This July 4th weekend, kids ruled Chicago.
I surrende
r it to the little five-year old guy at the dolphin amphitheater at Shedd aquarium, who casually turned, encountered this unbearably cool thing called a prosthetic leg belonging to the cheerful man sitting behind him, and proceeded to spend the next five minutes in wide-eyed, fascinated wonder. His dad looked uncomfortable and embarrassed, but not my little champ. He was trying to decide whether the man possessing a half-metal, half-plastic leg was a super hero.
I genuflect before the three-year old girl at the Navy Pier bus terminus who stood her ground against the press of humanity trying to get into the CTA # 66 after July 4th fireworks. There were at least a million people on Navy Pier that day and at least 25% of them lined up to get into the popular # 66. It was an elbow-to-elbow, cheek-by-jowl, survival-of-the-fittest run to the bus. “Hey! Excuse me!” my Joan of Arc protested from somewhere in the region below our collective waists. “You make me squishy! Hey!”
We all burst out laughing and craned our necks to look at her as her mother picked her up. We got glimpses of a head full of tiny braids each ending in a bright plastic butterfly/flower, a lollipop which lighted up, and a diminutive 3 ft nothing form. By silent consent, we stood aside to let them board first. When someone offered me a seat, I respectfully turned it over to Her Highness and mom.
Mind you, I use the term kids loosely. It was a 30-year old kid, dressed in what looked like a flowing monk’s habit, standing atop one of many Chicago’s arched iron bridges that the famous architecture cruise boats go under, who threatened to spit the moment he made eye-contact with me. And on the interminable line to get into Shedd aquarium, the 50-year old kid in front of me insisted that the aquarium staff show him also the puff-fish specimen that she had brought out to show the kids on the line as they waited.
There was definitely something in the air this weekend in Chicago. The sun was golden, the lake was cerulean, the buildings were gleaming, and the ice cream shops were overflowing. The atmosphere of camaraderie was so thick that it felt like walking in a miasma of warm, fuzzy, vaporized human kindness.
There were no strangers in Chicago. On Friday night at 11:00 pm, a young black man stopped me at the Water Place crossing to ask, “Hey, that thing you are having—did you get it around here?” pointing to my “healthy” yogurt and granola drink. We had a charming conversation about it before the lights turned. I took charge of a middle-aged gay couple from Iowa and insisted that they take the bus with me to Navy Pier, instead of walking.
It was definitely a charmed vacation. I stayed in a hotel right in the heart of Magnificent Mile, next doors to John Hancock building and right across Saks Fifth Avenue. Things started stirring at 9:00 am below my window and went on all the way until midnight. I lazed in the sun at the Hancock building courtyard having my exotic fruit juice in the mornings, went for walks near the Tribune building, window shopped, and took short bus rides to all summery attractions.
Mag Mile was blooming with fashion. Every garden had an eco-friendly design on display. I sauntered into the Ferragamo showroom, just to check out what is the price differential between the original and a really good fake I had in Mumbai—well, ladies and gentlemen, the original costs exactly 40 times more!
It was also a weekend when I fell irretrievably in lo
ve—with the beluga whales at the Shedd aquarium. They pirouetted, played fetch, rocked from side to side to match the trainer’s dancing, leapt out in the air to smack their fins to the trainer’s palm to give a high five, and screeched and squawked if displeased. How can one resist their charm?
I also made acquaintance with a Komodo dragon. His name was the one that pulled me to the aquarium in the first place. And jeez, all the legends about the anaconda are true—the one I saw was really, really big. “She’s an ambush predator, so she has no reason to move!” the aquarium staff told me, by way of explaining the still, complexly coiled pose.
I met more middle-aged kids of all shapes and sizes at the 4D theater. Not only did the 3D images leap out of the screen, but also the chair vibrated, poked, and blew air in sync with the movie, while ceiling sprinklers sprinkled water on us. The entire theater rocked with shrieks and screams.
It was not at all difficult to rediscover childhood and the magic of summer this weekend.
I surrende
r it to the little five-year old guy at the dolphin amphitheater at Shedd aquarium, who casually turned, encountered this unbearably cool thing called a prosthetic leg belonging to the cheerful man sitting behind him, and proceeded to spend the next five minutes in wide-eyed, fascinated wonder. His dad looked uncomfortable and embarrassed, but not my little champ. He was trying to decide whether the man possessing a half-metal, half-plastic leg was a super hero.I genuflect before the three-year old girl at the Navy Pier bus terminus who stood her ground against the press of humanity trying to get into the CTA # 66 after July 4th fireworks. There were at least a million people on Navy Pier that day and at least 25% of them lined up to get into the popular # 66. It was an elbow-to-elbow, cheek-by-jowl, survival-of-the-fittest run to the bus. “Hey! Excuse me!” my Joan of Arc protested from somewhere in the region below our collective waists. “You make me squishy! Hey!”
We all burst out laughing and craned our necks to look at her as her mother picked her up. We got glimpses of a head full of tiny braids each ending in a bright plastic butterfly/flower, a lollipop which lighted up, and a diminutive 3 ft nothing form. By silent consent, we stood aside to let them board first. When someone offered me a seat, I respectfully turned it over to Her Highness and mom.
Mind you, I use the term kids loosely. It was a 30-year old kid, dressed in what looked like a flowing monk’s habit, standing atop one of many Chicago’s arched iron bridges that the famous architecture cruise boats go under, who threatened to spit the moment he made eye-contact with me. And on the interminable line to get into Shedd aquarium, the 50-year old kid in front of me insisted that the aquarium staff show him also the puff-fish specimen that she had brought out to show the kids on the line as they waited.
There was definitely something in the air this weekend in Chicago. The sun was golden, the lake was cerulean, the buildings were gleaming, and the ice cream shops were overflowing. The atmosphere of camaraderie was so thick that it felt like walking in a miasma of warm, fuzzy, vaporized human kindness.There were no strangers in Chicago. On Friday night at 11:00 pm, a young black man stopped me at the Water Place crossing to ask, “Hey, that thing you are having—did you get it around here?” pointing to my “healthy” yogurt and granola drink. We had a charming conversation about it before the lights turned. I took charge of a middle-aged gay couple from Iowa and insisted that they take the bus with me to Navy Pier, instead of walking.
It was definitely a charmed vacation. I stayed in a hotel right in the heart of Magnificent Mile, next doors to John Hancock building and right across Saks Fifth Avenue. Things started stirring at 9:00 am below my window and went on all the way until midnight. I lazed in the sun at the Hancock building courtyard having my exotic fruit juice in the mornings, went for walks near the Tribune building, window shopped, and took short bus rides to all summery attractions.
Mag Mile was blooming with fashion. Every garden had an eco-friendly design on display. I sauntered into the Ferragamo showroom, just to check out what is the price differential between the original and a really good fake I had in Mumbai—well, ladies and gentlemen, the original costs exactly 40 times more!It was also a weekend when I fell irretrievably in lo
ve—with the beluga whales at the Shedd aquarium. They pirouetted, played fetch, rocked from side to side to match the trainer’s dancing, leapt out in the air to smack their fins to the trainer’s palm to give a high five, and screeched and squawked if displeased. How can one resist their charm?I also made acquaintance with a Komodo dragon. His name was the one that pulled me to the aquarium in the first place. And jeez, all the legends about the anaconda are true—the one I saw was really, really big. “She’s an ambush predator, so she has no reason to move!” the aquarium staff told me, by way of explaining the still, complexly coiled pose.
I met more middle-aged kids of all shapes and sizes at the 4D theater. Not only did the 3D images leap out of the screen, but also the chair vibrated, poked, and blew air in sync with the movie, while ceiling sprinklers sprinkled water on us. The entire theater rocked with shrieks and screams.
It was not at all difficult to rediscover childhood and the magic of summer this weekend.
Comments