i prefer fall to autumn and soup to salad

it just makes more sense, leaves fall... and soup is warm.

this is the first year that i have appreciated the feeling i get during this season. being a lover of summer, it's always difficult for me to say farewell to the frivolity of longer, hotter days. but this year i almost welcome this transitional season. it's here now, making itself quite comfortable, settling in. it feels like the role of this fall is to act as a soothing segue into a more focused segment of the year... or of my life.

in chicago, it's pretty rare that we even experience fall temperatures, we simply go from hot to cold, quickly, without warning. this year the leaves slowly wilt and the temperature ebbs in time with them. i'm a seasonal eater so i'm pullin' out the pots and pans and gettin' warm and fuzzy in my tiny little kitchen. here is my recipe for broccoli soup.

cut red potatoes into squares and boil in water. in a skillet, saute an onion in olive oil.
add broccoli to the skillet. add softened potatoes to the pot and cover the
vegetables with vegetable broth. allow the vegetables to become tender and
then puree. add basil, salt and pepper to taste. serve with a little avacado
on ciabatta and you have a gorgeously green meal!

you can make the soup with out potatoes, i just added them...cuz.... well.... i'm a sucker for a red potato.

i love spending the day.  

i really just followed my whims today.  i walk to milwaukee to catch the milwaukee, but it's taking forever, and there are so many rude men making me uncomfortable, so i just hop on the blue line to damen.  i explore for awhile, go to kinkos (yes this is my idea of exploring). then i have lunch at this new vegetarian restaurant called mana food bar with a friend i haven't  seen in a long time.  i devour this delicious thai watermelon salad.  this is mint, watermelon, and cucumber heaven - who knew? then i sneak into alliance bakery -well not really sneak, i don't know why i put it that way - and have a hazelnut fudge cupcake that disappears too soon.  i sit for a while, reading my new employee manual for my new job at a certain athletic club and then decide to move on.  

i walk back to milwaukee through the wicker park fest and get on the bus to chicago, then the chicago bus to mies van der rohe.  it's just a block east of michigan avenue, but there is the nicest park with lots of shade and welcoming benches, just feet away from tourist madness.  i am reading and waiting for my friend who works in the midst of the tourist madness at macy's in the water tower.  after a few, i walk over into the water tower and into the lindt store and splurge on a few truffles.  (i'm reading eat, pray, love, so i've been pretty liberal with the pleasure i get from food) then i go to the 8th floor to look at sheets and ultimately blenders.  i have my eye on a magic bullet.  i think it will change my life. 

 i wish i had a gift registry.  i would definitely put the magic bullet on my registry, and a cuisinart food processor, and special knives too.  i haven't been wanting to get married as much lately, but i still really want a registry. i think you should be able to have a registry even if you're not ever planning on getting married.  just because you're not having a wedding doesn't mean that people won't want to buy you stuff.  right? sometimes i want to buy things for people, for no reason, and i think,  i wish they were registered somewhere.  why, i just thought that yesterday when i was thinking of my friend amanda.

 

my friend who works at macy's is off now, and dying to get out of the mall. so we chat and walk to the red line to take it to belmont and eat delicious thai food at duck walk.  i tell him how i happy i am that he is living in chicago now. we agree that it's so nice to have good friends around who can just pop over and always have something to talk about. we walk to broadway and he has had a long day so he leaves to go home.  

i suddenly for the first time in a long time feel lonely.  i had spent most of the day by myself, perfectly happy about that.  joyous even.  i actually really love being with just me.  but i felt for a brief moment that i wished i weren't walking down broadway alone.  

then i saw world market.  something about that place just makes me happy and  i didn't even go in. 

the blue line

as per usual, i hurry down the platform of the blue line to get to the very first car.  i get on and there are no seats available.  no seats?  man, i just checked out this really cool book from the library and it's hard to read standing up.  sigh... whatever.  then someone gets off at monroe and I make a mad dash for the seat but there is a tall man on his way there too.  he sees me trying to get there, and says "you wanna sit down".  i say, "oh! sure..." and then i give it a second thought and say no, it's fine. i mean he is older than me by at least 15 years.  but he insists and in order to prevent a scene with this man claiming to be a gentleman, I take the seat.  I mean he could have been 20 years older than me, but, he looked healthy... plus... my book.  i sit, and begin to read the foreword.  the man is gone soon and a whole ton of people push their way into the car and stand against each other trying not to touch.  standing next to my seat is a man in his 40s, and next to him is a woman about the same age, wearing a blue jean skirt, her back is to me.  At the next stop another woman in a similar age category wedges her way next to my seat.  she has thin bangs that don't match, in color, the rest of her hair.   i start feeling nervous, and also guilty.  normally people don't give up their seats to people in this age group. only for people with white hair, and /or canes, walkers, crutches or noticable limps.  and baby bumps. right?  i have wanted to in the past (when i had yet to discover how much more enjoyable a train ride is when you are reading), but decided against it because i didn't want to offend a woman in the middle of her life by suggesting that she was incapable of standing up just like everyone else, who really only happen to be a few years younger.  (and let's not even begin to suggest that someone is pregnant.) so i sit here conflicted.  i steal a few glances at the lady whose bangs don't match her hair and see faint wrinkles in her face, and i keep feeling the man in his 40s staring at me.  i can't read anymore.  i put away my book, and look back at the the lady with the bangs that don't match her hair and say "do you wanna sit down?"  she says "no, thank you".  i say "are you sure" and she says " yeah".  so I turn around, take a breath and get my book back out.  i hear the man in his 40s and the woman in the blue jean skirt whispering and i look up and they're looking at me.  "do you want to sit down?"  she nods.  

standing there i look down at her feet.  (the woman in the blue jean skirt, that is.) the thick straps on her sandals are digging into her skin leaving it red and raw.  i look up at her face and her eyes are shut tightly,  like the eyes of a child making a really important wish.  i look over and now the man in his 40s is sitting too.  i think he may be nodding off to sleep.