From Now On Our Troubles Will Be Miles Away

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Blessed Solstice
...and all that jazz!
I'm feeling ridiculously nostalgic this year at Christmastime. So here's a time travelling video to the good ol' days of Marshall Field's department store and their gorgeous holiday windows. Actually, one of these window displays was designed by the Macy's crew (the Mays company who own Macy's bought Marshall Field's back in 2006 and eventually ruined everything that Marshall Field's was). In 2013 the Macy's windows were a tribute to Marshall Field's and so you will see some animated figures eating in the splendid Walnut Room, some candy makers cooking up a batch of Field's signature holiday Frango mints, and other scenes about the grand department store of Chicago's recent and long past. Enjoy this trip down memory lane for what it was like to have Christmas in Chicago.


Whoever or whatever you believe in, however you celebrate this end of the year, have a memorable and magical time. Make the most of it you wonderful people out there in the dark. Looking forward to more literary Lost in Limbo discoveries and sharing them with you as round out this decade in 2020.

On the Roof, It's Peaceful As Can Be

Here are some photos of flowers and a short video of visitor activity on our rooftop garden. This year we planted in mid June rather than the end of May. Then due to intense rainfall throughout late June and most of July we had to wait to do our big chore of staining the deck. We needed to wait until August before the deck was completely dry for a four day period. Then had to move EVERYTHING off the main deck in order to scrub, wash, and then stain the entire deck. Joe and I did it all alone. No one has any interest in what goes on up on our rooftop deck. There are six other apartments in our building and for the past three years we rarely encounter anyone up there. As the years go by it continues to be a private retreat for us even though it's open to everyone who lives here.

We planted sunflowers and assorted wildflowers (many of which I still don't know the names) from seeds. Everything else was purchased as small single plants from a local nursery. This is the first year that everything has exploded in color and expanded to large numbers of blooms. All of it continues to thrive now that we've reached September.

All summer long various butterflies, bumble bees and honey bees, and on occasion a hungry bird have stopped by. I spotted a goldfinch chowing down on sunflower seeds from one of the tallest flowers one afternoon back in August, but I didn't have my phone/camera with me so missed an opportunity to get a video of that. But here's a bit of bee activity for you.

Our Mexican Torch plant (above) had its first bloom only two days ago when in past years it was the very first flower to bloom and would last well into late September.  I don't think we'll have many more blooms on that plant because it's already beginning to cool down with temps rarely reaching 80.

To Face Unafraid, The Plans That We Made

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Blessed Solstice
...and all that jazz!
In a shameless promotion for a local theater group -- the Tony award-winning Lookingglass Theatre Company -- I offer up this little holiday confection. It's a one minute montage of scenes from their original Christmas pantomime adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale "The Steadfast Tin Soldier."  I saw this with Joe as part of my birthday theater extravaganza, four plays over two days.  It was by far the best of the lot -- a magical, enchanting and transformative theatrical experience for us both.  If you live in the Chicago area I highly recommend you get tickets before it closes on January 13.  It's one of the most unique and inventive productions I've seen in the 32 years I've been living here. You may feel you were transported to Victorian era England just as we were.

Here's wishing you all a wonderful and memorable holiday season.

May all your wishes come true and may we all

look forward to a saner, more beautiful 2019.

Sleigh Bells Ring, Are You Listening?

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Blessed Solstice
...and all that jazz!
Every year the CTA, Chicago's bus and train service, decorates one bus and one train for the Christmas season. In the past I've managed to ride the Holiday train through sheer accident on my commute home. Other times Joe and I made a concerted effort to wait for the train at the Red Line station only a ten minute walk from our home. Here's a long video that shows what's up with both the 2017 Holiday train and Holiday bus which I've never been on since it tends to visit Southside and Far West neighborhoods not served by the trains. Both transports are shown travelling throughout numerous areas not often shown in video promotions of the city. Enjoy!

We're having a snowfall as I type this.

White Christmas for Chicago!

Here's wishing you a wonderful, magical time whether

it's a wintry cold or sunny bright time.

Q Patrick Rarity Unearthed

This morning when I checked my email I got an alert than one of my "want list" books was available for purchase. This happens all too rarely. Last year I got one of these email alerts and I wrote about it on this blog because the price of the book was gasp inducing. As I've said before, when I get one of these emails I cross my fingers that I can afford the book. This morning I think I managed quite a coup in book acquisition. Here's the notice I received:

Item Status: Confirmed

Title: Danger Next Door

Author: Patrick, Q. (Richard Wilson Webb and Hugh Callingham Wheeler)

Quantity: 1

Book Description: Mysterious happenings have the girl next door frightened and in need of help. Gently bumped with a tape shadow to the front board, foxing to the end papers and edges of the text block. Binding square and solid. Jacket rubbed with long tears, internal and external tape repair. 2 loss to the spine heel, 1/2 to the head, in Brodart. A scarce title by the authors who also wrote under the names Patrick Quentin and Jonathan Stagge.
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good

Book Price: US$ 100.00

Danger Next Door!  The most elusive book in the entire output of Richard Wilson Webb and Hugh Wheeler. I've never seen a copy for sale in the nearly eighteen years I've been selling books. Nor have I seen one in the four decades I've been buying vintage mystery novels as an incurable collector and fan. This was the most exciting purchase I've made in a very long time. I feel like a little kid and I can't wait for the book to arrive and soak in its pages.

A review on this rarity will definitely be appearing in February. Stay tuned, gang!

"Ah, Sun-Flower! weary of time"

Some photos of our rooftop garden.  Sunflowers, zinnias, lantana plants and a slew of others. We had many early blooming plants this year due to lots of rain in late June and early July. Probably the best flowers we've grown. All the sunflowers were grown from seed, others were small plants purchased from nurseries and transplanted to large containers. In some cases those small plants are now four times their original size.

The sunflower varietals are named (in order as shown below) Evening Sun, Lemon Queen and Mexican Torch. A few more with even odder names have yet to bloom but I expect them to all explode in a burst of color by the end of this week.

Enjoy!

You Got the Music in You

Sort of fed up with the world at large of late. Endless shootings all over the world, aggressive protests that do nothing but add to the divisiveness, and a hateful sociopath as the Republican candidate for President of the United States. Here's a kickass song that has always been my anthem for not giving in to all that seems to oppress us.



Don't let go
You got the music in you
One dance left
This world is gonna pull through
Don't give up
We got a reason to live
Can't forget
We only get what we give...

Return from "The Last Frontier"

Someone I recently emailed hinted that I ought to show you all some scenery from our Alaska trip. Here's a sample of the over 350 pictures and 7 videos I took.

Too late we realized how to use the video part of the cameras on our iPhones. "Had I But Known..." (HA!) I would have some amazing video of whales spouting and diving, moose eating grass, sea otters cavorting in Resurrection Bay, and sections of the Pedersen Glacier calving and crashing in the ocean. Ah well... When we go back we'll remember to take more video and less photographs. And I think we will definitely go back.

Some of these photos are very large. Click to enjoy in full view. But please don't click on the out of focus ones. ;^)

The only brown bear we saw.
I got so nervously excited I shook the damn camera. AAARGH!

Mama Moose & two calves

Converted EMT vehicle made into a camper (right)
Never got to talk to the guy. He was behind us in the restaurant, but kind of a grump.

Denali National Park tour bus. Only the first 15miles are accessible by private vehicles. To see the
rest of the park you need to board a tour bus. Our driver was an extremely talkative raconteur.

Denali (formerly Mt. McKinley) at around 7 AM on one of the rare clear sunny days

Exit Glacier. In 1998 you used to be able to walk up and touch this one.

Independence Mine Historical Park.  A working gold mine from the 1930s through late 1950s

Musk Ox (bull) at the unique musk ox farm in Palmer, AK

Sea otter, sort of winking at us

Mysterious wreck of an RV.
We think it was the result of a propane gas tank explosion.

Pedersen Glacier  It calved three times while we were on the boat.
Click to enlarge and look at the center edge of shore. Two guys!
I enlarged this on my laptop and we saw that one of them has a movie camera on his shoulder.
He seems to be filming someone in a boat or a kayak out to the right.

Holy Assumption of the Virgin Mary, built 1895-1896
One of the oldest Russian Orthodox churches in Alaska

I think this is Flat Top Mountain near Anchorage.
Seen from north side of Turnagain Arm

My best series of shots (not exactly in sharp focus)
of one of the FIVE (!) humpback whales we saw in a single day.