Chilling at the Waldorf

It is always nice to get away from a Chicago winter. Utilizing our resort timeshare and traveling to a locale we have grown very familiar with over the past five years keeps the stress levels low and the expectations in line. But no matter how at home we are with the sprawling resort at the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula, there are things we learn on every trip. Here are a few, in no particular order.

• We were smart to bring along our own ground coffee, tea bags, and sweeteners. What I was not prepared for was how loooong it took the electric stovetop to boil water for my morning cup(s) of tea. I know I was down in Mexico to relax, and there was nothing more pressing on my schedule than “Lay at the pool,” but I still get impatient when the minutes tick by and my first jolt of caffeine is on hold waiting for the tea kettle to whistle. Give me a gas stove any day…or at least a good electric kettle. Note to self–pack electric kettle next year.
• We are not automatic pushovers! On our first visit to the resort five years ago we were enticed by the “special promotions” to attend a timeshare sales pitch lunch. Despite plenty of expenses already on our plate–inconsequential things such as building the new house and planning and paying for our daughter’s wedding–we succumbed to temptations and with visions of 6 bedroom deluxe vacation villas dancing in our heads, signed a contract that in reality gave us just an annual week of a one-bedroom suite.

This year resort management invited us to an “owners’ luncheon” with promises of no hard sell and a chance to hear all the latest and greatest about the resort company. Since we had heard through the grapevine the company was planning on building in a few locales we are interested in visiting, and since there was an offer of $100 in resort credit on the table, we gambled that we could be strong and resist any new sales pitch that came along. Sure enough, our Chicken Caesar Salads and Tequila Sunrises (I know it was lunch, but we were on vacation so a bit of day-drinking was necessary) came with a one time offer to toss another $10,000 into our Mexican investment so that we could get better use out of our otherwise worthless Platinum Points. I am pleased to say, we resisted the salesman’s pitch. Though to paraphrase Mario Puzo from the novel “The Godfather,” I have to admit, he didn’t try very hard.

• A steady stream of over-chlorinated pool water can bring with it a moderate level of eye discomfort and redness. A single drop of sweat tinged with sunblock can produce excruciating pain and near-instant –but fortunately temporary– blindness. That’s what I get for heeding the words of my dermatologist (and Barb about dedicated use of sunblock.
• “Farm-to-Table Restaurant” in Mexico means the same thing as “Farm-to-Table Restaurant” in the USA. Expensive.
• When finished snorkeling, it is best to return to the boat that brought you, not waste all your energy going to the wrong excursion. You don’t want to have to tip the crew of two boats.
• I could save a ton of money on taxi rides if I would rent a car. However, I am still to chicken to drive in Mexico. Maybe if I took the trouble to learn Spanish…
• The next peso I spend in Cabo will be the first peso I spend in Cabo. Dollars, dollars, dollars.
• Chicago weather hype reaches for thousands of miles. We were bombarded for days with news about the monster storm headed to O’Hare. American Airlines warned us we should change our flight. They sure psyched me out. Barb remained level headed and resisted my pleas for us to come home two days early to avoid the 6-12 inches of imaginary snow that never fell. If a meteorologist replaced me in the lab, they would call every biopsy “possibly malignant,” just in case!
• OK, I give in. A Kindle is easier to transport than 3 library books. Even if my carry-on now contains fourteen charges and three adapters.
• No matter how many discounts the management wants to give us, we will never pay for the all-inclusive meals/drinks package. But’s it’s not hard to tell which patrons do–and you don’t have to look for their wrist bracelets to know who they are. Their girth usually gives them away.

All in all, a good trip. The only Corona we saw was the beer. The trip we were planning on taking to China in May? Canceled because of that other newsworthy Corona. You can’t win ’em all.

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It’s probably a stretch to call the intensely weird home in Burr Ridge, known alternately as Villa Taj and Palace Royale, a $25 MM mansion but that’s what it was initially listed for. And after 11 years – yes, that’s almost how long it’s been on and off the market – it is now available to you for the extremely affordable price of only $5 MM. They just dropped the price again on Thursday.

To be fair, the home at 6501 S County Line Rd has actually sold a couple of times during the last 11 years to delusional developers/ investors who I can only assume lost their asses, as I am sure the original owner did also. If you want to know the incredibly bizarre history on this thing – it’s way more than just a story of a house that won’t sell – it’s worth reading my last blog post on the subject. I summarized the history of Villa Taj pretty well in that post so there’s no point in repeating myself here. That post also contains several links to older blog posts I’ve done about this home over the years that go into the individual stories that were unfolding at the time. I love writing about high profile pain and this is about as painful as it gets.

#RealEstate #ExpensiveHomes #BurrRidge #BurrRidgeRealEstate

Gary Lucido is the President of Lucid Realty, the Chicago area’s full service real estate brokerage that offers home buyer rebates and discount commissions. If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market or get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email using the form below. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice.

Every three to four years, I flip the shelves in my beer cellar, dispensing the weight of the bottles. I’m afraid of the shelves busting, sending the bottles tumbling everywhere. The shelves start to bow, and then I start to worry. So, I flip the shelves, realign the bottles, and weed out, while tasting and taking notes, the filler from the proverbial garden of hops and malt. I take stock of the sugarwater if you will.

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This is not an easy process by any means. I have to remove by hand, every single bottle of beer, take out three shelves, turn them over and place each one back on the shelves. Removing the beer takes forever, flipping the shelves takes less than a few minutes. During the process, there are always beers that are not worth the wait/weight anymore.  Meaning, they are not worth weighing down the shelves, and therefore they are no longer worth waiting to drink. Like, past their prime.

This time I around I was really a bit harder on myself. “I can’t continue to keep some of these beers, they are only getting worse,” I told myself. I have a Trader Joe’s vertical that needs to go, STAT! Also, my Big Hugs vert is losing steam as we speak. Plus there are several other single bottles that we have to drink, “It’s now or never.”

So last week I opened three twelve-ounce bottles from the beer cellar that were all drain pours. I’m expecting a few more of these. But, and here’s the thing, there might be something really fantastic, that stands the test of time, and turns out to taste stellar. Like this New Glarus “Old English Porter” I drank last week during the cleaning session.

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Marking his 25th anniversary as Artistic Director, Charles Newell, and Oriental Institue (IO) brings an astonishing site-specific platform that will thrill the historian in us all. An Iliad is an adaptation by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare, based on The Iliad, translated by Robert Fagles.

This reenactment of Homer’s Trojan War crafted around stories of Achilles and Hector is a gripping monologue vividly told through a combination of unusual artifacts and amazing acting that poetically captures the violence of humanity.

The journey starts as the audience is ushered into a dark room where you hear the groaning of a man filled with anguish. He laments about a time when men and the gods of men delighted themselves in the battles of war. We travel back to a time when men dare to fight against the benevolence and favor of the gods. Hector, champion of the Trojans and the son of Priam, was under siege from Achilles, the Greek’s best warrior and most heroic, who is enraged after Agamemnon has stolen his war prize, Briseis.

The enraptured night circled us around two massive edifices etched with human-headed winged bull guards as we entered a simulated Sargon’s throneroom. Khorsabad Lamassu, the deity of protection, is centered stage, with a bull’s body, eagle wings, and a human head. Here we meet a man named “The Poet” who begins to share the story of legendary author Homer’s The Iliad, an epic tale of the ten-year siege of the city of Troy.OI’s goal to engage the audience to experience the many monuments and curated displays within the gallery while forwarding the play’s storytelling was an exceptional idea.

As The Poet, tantalizes your ears with the stories of war, the audience is whisked into another portion of the museum, to gaze upon artifacts of the Assyrian Emperor, the Amuq Sequence, hieroglyphics, and mummified tombs. Then as you stroll and stare in amazement at the many stunning exhibits, you proceed into another room where a massive Trojan horse head brings you into the storytelling climax of an epic night of history.

Timothy Edward Kane, as The Poet, is mind-boggling in his storytelling of this mythological narrative of An Iliad’s battle of Achilles and Hector. Kane is one of Chicago’s best actors, and his breathtaking performance as The Poet proves why he is consistently one of our favorite actors. Kane brilliantly brings you into this adaption by Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare, by illuminating the lives of these characters. Kane contorts his mind, body, and soul into each character and is so mesmerizing that you feel like somehow he was actually there as he shares this story of life and death. It’s like stepping back into time as you walk the halls of history, seeing the historical antiquities.

One sequence of dialogues that will strike you to the chord is when Kane, The Poet, recites with vigor all of the wars throughout human history.

As you walk through the walls of OI, flashes of history breathe through your body as you witness a time when the ashes of humanity once lived. You see relics from 10,000 BC (Neolithic Period) to 2400 AD (Islamic Period). OI even has a fragment papyrus of the Book II of Homer’s Iliad. You gasp at a body, tombed with canopic jars that were used during the mummification process to store and preserve the viscera of their owner for the afterlife. There were typically four canopic jars in a tomb, for the safekeeping of particular human organs: the stomach, intestines, lungs, and liver. OI also has a mummified tomb breached to where you could see into the coffin.Oriental Institute, who mentions its apprehension of performing a site-specific of An Iliad, made a gutsy decision, and it paid off. This adventure illustrates that rich cultural history and the complexity of adding a theatrical masterpiece together can be accomplished. Oriental Institute, Court Theatre, and Charles Newell made this performance of An Iliad hard to top.

Congratulations to Artistic Director Charles Newell, on the 25th anniversary of bringing amazing performances to Court Theatre and Oriental Institute for a superb collaboration of theater and history in a site-specific platform that is sure to bring chills to the historian that resides on all humanity. Thank you for an epoch night of historical theater.

Let’s Play Highly Recommends this limited run of An Iliad. Hopefully, this will change to extended.

Court Theatre and the Oriental Institute Presents
An Iliad
By Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare
Based on Homer’s The Iliad, Translated by Robert Fagles
Directed by Charles Newell
February 26, 2020 – March 29, 2020

There is a lot to do when preparing for a move. One of the most important aspects is to prepare for the packers. When they enter your home, it will be a whirlwind of activity. Those guys really move. They divide and conquer and before you know it, your place is all packed up.

Here are so tips to help you get ready for your “pack”.

* Make sure you separate what you want to hand carry or take with you. I tell people to pack these items themselves. Also make sure they are labeled and put in one corner. If I am helping a client, we put post it notes on them. We make sure the packers know not to touch them.

* Make sure your dishwasher and sink are empty of dirty dishes. Yes, I have unpacked dirty dishes in my time.

* Clear out your pantry of expired or perishable food items. I will never forget the day that I unpacked rotten bananas. They had been packed for a few months. Not good.

* Make sure you put tape around your shampoo or lotion bottles so they don’t leak. Clean out your bathroom and get rid of the old toiletries.

* The crew will pack how they find things. Make sure you clean up your space and put like with like.

The more organized your packing is, the easier it will be to unpack your home!!

By Nicole Corbitt Harding, Official Six Brown Chicks Correspondent 

Looking for love? So often it’s not where you look but what you are looking for in a mate that matters most.

I think back to the time when we used to find a boy we liked and we would say, “we are going together.” So many of us hadn’t been around the corner together and yet you couldn’t tell us it wasn’t true love.

Got older and it’s all…Netflix and chill. Problem is, many haven’t even stepped foot into an actual movie theater with these so-called potentials.

And of course, when it comes to dinner dates,  we all know what sides of the menu certain food items are on…. Watch yourself!

While everyone is figuring out where to go to find a potential mate and how to impress him/her, the real questions lie in being clear about what you want and need.

Some of you are looking for Mr. Right and settling for Mr. Right now.  Others demand whole entire packages when their own pieces aren’t put quite together.

Here’s what I know for sure…. You can be in the most crowded space with someone and still feel lonely.

You can be at the Baddest B* in the spot and, if you’re with the wrong person, still feel insecure. The date can be over the top and the chemistry can never make it out of the bottom.

Photo: Andre Hunter/Unsplash

And yet, the right person can make you feel like the sun in a sky full of stars. Window shopping and dreaming about what you may have in the future with your mate can be almost as fun as actually achieving it. And with the right mate, cuddled up under the covers will beat the best beaches and the bluest water!

While you are searching for tall, dark, successful, gotta have this and be able to do that man, let me add these 6 things to your list:

·         He has the ability to be the star and the understudy in this thing called life

·         He can manage his ego and his temper.

·         He is well-versed in the love languages and can speak to yours

·         He is an authority but doesn’t dictate

·         He can be your teacher and your student

·         His presentation is great, but his presence in your life is far greater

And when it comes to dating we all know that a watched pot never boils. But when you finally get in the kitchen make sure all of the necessary ingredients are present!

And after 28 years being married, I can’t wait to see what he has cooked up for me next!

Nicole Corbitt Harding is an expert in leadership development, a wife and mother, who is focused on spreading positivity one conversation, one home project and one dynamite deal at a time. Follow her on Twitter at @RealTalkNic.

What are you doing to prevent getting the Coronavirus (also known as COVID-19)?

One of the practices of staying healthy is washing your hands.  The consensus is that you sing Happy Birthday twice as you do this for the maximum affect of killing germs.

While scrolling through Facebook the other day, I saw the suggestion on several sites that recommended praying the Hail Mary three times while washing your hands for those who are ill with the virus.

I thought it was a lovely idea and since I “Hail Mary” my way through everything, this was perfect.

Stay healthy and pray for others!

Please join me and other Catholics (and some not-so-Catholics!) on my Facebook page, Twitter and Instagram.

I also write for Catholic365.com on occasion, and CatholicMom.com every 4th Thursday of the month so take a moment and check them out.

Type your email address in the box and click the “create subscription” button. My list is completely spam free, and you can opt out at any time, but I hope you’ll stick with me!

Over the past 40 years hearing aids have changed dramatically. Hearing aids used to be big, bulky and loud. Now hearing aids can be sleek, colorful or even invisible if desired. Hearing aids actually sound great and some offer health benefits. The way in which Audiologists fit hearing aids has also changed. Back in the 70’s, all that we needed was a screwdriver to make changes in sound quality. Now we take measurements in the ear canal to individualize performance.

Previously, we would write wearing schedules to include the number of hours devices should be worn each day. We’d instruct patients to wait at least a week before wearing their hearing aids in a noisy environment. I remember telling patients to get one foot out the door before flushing the toilet. Most left the office with only one device. Wearing two hearing aids was rarely accepted as few could tolerate the sound of their own voice or eat crunchy foods at mealtime. Loud sounds were always too loud. On rare occasions patients would return for a follow-up visit to say that they put the hearing aids in and just wore them.

Wearing hearing aids from the moment they are fit is now possible. Equipment has become more sophisticated. We can even take a 3D scan of your ear to better understand individual physical differences. Hearing soft speech, comfort and making sure that nothing gets uncomfortably loud is the goal.

What you can expect with new hearing aids is awareness that there is something in your ear. That feeling should lessen and eventually absolve itself. We realize that some of us are more sensitive than others and for some it takes a bit longer to get used to that feeling. Eventually you won’t realize that you are wearing your hearing aids which is great unless you decide to take a shower and forget to remove them. Even with that scenario, most new products are highly water resistant. Soon it will be like wearing a piece of jewelry. Like a ring on your finger, you probably won’t feel the hearing aids unless you think about them.

Traditional hearing aids, the kind that get removed and inserted, have a learning curve. You must remember to always wear them and learn the best way to put them on. The hearing aids will need to be turned off and stored in the same safe place when you are not wearing them.

You will hear sounds that you forgot existed. Patients remark that hearing the refrigerator running or turning the pages of the newspaper is disturbing. You are actually retraining and stimulating parts of your brain that have been untouched for a long while. Some sounds that appear in the forefront will eventually retreat to the background and you will stop paying attention to them. You might also be surprised at how much quieter or different it sounds when you remove your hearing aids.

If you find yourself taking your hearing aids off during the day because of the way they feel or the way you are hearing, don’t wait until your next appointment. We encourage you to pickup the phone and schedule time to resolve any issues that you are experiencing. We’re here, right along with you every step of the way.