Bombshell to me and Melanie

           
 I’ve had quite a busy few months since I last posted.  Here’s what’s been happening:

For Melanie’s 14th birthday, we went to California for the first time.  We had an amazing trip!  We flew into San Diego on Oct 26th and went to Sea World for the afternoon, then to Old Towne for authentic Mexican dinner.  The next 2 days we spent at the San Diego Zoo.  It was fabulous!  They recommend at least 2 days to see it all, it is so big and that was true, we still didn’t see and do everything, but we had so much fun and took hundreds of photos!  Then we drove to Anaheim and the next day, Oct 29th, spent at Downtown Disney.  Oct 30st – Nov 1st we spent at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure and we had a blast.  Melanie’s birthday is Halloween, and we did it all, including lunch with The Little Mermaid, dinner in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and that night we went to Mickey’s Halloween Party.  Friday Nov 2nd we took a bus tour of Los Angles and Hollywood, with stops at the Grove and the Santa Monica Pier.  Then Saturday we had one last day at Disneyland and Disney California Adventure.  We finally spotted a celebrity: Patrick Warburton and his youngest son stood in line with us and chatted at the Hollywood Tower of Terror ride.  He was handsome, polite and his voice sounds just like it does on TV.  We had just the best trip ever! 

My divorce was final on Jan. 15, 2013.  This was completely my choice.  I wrote about it in my last post.  We were trying to be as amicable as possible.  John’s divorce from his first wife was so nasty, she keep us going to court for assorted reasons for nearly 14 years after their divorce and she used their children as weapons to punish John for her perceived slights.  Neither of us wanted that sort of ugliness in our lives or our daughter’s life.  We didn’t have much to split and we agreed upon an equitable settlement and parenting agreement.  At John’s request, I didn’t move near my work, I stayed near our old home so he doesn’t have to drive more than 8 minutes to pick her up.  I on the other hand, drive over 35 minutes each way to work and pay tolls, but I chose to do it to keep the peace.

I turned 50 on March 16th.  It was a quiet day for Melanie and I, I had a lovely day with her, yet it felt so strange to be in my fifties, I just don’t feel as old as that number sounds. :)

So the divorce has been rough, with lots of emotional moments.  For anyone who has divorced, you know it really is a grieving time; you grieve for what should have been, for the loss of the marriage, that relationship, that security.  It was absolutely the best decision, without a single doubt.  I could not keep letting him hurt me and treat me so poorly.  He made me feel bad about myself and so insecure constantly.  John met someone in October, so we finally filed for divorce in November and we were divorced on Jan 15th and then on Jan 26th John moved in his girlfriend to our still jointly owned house without my acknowledgment and proposed to her, knowing her only 5 months?!?  I thought he had lost his mind.  This woman is nasty to Melanie and he defends her, not his own daughter!  After she moved her niece into the house without my knowledge, I threw a fit, so on March 22nd he bought me out and then 2 days later asked Melanie for her key to the house she had lived in all her life - because his girlfriend didn’t feel “comfortable” with a key where I might take it. (Why certainly, because in the past 9 months while I had a legal right to go into the house I didn't, but now, I'm going to go back to get the crap I didn't want?!? What!  She must be paranoid too!)  He insisted he didn’t actually take Melanie’s key away from her, as he had put the key in Melanie’s top drawer in her bedroom in that house; therefore, it is still her key. His mental justifications of his actions are incredible.  This woman calls him “Johnny” and tells him what to eat, to exercise, how to dress, and talks to him like a little boy in front of Melanie and her friends. She is 47 and this is her first relationship, supposedly. She is from Armenia, lived in the US for almost 30 years, a US citizen since the age of 16 and still has all sorts of old world beliefs and behaviors.  (Strangely, the first story was that she was from Greece, moved to the US at the age of 17, and was briefly marred in her late 20’s.  hmmm…) She keeps telling Melanie how to behave and act and is negative overall, putting down Melanie’s makeup, favorite stores, favorite singer, favorite foods and so on. I’ve yet to meet her and supposedly she is very jealous of me. – What kind of person dates a married man, then not only moves in with him after knowing him for just over 5 months and gets engaged - to a man fresh off a 22 year relationship? (Hello, ever hear of a rebound relationship??) She told Melanie that she (her name is Susan) is the woman of the house now, that Melanie needs to ask for permission to get food and to use anything (Melanie was needing scissors for a school project) and that she (Susan) knew John better than Melanie knew him!?! OMG!!!  She also told Melanie that while she may be small (5’ tall), she works out 6 days a week, so she is strong, - getting right in Melanie’s face.  (By the way, Melanie is now 5’8”!)  John said it wasn’t a physical threat, but merely Susan letting Melanie know that Melanie couldn’t scare her off.  Of course...

So, on Monday 4/1, my ex-husband came over to drop off my child support check and talk to Melanie “for 5 minutes.” He had “news”.  The news: He married his girlfriend on my 50th birthday on 3/16, 2 weeks earlier!?!?!  I've never heard of anyone ever doing that - getting married on your ex-wife's birthday?!? He asked his new wife if she was OK with getting married on my birthday and she said she was?!? WHAT! How desperate can you be to be OK with your anniversary on the birthday of the woman your husband just divorced 2 months ago?! Why would you want your wedding day to be associated in any way with your husband's ex-wife, or any other shared date for that matter?? What kind of evil do you have to be to willingly agree to that level of cruelty?  How insecure is this woman?  John was shocked that Melanie and I were both upset; he thought it would be no big deal - or so he claimed. He said they picked that day as it was simply the first Saturday that he didn’t work after applying for the marriage license on 2/16 (because they couldn’t take a day off to get married or maybe wait another week or two?!). Then he added that “why should you care, you were the one who divorced me!”  I am sure he knew he was being cruel and effectively spitting in my face, forever forcing me to remember on my birthday every year that he could replace me in under 7 months.  No one on earth is that dense or clueless.  He told everyone in the family of the marriage except Melanie, this after he promised he would let her know before he would do anything (after telling Melanie last about the engagement – Oh, and he didn’t tell Melanie, about their engagement, he told me and left it to me to tell Melanie.)  She was crushed. He even made the rest of the family promise not to tell her when he told them on Easter, the day before and her older brother a week earlier.  Melanie has refused to go on visitations since that day.  I had been forcing her to go, pushing her to have a relationship with him. Today he tells her that he didn’t tell her until after he told everyone else, as there is a family secret that kept him occupied, a secret he can’t tell her, as she might tell me.  Right… until 2 months ago I’ve been a family member for 22 years --when did I become untrustworthy?  What secret could there be?  -Gee, that you come from a big bunch of dysfunctional, messed up people, ooohhh, “big secret”.  What kind of secret could force a father to keep his marriage from his daughter for 16 days?  Please! Then he tells her he didn’t tell her beforehand, as he wanted to avoid any further drama.  Again, sure, because getting married on my birthday wouldn’t cause any drama!?! –Oh, my former mother-in-law tried to say that Melanie wasn’t the last one to learn, Katie (my step-daughter currently living in Hawaii) was told after Melanie.  Yes, OK, so being 2^nd to last, well then, that makes it all better?!?!  What a family!  I’m so glad I’m out of there!

So, I was doing reasonably well with the divorce and adjusting to my new life, but I’ve been in shock for the last couple weeks, feeling such anxiety, I had an asthma attack that night, I could barely sleep that night and for the last 2 weeks. It re-triggered some PTSD episodes.  Last night I slept through the night for the first time since his last bit of cruelty.  I’m at a loss at what to do about this; I just don't know what all to do - part of me is worried about how to best help Melanie cope and another part of me now wants to hurt him and his new wife back. (How can any woman be that insensitive to another? - What kind of evil, cold bitch must she be??)  I took the day after the news as a personal day; I knew I would be in no shape to function fully at work.  I started to see a counselor a few days after the bombshell he dropped, to help me cope and to get info on how to help Melanie cope.  It is inconceivable that anyone could ever be that cruel to someone they supposedly ever loved.  I am finally admitting to myself several truths that I could not admit until after leaving him and this last cruelty:

1)      My ex-husband is passive aggressive, he was emotionally and mentally abusive.  There are so many instances I could list, but it’s so obvious to me now.

2)      My ex-husband was not of the same moral character as I am; he is a liar, a manipulator, judgmental, selfish, cruel and a controller.

3)      If anyone knows about alcoholism, they tell you that the alcoholic stops maturing when they start to drink, I refused to believe this or admit it until now.  My ex-husband is a selfish, childish man who stopped maturing emotionally at the age of 13 when he became an alcoholic.  Again and again he would tell me how he hated some actress who appeared as a strong woman.  He would criticize strong females in the news and politics. Know I understand why:  he wanted a mommy.  At the beginning of our relationship he made comments asking me if I was going to allow him to drink or other behavior and I would tell him he was an adult, so no, I wasn't going to tell him how to behave.  His relationship with his new wife and her talking to him like a child is what he desired from me.  He continually punished me for not being a mommy to him.  This explains so much of our relationship!

4)      My ex-husband does NOT wish to remain friendly; he has been working to punish me for leaving him.  I’m watching to see if he puts our house up for sale as we agreed upon, otherwise, I may sue him for defrauding me; we agreed upon a house settlement based on his assurances he and his then fiancée were going to put the house up for sale in April and would then incur realtor commissions and closing fees.  If he doesn’t move, I want that difference.

5)      I’m done being the reasonable, nice, understanding lady.  He is unworthy and will not treat me with the same respect and decency I gave him.

Onto a more positive note: with my divorce in January and legally changed my entire name!  I’ve been thinking of the name change for 10 years, and with the free name change with a divorce, I went for it, new name, and new life.  I was born Tracy Ann Jessen, then my adoptive parents named me Kori Lee Bentson, to rhyme with their other adopted daughter Lori Ann.  Kori just never felt right, so with my divorce, I took back Tracy, but decided to pick my own middle name (Ann was Lori’s name, so didn't feel correct taking that part), I selected Belinda, and it sounds so pretty to me. The last name, well, I didn’t like having to always spell Bentson and I wasn't a real Bentson; Jessen, didn't feel right, as I was given away and not fully accepted by my brother; my father’s name Boyter, well, it sounds like “goiter”, so no thank you, LOL. I picked Bliss both for the meaning (happiness) and the history of the name (from French invaders to England during the Normandy Invasion – I’m part French and part several others, including a tiny bit English).  So now I'm Tracy Belinda Bliss, but I like Belinda best, so that's what I introduce myself as: Belinda Bliss.  While Kori had an awful life filled with so much hurt and misery, Belinda is going to have a wonderful love and joy-filled, positive life!

Lastly, I'm thinking of changing the name of my blog: I think "Becoming Belinda" has a good ring!

Starting a New Life Chapter

Goodness the last few months have flown by.  After 22 years together, 20 years of marriage, I moved out June 29th to start fresh.  This was such a long process, a very hard decision.  I tried all I could, including 5 rounds of marriage counseling over the years.  Melanie and I moved to an apartment not far from our old home.  John still lives in the house and it is up for sale.  He has a tenant who lives in the spare bedroom where I slept for the prior 9 months.  It's scary.  I've been full of nerves, but it is for the best.  We have both changed and we just are not compatible any longer.  There isn't a bunch of animosity and I"m trying hard to be reasonable and make this as pleasant as it can be.  John's ex-wife was such a huge bitch, she was hell-bent on punishing him for her imaginary slights, she even said she would use the kids to hurt him and she certainly did.  I would never do that to my daughter.  No matter how upset I might get, I would always think of my daughter first.  I hope we can stay on friendly terms and keep her as our priority.

We only took a small portion of the furniture, so we had to go shopping.  We found this terrific shop, through Craig's List, in a ladies' basement in St. Charles.  The owner takes old furniture and adds her own special touches.  She used to have a store and a couple months earlier, she decided to work out of her home.  She had dropped the prices so much, I was able to afford a lot of items we needed.  She even custom painted my new desk purple!  Here are photos of the desk & chair and the coffee table we bought:, alone with the side table (not a good shot) and the bottom of one of the lamps:

I took these with my iPhone, so they aren't the greatest but you can get an idea.  If you want to visit her website, you can see more of her available furniture (she calls it 'shabby-Frenchy') go to http://www.letoucheboutique.com  I'll try to take better photos, with more of the overall area.  That day the place was messy and I was just taking photos to share with a friend. 

I know the next year is going to be filled with changes.  Another new development is my changing positions at my current company.  As of 11/1, I'll be moving from being a Sr. Loan Processor to Loan Officer Support.  It's a customer service type position to assist loan officers (aka mortgage bankers) learn any number of things, such as how to use the in-house computer programs to how to figure debt-to-income ratio or how to look up items in the company policy guide.  It's stable work hours, which I need now I'm a single parent.  As a processor, you never know when you may need to stay late or depending upon your pipeline, how many hours you'll need to work in a week. For the prior 13 months, I worked an average of 12 hours of overtime per week.  That was almost 50 hours of overtime a month!  Some weeks it was only 7 hours and some weeks it was up to 22 hours of overtime,  I'd often get home at 8 or 9.  That can't happen anymore.  With my new position, I'll get off work at 4:30.  I can sign up for weekend hours if I want some extra overtime income, but it is voluntary, whereas for most of the last year processing had mandatory 10 hours a week. It is supposedly less stressful too.  I could use a little less stress at this point in my life!

So, tonight I made something fun!  I have applied to be a Shutterfly party hostess on House Party (http://houseparty.com).  Well, along the side of the party site there was a note that today was the last day to get your free photo mug.  I clicked on the link, went to the facebook site for Shutterfly and there was a coupon code for a free 11 oz personalized mug.  Check it out:

Mug

View the entire collection of cards.

I should get it in about a week, I'm so psyched!  I have a couple photo books from Shutterfly and I just love them and I've gotten prints from them and all are excellent quality.  I'm already looking forward to getting my new mug. It has 3 photos of my beautiful baby! :)

Washington DC Trip

Melanie and I had a lot of fun and did some sightseeing on our journey to Washington DC in March 2011.  We drove there and my birthday was a few days before the trip; Melanie made me this awesome set of CD's she burned from my favorite songs and her favorite songs, in alphabetical order.  We listened and sang along to these CD's most of the trip.  We talked, we laughed a lot, and we had a ton of fun together!  We stopped the first night right on the outskirts of Pittsburgh.  We planned to spend most to spend most of the next day at the Pittsburgh Zoo.  We had a great dinner at Outback Steakhouse.  We stayed at the Four Points Sheraton.  Melanie had room service for the very first time in her life.  Breakfast in bed!  It was enough for the two of us.  Then, off to the zoo.  I finally broke out my zoom lens I'd received for Christmas.  I soon wished I'd used it on our Disney trip, that zoom lens was awesome!  I got close ups of so many animals.  I started switching back and forth between lenses.  Inside the zoo is the PPG Aquarium, it was also pretty cool, not as amazing as the Shedd Aquarium, but we enjoyed it.  The Pittsburgh Zoo is a small zoo, about the size of Lincoln Park Zoo.  Definitely only about a 4-5 hour trek, longer if you add a meal.  Here are a few of the favorite images:

Their propaganda materials showed the polar bear swimming underwater.  When we got to that exhibit, there was a sign disclaiming that the bears rarely ever swam underwater.  We were disappointed to learn that, but the underwater tunnel was still interesting, and I got some close-up views of sharks.  They needed a little more design inside the tanks; it was fairly bare walls, no plants, no fake backdrop, just cement.  I felt bad for the sharks; I can’t imagine how bored they must be.

Momma tiger and one of her cubs:

 

The next day we stayed in Frederick, MD at the Hilton Garden Inn, outside of Washington DC.  And then met my birthfather and his wife.  As I wrote in an earlier post, he was bizarre.  Very disturbing.  I still have no idea why he decided to contact me, he certainly wasn't interested in getting to know us, I guess just to deal with his own inner demons and guilt.  Oh, well, Melanie and I still had fun!

Over the 3 days we were in DC, We saw the White House, the Washington Monument, the Roosevelt Monument, The Smithsonian - American History museum, the Capital Building and inside the Senate seating, the National Zoo, Arlington Park Cemetery, including the resting place of JFK and Jackie and 2 of their babies, the Lincoln monument and the Jefferson monument. 

 Red panda, very cute!

Roosevelt Monument - this was huge, a section for every term he served.

 

On the way home, we stopped at the Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square PA.  Beautiful, but I think we were a few weeks too early.  None of the fountains were on, hardly anything outdoors was blooming.  However, the conservatory was stunningly gorgeous. There was an orchid display, so I now have about 100+ orchid photos. I won't post them here; I think I've shared enough for this post!  I'd love to go back, closer to mid-May I think would give the best floral display.

Thanks for looking!

Sick with Bronchitis

I've been sick all week with bronchitis. I went home early from work Monday and went to the doctor, who diagnosed me with bronchitis. She prescribed a new antibiotic for me (as the list of what doesn't bother me is whittling down all the time) Levofloxacin. So I'm too sick to go to work on Tuesday and Wednesday. Which didn't surprise me because this is the 4th time I've had bronchitis, last time was about 14 years ago. But I was so weak on Thursday and weak and lightheaded and barely able to stand on Friday. Each night it took hours to fall asleep, but then I'd sleep through the day. So Friday/early Saturday am about 1:45 am, I am laying in bed and have a anxiety attack. And the light bulb goes off in my head, --this is related to the medication! So I get up and Google "Levofloxacin" and search the kitchen until I find the prescription insert. Sure enough, there are all my extra symptoms: new or worsening anxiety, nervousness, restlessness, sleeplessness, light-headedness, tiredness, weakness, dizziness, rash (there was new rash on my forearm), loss of appetite, gas (I was wondering why, because I barely ate anything!) So I called the doctors office and they said just to discontinue taking it. I'd taken 5 doses (every day after dinner,) so I probably had enough antibiotic in my system to help the bronchitis and if not, we need to wait until this one is out of my system before they can prescribe another one anyway. So I figure the reason I could sleep during the daytime, was the drug dose was lessening, and I couldn't sleep at night because it was fresh dose.

On the plus side, my lack of appetite means I'm down to 211.8! Today I don't feel as weak as I did yesterday. I have to go to work tomorrow, I can't believe I missed 4 days in a row! I don't think I've ever done that in my life!

Poor Melanie, stayed home Thursday with a sore throat. I got up for a few moments twice and went back to bed and slept until 4:50 in the afternoon. She stayed home sick the next day and made me get up at 1:00ish and asked me to take her to the doctor. Sure enough, she had strep throat. I felt so bad I was too sick to take her the day before. I barely made it through the trip to the pharmacy and collapsed on the couch when I got back home. Totally wiped out. Today, Sunday, she feels good a new. I wish I did! LOL

Unfriended on Facebook

So today I noticed that my half-sister has unfriended me on facebook. I’ve never met her and I only spoke to her once, but I was surprised to see that she unfriended me. I don’t know why for certain either. It probably has to do with our father, but since I never had anything negative with her, I’m surprised that she did this. A little back story…

I was adopted at birth. When I tracked down my birth mother, she refused to name my birth father and she died without revealing his identity, so I thought I would never know anything about him or my paternal family. To my shock, on Feb. 12^th 2011, I got a call out of the blue. He’d tracked me down. We took a paternity test to verify he was indeed my father and then made plans to meet up. I went to Washington DC with my daughter to meet him over Spring Break the 3rd week of March. Now, as a vacation, Melanie and I had a lot of fun. As a meeting with my father, it was bizarre, strange, unsettling and unpleasant. He was weird, strange, insulting, and often rude. I have no idea why he decided to find me because he made it clear he was uninterested in getting to know me or my daughter. He did love to talk about himself, repeating the same stories. Always referring to his father, his mother, his grandfather, his uncle, his family, not once relating it to me and how they fit into my history. (When I met them, my mother’s family immediately started to relate the people they talked about and how they were related to me. They made me feel like such a member of the family and so welcome. They were wonderful!) Maybe he has Alzheimer’s, maybe he was nervous, and maybe he is just that bizarre. I may never know. He flat out said he didn’t have any questions about us. He called me a big baby when I asked to turn back on a forced hike to a “park” that turned out to be a wooded trail, I was wearing a turtleneck and a sweater, because it was 44° when I got dressed, but then drove south and it was later afternoon and 78°; asked me why I named my daughter Melanie, swearing he’d never heard of that name before, then later telling me that Gone with the Wind was the 2^nd movie he’d ever seen and one of his all-time favorites (gee, the 2^nd lead female character is Melanie Wilkes!); he told an armed military sentry at Fort Bragg that my 12 year old daughter was “the one with the bombs!”; asked me why I was using “such big words”, this from a man who supposedly has 3 degrees (I was tempted to ask him if he needed me to give him a definition to anything.) He seemed to get really offended when we asked what his favorites were as if it was none of our business and how dare we ask him a question. This is part of how people get to know each other. They look for similarities, differences, and compatibilities. This was really disturbing me that he showed no real interest in hearing what we have to say. He criticized my spending habits (of which he knows nothing), commented twice that I must push my husband around (I certainly don’t) and told me I was a fool not to have become a government worker. This man is a total stranger, this is a man who abandoned his pregnant girlfriend and didn’t look back for 48 years. I couldn’t believe the nerve or alternately the weirdness of this man. After we got back from the trip, he called and told me all about his Easter, his health, his recent trip and not once AGAIN asking one single thing about me, my holiday or anything. I’d had enough and wrote him a letter that either he shape up or leave me alone. And yes, most of it was rude - right back at him. I haven’t heard a word since. I would have thought he would have wanted to try to make up for lost time. That maybe he’d try to make a good first impression. But I guess his ego was so huge he didn’t feel he needed to try or bother. To top it all off he has bi-polar disorder. Now my adopted mother, who raised me and abused me, had bi-polar disorder with borderline personality disorder. My husband’s ex-wife had bi-polar disorder with borderline personality disorder (not 100% confirmed, but there is a family history. Her behavior supports this belief,) she spent years trying to make us miserable. The last thing I need is another person who has bi-polar disorder (and probably with borderline personality disorder based on his narcissistic behavior exhibited.) I noticed that he and his 3^rd wife unfriended me on facebook a couple months back. “Oh, no, the birth father I never had rejected me again.” Now don’t think I took the step to tell him to behave better lightly or quickly. We had about a dozen hour+ long phone calls and spend 3 days together. Melanie and I both came right out and flatly asked “Don’t you want to know anything about us?” and he said, “No, in due time. “ I asked what that meant on our phone call after returning from Washington DC and he explained that he was the moderator at a singles group and they believed you get to know people “in due time”. Well, I'm not someone he was looking to date. It would make more sense that he would try to make up for all the lost time. I’ve had enough with crazy people.

This is by no means the full details; there were a number of additional insults and strange behavior, and not to mention the cheapness. He told me he was cheap. I didn’t realize just how cheap he would get. After the paternity test came back positive, he offered to pay for us to fly to visit. This would have cost him over $1100. I declined, as we’d already made our travel arrangements. So rationally, you would think a person would spend a couple dollars, still saving over $1100. When we were there, I don’t think he spent over $60 the entire visit. We spent 3 hours riding the subway so he could save $10 on parking; he had us walk 9 blocks so he could save $10 on lunch. He took us out to eat the first night to a restaurant in a strip mall that I would not have gone to alone in the daylight, let alone as a first impression. We were the only people in the entire place, other than the owner and his card playing buddies. The 2^nd night, it was a pizza-by-the-slice restaurant. The third night, Melanie asked if we could please eat on real plates, with real knives and forks, rather than plastic and paper plates like the first 2 nights. Honestly, a burger fried up in his own kitchen would have been better than the scary looking restaurant. At least it would have showed he cared enough to make us something. (To be fair, the first morning he did make us burnt waffles from a homemade concoction he was winging. We ate them and thanked him.) I also didn’t like that he kept changing the settings on my camera without asking (to match the photography assignment for a class he was taking - like he was going to turn in my photos!) and he didn’t seem to like that my camera was newer and had more features. He also seemed put out that my Lincoln was bigger than his Lincoln. Who cares about these things, I don't.

Now some positive things did come out of him finding me. I finally had answers and the missing pieces to me and my history. I finally feel whole. Then I found out I have 2 sisters and a brother. I’ve spoken to one of my sisters a few times now and she is awesome! I think we are a lot alike and I’m really looking forward to meeting her soon. She is closest in age to me at 44. (She has a daughter, a new niece!, I'm hoping to get to know her too!) The other sister, is the one who unfriended me, she is 36, with little in common that I could tell in our phone call. She and I spoke once and she was pleasant, but not too encouraging. I haven’t heard from her since. I left my brother, 40, a couple voice messages asking him to call my cell phone, which he returned by calling our land line during the afternoon at a time I would be at work. So I figured he isn’t ready to talk yet. I hope I’ll still be able to get to know my siblings.

Well, thanks for listening to my rant. Next post will be some of our Washington DC trip photos and some of the more fun details. I hope you all have a great day tomorrow!

Walnut Room and Chicago Day - Part 2

Continuing from yesterday's post...
After lunch, we continued to explore Macy's, reading in one area the history of Marshall Field's which ironically talked about continuing the tradition (yeah, right up until Macy's buys you and wipes 100+ years of history out!) Then we see a sign leading to the "Narcissus Room". We walk on over and see this banquet room with a fountain in the middle (I'm guessing that is the source of the name Narcissus.) In the fountain are all these huge ornaments and behind the fountain is another "Santa setting", but with no Santa. Very cool! There were a couple families taking their own photos and I guess it was set up for people to take their own holiday photos. There was an employee wandering though at one point and they didn't chase anyone out, so I assume it was allowed. Anyway, we took some photos (again, click on the image to enlarge them):
After our impromptu photo shoot, we went on down through the floors, ending in the make-up section on the main floor. They tell us about stores across the street. Stores accessible by a top-secret passage down the stairs and through an underground walkway. OK, maybe not top-secret, because there is an "L" train station in the middle, more likely millions of people are aware of this, but it felt like a cool discovery to us. (It's called the "Pedway", I discovered after Googling tonight! LOL) So across the street on State Street is a new mall! It is still growing, at the moment it is almost 3 floors, it's called Block 37. There is a new Disney, Sephora, some restaurants, and more. We got some makeup at Sephora, visited the Disney Store and then headed back across the street to look at the windows at Macy's. Now when it was Marshall Fields, the windows were famous for the magical Christmas scenes and stories that they depicted. Sadly, Macy's did not keep up the tradition. It was only 2/3rds of the windows and they were ads for their Christmas ornaments (they passed it off as a fund raiser - a whopping 10% of the profits, were being donated to Make-a-Wish foundation. Oooohhhh... a whole 10%!!) There was ornaments by Rachel Ray, Jessica Simpson, Donald Trump, Emeril Lagasse, Marth Stewart, Tommy Hilfiger, Sean John, Michael Kor, Betsey Johnson and about 14 all together. Only Rachel Ray and Jessica Simpson had ornaments worth buying, maybe Emeril's chef hat. The rest were uninspired (their signatures on a glass ball! ohh, that's talent!), ugly or boring. (Seriously, Donald Trump? Whose brilliant idea was that?!?) The artwork in the windows was ugly and simplistic (these "elves" looked like a hand drawn face on a felt body that I could have made at my kitchen table.) The story strange and ultimately disappointing. There were others standing around, all expressing their disbelief at how bad it was and their disappointment at the windows. Here I found a photo of the ornaments (click on the image to go to an article about the ornaments):
Next, we grab a cab and go to Filene's Basement on Michigan Avenue across from the John Hancock and Water Tower Place. They are having yet another going-out-of-business sale (this time it looks real.) We stopped by Water Tower Place mall for a while, stopping for a quick snack at The American Girl Place (we'd seen the new store only the month prior, previously we'd gone to their former location a couple blocks over), then some shopping then we tried the steamed dumplings at WowBao. We'd never tried them so we got 2, 1 teriyaki chicken and 1 spicy kung pao chicken. Yummy, we'll try them again! :)
This is the view from the ground floor next to WowBao and right by the entrance to Macy's.
After this we stopped into the Disney Store on Michigan Avenue, then the Apple Store and the huge Forever 21. Then another cab ride to Little Italian Village for dinner. We ate upstairs in the 'village', very lovely! After dinner, another cab back to the train station, (we just made our train by less than 2 minutes!) and then on to home. We passed part of the time watching Monte Carlo that we had uploaded the digital copy onto my iPhone (Melanie's very smart idea!) and we snuggled, with each of us having one ear piece to listen to the movie. We rolled back into our town about 9:15 and were we ever tired. As I said, a very memorable day. :)

Thanks for reading! I'll try to get a scrapbook freebie ready to share for a new post.

Walnut Room and Chicago Day - Part 1

On December 20th, Melanie and I went downtown for a mother/daughter day of elegant dining and a little shopping. We had an fun-filled day that was absolutely memorable. We got up early, took the train in. We bought our tickets in the station, Melanie was worried we wouldn't be able to buy them on the train. It was good we did, they had instituted a $3 per ticket surcharge for buying on the train! Who knew! At the downtown station, we stopped briefly into Bath and Body Works, one of our favorite stores! Then across the way to Jamba Juice to buy Melanie a little morning treat. Then a cab ride to Macy's and we rushed in and hurried up to the restaurant to wait in line for the pager to eat. Or so we thought. Last time we were there was in 2005, where we stood in line for nearly 2 hours and then got a pager for about 45 minutes after that before getting in the line to get seated, which was another 25 minutes. Well, things have changed and this year we walked right up. No line. No waiting. It was 9:30 am. We had expected to get lunch. So, we got a pager with a time to page us at 11:00. We went to explore the store and see Santa.
View from the escalator:Now, Melanie thinks she is too old for that, but I disagreed, so off we went to the line for Santa.
Again, last time, this line was about an hour, this time, 2 minutes.
Here she is with Santa, looking a little uncomfortable:
So the pager went off and we went down to the restaurant, spent less than 5 minutes in the line and was seated. The tree is stunning: I look at the time and it's only 10:50am. Oh, well, I figure by the time the food arrives, a good appetite will have worked up. We were seated right next to the tree! Here is Melanie at the table (read the last post for the picture with both of us.)
This is the ornament right next to me:The fairy princess came around and sprinkled magic dust on us to make wishes:

Our lunch was fun. The food left much to be desired. I understand now why the long lines are gone. The setting was beautiful, we felt so special and it all looked so elegant. The food has gone downhill since it was Marshall Field's. That's too bad, but we decided that our tradition will be to go to a new elegant restaurant each year.

More tomorrow! I'm off to bed. Have a wonderful day everyone!