To arms...!

One of the great things about living in Chicago is the access to cultural events.

Recently, we had the opportunity to see Saint Joan, performed by the Shaw Festival at the Shakespeare Theatre on Navy Pier.

It was a good production. The theater there is a wonderful setting (although, for this play they struck the thrust stage and had simply the main stage), and the acting, costuming, lighting, etc. were all well done. This was the first Shaw play I had seen, and I really enjoyed the play of words (there is a great deal of back-and-forth banter in his dialogue).

If you get an opportunity to see the play (or the movie - there appear to be a couple of versions), I recommend it!

Fire

Exciting day on Friday - I wasn't feeling well, so I stayed home from work. About 2:30 or so, I noticed a fire truck outside. (Not that unusual - there's a station nearby, and we see them frequently.) Shortly thereafter, though, the one truck was joined by some of its friends - there really was a fire (across the street and down the block from us)!



That's not ash on the ground - it was just really cold (in the teens - it got down into the single/negative digits that night, and didn't recover until today).



Just a couple of trucks at first...



The mobile command unit was pretty cool. By the time the whole thing was over, there were a LOT of captains/lieutenants/etc. on the scene.





These pictures give a little idea of how much attention this fire got. There were fire trucks (I think we counted 4 ladders, 5 pumpers, and those were just the ones we could see), police cars, EMTs, the service truck for the firefighters and officers, and, of course, the mobile command unit. Our street was blocked off for two blocks to the east and at least 2-3 to the west.

Pretty impressive. Luckily, no injuries in the fire, though it looks like the building may be toast. (And the Trib is saying the fire started through misuse of a "heat gun" - be careful when you're deicing your locks or thawing your pipes!)

Land of Food!

This was a complete eating-out weekend, at two very different restaurants...

On Saturday, we went to The Snail with Mike and Jenny. Great Thai food, BYOB place (which are just insanely popular here in Chicago - the BYOB part, not the Thai part, though there are lots of those, too).

After dinner, we went back to their place in Hyde Park, and played with their Wii, which was a lot of fun. We both had "Wii-elbow" the next day, though!

On Sunday, we went to Bistro Campagne with Brian and Maya (to celebrate their wedding and Bryan's birthday!). It's a great, semi-formal French restaurant in Lincoln Square. We have had great food and a great experience every time we've gone, but we tend to forget about it because it's a little out of our usual wandering grounds.

Monday was a welcome return to home-food!

How was your weekend?

New Year, Clean Slate

Happy New Year everyone!

After recovering from both the Cubbies' not-unexpected decline at the end of the season, and the Buckeyes' amazing and certainly unexpected run to the National Championship, I've decided it's once again time to start blogging!

Check back in for updates as to what's going on in our lives and our neighborhood - I'll try to update at least once a week.

Wish me luck!