Birthday surprise!

I have been keeping a secret these past few weeks. (And boy am I bad at that!) I have been sneaking around and planning a surprise for Danny's 40th birthday. I arranged to have my friend MaryJane babysit overnight so that I could whisk Danny away for an evening in Chicago.

I made reservations at the 4-star Amalfi Hotel in Chicago a few weeks ago. I was sure that the gig was up when Danny noticed the charge from Orbitz, but he assumed that it was an academic conference-related charge and didn't question it. Also, I told (warned) the kids about the trip the day before, but they totally forgot and didn't rat me out. So, when MaryJane showed up on Saturday afternoon, Danny was pricing gutter pipes on line and was completely and totally surprised.

The Hotel was gorgeous! And it is in the middle of everything! We were able to do a little window shopping, admire the architecture and walk around Millennium Park.

Also, there was another surprise: I had arranged to have Danny's friend Matt (and my friend Beth) meet us for dinner. Cafe Iberico seems to be in a Google black hole. I had noticed that the street address of the restaurant didn't match the hundreds on Google maps, so I called the restaurant and asked them if they were on the corner of LaSalle and Kinsey, and they said yes. However, they are actually on the corner of LaSalle and Superior, many blocks away. I told Danny that we had 6:00 reservations (they actually don't take reservations) so we had to hop a cab (I love Chicago!) to get there "on time." We got to the restaurant before Matt and Beth, so I had to secretly call them on the phone and sneakily get the hostess to give the two of us a table for 4. But Danny was completely surprised when Matt and Beth showed up!


Here's Danny's description of the event:

"I had no idea we were leaving for a night in Chicago. When MaryJane showed up I thought maybe she and Susan had plans. I was so surprised I felt my brain working about two steps behind what was happening. It was especially surprising that the kids had kept the secret. They were quite casual about it all. Susan produced a packed suitcase out of nowhere and we left in 15 minutes!

The drive to Chicago was easy and the hotel was beautiful. We got to walk around with the holiday shoppers and spend a little time in some very snazzy stores, including an entire store devoted to olives (one of my favorite foods) and a Lego store with a life-size Darth Vader - the picture is sure to give me some street cred with the kids.

Then we went to a fabulous tapas restaurant. I was a little suspicious when they set the table for four but couldn't for the life of me think who would be joining us. Believe me that I was stunned and delighted to see Matt and Beth. The food was fantastic and the company was even better. I enjoyed a wide variety of drinks and was glad not to be driving back to the hotel.

The following morning (when I finally woke up) we walked around admiring the Chicago architecture in freezing sunshine and ended up in Millennium Park. It was a wonderful end to an unbelievable trip.

Did I mention I have the best wife in the world?"

Cleveland Hijinks

I have always loved the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and they have done a nice job of upgrading without getting rid of the really charismatic old stuffed animals and miniature dioramas. The central hall is especially great: the displays go all of the way up to the ceiling, with jaguars and other predators poised to attack you from above. This museum is notable because it houses Lucy the famous Australopithicus skeleton, and the stuffed remains of Balto, the sled dog that lead the 1925 diptheria serum run to Nome.

Poor dead Balto.


Saturday morning we visited the museum with David, Amy and Benjamin and Jonah. All of the kids had a great time. Jonah's favorite exhibit was the tunnel leading to the planetarium. Ben and Sam spent a long time at the simulated earthquake. (I have no idea why--my kids have experienced actual earthquakes.)

Fossilized golf-ball dinosaur? (Sam will have to help me remember what this is.)

Watch out all you mini-bison--Joseph could pinch you like that!

Fear the mighty Silurian Eurypterid!

The kids had a great time outside checking out the local wildlife. Because of the rain, there was no one else was outside, and the animals were very active.

Joseph stood out in the rain for a long time watching the otter, and the otter was delighted to show Joseph its tricks. It had a little pebble that it carried in its mouth and rolled around the edge of the viewing glass. Later it did barrel rolls and somersaults, dropping the pebble in the water and then catching it at the last moment.

After that, we stopped by Big Fun on Coventry. This place is the best retro/collectible/novelty store of them all. It has all the kitchy stuff of Archie McPhee in Seattle, as well as the retro Star Wars figures like Acme Comics in Normal and vintage Fisher Price toys. We only had a little while to spend there, but the kids could have hung out all day.


We got lunch from Tommy's, which used to be a hippie vegetarian place when I was a kid. It still has great food, but it has been renovated to be less patchoulli grungy and have more seating.

I would have to say that Cleveland has become a very live-able city with all sorts of fine dining, shopping and recreation. Both the Coventry Village and Cedar-Lee areas have added new restaurants and stores, and have eliminated some of the more seedy establishments. (You know, all of the places that I used to loiter at with my high school gothy/hippie friends.) Also, the Goodwill place where I bought my clothes in high school has been replaced by a high-end vintage clothing store called "Revive!"

Scenes from the Coventry Street Fair

Lee Road

The hideous new walkway from the Lee Road public library

Revive!

Attractive offer

Joseph's consistently favorite toy has been Magnetix, which is a magnetic construction toy. He has constructed two figures: "Ziggo," and "R2D2" that he carries with him everywhere in a small metal candy tin.

Unfortunately, I now find out that several children have died by ingesting TWO unglued Magnetix magnets. Apparently, the tiny high-powered magnets managed to attract each other as they passed through adjacent loops of intestine, causing holes and death/emergency surgery. The manufacturer of Magnetix is very squirrely about all of this: they claim to have recalled the defective product from stores and changed it to prevent magnets from coming loose (and thus small enough for ingestion) in the future. However, they have never released any information about which sets have been "corrected" and which sets are still harmful, so I have no way of knowing which one we have. I went online and found out that Magnetix is actually a cheap knock-off of Geomag, a similar but superior magnetic construction toy which is made so that the magnets can't come loose. So, I ordered a bunch of Geomag, and managed to convince Joseph to retire the Magnetix and reconstruct Ziggo and R2D2 from the new set. He seems OK with it.

Anyhoo, If I gave anyone's kids Magnetix as a gift, please let me know--I will buy you some nice new Geomags.

As an aside, did you know that cows are intentionally fed a "cow magnet" to keep bits of barbed wire and metal debris from passing all of the way through the digestive tract? The magnet is retrieved when the animal is eventually slaughtered.


What The Onion has to say about toy recalls