Tuesday, July 19 2022

Dear Journal,

Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. The sounds of birds chirping and the copious amount of sunlight pouring in through the windows tells me it's morning, and it's time to start another day. So let's get to it.

Sip. I took the day off yesterday to recover from this weekend's art show. Marissa and I set up her booth at the Millennium Park art fair, which strangely doesn't actually take place in Millennium park. The fair was set up on Lake street between Stetson and Michigan avenue.

This was our view for the whole art show. It was a cool, windy, drizzly weekend. It was the kind of weather better suited for napping than selling art to strangers. I admit, the gentle pattering of raindrops on the top of our translucent white tent made it hard to keep my eyes open during some of the lulls. "It sounds like a relaxing sounds YouTube video I would put on the TV before falling asleep on the couch," I chuckled.

Marissa and I, still suffering in the slump of a bad head cold, didn't do much talking while we inched through the city streets in our U-haul. That morning, a fateful miscalculation caused me to steer the U-haul right into the corner of our roof. The top of the truck sliced through our gutter like a knife through the crust of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You be the judge - does it look as bad as it feels?

The embarrassment of side swiping my own house with a truck would last all weekend, but luckily that was the only driving trouble we had. Getting around the city gets easier with each art show, and sometimes even unplanned obstacles can lead you to new discoveries. On the second day of the show, I dropped Marissa off at the corner of Michigan avenue. I slipped into the turn lane just as a blur of tourists flooded the crosswalk. I took the long, slow way back to our parking spot - waiting behind stoplights, busses, and pedestrians. But just before I made the final turn, I noticed the street in front of the parking garage was closed. Cars horns bleated behind me, and feeling pressed to make a quick decision, I turned onto a ramp that sent me straight down to Lower Wacker street. "Crap crap crap," I muttered to myself while I followed the dark concrete road through the bowels of the city. I turned onto a ramp and surfaced, and to my surprise I was right back at Lake street where I had started. It was inconvenient, but the next day when we had to cover the distance between the highway and Lake street, I simply recreated my mistake. Emerging back onto the surface minutes later, we were magically teleported to Lake street, and I smugly basked in the glow of a new short cut.

"That was cool," said Marissa. "I felt like I was in The Dark Knight."

Sadly, the art show this weekend was a bit of dud. We blame the rain and dreary weather for the low turnout, but Marissa and I still had a good time. Marissa brought a bag of dog treats along, and the side quest of petting as many dogs as possible kept us entertained.

We set aside one evening for a date night at Harry Caray's. We dove head first into a plate of bruschetta.

We had all yesterday to re-cooperate from a busy show weekend. We took Miles and Rodney back to Bison Park. Rodney explored the jungle gym on his own while Marissa and I sat and watched Miles fiddle with rocks in the stream. "Don't throw the rocks, Miles," said Marissa. Miles defiantly plunked a heavy rock into the water.

We went out to dinner and took a long family shopping trip to Target. I remembered to grab a basketball pump on the shelf. Rodney yelped with excitement because it meant he would finally get to try his new Dude Perfect basketball we brought home from the show. I used the ball as leverage over Rodney so we would quickly clean his room.

"If you clean your room in... five minutes... then you can shoot hoops outside," I promised. I started a timer on my phone, and Rodney began to scoop Legos off the floor with razor sharp focus. When he was done, he sprinted through the house to the back door.

"New Ball - who dis," he said while tying his shoes on.

"What?" I laughed.

"That's what Ty says in the video," explained Rodney. "New ball - who dis?"

Rodney said the ball was "perfect". We even tried some of our own trickshots, and I have to admit they felt that much more authentic using a real Dude Perfect basketball.

That's what I got today. Thanks for stopping by, and I'll see you tomorrow.