Mom's visit

Mom came to town for the weekend. (Yay!) We went to Rockefeller Chapel, the Garfield Park Conservatory, and Shedd Aquarium. I did worry about being ready for school, but I made it through today, at least.

I was really impressed with the conservatory. Free every day, with nice outreach programs for families and stuff. Here's a photo of the Fern Room, a reconstruction of Chicago in the age of dinosaurs. There were some people getting married there. Not a bad idea, I think, if you have a small wedding. Pretty. The Palm Room was great, too: seven dozen varieties of palm, including the double coconut with its eight-foot fan-shaped fronds.

Um ... Rockefeller was gorgeous. And very effective at making people in it feel tiny and awed. The glass was unusual; all of the huge leaded windows around the nave (the long part) were ornate but in muted colors, mostly a greyish glass. Then at the head of the chapel, a star bursts with flames, rosying the arch around it. The attention to detail in the masonry was amazing, too.

Not sure what else to say. Honestly, I'm kind of brain dead, and tired of school right now. I'm impressed by Jalisa, though. She and Brie are heading up the double dutch team, which I am sponsoring, and she just said some remarkable things today about the unity of a team (if someone makes a mistake, it's as though all of them made it, and there's no "You screwed up" or "It's your fault") and being responsible for their image by doing stuff like picking up their trash after practice.

I guess I can start on this book, The Search for God. (It's from one of my students; she's a Jehovah's witness, trying to convert yours truly.)