so we finally get to chicago, check in with hertz to pick up our family-friendly subaru forester, yuck, drive to kristie’s apartment in ukrainian village, get key from mailbox, drop off luggage, drive to target, drive back to kristie’s apartment, and take jack for a walk around wicker park. when “the design man” Finally let kristie go home for the day she was greeted with a big smile from jack. good thing because she would be spending the entire next day with him. friday mom and dad spent the day in a meeting with a new client. we told kristie our meeting would get out at 3pm, we finished at 5pm. oh yea, i forgot to mention that kristie had never babysat before this day. no worries, everybody was glad to see that friday come to an end. of course kristie was wiped out from entertaining jack all day long and then we told her we needed to go out to eat right away so we could get jack home by 8pm to get him to bed. she thought she’d get a nap in before dinner. no such luck. the weekend was finally here and we played. lots of walking around the wicker park neighborhood drinking lattés and checking out some cool shops, including quimby’s, one of our favorite independent bookstores. saturday afternoon we finally got to nap, including kristie, she needed it the most. in the evening we went to the white sox game. we got to the game late, but we ended up seeing the best part, if you’re a white sox fan or pulling for the home team. the white sox came back in the bottom of the ninth to when the game on an A.J. Pierzynski home run. sunday morning we had brunch with “auntie” Carol in downtown chicago. and then we were off to the airport to fly back to denver. it was a good first trip for jack. he got to meet two special people in chicago and got some gifts as well. we should be headed back to the windy city in late july so check back for part 3 of the chicago postings.
chicago, part 1 (public enemy #1)
wow! what a trip to chicago. lots of excitement. jack’s first trip to the windy city started off with a patdown at the denver airport. yes, you read that correctly. both jack and his father were flagged as security risks by the denver authorities. it was probably the last name. it’s always caused some kind of calamity throughout my life and now i’ve passed it on to my son (kelly was smart not to change her name. besides, whenever we travel to boston the name mcmurray has more influence than st.cyr does). anyway, as i was on my way back to the car to get the child car-seat base, apparently you need this even for rental cars, kelly and jack were going through security when they were ask to see the man in the white shirt. Let me tell you, the man in the white shirt who works for TSA looks comforting from the non-risk line, but when you’re ask to see him, there’s a whole other set of thoughts running through your head. like “what did i do?” in jack’s case “what did i do in my diaper?” Since i wasn’t there to witness jack’s patdown you’ll have to wait until kelly posts a comment attached to this entry. if it was anything like my experience it went something like this.
Security Guard: Mr. St.Cyr, please see the gentleman in the white shirt.
Mr. St.Cyr: Thinking to himself. What the hell is going on? I’m just a regular guy with a bag of designer crap, a G4 laptop, an iPod full of bad 80’s music, a book, and a child car-seat base.
Mr. St.Cyr proceeds along the designated roped-off pathway to the high-risk security area. He knows this because of the funny welcome mats with foot shapes on them, the gang of agents in white shirts, and the group of elderly stripping down off in the distance.
High-Risk Security Guard #1: Please place your items in the plastic bins and walk through the high-risk x-ray machine.
High-Risk Security Guard #2: Please step over here. Please raise your arms. Now, I’m just going to give you a soft patdown.
Mr. St.Cyr: Thinking to himself. These High-Risk Security Guards are very polite with all their ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous.’ Hey, look! There’s all my stuff dumped out into the plastic bins.
High-Risk Security Guard #3: Speaking to High-Risk Security Guard #2 in the presence of Mr. St.Cyr. We found this and this. Do we need to fill out a report?
High-Risk Security Guard #2: I’m not sure. Ask High-Risk Security Guard #4.
Mr. St.Cyr: I forgot all about that Xacto knife and the pencil sharpener.
High-Risk Security Guard #2: You have a few options. We can escort you out so you can mail the items to yourself or you can give them to somebody if somebody dropped you off at the airport or we can add them to the George W. Bush Memorial Collection of Terrorist Graphic Design Tools?
Mr. St.Cyr: George can keep them.
High-Risk Security Guard #2: Let me escort you out.
Mr. St.Cyr: Thanks. Thinking to himself. Good thing I had an escort out. All of those velvet ropes were really throwing my sense of direction off.
when i finally caught up to kelly and jack at the gate i heard about jack’s security experience. maybe i’ll change my name to mcmurray.
at the drive-in, pt. 2
first off, “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” was horrible, but as i stated in the first entry about the drive-in, you don’t have many options. noted for the record here, kelly selected Mr. & Mrs. Smith. i wanted to see Madagascar. the rain didn’t help either. this lead to turning up the radio to hear the movie over the sound of rain and the windshield wipers, which kept waking jack up. who’s dumb idea was this anyway. next time we want to leave the house to see a movie, we’ll drive to blockbuster.
“aunt” margot
aunt margot grisar just left for boston today. jack’s last planned visitor for awhile. we had a great time seeing margot and she loved meeting jack for the first time. when she arrived last saturday we showed her around denver. on sunday morning we drove her to fort collins where she spent a few days visiting with her friend jean and her family. she returned to denver on wednesday and went to dinner with kelly while i went to an AIGA event. jack got to stay home with his new sitter, robbielee, an e.M.A.D. student at D.U. kelly and jack played with margot on thursday and friday. they went shopping in the highlands area of denver and stopped in to see jill and eric at Mod Livin’ our favorite mid-century furniture store. it was great to see margot. we’ll see her again in august.
uncle sean
uncle sean, kelly’s brother, just left for santa cruz today. orginally his trip was intended to be a business trip, but days before he was supposed to arrive the business part was cancelled. he came anyway and met jack and played in denver for a couple days before working on friday out of his company’s denver office. we showed sean around town, making stops at our studio in LoDo, the giant REI store, and Lola a wonderful coastal mexican restaurant in our neighborhood. i think the highlight of sean’s visit was when kelly and sean watched a girly movie on thursday evening while i was at an AIGA meeting. sean sat on the edge of his seat in our livingroom making fun of the movie and making kelly laugh at the movie she had picked up from the library earlier in the week. there’s nothing like making your younger sister laugh out loud, especially at something she wanted to watch. in the end sean loved denver. he even said he could see himself living here with his family. then we had to remind the boy with the view of the pacific ocean from his bedroom that there’s no water here. and off he flew to his quaint surf town in northern california.