Really? Chicago in January?

Sometimes I'm glad that it's hard to fly directly to anywhere from Tucson.  The fact is that the least expensive and shortest-time-in-transit way to get from here to Washington, DC involves a change of planes at Midway airport.  Now, honestly, denizens, how could I change planes in their city and not say Hi to Little Cuter and SIR?  It would be impossible. 

So I'm adding two days on to the front of my trip and I'll be in Chicago at the end of January.

I have to pause a moment when I read that.  Most normal humans would leave Chicago and flee to Tucson at the end of January.  I lived in Chicago for 19 January's and I can tell you that it is not a pretty site.  Oh, sure, there is the occasional sunny day when the entire city is on the lakefront or in the zoo or playing dog frisbee in one of the gazillion parks.  But the reality is far starker.  Chicago in late winter is most often dark and dank and the snow is no longer white and fluffy but has turned to grey slush creeping up your UGGS.  It's nigh on impossible to look stylish in January in Chicago.  It's enough to survive.

And yet, I am going to be there and that thought does nothing but bring a smile to my face and love to my heart.  My grand-dog will nuzzle me and the kids will feed me and together we will see Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf at Steppenwolf Theater Company.  I got the last 4 tickets for a Wednesday night performance that Terry Teachout called "a show you mustn't miss"

Little Cuter and I have been wondering if we're going to read the play before we see it.  It's a quandry.  Do you think that Edward Albee would tell us what to do if I wrote him a note and asked his advice?  After all, it's not every day that you get to experience a classic for the first time. I am surprised to say that neither of us has ever seen or read it.  She's an English major.  I read constantly.  How has this happened?  We want to get this right.

Is it going to be something like Shakespeare?  Will it be so dense that knowing the basic outlines of the plot before we listen to the actors will help us fill in the blanks when the words become arcane?  Or should we let it flow over us and see where it takes us?  We can always read it on Thursday.  I think Mr. Albee would have written it as prose if he'd wanted it read instead of seen.  But that's one woman's opinion.  As said, we're wondering.

There's another reason to be joyful about traveling to the Midwest in January.  FAMB (who really should be FAMBB and I don't know why she is not) will be there too.  We've been very good friends since we met in 7th grade home room.  We haven't seen one another in 41 years but I promise you that we are very good friends.  She's about to become a grandmother and is currently stockpiling airline tickets in anticipation of an ever-in-the-future-but-not-today birth date.  Thanks to her grandchild's desire to remain in utero for just a little longer, now it is inevitable that our paths will cross in Chicago. I'll drop off a baby gift and admire the sweet little fingers and toes and then I'll spirit my friend away for a quick cup of something and a very long hug.

Sometimes life just works out perfectly.