We visited some friends in Urbana the week before last—at some point, as we talked about our home town and its problems, one asked, “Do you know people who have actually moved away?” We do. One couple left after the second round of looting last summer. Two other couples probably were on their way out […]

Today I went in for my annual chest MRI. It’s annual because way back when I was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. When I was scheduled for a procedure called an ablation, pre-procedure imaging showed that my aorta was on the large size. My cardiologist said it might be nothing—I might just be a big-aorta guy. […]

This past Friday, Chicago dropped most of the pandemic restrictions. We still are required to wear masks on public transportation (something I think I may do forever) and in certain other circumstances like schools, medical facilities, etc. (All of this relaxation applies only to vaccinated people—how we can tell who’s whom, I don’t know.) Also […]

I went to a White Sox game Saturday—it’s my fifth visit this year and it was technically my sixth game because one of my visits was a doubleheader. The park was still limited to 60 percent plus an all-vaccinated section of the bleachers that didn’t count against the 60 percent. Unlike the first couple games, […]

You can live in a big city for years and miss some of its gems. We’ve been in Chicago since 2003 and somehow, we’d never been to the Japanese Garden—The Garden of the Phoenix. Until this past Sunday, that is, when we climbed in the back seat of our friend’s sedan for a little urban […]