Might As Well Be November

So far it’s been a cold and Novemberish October, complete with overcast days, drizzle, colder than normal temps. On some trees, leaves hang on, no doubt for biological reasons, but it seems just from a weary sense of duty. Ahead for November: more of the same, but the leaves will give up.

Lilly’s now anticipating her ninth birthday, which falls on November 19, meaning it will always be ahead of Thanksgiving, but never on it, since the fourth Thursday rotates between the 22nd and the 28th. Actually, she’s been anticipating for a while, but her request for presents has been changing as interest in something or other comes and goes. Lately it’s been Pixel Chix light pink two-story house and/or a light blue one-story house (she says “and,” I say “or.”) If you don’t know what that is, you don’t have a girl around the house, so you don’t need to know.

I saw the newly renovated Chicago History Museum this week. Much renovation, $27.5 million worth, had been done since the last time I saw it, about a year ago. The name was renovated, too: it used to be the Chicago Historical Society. Guess the board of directors felt the old name sounded too amateurish, too fuddy-duddy, though I don’t think they’d put it quite that way.

New museum items on display include a metallic blue Monte Carlo low-rider car, donated by a low-rider club in Cicero, Ill., whose population these days is as Hispanic as the south side of San Antonio; a new kids’ area that features a giant hot dog – Chicago is a hot dog town; and what the museum calls the first CTA car, which had to be hoisted into the museum through a wall that had been temporarily knocked out. Built in the 1890s, it looked about as comfortable as a modern CTA car, but a lot more stylish.