Yesterday was no exception. Beyond the fact that up until the day before we were told by a (mistaken) forecast that starting at noon, Sunday was to be sunny and warm.

Bullocks.  This is what we got:

I don’t even.

But rather than let ourselves be deterred, the picnic had to go on! Only, inside. And with less nature. Boo. But it was still lovely. And we had a lot more pillows, to say the least. Sandwiches were made, strawberries were washed, and pasta salad was packed. We even opened the windows to listen to the rolling thunder.

Yes, it was raining, despite how bright it looks out my windows. Blowout is blowout.

And look, I finally lit the candles Daniil got me for Christmas. We’ll just ignore that it’s almost 6 months later. They smell amazing. He was pretty insistent that lighting Cappuccino, Warm Sugar, and Wedding Cake all at once was a very terrible, not-so-good idea, but I showed him. Not overpowering in the least, and not too faint, either, for that matter.

And of course no picnic would be complete without me stuffing my face full of sammich. Absolutely not.

The kicker of all this being, of course, was that after our post-picnic nap, it was bright, sunny, and hot. The rain had blown through and humidity had set in. I know, right?  So the happy ending to this story is that we got the bike ride in after-all.

We’ll just pretend that the hard-shell bug flying into his eye never happened.

He didn’t actually want anything for the occasion, and I had class on the actual day, so I had the genius idea to go on a bike ride. It’d been awhile since our last ride, so it seemed like a great idea. I made sandwiches and everything. Sandwiches full of tomatoes. The sandwiches themselves were delicious, and the ride was really fun.

It was also really cold.

We rode through Fermilab, which is always beautiful this time of year. Past the bison, past the seed harvest, through the village… We made it to Blackwell Forest Preserve in no time and had our freezing, freezing picnic. Technically we were in an area that was closed since we were near the campgrounds, but we missed the sign entirely.

It started to rain on our way back, which just added to the hilarity of this misguided ride. Cloudy, cold, miserable, and raining. But it was incredibly fun. It was the thought, anyways.

Of course the sun came out as soon as we got home.

The Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago opened to the public today. As a member, I got to see it yesterday, and boy am I glad I made it out. It’s phenomenal! Daniil and I made a day of it, and I’m really glad he insisted we see it first since the line wrapped around the special exhibit balcony by the time we left.

The photograph above, labeled as Hyères, France, 1932, was one of our favorites from the collection. I’d seen several of his photos before as a number of them belong to MoMA and The Met in New York City, including this one. But it really caught Daniil’s eye as well. As I would discover over the course of the afternoon, he is really intrigued by the use of lines in art. I, however, am more about motion and what’s not in the frame. We spent the afternoon guessing how each other felt about each photo.

The portion of portraits was one of my favorite parts of the exhibit. It makes me jealous because of all the cool people I will never know that he captured. Such as Truman Capote.

And Albert Camus.

And Ezra Pound.

Cartier-Bresson is one of my favorite photographers, and he shot almost exclusively in black & white. An admirable commitment for a modern man such as himself.

I highly recommend it. The man travelled far and wide as a photojournalist. I was lucky to have a native Russian give his own opinions on the Soviet Union portion. The photographs from newly Communist China are also breathtaking. If you can make it, go.

I went with quite a few friends. We ended up all feasting on Silk afterward, a product endorsed enthusiastically by Howard and me. And the sunrise was absolutely gorgeous, if not a bit skewed by clouds. I’m glad that only Daniil saw me have the mos disgraceful dismount from a bicycle ever. I banged up my leg pretty well on my pedal. But hey, my bike is a beast. It’s apparently the heaviest bike ever and gets more momentum than anything on hills.

The eggs benedict afterward was amazing, even if Pick Me Up was strangely out of hollandaise sauce. The drive home was not so fun. Was starting to fall asleep in the end there. Bed couldn’t have come soon enough at 9:30 Sunday morning.

Ken is clearly the more friendly of the two of us.

But I’m way cuter, even if I am wearing a hideous and cheap life preserver.

See! I totally helped.

Photos courtesy of Daniil the Russian.

I went canoeing from Ayers Landing with a whole bunch of folks yesterday. Yes, it was cold, and yes, it was dreary, but we all had a blast. I got to play Lazy Canoer by staying up front (which also meant I got the privilege of pushing branches out of the way when we went through some foliage.

We did twelve miles down the Fox with a stop for lunch and a (very) brief stop at a cave. Our group was about twenty, and we passed another group of twelve around Mile 6 who were extremely drunk. They kept trying to get us to drink beer with them, and while some of us obliged, most of us just wanted to paddle.

It was cold, but tons of fun. It’s been far too long since the last time I was on a boat of any kind (Staten Island Ferry not included).

Photo courtesy of Ken Blaszak.

But I’m pretty happy with my purchases because they open a world of possibility for me. The most exciting (to me anyway) is my brand new Keen Newport H2s.

Purchased at Geische Shoes for $102 including tax. I’ve bought pretty much every single pair of shoes that I wear today from them. We’ve been buying shoes from them since I was a kid and I’ve never been unhappy with the service or the shoes. All three (yes three!) pairs of Birkenstocks come from their shelves, as well as half the pairs of heels I own. So this is my fifth big spender purchase at Geische, and I’m happy to support a local store over a chain.

My other purchase was a Bell Faction multisport helmet:

Not quite as cool as the Nutcase Melonhead helmet, but also $20 cheaper. I’m just glad it doesn’t look stupid like those aerodynamic helmets do.

What makes me most excited about these purchases is the possibilities they open up to me. I finally have good kayaking and hiking shoes. I can finally ride my bike to work and to other places. I can finally do stuff.

Tony and I and a bunch of other people went to the Festival of Colors last Saturday, which was held in Knoch Knolls Park in Naperville. It was, how do you say? A pretty rocking time. Basically I got to spend an afternoon chasing little kids around trying to cover them in green and yellow flour. As you can see, I managed to get quite colorful myself.

The Festival of Colors is an Indian thing welcoming the coming of Spring. It was really amazing, punctuated by  delicious Indian food. It really made me wish that American culture had more active cultural festivals. Ours are far too passive. It seems that our culture is becoming more divided and making us feel more isolated. Sometimes all I want to do is reach out and touch somebody, make them acknowledge that I exist, and they exist, and we exist.

How is it that I feel most alive when I play on borrowed time?

Photos courtesy of Tony Thomas.

Between my server going down and a ridiculous amount of work that had to get done yesterday, I didn’t get a chance to post. Much apologies for the interrupted service.

Let’s see, what have I missed? Well, there was the earthquake that happened yesterday morning. You know, the 3.8 magnitude earthquake with the epicenter about 12 miles from my domicile that woke pretty much everyone up at exactly 4:00am. I had the added pleasure of having a puppy launch herself onto my body in a fit of panic.

Another thing that happened yesterday was a touch embarrassing. I was taken out by a first grader. And I don’t mean on a date. I was pretty much bowled over by an autistic seven-year-old. Sweet kid and, to some extent, my fault. If I’d been watching my buddy a little closer I could have stopped him from waving and thus prompting a bit of a freak out on the other child’s account. Gosh darn my kid being so friendly! Luckily, it turned out okay and I managed to get my buddy out of the way so I was the one who got run into and not him.

As for today: today was a special day. Today was 100 Day! Our kids had their 100th day of school today (thought it’s only my 97th; shhh). So I got to wear my educational tshirt on a non-friday and was given an awesome sticker. And boy did we count to 100 a ridiculous amount of times. Out entire day was filled with math activities involving counting to 100 and kids brought in collections of 100 things and it was awesome and silly.

The Batavia Public School’s Twitterfeed often sends alerts about things from the school time capsule. These unknown ladies were the 1907 Girl’s Basketball Champions of some unknown championship, either the last or second to last ever achieve this mysterious title before Illinois banned girls competitive sports in 1908. Which is incredibly sad, especially considering the Batavia Boy’s basketball team didn’t win a title until 1912. I also find it somewhat offensive that the 1912 banner still hangs in the Batavia High School gymnasium, but there is nothing to honor these girls for their 1907 accomplishment.

These ladies look capable, determined, healthy, and fun to me. It’s a shame that some organization of men decided their delicate lady bodies had to be protected from the horrors of athletics. While I’m not a big sports participant, I can only imagine how these women felt when they were told they could no longer play.