do something…
“Do something.” - Michelle Obama, Chicago, 21 August 2024
With that phrase ringing in my ears, I changed my mind about how I would reach out to all the wonderful friends I met up with during our recent trip to the U.S. and decided I would use this opportunity to write a second blog entry and make it public, sharing it far and wide.
The Democratic National Convention is this week, and since I’m 12 hours ahead of Chicago, I’ve been spending my mornings watching the speeches. Michelle Obama’s speech was one of the most magical and moving moments I’ve experienced in quite some time, and definitely one of the best convention speeches in modern memory. I especially liked when she said that “hope is making a comeback.” Among the other highlights I’ve seen are Pete Buttigieg’s great speech and Tim Walz’s neurodivergent son and how he talks about staying out of people’s bedrooms.
I’m sure there’s more to catch up on, but at least with this blog entry, I can do something, anything, and that is to ask everyone to please search deep inside themselves and think about what kind of future you want. It’s so obvious to me as to be ridiculously apparent, but if you’ve got friends or family who think a reality TV star is somehow the answer to their prayers, do what you can to steer them to the light. Almost all of the friends we saw stateside are planning to vote for Kamala Harris. There are a few about whom I’m uncertain, but to whom I’m going to reach out individually to do my part to put Harris in the White House.
As for the here and now, and the point of this blog post, is that we’ve been back in Bangkok for over two weeks and are finally back to normal after dealing with a bad bout of jet lag from the return to our amazing trip to the U.S. Midwest. I wanted to write a few things about our trip and share an album with all those people we were lucky enough to spend time with along our journey.
Starting in Chicago in mid-July, we met up with close friends, including a delicious dinner along the Chicago River on a warm and wonderful evening. The hubby and I went to the Adler Planetarium for a 50th-anniversary listening party for Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon”; visited the Art Institute for the Georgia O’Keefe exhibition, “My New Yorks”; went on a CAC architectural boat tour; saw Cloud Gate in Millennium Park; had lunch at Cindy’s; and had brunch in the West Loop.
We then drove from Chicago to Cincinnati and pulled up to our Airbnb in Monroe, Ohio, the town where I lived until I was 18. It was on Old Street in the downtown area, and around the corner from the former Brandywine Inn, one of the oldest buildings in town (which is now a fantastic Thai restaurant; more on that later). Our Airbnb apartment and our hostess were both fantastic and I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting the area.
Our activities in Cincinnati started with some sightseeing, including the Pompeii exhibit at Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal (very fun because we just visited the real Pompeii last year); the Roebling Suspension Bridge, which was the inspiration for the Brooklyn Bridge; and to Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati (and the obligatory reminiscence about “WKRP in Cincinnati”). We spent time with family and had our first Skyline Chili of the trip with our niece, where Shane got a five-way (with chili, cheese, beans, onions, and spaghetti) and he loved it.
We finished the afternoon with rich and creamy black cherry chip ice cream at Greater’s in Clifton; then met a friend in Dayton for our second of three Thai dinners; met friends at a Hawaiian place in downtown Cincinnati; met a wonderful friend I’ve known since first grade at our third Thai restaurant, which was the best of the trip. (And actually, including California, this northern Thai/Lao restaurant in Monroe, Ohio was probably one of the most authentic we’ve eaten anywhere in the U.S. They even served us somtum pla ra!)
We finished our time in Cincinnati with dinner with friends I’ve known since elementary school and two of three friends from a chat group we’ve had for the past 20+ years. One final lunch at Skyline on the way out of town and then we were on the I-71 freeway heading toward Columbus. On our first night, we met up with friends for dinner in German Village and then spent the afternoon Saturday at the Ohio State Fair where Shane milked a cow; we rode the big slide; and a lot of fair food was scarfed down (though we didn’t get a funnel cake, boo). Our friends had a small party on Saturday night and we got to meet all of their wonderful friends, plus eat delicious food from the grill and drink excessive amounts of exquisite red wine.
A friend from Cleveland came down to see us, which included dinner and a day at the Columbus Zoo. After she departed, we visited the Titanic exhibit at the Center of Science and Industry (COSI), a place I remember fondly from school trips in the 70s and 80s. On our last night in Columbus, we had plans for dinner and a jazz club in the Short North, but unfortunately, our friends had a family emergency and had to leave early.
Shane and I bid adieu to the lively and happening Columbus and drove to Indianapolis to meet a friend and her hubby for lunch and stimulating conversation. We returned to Chicago, running into what we later found out was Lollapalooza traffic all along Lake Shore Drive, and had Cajun/Creole for dinner that night with a friend who flew up from Richmond. The next day was more sightseeing including the Bean as well as the top of the old John Hancock Building for nice views of Chicago and Lake Michigan. Our final night stateside found us back along the Chicago River at a hip and happening (and loud) Italian restaurant, where we celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary and concluded an altogether amazing trip to the U.S., leaving us to ponder when our next trip back will be. We were lucky to have quality time with important, generous, and kind people, some of whom I’ve known nearly my entire life and all of whom have enriched my life in countless ways.
And now I’ve returned to the real world, where tomorrow finds me in front of two classes of university freshmen, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The class is Introduction to Mass Communications and Digital Media, and everything we discuss, books, magazines, music, movies, has changed so much that I feel like a dinosaur explaining what life was like before the giant asteroid hit.
