ginnygram

Bill and I drove by our first house today, so I jumped out  of the car to take a picture for this story.

We bought this little bungalow in 1986. Ginger was four. Bill worked nights. And we couldn’t afford a real moving company. But that’s okay, because we really only had maybe five pieces of furniture, which Bill’s buddies brought over in an old Bell Telephone van.

In the evenings, before our actual moving day, Ginger and I would carry over a little bit, and a little bit, and a little bit more, from our apartment. And because it was just us we’uns, it was never anything big or heavy. Which meant that it was dishes, linens, pantry stuff, and all of Ginger’s toys.

Whenever we packed Ginger’s things into the car, I’d say that we were taking her things to her new house and her new room!

And when we got to the new house, I’d tell her that this was her new house and her new room!

One evening, when we had pretty much emptied her room at the apartment, Ginger started to cry.

Thinking she was just sad to be leaving her room (which, by the way is where she wrote GIGNER on the wall and blamed it on her dad), I said, “Oh, sweetie, it’s okay, you’ll love your new house and your new room!”

Little four-year-old Ginger looked at me through her tears and said, “I know. I just wish you and Daddy were moving there with me.”

Man, did I just get busted.

CRIME: Running out of maple syrup. And substituting sorghum.

MOTIVE:  I volunteered to make maple bacon for a wedding-shower brunch at work tomorrow. But I miscalculated on the maple syrup. And I needed something gooey to drizzle on the rest of the bacon strips to candy ’em up. I almost always have Kentucky sorghum in the cupboard, because I don’t go through it very quickly AND it lasts for years. So sorghum bacon was born tonight, my friends.

WITNESS: My husband caught me tasting (re-tasting) (re-re-tasting!) the drippings of the candied-sorghum-bacon drippings in the bottom of the pan. He actually testified that my eyes were rolled back in my head. Is that even legal?

EVIDENCE: Sticky fingers.

VERDICT: Oh, girl, you are so totally guilty!

SENTENCE: Step on the scale tomorrow.

All day, I have felt like I have needed a good cry. My tears were constantly about to breach their levee. My heart felt so full. And you may think you know why, but there’s a different reason. Or an additional reason, perhaps.

Last night I had a visit from Vivian, Bill’s mother, who died more than 10 years ago. It is the first time I’ve talked with her since she left us. And frankly, I’m a little surprised she showed up in my overnight dreams. Let’s just say that she wasn’t the warmest woman in the world.

I showed her the house. She laughed because it is messier than it was when it was hers. (It isn’t messy. It just has more-better stuff.) She asked about some people. And when I asked how she could be possibly be here, she said “they get two visits.” It was nice to see her again.

Over these many years, in the wee dreamnight hours, I’ve enjoyed visiting with my grandfather and Bill’s grandfather. I once scolded Mar Mar for not being nice in her later years, and she never showed up again. Ginger had a visit from her Papa while she was at the police academy — he told her everything would be all right, and that she’d be assigned to 014th District. It was, and she was.

So this morning, when I told Bill that I’d visited with his mother last night, he smiled and said that he’d spent time with his grandmother last night! He’d looked for his mother, because they were in the old farm house, but he couldn’t find her.

Because she was here. With me.

Doesn’t he look kind of R2D2 in a very wooden and sturdy kind of way? Sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I think I see him give a little wink or shuffle. When I oil his back, I think he sighs a contented sigh.

He is the butcher block from Gigi and George’s kitchen, and we happily adopted him into the lake-house kitchen when Gigi moved into her Wendy home. He carries a lot of warm memories of family suppers on Third Street. And brunches and lunches, for that matter. He has shouldered a lot of responsibility for serving our lovely patchwork family over the years.

He asked me to send a note to Gigi and the rest of you: He’s doing just fine, but he misses you and he’d like to see you again.

Here’s what football season means to me. On Friday nights, as soon as we get to the lake house, we get to watch the Wabash Valley high-school recap on the local news. (I just love it. I have my little flashback moments of pep buses and Marching Admirals.) Then on Saturdays, Bill drags this little TV to the summer kitchen, where we watch the Notre Dame game and whatever wildlife graces us. Then on Sundays, we head home, on a media blackout, so we can watch the Bears break our hearts on DVR.

Even as I write this tonight, I don’t know who wins. Bears or Colts. But it doesn’t really matter. I’m a weekday Chicagoan and a weekend Hoosier.

Spring came early to the Midwest. And we got cocky and planted-up the slope next to the lake house. The one we’ve been prepping for the last few years. Yup, by the end of May, we’d planted 110 prairie perennials + 1 annual that I couldn’t resist (a corkscrew plant, which Laura has in her Mobile courtyard as an perennial). And weren’t we so smart to get a head start on the season. Outsmarted — outstarted? —  is what we were. To keep the wee plantings alive through the many, many droughted and 100+ degree days, we drove the four hours to the lake house house in the country every. single. weekend.

Except for that weekend when we went to Mobile and I got jealous about Laura’s perennial corkscrew plant.

Anyway, this weekend, we think we have a guest who will take over the watering.

Isaac! Where ya been?

All summer, we’ve invited him to visit. Stay a few days, just once in a while. Nope. Busy. But this weekend, he’s planning to blow into town for a couple of days, so we gave him the keys and said to stay as long as he likes.

Sorry, Gulf Coast, but…

When I first moved to Chicago in the very-early 1980s, and worked at Rand McNally & Company in Skokie, this was the Hyatt. And it was lovely. A juicy purple on the outside, and snazzy and stylish on the inside. When I was lucky enough to be invited to a business or author luncheon, we dined on white tablecloths and were served by smooth waiters. The bar was handsome. And wedding receptions, the one or two we enjoyed, were gorgeous.

In its heyday, the hotel hosted the famous and the infamous. One day back in 1983, our printer’s rep had just arrived from Italy, and was having a bite of lunch before coming to see us at Rand. From the dining room window, he saw a man gunned down in the parking lot — a mob hit! I can’t remember the rep’s name, but I will tell you he took himself right back to O’Hare and flew home. “Where’s [name goes here]?” we all wondered. He eventually called to say that he’d seen enough of Chicago and its tommy-gun mobsters, and wouldn’t be back anytime soon. Hit or alleged-hit, it really did happen, I’ve since come to learn.

Mob hits notwithstanding, it was a sad day in the neighborhood when the Hyatt signs came off this mid-century gem. And who knows when it was tackily renamed Purple Hotel. I guess that happened sometime in the early to mid 1990s. And since then, it has just gone more and more depressingly to seed. Now it stands practically gutted. Its parking lots are more weed and broken glass than blacktop. And broken blinds cringe in its windows. But maybe, the wait for its fate will have been worth it.

Rather than razing it and putting another strip mall in its place, a Skokie-based investor has enlisted a disciple of the hotel’s original architect to breathe stylish new life into our quirky and beloved Lincolnwood landmark!

A plum assignment, I’d say.