Episode 36: April 2008
Highlights of the month:
- Hanging out in Midland;
- Weekend in Chicago.
By Shorg standards, this month was very quiet. We had a number of big things going on at work that kept us grounded in Midland for most of the month. Looking back, it was nice to spend some extended time at home, as it gave us a chance to reconnect with friends. I got into the Saturday morning habit of joining some girlfriends at a 9a.m. NIA class -- NIA is a form of aerobics that encourages free-flowing, dance movements -- followed by a coffee and gossip session. One of my friends, Stephanie, teaches the class, and it is a great way to get some exercise as well as catch up with friends at the same time.
At work, in addition to the daily activity within the Marketing and Sales function that I have the HR lead role for, I have been working on some pretty interesting projects for the HR function, all focused on driving some transformational changes for Dow. These projects are giving me a lot of exposure to senior management (which can be good and bad). During the month, I was invited to join Dow’s Board of Directors and executive leadership team for dinner with a handful of other “high potential” Dow colleagues. It was quite interesting to spend one-on-one time with the Board members and hear their perspective on the company.
I joined a second book club this month, although this one was a “temporary” club. Oprah is hosting a 10-week, online book club which Stephanie and I decided to join. We met each week at my friend’s house with another five ladies from the area to discuss the book. It was a really nice way to meet other people. My “permanent” book club met this month as well and , as usual, it involved 10 minutes of talking about the book followed by hours of laughing, drinking wine, eating, and catching up!
Neal and I decided to re-connect with Midland this month by visiting a couple of local attractions for the first time: the butterfly house and the Dow Museum of Science and Art. The butterfly house is a seasonal exhibit held at the Dow Gardens (which we have visited a few times before) and the temporary home to hundreds of butterflies from North and Central America. Visitors are allowed to walk into the house where they are literally surrounded by all kinds of butterflies. We followed this with a visit to the museum, a shrine to Midland and mid-Michigan history. On the day we visited, the museum was also hosting two temporary exhibits: one featured several Chinese artifacts (including three terra cotta warriors) as part of a cultural exchange with a company Dow is doing a project within China and a second exhibit called Grossology, which featured fun facts about the human body. It was very cool!
Neal resumed playing tennis on Monday nights and , assuming work doesn’t get in the way, catches the occasional Ultimate Frisbee game on Thursdays. He’s also been taking guitar lessons weekly and really enjoying reconnecting with his musical self.
The spring finally made it to Michigan, so we skipped the gym most days this month and replaced it bike riding after work to enjoy the longer, slightly warmer evenings. It was on one of our bike rides that we discovered a great little Mexican restaurant in town called Elvira’s. The place is only open until 8 p.m. each night and features close-to-authentic Mexican food. It even has outdoor seating, which is perfect for a mid-bike ride stop.
Keeping on the food theme, we tried our hand at cooking some Indian food for Stephanie and her husband, Luis. The cooking took most of the day on Saturday but was well worth it. On another weekend, we and some of our friends cooked ribs and took them over to our friends, Patty and Michel, who had assembled all the side dishes for a great dinner party.
For entertainment, we headed to the Temple Theatre in Saginaw one weekend to see the movie In Brugge. The theatre is a beautifully restored 1930s building that hosts indie films, concerts, and other arts-related events. The highlight of that day came before the movie even started. As we walked into the theatre, we saw a lovely old lady playing an organ near the front of the stage, welcoming us to the theatre! It seemed like something straight out of the 1930s.
I learned this month that while America prides itself on being a capitalist society, this apparently does not translate to the Midland medical profession. I wanted to make a doctor’s appointment for a regular check-up and so phoned a recommended doctor. Much to my surprise, I was told that the doctor “was not taking new patients.” I found this quite an interesting concept – a doctor that does not want new patients. Thinking that this was just an unusual clinic, I made my way down the phone book only to hear the same excuse from four more doctors’ offices! Finally, after many more calls than I had planned, I finally found someone who would see me, but the earliest appointment they had was in June! What would I do if I was really sick?!
Both Neal and I traveled to Chicago for work this month. Neal’s trip was to visit an entrepreneurial start-up. My trip was to attend and present at a celebratory dinner for our top sales professionals in North America. The morning after the sales event happened to be Anzac Day in Australia, which honors our war veterans. Not being a morning person, I never made it to the dawn Anzac Day service that back home is hosted each year at the Shrine. To my surprise, I found out that the Australian expat association in Chicago was putting on a dawn service for Anzac day. So, after two hours of sleep following the sales event, I woke again, got dressed, and walked to the Vietnam War memorial in downtown Chicago to join the service. Due to windy conditions, I could barely hear the service itself, but I must say that I was literally moved to tears to hear at least 30 people sing the Australian national anthem together – something I have not heard for at least five years. It was a very touching ceremony.
That evening, Neal came to Chicago to join me for a weekend in one of our favorite cities. A looming storm caused havoc at the airport, so Neal made a last-minute decision to forfeit his flight and drive to Chicago instead. He made it in time for our dinner reservation on Friday night at a new restaurant called Brasserie Ruhlman, which turned out to be a fabulous French brasserie. On Saturday we did a little shopping, followed by a trip to Evanston, the town that is the home to Northwestern University where Neal studied for five years for his chemical engineering degree. We took a stroll down Neal’s memory lane – saw the apartment he lived in, ate at one of his favorite lunch time spots, the Noyes Street Café, and took a walk through the beautiful campus. Heading back into town, we stopped at an enormous and very impressive Bahai temple, a building that looks out of place in Chicago. The Bahai religion is a neutral one, teaching the oneness of religion and human kind. Its followers believe there is only one god, independent of the religion people choose. Their temples are open to people of all religions and are usually masterpieces of architecture (for example, the temple outside of New Delhi, India was built in the form of a gigantic lotus flower). The Chicago temple was truly spectacular – its carvings featured symbols of several major religions from Islam to Christianity to Hinduism. That evening we went out for yet another culinary experience, this time to a Chinese fusion restaurant called Ben Pao. On Sunday, we caught up with Jorge and a very pregnant Letty for what will likely be the last time we see them in Chicago. They are planning a move to Dallas, Texas this June to have more room for their twins that are on the way. After a long brunch, we took one last walk through the city before driving back to Michigan.
That trip ended the month of April. We enjoyed every minute of relaxing at home and planned plenty of adventures for the month of May. Take care!
