Normal seems so...Dark!

The Player drove us home from the train station Wednesday night and I believe I asked him about 4 times if he was sure he had his lights on.  He kept assuring me he did.  I kept asking him.  Finally he flashed his brights then dimmed them to show me that he did indeed have his lights on. 

But it still seemed so dark in front of our car.

Sisi has a phrase for these kinds of moments when things don't make sense.  She says "What the PIE?"

So in this WTP moment, we realized that after 3 days and 2 nights in Chicago, which is the City of Very Bright and Many Streetlights, Normal seemed very underlit.  We are streetlight challenged.  Or perhaps because of a lower crime rate and much less night-time traffic we don't need so many bright street lights.

We stayed in a Chicago neighborhood that needed a lot of lights.  South Side on State and 26th Street.  Nice hotel, well-priced on Hotwire,  just outside the normal realm of where I wander in Chicago.  Next time I'll stay out of the "McCormick Place" area on Hotwire.

We ate breakfast at Lou Mitchell's, lunch at Cafe 28 (Cuban food ...yum!  Best quesadillas in the whole world) and dinner at Joy's (thai food.)  We went to a Cubs game (they lost) and had dinner at the Salt and Pepper open-air diner down the street from Wiggley Field.  We shopped at Powell's bookstore and Unabridged Books.  I got to hang out at the Chicago Mosaic School and talk with Karen and Andrea there (and I bought some stuff and learned what I can order online from their store Tiny Pieces.)  We went to The Green Mill and The Player got to talk with Patricia Barber before AND after the first set.  We had to leave early because the music was going to continue to 1 a.m. and we had to go to...26th and State... on a bus.

Wednesday we hung out at the Harold Washington Chicago Public Library.  I discovered the picture files on the 8th floor.  What a treat!  Drawers and drawers of magazine photo clippings in folders by topic.  Topics like...Mosaics. 

 

 Hundreds of pages like this to browse.  And a lot of books on mosaics, from which I gathered more ideas.    It was a great trip, but tiring.  I kept thinking about getting home to rest, then remembered that I had signed up to go on Sisi's class field trip to Matthiesen State Park on Thursday.  Yowza.  My poor legs.  Climbing about 300 steps in and out of the canyons and trying to keep track of my 3 charges.   Pictures from that trip soon!