Things I See-November Edition

Here's another collection of things I saw worthy enough for a photograph.

I visited Carole at the end of October. On the way back, I needed a restroom and some tea. Dunkin' Donuts is my go-to place for tea, except, maybe, in western Pennsylvania.

I couldn't toss this even after I'd finished the tea because I can recycle the cup in my recycling. So, a Penn State item made its way into my Iowa Hawkeye house. The tea is always good, even if it came in the wrong color cup.

I've always wanted to make a braided rug. I used to have one that my great-great aunt made. She used wool scraps from a variety of sources. It wore really well for awhile and then disintegrated one day as I was, I thought, gently shaking out crumbs and dirt. I have a booklet that tells me how to make these kinds of rugs and it seems easy enough. It's a great way to use up fabric and is a craft that ties us to our ancestors.

What so great about these rugs, seen in a building I was inspecting, is that they are made from plastic bags. I'm not kidding. I saw these and knew, right away, what they were. I've known, for a long time, about places doing this. It's a great fund raiser for groups and a number of homeless shelters will have residents make rugs. If you accumulate a lot of bags and have no place to recycle them, it might be something you'd like to try. Here's a tutorial on the process.

I loved the colors in the stack. I didn't find out if they sold any of these or, because there were a lot of them, and bags, shoved onto this shelf unit, had the bottom dropped out of sale of plastic bag braided rugs.

This is coal.

Seriously. That's coal on the ground. Some of the people I were with had never seen real coal. Who knows how long it's been here. It's not something that's going to decompose quickly.

Seeing it brought back memories of the manual furnace that heated the farm house I grew up in. We used wood and coal. Coal gave off a smell, but burned for a long time and gave off a lot of heat, once you got it lit. Dad would start the fire in the fall with wood and then toss in the coal. We sometimes had to endure a warm house because he didn't want the fire to go out and have to start the process all over again if the warm spell was going to be just a few days. In the morning, the house was often chilly as the fire wound down, and we got dressed for school in the kitchen with the oven door open to remove the chill from the air.

The chimney had to be cleaned periodically because the layers of soot deposited on the inside could catch fire. We had that happen once. I remember sitting on the steps in the unheated back entry because the soot in the chimney caught fire. We were wrapped in blankets to keep warm. Mom and dad were dousing the red hot coal fire with water in an attempt to create enough steam to put out the chimney fire. Oh the smell and the smoke! Windows and doors were open to create drafts to get the smoke out of the house. I remember having to clean everything for weeks afterward because there was a thin layer of soot everywhere.

It's hard to see, but there is a spider the size of a half-dollar in the upper right corner of this door. Two of my co-workers are very scared of spiders. I would not have a tarantula in my house nor would I stroke one or pick one up or have one crawl across my hand. I'm not, however, terrified of spiders. I usually try to herd them onto the fly swatter or a piece of paper and toss them outside. They do more good out there anyway.

I don't think this gal spun a web in a food-rich environment. This was a courtyard, surrounded by 10 foot tall brick walls and covered with a mesh grating. I'm seeing very tiny spiders in the house now, spiders who were hatched at the middle of fall and who are looking for food before dying off in the winter. They just sort of show up, in the dish drainer, in the corner of windows, in front of books in the bookcase. I just look at them and wonder why they thought where they are was going to yield any sort of meal. Then I squash them.

Speaking of doors,

This was the main entry to a warehouse. The building was built in the 1930's and was reused in the 1980's as a warehouse. Security doors aren't made like this anymore.

A bunch of blocks. I was in a basement and these blocks date from the 1930's. What's so special about these blocks? Well, I don't know much about building construction, particularly older construction. They are interesting on their own and make me curious. What struck me was the Reg. US. Pat. Off. mark. Reguspatoff. I know it stands for "Registered, US Patent Office", meaning the bricks have a patent. It was also the name of a computer in a Saturday morning cartoon.

Someone told me it was in Rocky and Bullwinkle but that was the WAYBACK machine, which was an homage to the UNIVAC from the early age of computing. That age coincided with the germination in Jay Ward's mind, of a subversive cartoon which has just as much relevance to today as it did back in the late 1950's and early 1960's. Find and watch "The Boxtop Robbery" or "Wossamotta U". (The Wossamotta U fight song is directly purloined from the fight song for the Minnesota Golden Gophers. I can't hear their fight song without singing, "Wossamotta, hats off to you. To your colors, ocher and Alice Blue. We shall e're be faithful and true. Hail Wossamotta hail. Better we should be in jail. Hail Wossamotta U.")

Back to Reguspatoff. I'm almost certain it was in Underdog, but I can't find independent confirmation. Since I don't get cable, I can't watch Cartoon Network which might have Underdog on the schedule. Seeing this on these bricks made me snicker. I didn't point this out to my companions as I was pretty sure none of them had the same frame of reference I did.

Finally, I saw this in the basement of a building.

Did you ride face first or feet first? I could never get up the courage to ride face first. My brothers and sister did, but not me. I didn't mind being in the front, but I could never expose my face to a wipe out.

I would go again. Grab the great nieces and nephews, find a hill with a soft landing, put on layers and layers and go sledding. We would start up by the garage and, if lucky, you'd make it all the way down the hill past the barn and to the bridge over the creek. Sometimes, if conditions were right, you could get across the bridge, onto the flat beyond and up the other side of the hill a bit. Ice was the worst. Hit a patch and you lost control. We'd spend hours outside. It took a good 10 minutes to drag the sled back up to the garage to ride it down again, always hoping for just the right mix of speed and dexterity to go even farther up the other side than you had before.

Sometimes, it was too dangerous to go down the hill by the barn, so we'd try to see if we could make it around the windmill and over the hump by the house. Hairpin curves are not a sled's forte. You made wide, sweeping curves. If you had to swerve quickly, the best course of action was to simply fall off the sled, which resulted in faces full of snow and lots and lots of laughter. Yeah, I'd do it again.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Still Hanging On

That's kind of how I'm feeling right now. I'm still hanging on. I'll blog on that this weekend. Right now, let's have a real post.

As I was going through the photos of the Civil War trip, I ran across a couple that struck me.

I believe this was at the top of the observation tower at the southeast side of Gettysburg. From here, you can look north, east and west over most of the battlefield. It's a rather tall tower and it's very open. As you know, I'm afraid of heights so I stood at the bottom of this looking up and contemplating whether my Civil War experience would be diminished if I didn't climb the tower. The steps were rather wide and there were many more people here than we would experience at any other battlefield on the trip. I decided that I would always kick myself for not climbing so up I went. I had to stop at least twice, that I remember, force the fear down, and continue on. "Look where you're going, not to the side, up or down," I remember telling myself that. This was my Uncle Moe's advice when paralyzing fear gripped me as we walked to the open 2nd floor of the Iowa capitol building in Des Moines. It doesn't always help but it can get me through some of the height issues. I had her photograph me at the top to prove, mostly to myself, that I did get to the top.

This next one was taken inside our hotel room at Gettysburg. My daughter has often made fun of my penchant for documenting the hotel where we stayed. I'm not exactly sure why I do it other than I take photos for documentary purposes. She's the artistic one. Sometimes, mine come out artistic but most of the time, it's a record of what I saw and where I was.

 

A couple of things struck me in looking at these photos. First of all, I still have that Charleston tee shirt and it still fits. I'm not the same size as I was in that photo. I'd like to say smaller but no. I also don't die my hair dark brown anymore. I've given that up. But the shirt was big back then and it's just the right size now. It's still in very good condition too, witness to my having probably more tee shirts than I really need. 

The next thing is in the bottom photo. See that lime green container on the bed? That's a lunch bag and I still have it and still use it. I drop an cold pack in the bottom and it does a great job of keeping my lunch cold. I have a bigger one that I use if I want to bring a plate with me. The green one doesn't hold a plate very well. It will be adequate if I tip the plate at an angle but that's often not feasible based on the containers of food I'm bringing. 

I look at other items in the photos. The visor, the shorts and tennis shoes are long gone. I don't know about the socks. Carole's sweat pants and top and the backpack are, I think, gone too, although she could have them and I wouldn't notice. It's just interesting to me what stands the test of time, what we hang on to, and what is gone. I look at further photos in this group and there's a Hawaiian shirt that I still have. Does Carole have that red shirt or is that gone? We are such a consumer society. So much landfill space is taken up with tee shirts and shorts that don't fit or are out of style now. It's one thing if they are falling apart. It's another to just get rid of them because they are last year's style. 

I'll wear the shirt and use the lunch box until they actually fall apart. They have made it at least 11 years on. Here's to another 11 years. 

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Day 18- A Book You can’t find on shelves anymore that you love

You won't catch me at a horror movie and I don't read horror writers either. I am not enamored with Stephen King, Clive Barker, Christopher Pike and that ilk. Edgar Allen Poe is often deposited in this group and if you've ever read The Telltale Heart, you can see why that theme has been used over and over and over. (I remember when "Cheers" did an episode on it.)

But I like to be scared on occasion. I like my spine to tingle. I like that feeling to come from a book because I can set the book aside, go out on the deck and breathe in reality, away from ghosts and axe murderers and devils. The more "real" the potential for the ghost to be, the more spine tingling the reading experience.

Today's theme is difficult. Walk into any mega bookstore (although not Borders, sadly) and the shelves and stacks are lined with books, one and two copies of tomes by authors who, if this was a record, would have "a medley of their hit" on the shelf in front of you. Type a title into Barnes and Nobel or Amazon and chances are very good, an image will appear and you will still be able to buy a fresh copy of whatever you're looking for.

I read through my book journal for something, anything, I could use as the book for this topic. "That's still in print. That, too. I think that one is, as well." Then, I stumbled upon a listing for The Screaming Skull and Other Ghosts, the book that's referenced under the author's name in the illustration. "I wonder if the one I have is still in print," I thought. No, no it is not.

I bought The Midnight Hearse from a school book fair back in the early 1970's. My copy has the same illustration as you see in the photo. I didn't get around to reading it until the summer. After doing my morning chores, I curled up on my bed, cracked open the book and started reading. I don't think, prior to this book, I'd had any experience with "true" tales of hauntings. Ghosts were limited to "Caspar" on Saturday morning cartoons. O'Donnell is a masterful story teller and it is thought that most of his stories benefited from his literaray prowess.

But that doesn't make them any less scary. I remember being so scared by what I was reading that I had to stop reading at 2 in the afternoon. The opening story is about a bunch of friends at a college in England who decided to play cards one night. One of the friends was on a lucky streak, winning hand after hand. His friends decided, after several hours of this, they needed to take a break but the winner didn't want to. He said he'd continue playing cards even if the only person he played with was the devil. The friends laughed him off and went for a walk. As they left the building, one of them commented on the tall man in black who was walking toward the dorm where their friend was.

They returned to the dorm about 30 minutes later to see an old fashioned hearse parked alongside the building. As they approached, a man left the building by way of their friend's first floor window. He was carrying a casket on his back. He mounted the horse-drawn hearse and the vehicle moved away. One of the friends suddenly realized there was no sound coming from the horse's hooves on the pavement of the drive. The hearse itself seemed to melt into the shadows of the dorm.

They ran to their friend's room but the door was locked from the inside. They ran to the window and saw him lying on the floor. They couldn't get in because the window was locked from the inside. How had that guy been able to leave via the window if it was locked? They had to break a window pane to get in.

Of course, the friend was dead. He had been playing cards with someone because there were two hands on the table. Whomever he had been playing with had won all of their friend's chips. What really got them was the frozen look on their friend's face of abject terror.

There are some 30+ stories in this vein in this book. O'Donnell's books are not in print anymore. If you want to read them, a library or a used bookstore is the place to find them. I didn't think The Screaming Skull was nearly as good as The Midnight Hearse. Embroidered tales or not, they make for some terror-ific reading if you are so inclined.

Beverage:  water

Deb

Emergency Exit

I'm seeing a lot of emergency exit signs. We're on this giant project that has me walking through the basements of buildings in Chicago taking pictures of defects. This generally covers areas that are exits to these buildings.

It's been long days of being on my feet. I'm not used to that and, at my age, it's taking its toll. I would love someone to give me a foot massage tonight. On Thursday of last week, I would have given anything to have been able to blast out one of the emergency exits and drive straight home, I was so tired.

Sometimes that's life. Haven't you ever felt that life should have an emergency exit? Haven't you had hours, days, weeks, even years, where you'd give almost anything to be able to push the door open and exit this situation, just walk out into whatever lies beyond that door because it sure as hell has to be better than what you're in right now?

The thing about exit doors, at least in these buildings we've been in, is that they are one-way. If you go out, you can't get back in unless someone is on the other side and lets you in or you go back in the front door. Some of these doors open onto trash strewn, smelly allies. Some open right onto the construction project with dirt and mud and a thin strip of concrete to get you to safety. None open onto a grassy field with wildflowers, birds, sunlight and a string quartet playing Vivaldi.

Today, I got caught up on my newspapers and in the current USA Weekend, there is an interview with Jennifer Gray. I'd already been formulating this blog post on my drive back to the office from the city this afternoon. Something she said, however, seems to fit. "What if I did say yes to everything that felt scary, if there was an ounce of joy to be gleaned from it?" What would happen? She was talking about saying 'yes' to Dancing With the Stars and how scared she was to simply perform in front of people. But what if I said 'yes' to anything that felt scary instead of searching for the emergency exit?

There are things I will take risks on, but, by and large, I'm not a risk taker. I prefer the choices I can make that have options I can weigh. A or B and what are the pros and cons of each? Those are the risks I'll take, not something that's akin to dancing in front of millions where the potential to fall flat on my face is very real. What if I swallowed the fear and looked for the joy in each experience? What if I chose to ignore the emergency exit?

What if?

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Not me.

I realized, about 10 a.m. this morning, that today is a Friday the 13th. I don't suffer from triskaidekaphobia, or fear of the number 13. In fact, I would happily stay on the 13th floor in the 13th room if it were offered. I actually embrace the number simply because people seem to shun it. I don't believe I've suffered ill because of it.

As an example, the bank problems, arguably, my absolute worst luck in the past 10 years, did not happen on the 13th. I made the deposit on the 7th and didn't discover the problem until late October. While November had a Friday the 13th last year, nothing happened to me then. In fact, I didn't even post on Friday, November 13th.

I discovered, when searching for photos of the number 13, that my Iowa Hawkeyes are ranked #13 in pre-season football polls. We are getting down to the wire here for the start of the Big 10 football season. I take that #13 ranking as a good omen.

It's been quiet in the office today. I am all caught up. I've done a lot of reading and, dare I say it, a fair bit of playing of a game, making strides in "solving" levels. I think I shall be lucky in that I'll be able to leave early, assuming the phone doesn't ring for the next 75 minutes, just as it hasn't rung for the last 75 minutes.

Although I discounted one of the tenets in that book on luck, I've come to see that it is rather true. I am "lucky" and it is about making luck where you find it. Perhaps that's also Zen, being in the moment and making the moment as good as you can. Since resuming my luck journal, I'm finding all sorts of ways that I am lucky throughout the day. It can be something as simple as being able to make a left turn out of the parking lot to onto busy Roosevelt Road and then getting into the right lane to make a right turn to go home. It can be as large as a special someone sending me a Target gift certificate. Luck really is where I find it. I just have to remind myself of that.

Superstitious? Yeah, I am. But, let's face it, I live with a black cat. She crossed my path at least 5 times in 75 minutes before work this morning. One of those times was on purpose because I had to comb her ruff to get a couple of small mats out of it. I consider myself extremely lucky to have her living with me.

Fear of the number 13? Not me. Heights however...

Beverage: Water

Deb

I'm confused.

I logged onto the computer on New Year's Day. It was 9:30 in the morning. I wandered off in search of oatmeal and hot tea. Firefox and then Yahoo booted up and I opened my email to delete the plethora of "50% off sale NOW!" emails I knew were waiting from those online stores with which I do business. There was an offline message.

This is not unusual of itself because I have cyber friends all over the world. While I look at "real" time as Central because it's where I've spent 90% of my life, other people are ahead or behind me in time zones. Friends know that sending me a Yahoo Messenger message when I'm not online will result in me seeing it right away when I do log on.

What was unusual was who this was from.

I have not talked to him in almost a year. When we parted company, it was not without some rather pointed comments. It took me 6 months to finally erase all his contact information from everywhere; phone numbers, Internet address, instant message address (there were several of each) and, ultimately, home address. But erase it I did, although it did nothing to erase the huge, huge wish that things had turned out differently.

I can go weeks without thinking about him and then have days strung together where he's always there. Writing about the first anniversary of his visit helped a great deal in putting the restless memories to bed. I was able to let go of some parts of the fantasy and accept the more concrete reality of never speaking again and never wanting to speak again.

But here was an Instant Message with the robotic request from Yahoo Messenger to allow it to add me as a friend to his friend's list.

I sat there, I'm not kidding, a good 10-15 minutes with the mouse hovering over the "Accept" button, while I wrestled with demons that blasted out of the inner closet where I had shoved them. Do I or don't I? The big problem is the knowledge that I will be sucked back into something I worked so hard to be rid of. He could not/would not commit to our relationship for various reasons and it makes no difference if he was around the block, the state or the world. The inability or unwillingness to find a common ground between what he was giving me and what I wanted split us apart. He's not a bad person. On the contrary, what made this exceptionally hard was the goodness, kindness, caring and concern I saw and experienced first hand in him. But I won't be excluded if you want a relationship, whether that exclusion is accidental or on purpose. And that's where the impasse lay.

I finally clicked "Accept" and the program informed me that he would be told of my acceptance. That's where it stands. There has been no further communication, real or via a program, since. I accepted because my curiosity about why overcame my reluctance to start anything, even a mild friendship, up again. There is/was so much I don't know, so much that was left unsaid. I wanted to find out if I could get answers, get the information I desire, even if it meant there was nothing between us anymore and we would, finally, go our own ways and I would wrestle no more memories.

A friend has suggested this was a new girlfriend's way of getting back at him. I don't buy that because why still maintain my contact information and, more importantly, letting a current girlfriend have what would amount to unlimited access to your computer? He, more or less, walked away from me and, in doing that, I would think keeping my contact information is the last thing he would do.

Another friend has a different take. It is her considered opinion that this is "New Year's Remorse", as she calls it. He was, perhaps, alone and drunk and looking over the debris of the past year. Perhaps he felt a twinge of sadness for how things ended. Perhaps he just wishes to not have there be anger. There were other, less charitable and more morbid suggestions for why contact was made, but I tend to think well of people until proven wrong. In any case, she tells me not to expect additional contact.

And this leads to my confusion. I can't contact him. I don't have his email anymore. I did a very, very thorough job of erasing it from my planner. I remember bits and pieces of it and yes, yes, I know once you have an email, it's impossible to not be found. But I don't want to do the deep work it would take me to find this. I don't want to look on Facebook and try to friend him knowing that he probably isn't going to reciprocate. Mercifully, Facebook doesn't tell you your friend request has been denied. I just want to know why, after these long months, did this show up in my instant messenger, at the start of a new year.

This is one question that is probably not likely to be answered. I guess, in my heart, I know whatever this was was a mistake and there is not to be further contact. Gradually, I'll let this go as I have let other things go. But the answer to the question you're wanting to ask but not sure quite how is, yes, if I got what I was seeking, yes.

Beverage: water

Deb

Why I don't eat green beans.

Perry gave me this great idea for a post.

He and April have not received mail since last Saturday. At first, they thought it was just luck of the draw, that they didn't even deserve solicitations for siding or pizza coupons. They received a notice that their mail was being withheld due to ophidian presence at the front of their house.

A what now?

A snake. A garter snake, to be exact. Seems their postal carrier is afraid of snakes and the garter snake that has been living peacefully under their front porch was out sunning himself Monday when the carrier came to make her delivery. She's scared of snakes.

April called to find out what was wrong and heard the story.

Now they have to serve eviction papers on the snake and tell him to pack up his stuff and move out. That's going to be very hard to do since he has no arms....

But their story reminds me of why I don't eat green beans.

You all know I grew up on an Iowa farm. My parents planted a 2 acre garden every year. We had everything from early lettuce to late season parsnips. Dad would plant a half acre of potatoes, 6 rows of sweet corn, 11,000 tomatoes, and, I swear, 2.5 miles of green beans. Once the beans started to set, it was part of my morning chores in August to go pick beans. I would come bounding down the stairs to eat my Cheerios and mom would hand me a dutch oven and point to the garden. What a way to deflate a day. I would grab the dog (yes, I grew up with a dog in addition to cats) and head to the garden.

We had a way to do this. There was a bamboo pole, the end of which was affixed with a bandana. When you had filled the dutch oven, you grabbed the pole and stuck it in the ground where you had finished picking. That way, when the next day's picking resumed, you picked only where someone had not been.

I would pick up a ball and walk with the dog to the garden. Once there, I would play fetch with the dog, tossing the ball down the rows of beans. He would cut through the plants as he returned with the ball to have me throw it again. We would do this for a good 10 minutes. Then I would park my carcass at the point where the pole was and work away from it. I would sing or talk to myself or just listen to the sounds of an August day as the insects and birds would get moving in the morning air. You wanted to be done by 10:30 or 11:00 because midday in August on a farm in Iowa can be warm.

In spite of my precautions, at least once a week during the picking season, I would part the bean plants and look down into the face of a garter snake looking up at me. The dutch oven would go one way, I would go another, generally followed by the dog who thought we were playing and the snake would slither away, just as startled as I was.

In the summer, the ground around low growing plants like beans takes awhile to warm up. When it does, it also take awhile to release its heat, so the snakes would stay in the beans where it was warm until midday, when they would amble off in search of food or to sun themselves some other place warm.

I would dash into the house yelling, "Snake! Snake! There's a snake in the beans!" Mom would look at me and say, "So where's the dutch oven?" "Um...out there with the snake." "Go get it." "But there's a snake..." "I don't care. Was it full? It needs to be full. Go get it."

Back to the garden I would go. I would try to find a longer stick that I could use to poke at the snake. Of course, it would be gone and the dutch oven mostly emptied of its contents which I then I had to pick up. It would be another 10 to 15 minutes of picking and I could come back inside with the beans.

So, dear reader, I came to quickly associate snakes with green beans. I can see beady little eyes looking back at me. I did, one year, plant wax/yellow beans because I have a sweet pickling recipe for them from my ex-mother-in-law. I didn't have problems picking those, but seeing a snake in my neck of the woods is rather rare.

Therefore, you may have your green beans almondine casserole. I'll be very happy with my sweet sour carrots. I can't be scared of rabbits.

Beverage: Dr. Pepper

Deb

Not on a bet.

I would imagine you have all heard the news. It's plastered all over my Yahoo news feed today.

Sears Tower unveils 103rd floor glass balconies

The full article is here.

I just want it made perfectly clear; nope, no way, nada, nix.

But why, you ask?

Simple, says I. I'm afraid of heights.

I've always been that way.

The first time I became aware of it, my family and I went to visit my cousins who lived in Des Moines, Iowa. I don't remember what year it was but part of the visit included a trip to tour the state capital building. I remember running into the building and seeing, on the first floor, a large circle in the floor which looked down into some room with chairs and desks. There was a vague feeling of uneasiness but I passed it off as excitement.

Looking up, there was another hole in the second floor and you could look straight up to the dome. It was, if memory serves me correctly, a beautifully decorated interior with lots of marble and statues and frescos on the walls. We looked about the first floor, what was open to the public, turned and hastened up to the second floor. I remember standing on the landing between the first and second floors, looking up at what my memory thinks were WPA paintings and being totally unable to go any farther. I can remember the fear, the paralyzing fear, that gripped me. I was scared to have to look down through that hole in the floor and just the thought was enough to prevent my legs from moving.

I've always been interested in art so I pretended to be studying the walls. My mother ordered me to come up the stairs. My dad made fun of me, once he realized I was scared to move. My cousins and siblings thought me weird. I felt humiliated and totally confused about this. I'd jumped from the hay mow to the basement of the barn through the hay chute. I'd jumped from the top of the hay stacks to the floor. I'd jumped out of trees. I'd sat on the sill of my second floor bedroom window with my feet dangling on the side of the house. Why was I so scared?

My uncle Moe came back down the stairs and put a big arm around me. In a jovial tone of voice designed to help and make me feel not so awkward, he told me this was a normal feeling. "You're scared of heights. It happens. The trick is to not let it paralyze you." He told me to keep my head straight and don't look below my nose. "So, you'll have to figure out where you can stand that lets you look at that hole in the second floor but not in a way to tilt your head down." I could look up but I couldn't look down.

I still can't.

Carole and I went to Gettysburg for her graduation from high school trip. There is a metal tower some 65' in the air at the border between the battlefield and General Eisenhower's farm. The winding staircase is wide enough for four people to walk abreast. I had to walk up two or three twists and stop. Carole said I didn't have to go to the top, but I knew I had to. I had to walk in the middle of the staircase and look only at the next set of stairs. But, I did it. I climbed to the top of the tower. Coming down wasn't hard.

In the former Marshall Field's flagship store on State Street in Chicago, the east side of the store has an open atrium. You take escalators anchored at each end but open to the atrium between the levels. I hate it. As long as I can stand in the center of the escalator, I can do it. The north side of the store has open holes in the floor where you can look from floor 7 to the main floor. I'm told it's an interesting view. I've never seen it.

And I'm told the view from the top of the John Hancock Center is gorgeous, particularly at night. I'm told it's the best view of Chicago, topping the view from the Sears Tower. I've never been up there. Carole and I spent one drizzly day in March of 2001 wandering around the area near the Hancock building. I had coupons for money off the trip to the 95th floor. But every time we got into the building, I could not, could not get into the elevator to go to the floor where you purchased your tickets for the observation deck.

But I love to fly and I always get a window seat.

So, when you come to Chicago, I'll be happy to take you around, but if you want to go to the Sears observation deck, you're on your own.

Beverage: English Teatime

Deb