LOL- if you follow the blog you already know all the minute details so nothing new here - but....
Season’s Greetings! 2015
We hope
this holiday letter finds you well! This
is the time of year when we find out two things- plans are just plans… the
reality often differs… and that January was either a long time ago or yesterday
depending upon whether you are trying to actually remember it or having the
feeling it was “just last month” LOL. When
we last wrote, we had ideas for both spring and fall destinations for extended
travel, but our eventual trips were completely different.
2015 started
off with us in residence at our home in the Sarasota/Bradenton area for the
second winter. We had fewer guests this
year – perhaps the novelty wears off.
Our first time visitors included Kathy & John Delia and Ron &
Mary Lewis.
As we mentioned
in last year’s letter, we do the same things in Florida that we do in Chicago,
just in different seasons – so our entire year has included lots of theater- multiple
plays at theaters including Lifeline, Time Line, Northlight, Asolo,
Lookingglass, Steppenwolf, Remy Bumppo, Theater Wit, and Dead Writers. Favorites included The Watson Intelligence (Wit); Ernie
(Traverse City Playhouse); Funnyman
(Northlight); and Bad Jews
(Wit). We attended a fabulous lecture on
Pinter by Julian Sands and a closed circuit broadcast (a first for us) of the
National Theater Live (from London) of Skylight-
a terrific and timely play from the Thatcher era in the UK. So many more that I don’t have space to
mention – with more than two dozen plays and only one that got a “WTF?” review…
Each play is
reviewed on the blog, so feel free to delve into our two “seasons” of theater
by reading further details there.
As for
performances on film – we did the Sarasota Film Festival with seven films for
Phil and twenty-one for Victoria. Georgia B made it down for the Finale and a
lovely film starring Blythe Danner. This coming SFF will be an occasion for a
visit from son Jeremy who is quite the film buff.
We
also go to concerts in both locales – and this year was no different. We found a new venue we really love for a
variety of music at Fogartyville – a small local club. In between, Phil went to
many concerts at WFMT studios and Barb & John West, friends made in one of Victoria’s
Florida classes, joined him for many, since we share seasonal locales – winter
in SRQ and summers in ORD… a happy coincidence! We heard Janiva Magness twice
(Florida at the Blues Fest and Chicago at SPACE)and Itzhak Perlman, Full Set,
Roy Book Binder, Tim Grimm at a house concert, and Jake Shimabukuro (Centre
East)… among others…
We
also spend a lot of time exploring the restaurant scenes in both of our home
towns… therefore we can’t fail to mention several of the winners in that realm
as well as a few “also ran” places.
Again, all the details made the blog, along with lots of food photos. In
the number one slot again, we would have to put 42 grams (which
got TWO Michelin stars again this year!) Chris & Nina Nugent’s goosefoot
is a very close second! We also had
season tickets to the next menus of: France: Bistro, Tapas and Terroir. Our favorite this year was definitely Terroir
but Tapas followed right behind. For our
out-of-town meals, among the highlights were Comme Chez Soi in Brussels,
Bord’Eau
and Vermeer in Amsterdam, Greenhouse Tavern
in Cleveland, along with Juni in NYC, and we had an amazing
meal at Thornton’s in Dublin as well. As I mentioned, all the minute details are on
the blog J along with tons
of mouth-watering photos of the food!
So
given that as context – let’s get back to our year – in which we did some
traveling. No change there, especially
since both of us are fully retired!
We
started off with the Forks & Corks wine weekend with CBGB – enjoying one of
the wine dinners as well as the Grand Tasting (tickets sold out in less than 2
minutes- LOL- this is a BIG DEAL around these parts of the Gulf Coast.) We also
met up in Miami, with daughter Angela & Lee (her partner) and dined with
the two of them; our niece and nephew, Lauren & Jeffrey; brother, Larry;
and our cousin Michele; making it quite the family weekend. Victoria took two
interesting classes at the local college (the Sarasota Arts class where she met
John & Barb West) and a maritime history class. Phil got tickets for two
spring training games to start off his baseball season. And seven plays at our
local theater helped keep us off the streets…LOL We also did the annual Wine Walk to Ca’ d’Zan
(the Ringling Mansion), which we had liked so much the last two years.
When
we returned north at the very end of April, we headed to St. Louis to visit
Mother/Sue and again saw nephew Jeffrey, along with his dad Sandy, for a few
nights while we caught up with Sue. Then it was off to Brussels and Amsterdam
for a lot of terrific meals and great works of art…
We
stopped in NYC on the way over and found the last leg of the Highline had
opened – so that was a treat. Our friend
Laure made a wonderful dinner for us and we spent the evening catching up with
her and our favorite little friend, her daughter, the beautiful and extremely smart
Alix (now four!) The following night we had dinner at Racine’s NY so we could
see her dad Arno, but that was about all we did – he was extremely busy with
customers. (Racine’s is doing very well!)
In
Amsterdam we had the good fortune to have a drink with an old school buddy from
Victoria’s days at University of Santa Monica. Steve Kowalski and his partner,
George, were also in Amsterdam the same week we were! It had been 25 years
since “Tor” and “T.V.” had seen each other! And speaking of reunions – Phil’s
Salzburg gang from 1970 also had a mini-reunion here in Florida when Barry
& Ellen (STL), Liesi & Tim (NY state), Pam & Glenn (TPA) and the
two of us (SRQ) spent a day together in St Pete Beach and had a lovely dinner
before parting – with plans to do it again in February 2016!
When
we returned to the states from the May Europe trip, June was here and so Phil
joined Jeremy & Angela at the Clearwater Folk festival in Croton, NY. In July, on 7/3 we went to
friends Richard & Irene’s (a seven year tradition) and then we had a get
together on 7/4 with wine buddies of many years at Mark &
Laura & Livvie’s mansion in the sky overlooking the Lakefront and Grant
Park. Less than a week later, we headed
off on a ROAD TRIP! We had been talking
for years about going to PNC Park and Fallingwater (the Wright masterpiece in
southwestern Pennsylvania.) We combined that with a two night stop in Detroit
where we did the Motown Museum and had Buddy’s Pizza with Fred Lee, and another
night in Cleveland, where we made another stop at the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame. Then it was on to Pittsburgh for a Cardinals game, the tour of the
Kaufman house (Fallingwater) and then a swing by Toledo Art Museum on the way
back to Chicago….
It was
a quick week and we had people to see and places to go- so we did laundry and
packed for Ireland. But before we left we had a visit from Steve & Suzanne,
Phil’s brother and his wonderful wife (yes, she IS our favorite sister-in-law!) It was a fast weekend – spent in a
food-coma-inducing whirlwind of high end eating- including 42 grams and Alinea… Then it was off to Dublin, where we met up
with our favorite boy cousin, Iddo (our favorite girl cousin being Michele, of
course) and his mom Sarah. We visited
various historical sights – the most famous being the Kilmainham Gaol. We also had a number of terrific meals.
Finally
back in Chicago for more than just a few days, we jumped into action and headed
to visit CBGB in Traverse City area, where they spend their summers. It was a really quick trip because soon
Victoria was off on her annual DART road trip with friend Tom. This year it was New Hampshire and trains…
lots of photos on the DART website if you want to see them… https://northcountryny.shutterfly.com/
Or for
that matter – if you want to see any of the other trips –they can be found
here- https://victoriasterlingspics.shutterfly.com/
Then we
took the last weeks of September through mid-October to head to Eastern Europe
– Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Transdneistria (and Odessa.) We had a terrific time learning about these
countries and seeing many UNESCO World Heritage sites during our three weeks of
travel.
The
highlight of the trip “hands-down” was our reunion with our dear friend Iryna
from Lviv, Ukraine. She traveled all the
way to Odessa to meet up with us and we spent three days catching up on each
other’s lives while touring one of the world’s loveliest cities. It was a year of great moments and lots of
making memories but seeing Iryna again after nine years had to be right at the
top of our list of “heart-swelling” events.
When
we returned to the U.S. we squeezed in a few more dinners with friends and got
to try another new place in Chicago, Intro, with friends Mon & Beth. (We
shared a lot of great meals with them last summer- Schwa, Duck Inn, and
Claudia, to mention a few of many.) Then two nights before we headed south we
made our final dinner out at goosefoot. We start and end
our Chicago season there for a reason: the food of course, but also the welcome
of friends… it makes it just the right place to bookend our northern
summers.
We are
so lucky to have our winter retreat (and our cats Lucy & Penny LOVE getting
away, for the warm weather and geckos,
as well!) Thanksgiving brought our first seasonal visitors; brother Larry, up
from Miami, along with cousin Michele, and Angela & Lee down from North
Carolina, where they have relocated for his transfer to a new Google office and
project. Since Thanksgiving we have been
busy with concerts and friends. Our last concert of the year was a superb
evening with John McCutcheon at Craftsman House.
The
end of this week we leave for Cuba returning just before Christmas. We already
have a lot of plans for 2016… Phil is
going back to Ireland on a music tour. We are returning to Russia, Scandinavia
and the Baltics in August. We hope to sell our Chicago house and buy a Chicago condo,
facilitating the “lock and leave” lifestyle we have adopted. So we may have to
take some time out of our travels to pack and move… but we’re sure we’ll catch
up! Tom and Tor will do a DART trip when
Phil is in Ireland gallivanting pub to pub… and where that will take them has
yet to be decided. Life is so good – we
are blessed by great friends, good health and especially by having each other
to enjoy things together and to support each other when the challenges arrive.
If you
have any desire, at all, for details that can’t fit in the holiday letter, you
can visit the blog: http://blog.semifreelife.com/
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