Chicago

Well, my plans have changed. I am spending the next two weeks in Chicago, staying in Hyde Park with friends (thanks Charlotte and Andy!). Having spent my early years in Hyde Park, it is a nice circle to end up here again. In the mean time, I am visiting with friends and volunteering at the Fiedl Muesum! Always a great time!

While I am here I wanted to take this opportunity to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who helped me move out of what my sister poetically called my "death trap" apartment (even if it was cute).

Thank you especially to Janet (who is kindly letting me store all my stuff in her attic -- all the stuff that isn't farmed out to someone else), Dennis, and Michael for their help on the first shift. And to Gordon (who showed up early), Michael (who risked his life --literally -- to help me again), Jonathan (who saved Michael's life), Hanna (who has boundless energy), Jeremy (who added a needed burst of energy during the final push) and my Mother (who came all the way from TN to help)!

Thanks, too, to everyone who offered to help, but couldn't make it, or sent good will during the move.

I could not have done it without you!

(the story of the Death Trap Apartment is this: As Michael, Gordon and Jonathan were moving my mattress down the back stars of my apartment -- as requested by the landlord in the lease -- the railing against which Michael was resting gave way, and fell two flights to the concrete sidewalk below. Michael was left flailing in mid-air clutching desperately at the mattress (carefully covered in plastic) and at the rotting brick wall of my kitchen! As he was about to plummet to certain hospitalization, if not a more unpleasant end, Jonathan's hand reached out, grasped his wrist in an iron grip, and pulled him back onto the porch, and the land of the living!

-- OK, its a bit overly dramatic, but it's more or less accurate)