So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright

Forgive the ramble. This was written over a three day period. In addition to not grading on spelling, punctuation and grammar, please don't grade on voice, tense, or thematic consistency.

For the second leg of our anniversary extravaganza, we left the pastoral hills of central Pennsylvania and our friends there and after a brief respite and refitting back home in Grand Rapids. we headed for Chicago.
While home briefly, we went to see Brandi Carlile, a spunky ingenue known for her full voice and semi-yodel, not to mention her song writing, which is excellent. The weather was perfect, (so long as you ignored that slightly ominous chill that descended upon the outdoor venue along with the setting sun that served as a subtle reminder of the cold season ahead), the air was sweet and for once not smoke filled and the show was brilliant.
Chicago is definitely the Yang to the early part of our vacation's Ying. We began Thursday. Our tenth anniversary. We steered through the south side of Chicago until we reached the campus its eponymous university and specifically the Frederik G. Robie house. The campus of the University of Chicago splits the curtain of squalor that is the south side of Chicago and allows a beam of light and calm to this otherwise regrettable area. Jim Croce was right, it is the baddest part of town.... I am sure if Leroy Brown were alive today, even he would relocate to somewhere less seamy. But I digress.
Designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1908 it is the last of the great "Chicago" portion of Wright's long career. It is easy to see why this edifice consistently lands on the list of the top 10 most important structures of the 20th century.
Taking the tour, I was reminded how hard the keepers of Grand Rapid's only Wright structure the Meyer May house had to work to get it where it is today. It also reminds me how spoiled we were a few years ago when we scored a "special tour" on a Sunday in March.
It is sort of complicated, so let's just say we knew people who knew people who were part of the conservancy of that house. We were able to meet them for a private Sunday morning tour which lasted hours. We got to see the basement, we got to sit in the furniture. I could pick books up off the shelves and lift the bottom of the inglenook bench revealing the storage inside.
Emily even sat in the tub for goodness sake. No extravagance was spared.
And it was free.
The Robie tour was none of these. The house is essentially bear. Many walls are even open to the studs revealing mechanicals in the midst of being restored. Many of the small details such as the art glass light diffusers in the ceilings and the Wright designed light fixtures are being restored. In there place were two-dollar contractor fixtures like the one in your closet with bear bulbs exposed, casting ugly shadows on the walls. The house was like a former starlet, much faded, paste her prime and badly lit on a Branson dinner theater stage.
We were part of a small group being moved through the home efficiently by Arthur, our earnest but elderly docent. Arthur did a credible job of presenting the material and was engaging enough, but we had a deuchebag on the the tour who kept asking questions and it wrangled poor old Arthur's mojo a bit.
I don't want to say I was disappointed, just that when you get treated specially even once, your frame of reference is forever changed and your expectations with it.
On to the hotel- The Allerton in the heart of downtown.
I was really worried at first as we walked to the modern glass and marble reception lobby. The overwhelming feeling was shopping mall. An upscale mall, but a mall none-the-less.
However, all fears were allayed when we walked into our room and were surprised that we had gotten the upgrade to the two-room suite. It was one of those deals I signed up for when we first made the reservation. Best money we spent all trip.
Chicago is like many big cities in that they don't speak English, they speak car horn. We were assaulted by almost constant car horns and sirens most of the time, but it reminded us we were in the city and was occasionally amusing in its length and frequency. The street drummers were the most annoying. I mean, seriously, if you want to sit on the street banging on a five gallon pail all day, please make it sound like something other than you banging on a five gallon pail all day! I have heard some of these guys when we lived in Savannah and they were amazing... be more amazing or be quiet, please.
A modest request.
We walked to Nay Pier which seemed like a long walk after a day of walking. If I knew then what I know now, it would have seemed the leisurely stroll it was.
Anniversary dinner was at Riva at a table for two right by the windows overlooking the pier and the lake. I love aquariums and terrariums and this was just like watching a big human one replete with wonderful boats and lights and a water feature. Only while enjoying the view we also enjoyed the attentive staff and the amazing food of Riva. I had swordfish steak over a bed of shrimp risotto and I was sure I might die it was so good. Emily's pork chop was the size of a human skull and perfectly medium with a pungent but very good dark braising sauce rendered of wine and currants. Dessert was tiramisu and some sort of chocolate explosion that looked pretty. Judging from Em's face she either liked it or was having a stroke. I assume the latter since the only incapacitation after dinner was due to the amount of food we ate.
We strolled gingerly down Navy Pier on the way back and were surprised at how good the fireworks were.
Friday came. We originally planned on the museums this day, but determined to walk as much as possible we pushed that to Sunday. We enjoyed the glorious morning weather by walking to Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast, then walking to the shops and browsing, then we walked to Grant Park Zoo along the lake through the wonderful Chicago Parks system. We walked through the zoo. We walked, we walked we walked.
It was a gorgeous day, the zoo is free and we had a good time.
We decided dinner should be in old town, since we had taken the trouble to walk all the way there from downtown. We stumbled across Topo Gigio, a little Italian place. It looked good.
This time it was black fettuccine with an orange (vodka?) cream sauce with scallops, some sort of giant shrimp the likes of which I have never seen before and salmon. I can't describe how much I lived this dish. If I could replicate the sauce, I would make it daily, hang out a shingle and quit my day job.
We ate outside because we had been outside all day. We loved the little neighborhood we were in, but so did the flies and the no-see-ums and the hornet and the loud motorcycles. Oh well, it is all part of it I guess.
Dinner included being a fly on the wall to some very interesting conversations at the table over my shoulder with a man of some European accent putting the schmooze on a young blonde who was drinking it up like the wine that repeatedly refilled her glass. Em disagrees with me, but I have seen the schmooze, hell in my younger days I have schmoozed and if the likes of me can go home a happy man, than this handsomely weathered European man with the wonderful accent had a dessert that was not on the menu that night.
Walking home tired and in food comas was a slow meandering process. We didn't have a lot of spunk left in us so we just came back to the room (it was lovely after all) and read and drank wine.
We did a lot of reading and sipping wine. After ten years there are some stretches of silence. I think I like it better than Em. I like my quiet times. My professional life so often requires me to be on the razor's edge and magnanimous that when I can turn off, I need to turn off. Don't get me wrong, I am not good at relaxing, I just sometimes like to be quiet while I am doing things.
Em is an extrovert and her job is polar opposite of mine. She has a sit still and be quiet type of job and so when it's time to play it is time to play.
We have to dance around these differences sometimes when we spend a lot of time together, because each of us needs our own time like we need air and water. I like having Em around for my quiet times. It is not lonely if you are being quiet with someone else. Em relies on me for the energy and the gregariousness I am more known for to balance out her energy and passion.
Saturday, we went back to the Pier and took a Chicago River architecture tour. That was really cool, relaxing and interesting. We ate at a pub on the pier, again outside, this time contending with birds, not bugs.
Then we walked 2,000 miles or so to accomplish nothing for for the walking. We had eaten our way through Chicago and decided we needed all the help we could get.
Later we went to a wine and cheese place where they check your credit at the door to make sure you have what it takes to eat there and had a flight of wine and cheese and olives and chocolate.
It was great. I have never spent so much money for a continental snack, but oh well, it's all about the experience. And it really was good.
If I lived in the city, I am not sure I would go to place like that very often unless guests were in town. The wine bar was the perfect place to go if your wife's ex-boyfriend from college was in town and you wanted to show your most pretentious side... it's the kind of place where you put on your blazer with the patches on the elbows, your best button flies and loafers just to prove how relaxed you are in this this environment. It's the kind of place where you laugh softly, you hold your pinky away from your glass and say "mmmmmmmm" a lot while nodding appreciatively at what you are not sure.
Actual dinner was more my speed... A fast food place called Burrito Beach. Yeah, baby... you can dispense sour cream from a pump and under $20.00. Four Stars!
Slinking back to our king sized bed in our king sized room for the last night thinking of the Museum of Science and Industry on the docket for tomorrow, thinking of the fun we've had, thinking of the bill.
Thinking of 10 years of ups and downs (sometimes even in the same hour) and how it still feels right. We get mad at each other. We don't see eye to eye on a lit of things. Neither one of us likes it when the other is passive and neither one of us likes it when the other is aggressive and we never seem to be on the same page at the same time.
But these are minor items in a life filled with major items and the major items we have pretty down pat.
I don't know what cities will be host to our 15th our 20th or any other milestone anniversaries. I don't know what we will do when we get there or how much it will cost. We could be alone or with friends, we could be near or far. One thing is for certain, I am sure I will look back at those mileposts with awe and wonder where the time went, just like with this 10th anniversary.
There are many many more things to see and cities to visit. I hope there are many more years ahead in which to visit them.