Stevie Nicks

On Sunday Evening, I lifted Mark up onto my shoulders while he screamed "Woooo.. Hoooo.. Rhiannon...Rhiannon !" Meanwhile I shoved two fingers into either side of my mouth and let loose with a loud, high pitched whistle. The smell of marijuana wafted through the air. We were reliving our youth. We were at the Ravinia Festival with one of the all time greats of the era of good music, Stevie Nicks.

Okay, no I did not lift Mark up onto my shoulders. No Mark did not scream out for Stevie Nicks to sing one of his favorite songs. Mark did not scream out anything. I did not whistle. I do not know how to do that fingers shoved into your mouth style of whistling. There was the smell of marijuana, but that might have actually been a skunk in the area. Smoking pot makes me cough up a lung in my old age. But never mind all that, we were within fifty feet of Stevie Nicks and she was great. There was a "Woo Hoo" girl sitting next to me. Every time the band played the first few notes of a familiar and popular Stevie Nicks song, the woo hoo girl would jump up, throw her hands in the air, and start swinging her hips back and forth usually bumping me in the side of the head. Otherwise, during the less familiar songs, she was sitting down screwing around with her smart phone.

So we enjoyed the concert very much. However, halfway through it Mark leans over to me and shows me a text on his phone.

"I can't read that. I didn't bring my glasses." I tell him.

"It's from a friend. He says for you to turn off your Facebook live streaming."

"I didn't turn on any live streaming. Maybe I pocket dialed live streaming"

"What's live streaming?"

I explained live streaming to Mark and he started yelling at me.

"Oh my god. You mean everybody could hear everything we were talking about?"

I tried to tell Mark no, my phone was in my pocket and it would be muffled at best. I never got that out because the band started playing 'Stand Back' and the woo hoo girl knocked me in the side of the head with her hips. But I understand Mark's horror. We talk shit all the time. Shit that we would never, ever say in front of other people. It's kind of how we guarantee that we'll never break up. We each have too much dirt on each other. Anyway, after I got home I put on my glasses and read the text on Mark's phone. His friend wasn't telling me to turn live streaming off. He was telling me to turn it on so that he could watch the show. Woo Hoooo!

Irma la Douche

Hurricane Wilma in 2005, put the fear of Mother Nature in me. Wilma was more intense than Katrina, who hit about three weeks earlier. Wilma was in fact the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic at that time, but because of the broken levee in New Orleans, Wilma didn't get that much attention. I swore that I would never go through such a terrifying storm again and set about to sell off our Florida assets. Unfortunately the housing bubble burst in 2006 trapping me in Florida for ten more years.

For anybody who has never been through a hurricane, let me tell you it is scary. We had hurricane shutters and the sound of things slamming into them all night long conjured up all sorts of scenarios in my mind. I wondered what the hell was going on out there? Then when dawn broke and the winds subsided, I went outside to see the neighbor's tool shed at the bottom of my pool along with the neighbor's tree and the fence that divided my property from that neighbor, on top of the shed. Of course we had no electricity, no water, no phone. For two weeks after the storm it was like camping out. It was hot and humid and it was stinky.

I see Irma coming and I do not envy the friends and neighbors who still live in our former home. Last night I had that nervous feeling in my gut, the same nervous feeling I used to get when a hurricane would come anywhere near Fort Lauderdale. Even as I laid in my bed, safe here in Chicago, I was reliving the fear of hurricanes. Sort of a hurricane PTSD. The thing is, I'll get over it. My dear friends and neighbors down in Florida will not. Probably by this time Sunday they won't even be able to read this post. I feel so helpless fourteen hundred miles away and knowing what they are going through. But if there is anything I can do from way up here in Chicago, let me know. And now I look at that hurricane track and I see that it's actually coming our way now. Damn. 

Red Hot Mama

I went out to visit with Mom yesterday. Mark wasn't feeling up to the drive so I went alone. I did bring her some of Mark's grilled chicken kabobs and homemade mac and cheese. I also stopped at Culver's to get her a vanilla milkshake. When I got to Ma's house, I opened the front door and stepped through the gates of hell. Mom had the furnace on with the temperature set somewhere between ninety degrees and molten lava. The heat coming from the vents in the house rivaled the Santa Ana Winds and I was already sweating as I walked through the living room.

"Hey Mom, it's me!"
 I always yell that out as I make my way through the house so as to let her know I'm there and not scare the crap out of her. I put the food and shake on the kitchen counter and said hello.

"Kind of hot in here today, isn't it?" I said as sweat dripped into my eyes.

"Really? I thought it was chilly."

As I gasped for air, I put some chicken, and mac and cheese on a plate for Mom, then we sat down at the kitchen table. She looked at the food, then looked at the vanilla shake, then she started talking. She talked about many things but never touched her food.

"Why aren't you eating? Mark made that food."

"Actually, my stomach hurts. I think I'll save it for later."

So I took her food, wrapped it in Saran Wrap, and put it in the refrigerator. She did drink the vanilla shake though. She always drinks the vanilla shake. I sat back down and started chatting while I slowly melted from the heat, and Mom says, "Is it chilly in here? Aren't you chilly?"

"No Ma, in fact it is very, very warm in here."

"I'm chilly. Go ahead and close that window over there."

I hadn't even noticed that the window was open. But like a good son I got up and closed off the only source of fresh air in the house. Finally, after two hours of chit chat, watching Mom not eat her lunch, and sweating my balls off, it was time to leave. As I made my way to the front door Mom stopped and looked at thermostat in the hallway.

"Oh dear, I didn't know the heat was on. My, my, and it's set for ninety degrees." She said as she reached up and turned it off.

Queer Eye for the Cold Guy

Summer

Late last October, while walking one of the dogs, I rounded the corner at the end of the street and came upon the fireman who lived in the corner house. He was out by his garage with a few of his firemen buddies. One of them looked me up and down and said to nobody in particular, "Look at this guy, all bundled up." Yes I was. I had on my big pea coat, a sweat shirt under that, long pants, and on my head, a little knit cap. The firemen were all in short sleeve shirts, and shorts. It was around forty seven degrees out and it was my first Chicago winter in twenty eight years. For somebody who just moved here from Florida, it was cold. Forty seven degrees in Fort Lauderdale will cause school closings and power outages. When the temperatures fall below fifty, citizens of Florida will dig deep into the closet to find that huge, puffy down coat that they wore in 1985. It's how you can tell what year somebody moved to Florida, by the style of coat that is worn once a year. It will be dirty and torn, but it will keep them warm.

Fifty degrees outside

I was reading a story on the Chicago Tribune web site the other day. It was about high schools discontinuing the use of student lockers. It seems that the kids don't have books anymore. No pens, no paper, nothing but an iPad (I suspect these were schools in well to do suburbs). The schools said that some kids never even find their lockers because they don't need them. Okay, so I wanted to comment below the article and ask, 'What about their winter coats? Where do they put their coats and jackets?' The answer was provided by all the people who had commented before I got there. Many teachers and many parents explained that kids do not wear coats. It is considered un-cool.  It seems that in the name of fashion and fitting in, kids will go to school in sub zero weather wearing shorts and a tee shirt. First of all, that wouldn't have flown when I was in high school. I once got pulled aside and yelled at by the principal for not having a belt. Kids will now risk frostbite and pneumonia just so nobody ridicules them for wearing a dorky coat.

Twenty degrees outside

I think that is the reason people from Chicago bitch about the weather so much. They don't dress for it. Everybody is hoping that somehow winter will magically disappear if they dress like it's seventy degrees out. I dress for the weather. Shorts in the summer, long thick jeans in the winter. I really don't give a frigid fuck if a bunch of firemen think I look stupid on a chilly autumn day. I would rather be warm and comfy in my big fluffy coat with a sweat shirt, a flannel shirt, and a tee shirt underneath that. The only problem that I see is that it does make it very hard to bend over and pick up dog poop.

Below zero

Goodbye Summer

This is it, the real dividing line between summer and autumn. Labor Day has always been the beginning of autumn in my mind. The summer tourist traffic along Lake Shore Drive is replaced by school buses and parents taking the little children to school. My grass grows perceptively slower, meaning that I don't have to mow the lawn as often. In the garden, the cucumbers have stopped producing fruit and if there is any corn left out there, it will be terrible. Don't eat it. When I was a kid there was a real line separating summer from fall. It was called the first day of school. In our town the first day of school came immediately after Labor Day and the Tinley Park Fall Festival, a Bacchanalian carnival of cotton candy and dangerous rides operated by sketchy carnies. It was so low brow and unsophisticated, I absolutely loved it. Now that I am many decades past worrying about school, or a job for that matter, autumn is actually a decent season. The turning of the leaves, the brisk days, and the promise of watching football on Sunday gives it a very special feeling. You have the World Series in the fall, something that Chicagoans, at least those on the North Side, never used to care much about. The fall season means apple cider and swapping out the petunias in the window box for mums. We have Halloween to look forward to and finally Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, that last big holiday before winter sets in. Ah winter, now that's another story all together.