Oh, I Think So

The view as you enter Garfield Park Conservatory A war in miniature could break out at any moment!!! Orchids, palms, cacti, elephant ears, living baseballs ready to be appreciated by us This is as good as taking a picture of someone taking a picture. After the conservatory we went to a plant shop and met this fine fellow. We met this fine fellow, too, who enjoyed being carried around by my sister.

When I was a child growing up in Detroit, Lincoln's birthday was a holiday and George Washington's birthday was another holiday and since they were born in the same month, Congress finally decided that everyone was enjoying themselves too much and they combined the two and tossed in every other president and, ta da, Presidents Day. We have had some very good presidents and a few real stinkers and a few who were SOBs and a few who were womanizers or bigots or noble or power hungry or just plain crazy (I'm looking at you Donald "Fake News" Trump).  This weekend we celebrate them all! The best way I can think of to celebrate is by taking advantage of some mighty good sales but I am trying to be frugal so unless I buy a new mattress, there will be no sales being taken advantage of by moi.  I have my annual wellness exam, a/k/a my yearly lube and oil, and a few hours later, I have my eyeball wellness visit where they dilate my pupils and I walk out with those shif...

It snowed.  A lot.  Long story short, this is what it looked like out the window at about five p.m. this evening. I could tell you about my crazy Friday or other crazies but, hey, this is much better.

A couple of weeks ago I was delighted to accompany family to the Women's March to the Polls and from there our personal march to the Art Institute of Chicago.  We saw things and I threw my attention to paintings of food. As long as it's not going bad and getting fuzzy and rancid while you're painting it, food is as good a model as a landscape, probably better.  It rains outside, some cow insists on moving in and bringing her gal pals, that tree decides to just rot and fall over.  Food just sits there like it's waiting for you to bring a fork and tuck in, or pluck some feathers, fire up the oven, cook it up, and voila, it's Sunday dinner.  So the feast for my eyes was food, glorious food.

I can't follow a recipe.  It's not that it's too difficult to follow or that I can't read or anything like that. I simply don't have the patience to follow a recipe, especially if there are many steps, there is the involvement of a lot of time, and there's a long list of ingredients.  I make a very good turkey at Thanksgiving because there is just one ingredient which is the turkey itself.  I baste but that's turkey juices.  I make a very good veggie stew that I actually made up which can be converted into a fancier veggie meal which actually preceded the veggie stew.  The stew is made up of maybe five ingredients. My late mom made the most delicious cottage cheese pancakes ever in the world.  They were light but filling and were served with a dot of grape jelly on each one.  I never had the patience to learn how to make them which made me a feel a little regret but then it perhaps was not meant to be.  I've never known anyone who made pancakes ...

On the first anniversary of Donald Trump's unfortunate inauguration and the Women's March came the Women's March to the Polls.  Last year 250,000 women and appreciators of women marched from Grant Park to Federal Plaza. This year, 300,000 women and appreciators turned out and it was a beautiful day!  It was a mid-winter day that had temperatures in the upper 40s.  I couldn't attend last year -- I'd just moved -- so I was glad to have a voice in the proceedings. People do NOT appreciate Donald Trump and neither do I and people were very happy to express themselves.  Yeah, I took pictures. This lady apologized for the misspelling in the sign but said she decided to just go with it.  You go, girl!

The present governor of Illinois is a billionaire.  On the Dem side, the seeming-frontrunner or the guy who has spent the most on commercials is a billionaire.  The millionaire (maybe billionaire) member of a stinking wealthy family with lots of political ties and family political experience wants to be governor.  Why? The present governor of Illinois doesn't know how to make a deal with anyone.  He just wants to be the man in charge who when he says jump, everyone does so.  It just doesn't happen that way in politics, especially in Illinois.  He thinks every one should jump for him is because he is a billionaire whose campaign was funded in part by the wealthiest man in Illinois who is, guess what, a billionaire.  Now he can spend his money however he wants and has done some good, giving a lot of money to his alma mater and giving the City of Chicago money to improve its bike trail.  The present governor of Illinois still doesn't have a clue an...