Rider pride!

Saturday we took in a Riders home game--my first, Jimmy's second. We opted for the cheapest ticket option we could find: $25 each for:
-a seat in the Western Pizza party zone;
-transportation to and from the game;
-a beer
-an order of dry ribs
Well, not bad, we thought! So we snagged the last two tickets from our local Western Pizza.
Apparently, transportation to and from the game means $2.00 to take the bus. I kid you not! It is the football express bus, but it certainly doesn't leave from Western Pizza. AND bus fare is $2.10! Swindlers.
But the seats (like every seat at Taylor field, I hear) were great. We were in the notorious bleachers, surrounded by drunken university students. Our view of the endzone and most of the field was stellar:
but when the action was down at the other end, it was definitely hard to sort out what was going on. The general gist of the game was easy to follow: the Riders played terribly. They did, however, deliver a massive hit to one Argo just before the end of the second quarter, which left him injured on the field for the duration of the halftime show. All the little mini cheerleaders bravely danced around him while he received medical attention!
An ambulance even had to negotiate its way through the field full of five-year-olds to tend to said Argo.
As the second half began, we elected to order our precious free beers. Turns out, our coupons were only good AT Western Pizza. Same for the dry ribs. Boo!
But we were entertained by the fans around us. Some especially good heckling was going on--of the hometown team. When Joseph threw a pass that sailed quickly out of bounds, one guy yelled, "To who?!" And when a Riders receiver made a ridiculous fumble, he yelled, "You have to catch that! You're being paid!" Ah, too true. The green-to-the-max girls at the front were trying to lead us in the Riders fight song (I caught the first two lines: "Green is the colour/Football is the game." How creative.) and we desperately tried to start the wave, but it barely seeped into the grandstand.
The hardcores took to razzing those in our section who left early, chanting "Part-time fans! Part-time fans!" They were definitely suckers, though, because the last minute was the best part of the whole game (ain't it always the way with the CFL?). The Riders scored two impossible touchdowns in a row, and turned a sound beating into a real squeaker. Pinball was sweating bullets at the end, but the Argos managed to retain their lead. All in all, a great time at the game in the 30-degree sunshine.
After the game we returned on the sauna--that is, city bus--to Western Pizza to claim our beer and ribs. As we walked in, there was a family from church was arriving too. They very kindly invited us to their giant family dinner. We sat at the kids' table and had a hilarious time. Their sons are so very, very funny, and one of them has a Forrest Payton-like gift for storytelling. Unfortunately, our beer had to be a Molson product, so I choked down a Pilsner, but at least there were people around to eat the dry ribs I didn't really want. Yay!
A great way to spend a Saturday.

Sunday was a big day, too. Jimmy preached in the morning, and had to deal with an usher taking a massive spill at the front of the church--collection money everywhere! In the afternoon, we travelled out to Moose Jaw with an ex-pastor, his wife, and the district president for Schultz's ordination. It was a grand ceremony with all the proper rite and ritual, and some very touching wishes and wisdom for Schultz's ministry. I'm a fool for not having a camera. Unfortunately, the music was a bit on the synthesizey side, but I guess that's the way they do it in The Jaw (hee--can I call it that?). A massive potluck dinner followed which was nothing short of delicious. It was awesome to see Regan and Jason (as well as Regan's sister who had gamely attended our Grey Cup party last year and proved to be one heckuva cool chick). That makes two friends whom we can officially address as "Reverend"! They'll be travelling to their new parish in beautiful Oliver, BC, sometime in the next couple of weeks. What a shame it'd be to visit them there!

We love a parade

Let's all take a moment to recover from the horror that was Canada's Next Top Model, wherein the best girls got picked off first, and the ugliest were left til last, with the winner being the hideous headcase we'd all like to Canada's next top throttle. Unbelievably disappointing. As those who know have pointed out, we expect better from Jeanne Beker.
Breathe.
And thankfully, in the real world (where we can all take heart that we are prettier than our Top Model, boys included) there is much fun to be had. Example: last sunday, after being taken out for Smitty's by the lovely church secretary et family (which, incidentally, includes the coolest chick we've met here so far--we've already been for beers, hurrah), Jimmy and I caught the Royal Saskatchewan Museum centennial week kickoff parade. It consisted of exactly four things: a marching band with some very short members:

some old cars:

some Metis and some RCMP:

There were even one or two spectators. The parade wound around to the museum, where the official opening ceremonies. We got mildly lost on the way there, but paused to take in the beautiful Queen Elizabeth II gardens at the legislature
and the very moving Saskatchewan war memorial
before we finally found the opening ceremonies.
They went like this: Boring speaker introducing another boring speaker, then performance; repeat. The performances we caught were a hoop dancer, who was pretty rockin', and the high-larious Saskatchewan Express

which is a low-rent Saskie version of the Young Canadians. It was at that point that we opted to tour the museum.
The underwater exhibit in the prehistoric area was super-cool.
And whoever painted the exhibits was incredibly talented.

It was small, but fun and engaging. The holy-crap-the-world-is-ending enviro exhibit at the end even managed to challenge us without being preachy.
A long walk back around Wascana Lake was a lovely ending to our day.

Back to life; back to reality

Well, the rest of the Davenport/Chicago travelogue is just flying home, so we'll skip those fascinating details. And then there was some time in Edmonton. There was a lot of packing, and then some moving. Milton really wanted to make sure he went with us:
And after a long, hot drive full of mishaps, we arrived in Regina. Time to launch into my new life here in the land of living skies.
Let me begin by saying that Saskatchewan is the promised land. Sure, the mountains are nowhere to be seen, but we're used to that now. Instead, we've got glorious sunshine, scads and scads of urban park, accessible bike trails, football fever, NO traffic, and, Saskatchewan's famous export, friendly folks. We've been welcomed and made to feel at home already. We've been invited out for drinks and meals, taken to football games, and recognized at the grocery store. We've met our friendly neighbour (next door; the upstairs neighbours are more of the party-til-3-am ilk, which is fine except that the ONE night that we have to sleep is Saturday). We've settled in to our little condo and enjoyed our POOL! And no, it's not a wheat pool. It's an outdoor pool in our little quad, and we love it so.
Ready for a speed update of our Reginan times so far? Okay!
June 13: Move-in

June 14: Jimmy starts at work


June 16: Attending a fair in a Zellers parking lot (like old times!) and winning a stuffed hippo by legitimate means, we swear

and then some Edmonton time (mostly spent at VoicePrint which I miss dearly).
July 1: drivin' across the country with our Canadian flag flying, while Tony, Geraldine, Helen, and Oliver travelled in from Calgary.
July 2: A visit to Rouleau, SK, to see the set of Corner Gas

This included seeing Corner Gas, the Ruby, the Dog River grain elevator, and the Foo Mar. Tony and James were checking out the local real estate, ready to capitalize on the tourist boom:
July 3: A wonderful day at the beach! Regina Beach, about half an hour north of Regina, is like a little piece of BC transported to the plains. We played with badminton and jai-alai toys,
sunned ourselves, picnicked, and generally had a lovely time. From there, we went to a mini-golf course
which, like everything else in Saskatchewan, is in the middle of a field. It was a surprisingly functional course--the windmill blades were actually turning! Amaaaazing!
Since then, Jimmah has been going to work
and I've joined him for the fun parts. I rewrote the terrible scripts provided for Vacation Bible School, which Jimmy then gamely acted out.
I generally had a great time with the rugrats, and I even crawled through camo nets and shot arrows at the closing games.
Milton has made himself at home in every Milton-sized space he can find

(top of kitchen cabinet)
and all is well.

I *heart* touristy gimmicks

Our second-last day together began with a breakfast at Kari heaven (a coffee chain called Panera--you can infer the bountiful breadliness from its name)and a quick jaunt into the public library. The outside architecture alone was striking:
and inside, it had its share of the requisite beautiful marbleyness of all Chicago public buildings.
Our day's object, though, was the Art Institute of Chicago.
More of a mecca for Jo and H than for me, it was still a remarkable place to visit. Are you ready for some famous names? Try Degas, Picasso, Monet, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Seurat, Pollock, O'Keefe, and many others. The two paintings we were most excited to see (American Gothic and H help me out with the name of the oceany one) were not on display, which was highly disappointing. Nonetheless, we marvelled at the magnificent classics, were challenged (or irritated, in my case) by the contemporary art, and thoroughly entertained by the Thorne miniature rooms.
After a lengthy stay in the gift shop, we tried to make a dent in our leftovers before heading out to the sprawling Grant Park.
We started our tour at the Buckingham (Jo, is that right?) fountain--remember it from the title sequence of Married with Children?--and, much to my excitement, were swarmed by a gaggle of Segway-riding tourists!
They were highly ridiculous in their fluorescent vests, cruising the streets of Chicago. And yet, secretly, I wanted to be one of them...
We continued through the park (in the deadly, sweltering heat, might I add) with Millennium Park as our goal. Now, I can be as curmudgeonly as the next guy about postmodern architecture and ridiculous buildings trying to make some kind of a statement and just looking like crap in the end, etcetera. But the new Gehry structure in Millennium Park is genius. You approach it from a curving, metal-bordered boardwalk.
Its shape changes as you snake up the walkway and into the park. It's a tangled mass of steel, completely in conflict with the rest of the skyline; where the surrounding towers are straight and sharp-cut, this building is curved and endless. It tumbles fluidly into itself, a little torrent at the base of the stone and glass giants.
The contrast, which I expected to find irritating, was very engaging. It has done its duty as a meeting-place, drawing people towards it. It helps, too, that it's well-designed and functional, with a concert stage and lighting grid over the field in front of it.
The touristy fun, though, starts across the plaza at The Bean.
According to the tittle of the sculputre, as I recall, it's supposed to be a cloud. Instead, Chicagoans and tourists alike call it The Bean. Personally, I think it's more like a red blood cell, but whatever. The point is, it's so cool.
It's shiny. It's seamless. It's neat.
Next to the bean fun, we found the mercifully cooling splashy part of the park. There are two towers with water tumbling down them, stationed at either end of a splashy area. On the towers are projected the image of a face; it's not still, but it's not changing position or expressing any emotions.
We noticed that the kids were all lining up in front of the face towers, but we couldn't figure why. Suddenly, though, the face projections pursed their lips, and out came a stream of water!
(Sorry for the poor focus of the photos. I'm still getting the hang of my camera.)
We so enjoyed the humorous, cooling public art. Plus, the faces projected are images of 100 ordinary Chicagoans--pleasing to tourists and residents alike.
Reluctantly, we left the splashy park and headed for some mercifully air-conditioned shopping. Then, we crossed the river to the other half of downtown and immersed ourselves in pretty buildings. Some highlights:




Back on our side of the river, we did our best to get rush seats for a production of Assassins. We sat glumly in the lobby as the house filled up, and eventually, the FOH manager declared it full. Once again, our lack of big city savvy left us out of luck.
Not to be disappointed, we celebrated our last night with a hotel-room feast. Witness the splendour:

Yes, that is a bag of T.G.I. Friday's mozzarella cheese sticks.
And, additionally, also, as well, we ordered ourselves a genuine Chicago Deep Dish Pizza. It was a ton of rigamarole (since when are big city pizza joints closed at like 10:00 on a Saturday night?!) but when it came, it was magnificent. Once again, behold:

Ah. The majesty.
A great Chicago day.

Chica-go

Chicago deep dish pizza. Chicago franks. That's what I was looking forward to.
Off we went, back through the cornfields. There were very few landmarks, save this one:

Aurora, Illinois.
Yep. Somehow, I always thought that Wayne and Garth lived in Aurora, Ontario. But of course not. I am often dumb.
So as we approached the Big City, we could see the famous Sears Tower.

That was what distinguished the city as Chicago for me, as I knew very little about it (apart from the aforementioned food associations). As we came in to the city, I felt a bit surprised that it wasn't busier. I was expecting extreme hustle-and-bustle and had been mentally putting up defenses, but it was relatively manageable. Of course, I was glad Jo was driving, because she's got the traffic-dodging skills. But all in all, I felt a lot more comfortable than I'd anticipated.
When we came into downtown--or,what I thought to be downtown but was actually only half of it--we headed straight towards the water (lake resembling ocean, as all the Great Lakes do) and parked ourselves at the Navy Pier.

Navy Pier is what Eau Claire dreams about at night when it's all alone in its bed, thinking, 'I coulda been a contender.' Not only are there indoor market stalls, an IMAX, a food court, and outdoor food vedors, but there is also a carnival,

yacht tours, a children's museum, live entertainment, etc., etc. Unfortunately, when we were there, the place was CRAWLING with children, strung out on sugar and roaming in large groups, which makes one's shopping experience decidedly aggravating. We found refuge outside, staring into the foggy lake:

But eventually the fog burned off, and we had a cool view of downtown:

Most importantly, though, Jo and I had Chicago hot dogs. YUM. And we tried our hardest to get ourselves a deep-dish pizza, but the goofs put the vegetarian one on a flat crust!
Sigh. Well, some Ben & Jerry's lifted our spirits.
We drove back to the hotel, passing one of Oprah's residences on the way (it's big and black and curvy, har har har). The hotel was decidedly weird, but had a classic Chicago view from the window:

After some chillin', we strolled over to Marshall Field's, Chicago's big fancy department store. As it was Memorial Day weekend, they were celebrating emphatically:

The store is amazing, with all its little niches from 'flea market' (overpriced exotic-looking knickety-knacketies) to the gourmet fudge shop(pe, I assume) to the unbelievable candy store. We found some appropriately-named dishes in the housewares department

and then took ourselves upstairs to the designer floor. Yes, designer--like real designers. Not your garden-variety Liz Claiborne or Bianca Nygard; no no, dear readers. We're talking Stella McCartney, Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs, and (my favourite) Jean-Paul Gauthier. For real. And those are just the names I remember! Much to H's chagrin, Jo and I had a fun time gawking in horror at the prices (I seem to recall a garment pushing the $10 000 range...do you remember more accurately, Jo?) My inner Jeannie Beker was having an absolute field day. A Marshall Field day, yuk yuk yuk.
After carefully selecting our hoity-toity chocolate treasures from the candy counter,we took the El train to N. Clark street in the Lakeview district where we found delicious delicious shopping. Unfortunately, the amazing shoe stores were closed early, but we did find a great store to toodle around in, whence came the best flip-flops ever:

and an amazing bag, bought by H, coveted by me, and subsequently sent to me as a birthday presnt. Hooray!
We found our way to a restaurant that Jo had visited on one of her previous Chicago trips. Leona's: an italian family restaurant with an organic food philosophy and an extreme gift in the delicious department. We ordered way too much and left with a grocery bag full of leftovers. We were also lucky enough to enjoy the presence of the wackiest Cubs fan in the known universe. I mean, I know Cubs fans are devoted, but seriously. Dude was a little excessive.
The purpose of our trip to Lakeview was to catch Southern Culture on the Skids at Schuba's. Sadly, we are small-town folk and didn't have the presence of mind to preorder tickets. We caught a glimpse of the posters showing the many amazing bands who played there (reminds me of the scene where Lane's band gets booked at CBGB but no one shows up, so they get sent back to Stars Hollow). We made the best of it, though, by making a pit stop at 7-Eleven for some hilarious American "candy bars" for Bjorn, as well as a massive copy of the Tribune and some Slurpees.
Back at the hotel, much chillin' ensued.