Routine is your friend

     Routine gets a bad name. It's equated with boredom, sameness. But routine — the same thing, done in the same way, every single time — can be your friend. It is not only efficient, but protective. You break your routine, even a little, even doing something that makes perfect sense in itself, and you're asking for trouble. You're asking for coffee grounds in your shoes.
     I guess I'd better just tell the story.
     So every morning I make coffee. Nothing dramatic there. A complicated, multi-step process. Which I have down to a series of smooth, efficient motions. Take the bag of coffee beans and the filters from the cabinet to my left. Rinse the pot and the filter holder from the day before in the kitchen sink to my right. Grind the beans while water runs in the pot. Dump and return the pot and the filter holder and insert the paper filter. Take the canister of ground beans and dump it into the filter. Fill the water chamber.
     The only variant is whether I use the ideal coffee that God intended us to use, Peet's Major Dickason's. Or Dunkin Donuts Hazelnut, the preference of ... let's say, a certain person who lives with me and probably shouldn't be exposed to the public shame of preferring hazelnut coffee to regular Joe joyously drunk by decent people.
     Though the Dunkin' coffee is already ground. That is easier. While Peet's needs grinding. 
     Where everything fell apart Wednesday is because something new entered my finely-tuned system. On Monday, as I tapped out the ground coffee from the little clear container, well, it didn't seem so clear. Not entirely clean. It was ... yes ... dirty. From months of coffee being ground into it. Not wildly dirty. Not filthy. Just a little. Since nothing about the coffee making system should be dirty, I took the little clear container and cleaned it out with a soapy sponge, and set it aside to dry.
     Honestly, I felt thorough, observant. No detail ignored.

     But a detail was ignored.

     Do you see what's coming? I didn't.

     Tuesday passed. I didn't make coffee Tuesday. I drank what was left over from the day before. An economy. My wife winces at that. I consider it manly.

      So I began preparing the coffee Wednesday. Everything normal. The sense that something was amiss came to me after I had returned the pot and filter holder, placed the unbleached filter, and reached for the clear plastic canister in the grinder. My fingertips touched coffee grounds. That's not supposed to happen. But it did happen. Because the canister was still to the right of the sink, where it had been placed to dry on Monday. I had obliviously ground four scoops of coffee while they spilled out of the grinder, across the counter, onto the kitchen floor — a rough slate floor, just the thing for trapping coffee grounds forever. My blindly reaching over had further spread the mess. Onto my top-siders. Even inside one. Have you ever gotten coffee grounds in your shoe? I have. Now.
     Here I must have uttered a wild beast cry of pain, because my wife came running, calling "What's wrong!?!" from the stairs.
     "Don't come down here!" I replied. Why? Maybe I thought I could somehow clean this up and conceal the blunder from her. Avoid diminishing my heroic stature in her eyes. Or maybe I knew she would just make it worse, by taking charge of the clean-up, as if, having fomented this disaster through my carelessness I was now to be deemed incapable for cleaning up my own mess. 

    Which is exactly what happened. She didn't quite body check me aside with, "Out of the way, you clod, haven't you done enough damage for one day?!" But the tone was there.
     I grabbed the Dustbuster and dove in. Between the two of us, we made short work of the spilled grounds. And she did make the useful suggestion that the grounds, spread across the clean granite counter, could merely be slid onto a plate and then put into the coffee maker and brewed, which I did, at least salvaging that.
     "You do the same thing every day, you're bound to screw up eventually," I said, trying to put a bright spin on my oversight. Then a larger concern, in that vein, dawned on me. "I wonder what the column version of this will be?"

     Twenty-six years and counting. But one fine day... a misfired joke. An underchecked claim presented as fact.
     "That's what editors are for," she said.

     Later in the day, I managed to wreck the ending. I noticed the clear canister, still among the dried dishes, to the right side of the sink. In all the commotion, it hadn't moved from its spot. I might have had the whole disaster happen again, a second time. Wouldn't that be a great ending? But this time, I grabbed the canister and slid it back where it belonged.

You can’t go dome again

     Again with the dome.
     Forgive me for lapsing into Yiddishkeit. But to see Mayor Lori Lightfoot drag out the dome will-o’-the-wisp, like a much-adored toddler’s blankie now worn to a nubbin, and wave it over her head, as if it were an original genius divination of her own — it taps into a well of deep Chicago nostalgia. It makes me want to set up a cart in Maxwell Street and start selling bottles of Professor Steinberg’s Amazing Old World Cure-All.
     Because if people will buy the dome notion, they’ll buy anything.
     For years, decades, well over half a century, the idea of putting a dome over Soldier Field, or building a vast domed sports complex nearby, has been dangled in front of the city’s eyes by whomever is currently parked on the 5th floor of City Hall, joined by anybody else with a dog in this race who can find their way to a podium.
     In 1964, it was the general superintendent of the Chicago Park District, Erwin Weiner, observing it would cost $8 million to put a dome over Soldier Field (say it in a Dr. Evil voice: “Eight MILLION dollars!”) and transform the stadium into “a modern, all-purpose sports arena.”
     The timing wasn’t accidental. In the early 1960s, Major League Baseball created two expansion teams. One became the New York Mets. The other was slated for Houston, provided they could build a covered stadium. (Which might confuse native Chicagoans. A dome? In Houston? Whatever for? It never snows there. Answer: the Texas weather was considered too hell-like for human beings to play sports in a venue that wasn’t air-conditioned.)

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Brunch at Superkhana International

 

Superkhana International, 3059 W. Diversey. 

     Running a restaurant is a tough puzzle to get right. There is the great food piece. And the attentive service piece. And the pleasing ambience piece. And a bunch of others, a challenge to assemble under the best of circumstances. Mix in endemic staffing and supply chain problems — think of them as the stray pieces lost under the sofa — and a customer base still skittish about gathering inside, and putting together a good restaurant sometimes seems well nigh impossible.
     Lately, I've been thinking of dialing back eating out. Why spend the money, waste the time, take the risk?
     Then I had brunch Sunday morning at Superkhana International in Logan Square, and fell in love with restaurants all over again.
     My younger son's idea. And frankly, I was dubious. It wasn't the usual Indian buffett. There was no chicken tikka masala — my go-to choice — at all. A lot of favorites were missing from the menu. And Indian food for breakfast? (They describe it, a tad obliquely, as "Indian-ish food.")

     Still, the fare looked . . . intriguing. And I didn't have much choice in the matter — our understanding is: the boy picks the place, we show up and pay for the meal, an agreement that any parent of a 25-year-old will instantly understand.
     Superkhana (the name is a Bollywood joke, "khana" being "food" in Hindi) was almost empty Sunday at 9:45 a.m. My wife and I came in, showed our vaccination cards — they take that very seriously here — were shown a seat, and instantly my wife began interrogating the waitress over the kind of milk that goes into the chai, going on at such length that I considered quietly sliding to the floor, belly-crawling out of the place, finding a florist open and wiring a bouquet to the waitperson by way of apology. Even without flowers, the inquisition was accepted with equanimity. I was ready to order black coffee. I always order black coffee. In fact, I did order black coffee. But I took a nip of the sample of chai brought to placate my wife's concerns. It was ... appealing. Enigmatic. Complicated. We both ordered a glass of hot chai.

     The second the chai was brought, on a beautiful china plate with two unexpected gift biscuits, I felt a glimmer, like the overture of a favorite opera. This wasn't going to be the standard eat-and-get-out experience. This was going to be special.
     My son and his girlfriend arrived. I haven't ordered french toast at a restaurant in years. But Superkhana's version comes crusted in halva. I couldn't not try it, but didn't want it to be my entire meal. We all decided that french toast would be an appetizer.
     Sometimes, rather than ordering everything at once, we like to order in stages, one dish at a time. It draws the meal out. Good for us, but this can irk some waitpersons, who of course want to turn over the room as quickly as possible. Caroline didn't seem to mind.

     The french toast was hot and very good. It had a kick — cademon in the gulab jamon.

     For a main course, I made an usual choice: the green salad. My wife ordered one, and I followed suit. No protein, but what the heck. I already had a french toast base, and we ordered uttapam and coconut chutney for the table to share.
     It ... was ... so good. The salad. Why? The freshness. The maple tahini vinaigrette. The crunchy chickpeas. Bliss. I eat a salad almost every day, but this was a salad beyond my capabilities. A salad to drive to Diversey Avenue to experience. 

     We sat there for two and a half hours, talking. The waitperson — they have a sign on the door asking that patrons respect non-gendered pronouns, which might be a bit hectoring, akin to instructing diners to put their napkins on their laps and not talk so loud. I'd say most customers savvy enough to go here are also aware it's 2022 and can read the room. But maybe boors find their way here and need to be educated. I suppose they post it for a reason. I did originally refer to a "waitress" whom I assumed went by "she," only banishing that phraseology as the language of hate on a subsequent edit. It's a brave new world, Golda.

     Caroline, whatever orientation he/she/they flies by, was perfect. Never so much as a why-are-you-still-here? raised eyebrow. Superkhana does add 20 percent gratuity, and that perplexed me, briefly. Normally, a really good waitstaff, I'd tip 25 percent, but adding $5 — the bill was $95 for the four of us, before tax and tip, not bad since we ordered six plates and six drinks — seemed not to sufficiently express my gratitude for a special meal, so I added $10.   

     This made for a gratuity of nearly 30 percent but, honestly, I was in such a good mood, the food was so unexpected and fun, the experience was worth it. The little fucsia explanatory card also helped — no confusing verbal appeal sprung by the waiter along with the check, like last November at big jones, whose food was merely sufficient. I felt Caroline had earned it by gracefully enduring the prosecutorial grilling and agonized Hamlet-holding-a-skull pondering of whole milk versus oat milk that so easily could have gone into a ditch but thankfully didn't.
     The ambience was pleasurable, too. Spare, clean room. Serving food on mismatched china can look like a shelf at Goodwill if not done well, but they used gorgeous plates and artistic bowls. I even admired the bathroom. So many places fall down on the job regarding the bathroom. Clean and beautiful.
     Okay, I don't want to enthuse too much. I'm both eager and frightened to go back. The sophomore visit to a new favorite can be a letdown, regression to the mean. I remember loving our first visit to Spirit Elephant, the sprawling vegetarian place in Winnetka. As with Superkhana, we were just thrilled. So much so that we hurried back dragging a mob of friends and relations back. When Spirit Elephant promptly dropped the ball. Meals we had adored the week before were different, inferior. We haven't been back since, though we're gathering our courage for another try.

     Honestly, I'm considering never returning to Superkhana, to keep the spell unbroken and not spoil the memory. Cherish our single lovely brunch. No need to get greedy and try for another.

     But honestly, I want to sample their other menu items (while, at the same time, ordering everything I already ordered, especially that salad).
     So I think we'll just cross our fingers, utter a silent prayer, and return for dinner next time, to try the coconut brisket (Haleem Style Brisket, Freekeh, Coconut Milk Vinaigrette, Ginger Carrot Slaw). How could we not? Fortune favors the bold.

DuSable aiming for ‘somewhere better and different’

     A recent Saturday morning found me standing in front of the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center in Washington Park, waiting for a man who, due to a miscommunication, was at that moment waiting in North Lawndale.
     A quick phone call sorted the confusion out, and rather than race across town, we postponed. The remainder of my morning suddenly freed just as the museum’s revolving door was being unbolted. I sensed an opportunity.
     I’d be more reluctant to admit that up to that point I’d never visited the DuSable museum if I thought it made me some kind of freakish anomaly. To be honest, I consider myself exceptional in that I sincerely wanted to see the place but never had an occasion to go, never heard of any exhibit that caught my interest and seemed worth making the trip.
     I imagine a number of Chicagoans must succumb to the racism of low expectations when it comes to the DuSable, picturing something akin to the House on the Rock, up in Wisconsin, an aggregation of random artifacts, maybe with slightly skewed typewritten cards explaining them.
     Frankly, I was content to stay away. What if I went to the museum and didn’t like it? What then? Volunteer myself as the White Guy Who Didn’t Like the DuSable Museum? No upside there. Or worse, cough silently into my fist and say nothing, itself a kind of racism?
      Turns out, my fears outstripped reality, as fears often do. The museum has an in-depth exhibit on Black soldiers in World War I, with original letters and a real rifle. An interesting display on Civil Rights and redlining. A movie that places you in the 1963 March on Washington. Professionally done. A newish interactive display about life in an African village — albeit an idealized, Black Panther-ish village — held my attention.

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Learn something every day

 

     The Groupon Building is at 600 West Chicago Avenue. North and west of Union Station. So when the cab I jumped into Friday morning immediately proceeded south and east, I immediately wondered if he knew where he was going. Cabbies sometimes don't. First day on the job perhaps. 
    I kept quiet, for an uneasy moment, then repeated, slowly, clearly, "600 West Chicago Avenue." He laughingly explained that this little dogleg was faster, and he was eager to get back to Union Station quickly to catch those arriving on the 9:25. We had a good conversation about cabbies, and passengers, and the city.
     When he arrived, he didn't turn left, onto Chicago Avenue, as I expected, but took me a little past and pulled over on Larrabee Street. I got out, and began to walk to the corner, and saw a view of the Montgomery Ward Building I had never seen before. Pictured above, from the southwest corner of the intersection of Chicago and Larrabee.

From the west it looked like a trumpet

     Oh.

     Up to that point, I usually saw the statue in profile, from the west, driving down Chicago Avenue into downtown. It looked like a figure brandishing a horn. Somehow, because it was on the Montgomery Ward Building, I assumed it was the Angel Moroni, with his trumpet, because ... ah ... Montgomery Ward was a Mormon, perhaps. 

     Wrong. Ward wasn't a Mormon. Coming from an unfamiliar angle, I could see it wasn't a trumpet, but some kind of caduceus, a wand entwined with snakes. The statue, I quickly found out, is the Spirit of Progress, placed atop the building in 1929. 

     Rather than focus on my error — a reminder that no matter how much you know there is always much more you don't know — let's zero in on that caduceus. The only reason the ancient wand-like object isn't completely obscure is that the U.S. Army Medical Corps adopted it as its symbol in 1902, leading to its being picked up by the American Medical Association adopted it as the group's symbol, on its way to becoming representative of all things medical.

    So what is it doing on a statue above a purveyor of dry goods? 

    Turns out, in addition to being the staff of Hermes, the God of Messengers, it is also associated with merchants, which makes sense, since they, like messengers, also travel to conduct their business. This economic usage is widespread enough that some doctors and medical organizations shun the caduceus as tainting the purity of their calling with the stink of commerce. Giving away the game. In closing, will I be needlessly provocative if I draw your attention to the photo below, and observe that it is an ugly statue, too big for its perch, that right arm wrapped weirdly around the torch? 

     

     

Northshore Notes: Finding Peace

     One beauty of my job is I never have to weigh in on any particular subject. Much bad writing comes from obligation. So after a blog post and a column on the initial shock of the Highland Park massacre, I could draw away and look at matters less horrible.

     A valid reaction. Still, I'm glad that our Saturday correspondent, Caren Jeskey, who has been working with survivors of the shooting, has kept a steady gaze on the situation, which is easier to bear filtered through her compassionate worldview. I appreciate her sharing, and her photos, and know EGD readers do too.

By Caren Jeskey

     Walking past Ross’s in Highland Park yesterday, where the shooter perched on July 4th, stopped me in my tracks. A small and unassuming store, just sitting there on a hot summer’s day with the blue sky and innocent cirrus clouds above, oblivious to the evil it hosted.
     As a psychotherapist with more than two dozen clients each week, I am humbled to be privy to the inner machinations of a varied group of people. This gives me a snapshot of a particular collective consciousness. As we all grapple with the meaning of our lives in these tumultuous times, where do we find peace?
     For Carl Jung, “we cannot change anything unless we accept it.” To those who rail and rally against “them,” with shaking fists (as I’ve done, plenty, in the past) — there is no “them.” Sure, there are those in public office and those with power in other ways who make decisions that we feel go against the grain of our very beings. “They” are not sitting somewhere in a secret room, picking their teeth and cackling at the rest of us.

     At least I don’t believe they are — though sometimes I wish it was all just a misguided experiment, these past five years or so. “They” were just studying human behavior amidst terrible stress. Those who were lost to violence would be returned to us. Our traumatic memories would be wiped, and global warming would cease to exist. We’d all be set free to live on a green earth with the ability to share, commune in peace, and preserve our planet together.

     “One love. One heart. Let’s get together and feel alright.”                                                               —Bob Marley 

     What I think is more likely is that relatively small groups of “them” sit around and use doublespeak to justify their egoistic agendas. They step over and on top of each other to win. They are pure id. Agendas that have little to no bearing on the health, happiness, and safety of the little guy. And us little guys are not well-resourced enough to turn it around. Swashbuckling sickos often win, characters in an imaginary pirate movie who fancy themselves the heroes.

   We have to have a purpose in our rage, or it becomes neurosis or worse. “Behind a neurosis there is so often concealed all the natural and necessary suffering the patient has been unwilling to bear.” Also Carl Jung.
     We don’t want to become numb. We don’t want to become disconnected from those around us. We want to be in the flow of life. We don’t want to live a life where we shake our fists at “idiot drivers,” “those jackass neighbors making all that noise,” or people who have “wronged” us. That’s not fun at all, now is it? Nor do we want to live a life of pure comfort, ignoring the plight of the rest of the world while we live off of the fruits of their labors.
     We need to learn to sit with our feelings — all of them — even those that are not comfortable.
     It’s important that we allow ourselves to feel fear and grief about things that are terrifying. From there, we can emote genuinely. We can stay human. We can receive comfort. We can make a plan. A plan that makes good sense rather running in circles and screaming, isolating, or giving up.
     We can also plunge into hell like Sylvia Plath, feeling fatalistically alone. “I have never found anybody who could stand to accept the daily demonstrative love I feel in me, and give back as good as I give.” 

     Between 2015 and 2020, an average of approximately 46,000 people in the U.S. died by suicide each year.
     What I notice (and I have acted out, mostly in the past) is an epidemic of inauthenticity. We polish ourselves up and burst into the world with our best faces on. We hide our pain. We keep secrets. In the recovery community it’s said “we are only as sick as our secrets.” We put on a face and we have “so much fun.” We collect experiences. But how do we feel when we lay our heads down on our pillows? How do we feel when we wake up?
     For many these days, it’s dread. Exhaustion. Fear. Or maybe excitement about that next big thing we’ve planned that never turns out just how we thought it would. Luggage gets lost. Flights get delayed. Hopefully for most of us here, we feel okay. We are a bit more balanced. We know the value of simple things, which Jung astutely observed that we are in need of, as we are “suffering in our cities. Tears, sorrow, and disappointment are bitter, but wisdom is the comforter in all psychic suffering. Suffering is not an illness; it is the normal counter-pole to happiness.” It’s okay to feel it; better to let it out in healthy ways, than try to keep in it.
     I’ve always been drawn to Walt Whitman, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson and Carl Jung. Lore has it that Dickinson was forbidden to read the heathen Whitman’s work, yet as you read them you’ll see that their minds were incredibly similar. Jung made a hedonistic mess of his life at one point, but that certainly does not define him. Plath ended her life. Dickinson was a recluse who fell into a state of “nervousness” towards the end, after she endured a series of losses in her life.
     We are more alike than different, and none of us are ever truly alone. Reach out and text a friend you are worried about, just to say you’re thinking of them, or to tell them of your pain from time to time. Then find ways to heal. I’ve been really into meditations that utilize the incredible gift of neuroplasticity to alter the size of different brain lobes. Here is a 23 minute high for you to enjoy if you so chose. It might seem odd to a beginner, but it may be a better use of time than that 2nd (or 3rd, 4th, or 5th) episode of our favorite binge-worthy shows. Take care this week.  

Pain — has an Element of Blank —
It cannot recollect
When it begun — or if there were
A time when it was not —
           —Emily Dickinson

Here we go again

Gov. Pat Quinn signing law allowing gay marriage in Illinois, November, 2013.

      Death was one rite of passage that could not be denied gay people. Back when they weren’t allowed to get married or adopt children, or sometimes even hold jobs, unless they concealed their true selves, they would still die, just like regular folks. Newspapers were then sometimes called upon to write their obituaries.
     Which posed a problem, back in the 1980s. Because their unofficial partners, the people who loved them and knew them best, their spouses without paperwork, while very real, could not be included in the printed summations of their lives. Newspapers had standards to maintain. We had rules, policies.
     That began to chafe, as AIDS scythed through the community. Barring their loved ones, who often cared for them while their disapproving blood relations turned their backs, seemed too cruel, even for daily journalism. Dodges were found. “He was a wonderful man,” said his “close friend,” or “longtime companion,” or “roommate.”
     The effort to catch government attention and actually fight AIDS helped break the silence — “Silence = Death,” remember? As the LGBTQ community stepped out of the shadows, it became harder to marginalize. It turned out that a significant part of the population is gay. They were brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers.
     And all the reasons — haters always have reasons, they lack the courage, the honesty to admit their own bottomless fear and baseless loathing — for denying them regular rites of passage turned out to be nonsense. Allowing gays to marry did not destroy the institution for straights any more than allowing them to die undercut the solemnity of funerals. What legal same-sex marriage meant was less insecurity, more happy families, less abuse, more children with two-parent homes.

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