Dozin’ Done Right
I kicked off my ninth season of overnights at the Field Museum last weekend and let me tell you, sleeping on a concrete floor in the middle of an exhibit does not get any easier with age. Thankfully I can never sleep more than a few hours anyway so I guess it’s not really a problem? Plus when you’re maintaining crowd control and entertaining 700 children and their parents – who are sometimes just as rambunctious as their kids – sleep is among the last of your concerns. But our crew has been doing this together for a while now and we pretty much have it down, or as down as you can get with this many variables. And while the snowstorm that hit Chicago Friday night might not have helped traffic, it certainly helped everyone pack up and get the heck outta dodge on Saturday morning after the sleepover. Which made my job much easier! I may just be singing Let It Snow for the rest of the season…
The museum has undergone some pretty big changes in the last year or so and Stanley Field Hall is no exception. If you haven’t been in a while, you should really check it out and if you’ve never been before, why are you reading this blog? Are we even friends? Contact me IRL and I’ll get you in and give you a tour. No really. You can buy me a beer at the museum bar and we’ll call it even.
But I digress.
I’ll do another post sometime soon on Maximo, the newest member of our dinosaur family, but here’s a photo to give you an idea of some of the differences (hi pterosaurs and hanging gardens!) now. Bonus for the fact that it’s after midnight in this shot and the museum looks empty but actually hides hundreds of living people sleeping in the exhibits and countless dead people and animals sleeping in displays and collections.
I sure do love that place.
What I’m Listening to Right Meow
Who me?
We have two cats and I love them. They’re sweet and furry little angels who can do no wrong, except when they drive me crazy and I begin to Google “cat muzzles” (which is kind of scary and I don’t recommend it). To be completely honest, the younger of the two, Scout, drives me crazier than the his adopted brother Dude and that’s because there are many times that Scout just won’t stop meowing. If we shut the study door so Scott can concentrate on his schoolwork, she stands outside the door and cries. If we open the door then sometimes she’ll stand on my dresser, stare into the mirror and paw it like doing so hard enough will transport her into a magical universe full of fish and catnip – while crying. When I stand in front of the mirror and straighten my hair in the morning, she cries until I pet her with one foot (then alternate feet until I’m completely finished getting ready and about to leave the house. It’s great for core strength). That one’s kind of on me though as I accidentally induced that Pavlovian response but the fact remains that she’s very vocal and it’s more than a little obnoxious. But what are we to do? If she goes silent for longer than a few hours we begin to think something’s wrong so at this point it’s simply the default ambient noise in our home. In fact, she’s crying right now. One would think we neglected her to a horrific degree or something equally awful but no, she’s just looking at a shut door. I’m sure she has a truly painful life.
Anyway, she’s lucky she’s cute.
I’m Baaaaack
As someone who used to write on this blog just about every single day (and did so for a long time), it’s a little jarring to be coming back to it after an entire year. I used to work on blog posts while actually at work and that was fine and dandy for a while, but when I took a promotion last year the free time I had at work essentially went out the window. I didn’t have a computer at home that was conducive to writing and my blog fell to the back burner for quite a while (clearly). But I’ve missed it and it is sort of a nice chronicle to look back upon every now and then, so one of my resolutions for the New Year was to pick it back up. Another was to start making resolutions again. So I bought myself my first new personal laptop in just about a decade and that’s what I’m typing on right now, from the comfort of my couch. I can’t say how often I’ll be posting but hopefully I’ll crank the next one out before 2020!
I’ve actually missed writing creatively in general and am also hoping that blogging will help get some of those juices flowing. I used to have a small monthly writing gig but, like all free magazines distributed solely in bars in Northwest Indiana, it wasn’t super sustainable and the magazine shut down. Anyway, here’s hoping for more writing in general in 2019!
And now, a brief recap of 2018:
- Made an entire year in my new (dream) job and didn’t irrevocably screw anything up.
- Traveled for work for the very first time and went to Portland (OR), NYC, and Boston. Here’s hoping for San Francisco and London this year!
- Took personal trips to Texas (family reunion), Cincinnati (trip with Mom and sister), and Iceland (amazing countrywide adventure with Scott that I may or may not blog about at some point).
- Watched many friends grow their families and remained perfectly content with our cats.
- Said goodbye to two friends from my high school days who were instrumental in helping to shape the woman I’ve become. That wasn’t great but knowing both Marcus and DJ sure was.
- Shared laughs and created memories with some of the most amazing, strong, beautiful and smart women I know.
- Maintained my fond relationship with: The Field Museum, The Common Pantry, Netflix and Cheeze-Its.
- Bought a new laptop. Oh wait! You already know about that.
I told you the recap would be short. It’s amazing how much is forgotten or glossed over when you’re not writing about it on a regular basis! I won’t get too much into how the current state of politics likely has something to do with my not wanting to think about everything that’s happened this year but spoiler: it has. But it’s a New Year and I’m feeling good! Okay actually, I’m feeling like shit and have been fairly run down and miserable with cold/sinus stuff for days but I’m feeling good that I have successfully completed this blog post. And now I’ve officially been to the gym and written on my blog every day this year!
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