Sweet Sunshower

Chicago is such a great city. It’s usually cloudy, rainy, or windy; but you don’t care, cause, hey it’s Chicago & it’s supposed to be like that. And when the sun’s out, everyone just really appreciates is so much more.

The shopping’s fabulous. They’ve got the “Magnificent Mile”. A huge H&M. A “Little India” area. A Chinatown. And I’ve recently discovered an area there were you can get “fake designer bags”; they’re not designer, but are designs inspired from designer bags. I spent over an hour there & didn’t find anything I liked (but I was looking for something very specific).

They’ve got lots & lots of great restaurants (like Matisse!), and more blues than you can shake a stick at (although, why you’d shake a stick at blues music, I don’ts know).

I went to Millenium Park for the 1st time & it’s grand. I love Frank Gehry (as a designer, not as a man b/c of course, I don’t know him personally). He designed the pavillion; when you see pics, you can tell exactly what he did. Also, there’s this British artist (born in India) named Anish Kapoor who did a sculpture called “Cloud Gate”. This you have to go see in person, but you can also just see the pictures of it. To read more, go to Millenium Park’s website.

But, more importantly, here are my pictures!

Especially check out the fire/water hydrants. Is there a standard design that they should adhere to? If not, who gets to design ‘em? Who picks the design?

Have y’all seen the Radar online article about Beyoncé? You can read it here. Apparently, Vanity Fair “lightened” her skin color because she was “too dark”? Really? Isn’t this 2005? She is the 1st African-American lady on the cover since Tina Turner in 1993. This is absolutely insane. Beyoncé’s beautiful, and I can’t believe a mag would do that. I mean, I can understand telling her what to wear, and doing her make-up, and selecting the location. Especially the “what to wear” part, because I really don’t care for her mom’s fashion sense. Although, I think we’ve seen that most mom’s don’t have the greatest fashion sense (look that the previous post w/ Jack Roberts). But, changing someone’s skin color?

Some ppl think that Star Wars fans are not sports enthusiasts. Well, I am a Stars Wars fan & I love baseball (watching it while chillin, that is). So, I really dug that Chewbacca got to throw out the ceremonial 1st pitch at a recent game in Boston. This was the Red Sox about to play the Toronto Blue Jays at Fenway Park in Boston, Wednesday Sept. 28, 2005.

Beyoncé came out & said that she’s got a name for her stage persona: Shasha. Madonna’s got one too: Esther. (Britney’s got one too, but I really don’t remember what it was & frankly don’t care enough to check on it.) Anyway, the point is that these ppl have recognized that the persona they portray onstage is just that – a persona. They are “performance art” (the term is used loosely in some cases), much like musical theatre. They are up their doing a show. This is not the person as they are, it’s not reality. When you go to a concert, you’re going to a show, just like the movies or theatre.

So, why do little girls want to dress up like Madonna (back in the ’80s) or Britney (hopefully not anymore, but a few years back)? Moms need to teach the girls that this is not real. This is how they dress in public for appearances only. This is not their normal day-to-day, around the house wear (I hope).

You don’t see little boys dressing up like Indiana Jones, or Hulk Hogan, or GI Joe, or Mos Def. Although, I do wish young boys would dress like Mos Def, cause he certainly has some style. Yes sir!

Speaking of Maddie. Does she really need a stage name? C’mon. Really?!? I mean, isn’t her real name like Louise or something like that? Maddona is her stage name. She’s given her stage persona a stage name. Like in Dharma & Greg when Dharma got her pet dog a pet dog of his own too. Seriously, Maddie, you’re got your one stage name. Let’s not get too greedy. Kay?

OK, I just got back from Philly for the weekend. And as we were landing, I looked out the window, and saw that the runway had a million tire skid marks on it. I guess everytime a plane lands, when the tires 1st touch-down on the runway, the tires must skid. I wonder how often they must have to replace these tires. And what if one just explodes? What happens then? I wonder how often that happens?

Here’s John Roberts III (called ‘Jack’) dancin to the beat of his own drummer. I kinda like this kid. He made George W. smirk, and soon mom Jane carried him & Josie (Jack’s older sis) off stage.

This was America’s introduction to John Roberts Jr., Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court since Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now, this was at Capital Hill on Monday, Sept. 12th, 2005. Daddy was in the middle of a confirmation hearing to get sworn in. And Jacky was sitting pretty w/ momma Jane. And what’s up w/ all the names in the fam starting with the same letter?
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If this little cookie turns out to be smart too, he may just run & get a political office one day. He definitely knows how to hold the attention of the American public. Unfortunately, he’s not as good as getting the attention of the ‘rents yet.