I thought it would be better this year

For many many years, late March into the first two weeks of April has always been a busy busy time for me. My regular job and side hustles always converged, advising week and the spring election and the WI Film fest and the Friends of the Libraries Book sale. Even last year when I was retired it was bad.

This year, because there’s no book sale, I thought things would be better. 

So no book sale. And no election day, because back in February when I was in a meeting of a smaller group planning a meeting for a larger group, I didn’t recognize April 7th as election day until we got too far along to change. Although to make up for not working election day itself, I did take on more early voting shifts, seven in all, and some are long ones, like 11:00am to 7:00pm. And, I’m skipping the film fest too, sorta like 2023 when I got busted back to crutches so didn’t work, but did see movies. This year I went to the general training, but then I started having trouble fitting in a specific venue training, not to mention movies, and then when the schedule came out, it turned out we’d already seen the opening night movie at TIFF. So no film fest.

And I did finally sign up for a short shift on election day, 4:00 to close. I’m not chiefing, just going in to help out.

So somehow, things remain busy. And being continually horrified by Trump adds a layer of exhaustion.

But we do have food pics and Jasper pics and Chicago pics.

First, a week ago Sunday’s cooking class. Savory and sweet kolaches. The sweet ones are rhubarb and cream cheese, and some with cherries and some with cherry jam. The savories have pepperonata and goat cheese.

Jasper came Wednesday and there was a play date for his preschool at a park that’s near where we used to live when Al and John were small, before we moved to Chicago. There was a kind of wilderness area, where we sled-rided once and Al called it the crash course. In the wild there were steep dropoffs and kids crawling through culverts. There was also a playground. I think me & Jasper spent more time on the playground, though we did climb around some in the wild area. Another family brought popcorn and Jasper wanted it, but we only had apple slices and graham squares cereal – the co-op version of Golden Grahams. 

We had dinner at Cafe Yaya and then breakfast with John & Megan at a place in Roscoe Village called Lucy’s Cafe, that had plenty of eggy things for us, and also vegan things for John and Megan. No pics of Lucy’s; salad and orange squash dip at Yaya.