I take a walk up and down Clark Street. I tell myself exercise will be good for me after the stormy ride into town.

But it’s Chicago the way I remember it from my student days: biting cold. Sometimes I think big cities feel cold even when it’s hardly freezing outside. Chicago, New York, Warsaw – I lived in these before I came up to Wisconsin. And they all felt dismally cold from November onwards.

Inside a Starbucks, a guy sits and draws cartoons. You do cartoons? – a friendly type asks him. He ignores her. She shrugs and leaves.





I pass a place called the Cheetah Gym. I go inside to poke around. Week passes? Sure, we have week passes. Wonderful. I’m yours. Hand me a towel and tomorrow I’ll start pushing weights.

Late at night, I eat a wonderful meal at Brioso to celebrate my gym days ahead. The city is kind, the city is bright…





…and most importantly, there’s a parking spot right in front of the place on Foster Avenue, where I’m staying.

Saturday morning. My family is pushing for an early wake up. So that we can get breakfast at Pauline’s. You’ll like it, you’ll see.





I do like it. It’s a diner, a little kitschy, but very true to the neighborhood corner, where there’s been a place dispensing food for many many decades. And, the old guy who owns it now is determined to pick up dated stuff (how retro!) to fill the interior. More importantly, he is bent on serving fresh foods: Michigan eggs, no more than five days old! Potatoes, peeled and panfried fresh each morning. And so on.





My kind of place indeed. The waitress is happy to chat, I’m happy to listen.





And the blueberry pancakes on green plastic plates are outstanding.





We walk back to Foster and I look. And I look again. No car. Stolen? Really? Towed? But why? I checked the signs: no parking M – F, daytime, or when there are two or more inches of snow. Last night, there may have been a quarter of an inch here, probably less.

I call the city.
The old Toyota? It’s here, impounded.
Where’s “here”?
North Sacramento.
Where is that?
By Chicago Avenue. Look at a map.
How much to get it back?
Bring $160 and a license.
In cash?
I said $160. I don’t care how you carry it.

Oh. One of those. Hates her job. Who can blame her.

I get myself to North Sacramento and the City Pound. No fancy building here: I make my way to two trailers, filled with angry people on both sides of a dirty counter.

I want to appeal, but the appeal information person is out to lunch. At 11. Wont be back for a while. Besides, all he’ll do is give me a date two weeks from now when I can get my fat ass over to the courthouse (she didn’t say it, but she wanted to).

We go around this several times, getting nowhere. It’s not her fault. It’s none of these people’s fault. The sign saying “no parking at night on Foster in the winter at all,” or words to that effect was far from the signs that gave me permission to leave my car there. These people didn’t put up the signs. They merely impound cars.

I sigh, pick up the appeal info, pay up and go to claim the car. I can’t resist a photo: there is the Sears tower, in the distance, far from this desolate lot with a hundred cars plucked out of the streets of Chicago.

No photos! – a burly guy shouts at me.
Says who? I shout back. I lived in Poland with hostile service people all my growing years, I stopped being pushed around by them when I was thirteen.
No photos! Put that camera away!
It’s a public place! I can take a photo. Leave me alone.
You want your car, right?

Oh, he’s one of the many many men here who actually are in control of the old little Toyota. I put away my camera.

Get in the white van. They’ll take you to it.

Three burly men ride along with me. The city of Chicago keeps burly men employed. I suppose that’s a good thing. Better here in the dirty white van than on the streets of the city.

I told her, no photos. Make sure she gets it.

Hey, it’s my car, I can take photos.
They laugh. Sure you can!

I get in my blue car, slam the door. There’s not much to photograph here anyway, in the far corner of the lot. Just the jail number on the window. The car, in shame, dumped in this desolate place with high fences and a remote gate.





I drive it out. The guard is all warm and fuzzy now. You watch the parking signs now, hear? He grins. I glare. And I note the ticket pasted on the windshield. Another $100 owed for a winter parking violation. Two appeals before me, both most likely futile. City life is like that.

It’s time for me to put my energy into something other than getting angry at poorly positioned Chicago parking signs. I walk along Clark Street enjoying the spirit of the place.









And I make my way to the Cheetah Gym where I spend a good hour and a half exercising next to very fit guys in spiffy gear (having myself borrowed too-large tennies and boxer shorts for the occasion – who knew I would join a gym for the week).

City life. I like it so much except when things go wrong. Not the deep country, nor urban places are gentle on the person in trouble. You want hassle-free? Move to Madison. A commercial for my town: parking bullies getting to you? Come home to Madison, where we tow your car around the corner and parking tickets are cheap.

en route to Chicago

They said it would storm. It did.

By the time we reached the Interstate, cars were slowing down to a crawl. Those who insisted on holding their own were punished mercilessly. Nothing major, mind you. No roll overs, no screaming ambulances (thankfully). Just many vehicles whiling away the hours in the ditch.

And still, the snow continued.





It was an intense ride. Terrifying, beautiful, chock full of music, sometimes almost at a standstill, sometimes careening with the speed of the rest, not believing that there’s anything safe in numbers, no not at all. And yet.





All the way down to the south of the Wisconsin border, we bullied our way through the storm. The world was white and just a little dark. No color, there was no color.





But who cares. There was color in the absence of color. There was beauty in the ice and cold tones. Bold statements. Defiant riders. Fantastic mix of bravado and subjugation.









And for the person who cannot live without drama, there was the occasional Ace truck splashing red onto this white and gray landscape.





[photo credits: Ca, from the back seat]

goodbye holiday town of mine, goodbye holidays

Tree comes down. The condo is a mess of needles and old cardboard boxes. Outside, I see branches gently touched by snow.





A friend writes from Warsaw: no snow this year for Christmas. I want to say – tides do turn! We’re getting close to a record amount.

Tomorrow’s forecast: winter storm. I’m to drive to Chicago. It may be slow going.

But the days, they're moving fast now. It’s like when you flip the hourglass – the last grains plummet.

Goodbye decorations. How will the world be when I unwrap the toilet paper next year to take each one out?

I drive down to pick up a daughter on State Street. Goodbye State Street snowflakes.





The street is nearly empty. A bike leans against a snow mound. A bus – one of mine, the one I take from work, spins past me. Empty.

The boxes of ornaments are stacked in my storage room. End of holiday season.

I call down to Muramoto for sushi.

new ice, old ice

The day after. Empty campus. Cold office. No good mail, piles of paper, exams to read. I walk over to the College Library to pick up some books. I linger over the new collection. I'm leafing through a volume titled “All the Money in the World.” I’m on the chapter about whether money brings happiness.

Not surprisingly, most rich people think it does not. Most rich people, I think, don’t remember what it’s like to be not rich, in the same way that I do not really remember what it’s like to live in a poor country: I only recall I felt like Nina then and feel like Nina now. Troubled by everything and nothing. Is it that you only notice deprivation when others count on you for a better life?


Outside, I note that Lake Mendota is getting that sheen of ice cover. Not thick yet, not rippled, not covered with snow. Dangerously new, not solid. Kind of like a fresh relationship – the one you shouldn’t feel too comfortable with. Time hasn’t thickened the skin yet. Everything is new. Everything is shiny. Everything is fragile.





I drive to the other lake, the one with the bay at the side, The one favored by the ice fishers. And they are there. Doug-in, safe, on ice-covered snow.




It's good to be able to count on that sheet of ice growing solid. It doesn't cost much to hang out its surface and hope for a fish to make its way into the bucket. You're alone. You let someone else fix supper and welcome you at the end of the day.

The world is different depending on where you throw your stool.

Day dreams

The Eve is like the very end of a mad race. I'm almost there! Almost, but not quite. Hurry up, get it done, do it right, it's a big one, do it well, watch your step, it matters!

But the Day (Christmas Day) forgives it all. It’s too late to feel the burden of wanting to be a better human being. You've arrived, you're settling in at the theater. You can't change a thing. Turn on the lights, throw on the bacon, wake the kids (not kids anymore, but oh well, they're sleeping nonetheless) and let it all roll forward.

A snowflake on spice cake. It doesn’t make an appearance every year. Sometimes we just don’t have time. This year, a daughter did the cut-out and there it was.






I used to love Christmas Eve to pieces, but with time, I’ve switched. It’s the Day that holds the greatest bounty. When did the change happen? When I realized that watching my girls do a puzzle together is possibly the most beautiful sight in the world? (I’m watching them now.)


In the early afternoon, I go to the sheepshed to touch base with the person who has never thought much about holidays. The approach is always lovely...





...and more often than not, you can watch wild things (gobble gobble) move in and out of the forest.






We take a walk up the Nature Conservancy path just up the road and round the bend. The drifts of snow are deep enough to wet my pants and send icy coldness into my boots.




No matter. The sun is out and everything feels fresh. A dog runs to us across a frozen sheet of snow. Tail wagging, tongue out, a moving picture of exuberant joy. It’s a great stretch of land, isn’t it? -- her owner reflects.




The evening is food based. Cornish hens, causing the smoke detector to shriek, Yule log, requiring a loosening of the pants.





The sun has set on a beautiful sky of pumpkin clouds. The stars come out in twos, threes, then dozens, as we walk down to see a late show. I sip an espresso and listen to the clever dialogue of people way younger than you or I ("Juno"). And that's a good thing, because I want to believe that the younger generation will be more clever and witty and wise than any of us is, or was ever destined to be.

We laugh hard, and some of us sniffle now and then and on the walk back to the condo, we proclaim it to be a fine Christmas.

Goodnight sweet, forgiving Day. You're the best.