Gallery 200 is an art gallery in West Chicago that’s run by artists, for artists, featuring the work of local creators in all sorts of mediums! Paint, markers, felt, jewelry, dishware… to paraphrase, “you can walk through three times and always find something new.”
My experience so far has specifically been at the exhibit openings, an evening reception with snack food, several of the artists, and, this month, live music! The gallery is usually open on afternoons, Wednesday through Sunday, and I’ve just learned they offer workshops as well! It’s such a magical little corner of the world, truly, full of pretty things and lovely people.
Yesterday played host to Brookfield Zoo’s Hispanic Heritage Fest, an absolute blast of an event I hope they bring back in future years! Events we didn’t get to included the bilingual story times and games, and… that’s about it! There was enough in the schedule that we didn’t make it to every single item in a given category, and enough room in the schedule to hit a little bit of everything.
Events we did get to included multiple Zoo Chats featuring thematically appropriate animals, like Andean condors, llamas, and Eastern screech owls; various dance performances; and the general wandering a zoo entails, with special signage listing which Spanish-speaking countries each species heralds from! Say that five times fast. There were also community groups and vendors set up for a few hours in the East Mall, and special menu items at the nearest food sources. All in all, a lively, educational time!
“Why do you take so many cat photos?” I asked myself once. “Because they’re doing something cute.” “But they’re always doing something cute.” “That’s why I take so many cat photos.”
This, it turns out, is true for more than just cats, which is how I came out of Brookfield Zoo – somewhere I’ve been more times than I can count – with even more animal photos. In my defense… just look at them!
“I am one with the plant and the plant is with me.”“I fits, I sits. Even if nobody is sure how I got up here.”The flamingoes took full advantage of their parade around The Swamp. Not pictured: one walking right up to us and waiting impatiently for its photo to be taken.
We seem to have had really lucky timing this trip, from start to finish! Happy Pride indeed.
When last I wrote about Kuipers Family Farm, I sung the praises of their apple picking and sunflower features, with a blurb about the pumpkin experience I’d never actually done. Well, I’ve still never been to their pumpkin picking, but they’ve now added a tulip festival!
Like the sunflowers, the tulips span seven acres, and you can pay extra to cut your own and bring them home. Or, if you have cats like ours who don’t understand “don’t chew that” (tulips are bad for them), you can just pay admission to wander and enjoy. It’s in the same area as the pumpkins with what I assume are year-round features (though again, never having been to the latter, I can only infer). These include a sort of jungle gym, games like tetherball, and a small zoo! There are also food vendors. All in all, it was a lot bigger than I expected, and of course the tulips were gorgeous! Their season is over now, but there’s always next year.
In past years, Brookfield Zoo has had either a Lego animal display or a dinosaur animatronics exhibit available all through summer. This year, they changed it up a bit and brought us Ice Age Giants instead! Also featuring life-size animatronics, this exhibit focuses on megafauna from the most recent Ice Age, from wooly mammoths to giant cheetahs to something called a “Josephoartigasia.” (Picture a capybara, except it’s 9-10 feet long!)
This post is absolutely, 100% an advertisement for this exhibit. It’s awesome, it’s informative, and it runs through October 30th (free with general admission!) so if you’re in Chicagoland you should definitely check it out!
Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry is both expansive and entertaining, full of different wonders to learn about and explore.
On our most recent trip, we started with the upper level balcony area, learning about the science of storms through a variety of interactive displays. Some were physical, like the tornado tube and the controlled flame in the wildfire section, which you could, adjust the fuel and mist content for to see how it altered the live thermal readings. Others were purely hypothetical, such as a simulation about how scientists study lightning by launching rockets to draw it to them.
The next section, Chemistry, had its own fascinating facts, and what may have been my favorite of the permanent displays — a large table with the periodic table projected on it, and pucks with which we could select elements, and then combine them off to the side, unlocking intriguing facts about each new compound. I also particularly enjoyed the firework simulator, which shows you how different chemical compounds burn different colors, and then lets you choose a few (and patterns for them) to light up the virtual sky! Meanwhile, the coolest part of Taking Flight (presented in partnership with Boeing and United Airlines) was either the actual retired plane you could tour… or the lesson on the various signals ground crews use to help the plane park safely. I feel like there should be an obvious answer here….
There are a plethora of other amazing exhibits, like Genetics (they have baby chicks!) and Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle, which is the single most intricate dollhouse I’ve ever seen, full of fun tiny Easter eggs like Cinderella’s slippers and the golden harp, and of course the many areas we didn’t even get to this trip, but none of that is actually why we were at MSI this fall. No, our trip was prompted by something a little more… Marvel-ous.
That’s right! Through October 24th, 2021, the Museum of Science and Industry has partnered with Marvel to bring forth a superhero-themed exhibit, showcasing the evolution of the super hero genre and its many iconic characters! Do I sound like I’m advertising this? Yes, I suppose I do. But y’know what? This was awesome. The way they had everything laid out combined history, some statuary photo ops, framed comic book panels (many of which were the original art), and a variety of the very same costumes worn in the movies, which had me geeking out at every turn. And this is coming from someone who hasn’t read the comics! (And now kinda wants to!) It was just… wow.
All in all, MSI is one huge hub of geeky, nerdy glory, with so much variety it’s 99% guaranteed to have something for everyone, and if you’re in the area I highly encourage you to check out Universe of Super Heroes while it’s available.
Capricon has rolled around again, and as some of you may recall, last year I mentioned (here) that my cousin and her friends run a party called the Box Fort. Standardly, we’d arrange one of the party rooms at the con with pillars and arches and partial walls of boxes, complete with thematically appropriate cardboard cut-out decorations and markers so people could draw on the fort. This year, of course, Capricon had to go virtual, so the box forts are a DIY project. And in our house, where there are boxes, there are cats.
Unfortunately none of the real cats are in the next photo, but I wanted to share it anyways. Since most of the boxes were in the living room in the fort shown above, and Mom and I were attending the parties’ Zoom rooms separately… I made my fort out of plush instead.
I’m at Capricon, and while I’m not going to talk about the whole con yet, because it’s still going, I am going to express my excitement at the parties.
So, in case you don’t know, parties at conventions are in hotel rooms/suites in the evenings, and there’s generally alcohol involved. Obviously, I’m not drinking at the parties, because, well, ew, and also, you know, legal minor and all that, but now that I’ve been turned loose, I’ve discovered that they’re pretty fun to go to anyways. There’s food and conversation and (at least, at the comic book themed party) trivia and it’s a really casual way to hang out and chat.
A large part of why I get to roam is because my responsible adult is now busy helping run a party — the Box Fort, which my cousin and her friends started last year. Since they’re all busy with the party (which I’m not actually allowed into yet — they decided to make it strictly 21 and up for alcohol and legal liability reasons) I get to go to the other parties — basically, wherever I’m allowed into and have any interest in being, which is why I’m spending a lot of time in the Marvel/DC comics room and in the Books and Beer party, which an author friend of mine runs.
So, I realize this isn’t a particularly useful and/or informative post, but I’m super excited about this and wanted to share that energy. And the knowledge that there are, in fact, parties that are both welcoming and interesting for teens.
And another year at Cap! I spent a lot of the con with a cold, unfortunately, but it was still fun! Gaming had gaming passports this year, where you had to play one game from each of four different groups. Once you played two, you could put a raffle ticket into any of the standard prize boxes (Star Trek, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Firefly). Once you finished the passport, you got to choose whether to put another ticket into one of those or put a ticket into the grand prize box (large compilation of assorted random cool stuffs).
I spent an uncharacteristically small amount of my cash at this con, and my mother spent an uncharacteristically large amount of cash. Maybe there’s a correlation? She got me a nice framed unicorn in Art Show, which I have a matching folder for, and a mandrake root from Bast’s Garden in Dealer’s Hall, because it was cute. The conversation went something like this:
“Would you like a mandrake, dear?”
“Sure.”
(As she’s pulling out her wallet) “Wait, why am I buying this? You have more cash than I do!”
“Because you offered?” (She sighs and buys it anyways)
My voice was coming and going and crackling all weekend, but that didn’t stop me from bidding at Art Auction. What can I say? One of Cheryl’s dragons was going for $26. That’s too low for her stuff – her pieces usually average $50 by the end of Auction, and pretty much all of her work makes it to Auction. Art goes to Auction once it has at least three bids on it in Art Show.
Pretty much, I spent the weekend relaxing, playing games and hanging out with friends.
Today, we rode the train into the city to go to my first ever showing of Wicked! I had been listening to the soundtrack in my mother’s car for years, but I had never actually seen the show itself. Before we went to the actual performance, we went to this great all-you-can-eat sushi place a few blocks away. It was delicious!
But back to the show: I was ecstatic to be finally seeing it! I knew a lot of the plot from inferences that I made based off of the music, but there were still plenty of surprises throughout! The performers did a great job, and the way they did everything from Glinda’s bubble to the flying monkeys were extraordinary.
But the shining star of the day was the plot line itself. The intricate, twisted plot is interwoven with the traditional Wizard of Oz, and the connecting points shed more light on the original character while introducing a few more. The best part for me, however, was the drastic character development that took place throughout the story. The best example of this was probably Fiyero, who also happens to be my favorite character.
I tried to make sure not to include any spoilers in this post, but I extend my apologies if I did spoil anything. I thought that this production went above and beyond my expectations, and hope that you look into it!
