Take time today to appreciate your freedoms. I for one have been celebrating the Memorial Day weekend by strolling book shops, drinking coffee, and reading up on World War II.
This photo shows a waving American Flag and the Washington Monument in D.C., taken in the spring of 2007. I have better cameras now, but the sentiment is still the same.
Here are a few scenes from my hometown, Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. I’ll go back to visit, but it offers little for the single-and-in-her-thirties sort of girl. Down by the river in the old downtown, you can catch a glimpse of some decent views of a town that has both changed little and so much since its heyday during the mid-twentieth century. Most of what you’ll find are dying paper mills and NASCAR bars (at least that’s what it seems like to someone who has been living in Madison and Chicago since leaving town after high school).
In my real life I am political. I yell at the television when opposing campaign ads tell me stuff that the other side thinks is correct (or at least spun correctly enough to put on air without lying). I vote. I love my Wisconsin elections. But I live in Illinois.
Last weekend I went to Madison and saw lots and lots of mobilization for the supporters of the Democratic gubernatorial recall candidate, Tom Barrett. (Hopefully he will beat out union-busting, pro-corporations, anti-average person Scott Walker). Madison even has a group of older women who call themselves the “Raging Grannies.” They sing protest songs for the left. Take a look at them in action with this really poorly-made YouTube clip.
I experienced my first official urban brunch in Washington, DC, at Afterwords near the DuPont Circle. It was the first time I sat down to a special menu later in the morning and could choose between breakfast food or lunch food. I remember it well: blueberry pancakes with with a maple orange syrup, mixed fruit compote, and herbed scrambled eggs. Life has never been the same.
The following are photos of some of my favorite brunches of all time. Though the shots may not be stellar, the food was.
Bongo Room, South Loop, Chicago. Egg sandwich.
Chicken salad sandwich on brioche with cucumber salad at Kitch’n, Roscoe Village, Chicago.
Coconut crusted French toast at the St. Louis, Missouri, Hilton.
Blueberry pancakes from Marigold, Madison, Wisconsin.
Now that I’ve had some more time to digest the anti-NATO rally, I’ll post a little more. By no means am I finished editing the 500+ photographs I took last Sunday, but here are a few of my favorites thus far.
I have all sorts of opinions ranging from here to there on this whole NATO-in-Chicago experience, but I’ll leave that for another post or another arena. Here’s a snapshot from Sunday’s march through downtown. To quote the late, great Tupac Shakur:
They got money for war,
But can’t feed the poor.
Pretty much sums it up (without getting into all the detailed arguments about peace and world safety and around and around and around).
As you probably know by now, one of my favorite places in the entire world is the Memorial Union Terrace on campus at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. It’s a lovely terraced patio nestled between Lake Mendota and the historic, Germanic, Memorial Union. It’s only the best place to drink a pint of New Glarus Spotted Cow.
The furniture is a distinctive mix of green, yellow, and orange metal tables and chairs, but this season that’s being all mixed up with the addition of BLUE. According to the university’s Web site, the blue chairs are there (temporarily) as a visual cue to the physical changes coming to The Terrace, among other places surrounding my beloved reminder of college days.
At first I didn’t care for it. I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to my alma mater, but as I look at these two photographs, I believe it might be growing on me. I don’t know yet. What do you think?
