Annie is a wonderfully friendly and sweet, two-year-old, female orange tabby cat looking for a loving guardian together.
This petite 7.91-pound girl is a rare female orange tabby. Not terribly rare, but only 20 percent of orange tabbies are female!
Annie was found stray in Lawrenceville, Illinois. She was ear-tipped and not micro-chipped but obviously not a feral cat. As soon as you pet her, she begins to purr.
Annie is living in a foster home where she’s doing well with other cats and a small dog. She is more interested in getting her tummy rubbed than interacting with the other animals.
She loves sitting in your lap and lets you easily pick her up. She has perfect litter box skills, uses a scratching post and is gentle with her nails.
She is extremely healthy, spayed, vaccinated for rabies and distemper, and treated with Revolution for fleas and worms. She even had full bloodwork, checking for viruses, organ function and thyroid.
Annie’s adoption fee of $150 benefits the rescued pets of Friends of Petraits Rescue.
If you’re interested in meeting and possibly adopting Annie, please contact [email protected] for an adoption application.
She is currently being fostered in Chicago’s Gold Coast.
There’s a little bar in Rosario, Argentina right by the Paraná River. The Paraná River starts in Brazil, carves south through Paraguay, then makes its way east through Argentina emptying into the Rio de la Plata. It’s the second-largest river in South America, trailing only the Amazon.
I’ve never been to Rosario. Never been to the bar by the river. But, for the sake of this post, let’s pretend I’m there. And I’m having a beer with the great philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard. In normal times, that’s a big jump of fiction to make for a blog. But, during Covid-19, I feel like we’re all ready for a break from reality. This is my Argentinian version of Midnight in Paris.
I’ve got two notebooks in front of me at the bar. One with notes about the Argentina national basketball team. The other with notes from my interview with Paulo Villabona, Director of Bar Operations at Folklore in Chicago. I’ve got a photo of my dad from 15-years-ago in Buenos Aires. He’s randomly shaking hands with the President of Argentina. Three secret service members behind him don’t look happy about it.
“What do ya got here?” Søren Kierkegaard said. He took a seat in the chair next to me. Made a subtle nod at the bartender. Picked up the photo of my dad.
“It’s a mess,” I said. “I wanted to write this thing seven months ago, I finally post Part 1, and then I missed last week. I’m supposed to post Part 2 in less than an hour. And I’ve got nothing. Just a pile of notes. I’ll probably just skip again. Better luck next week.”
“Bet your editor’s not happy about that.”
“See, I don’t even have an editor. There’s literally no pressure at all to get this thing done. If I have nothing tomorrow, not a problem. It doesn’t matter.”
“Well, it matters to you.”
The bartender put a drink in front of Søren Kierkegaard, put a new beer in front of me. I put down an Argentine peso, slid it forward.
“What’s the story about?” Kierkegaard asked.
“That’s the problem,” I said. “I had this big grand vision at the beginning. It’d be about Argentina basketball and food and the country as a whole. But it’d also be about Chicago. And the family that started the restaurant Tango Sur. And I’d somehow blend it all together. But the more I’m working on it, I don’t know. I keep running out of time. Monday morning comes and I’ve got nothing.”
“You’re in the middle of stay-at-home orders. You’ve got nothing but time.”
“Well, that’s the thing. I’m only good at writing in the mornings. But I can’t get up early right now. My body protests. ‘Why experience extra hours of the Coronavirus chapter? Let’s just hibernate til September.’ When Saturday and Sunday come, I want a break. I don’t want to work on anything extra, even if it’s something I love to do. I feel like life right now is the Monopoly board, Monday-Friday is loaded with hotels, but roll a Saturday or Sunday and it’s still the ‘Go to jail’ space. I haven’t passed go in six weeks.”
“Ah, sounds like you’re having a bit of an existential crisis.”
“I think the whole country’s in one. There’s nothing to do and yet I feel like there’s still a lot to get done. There aren’t enough hours in the day even though the days go on forever.”
“Why can’t you just sit down for 2-3 hours and get this article done?”
“Because any time I spend on this article is time I’m not spending with Ashley. Or catching up with family and friends over Zoom. Or getting some extra work done. Or working on Long Overdue. And then there’s the next book, that keeps getting pushed off.”
“Okay. So then why not decide once and for all you’re not going to write the Argentina article?”
“Well, I can’t do that either. It’s a great story. Just the story of Tango Sur. The Di Sapio family. Their story needs to be told.”
Kierkegaard gave a faint smile.
“I used to say it is perhaps the misfortune of my life that I am interested in far too much but not decisively in any one thing; all my interests are not subordinated in one but stand on an equal footing.”
I nodded my head, pretending I understood and took a sip of beer.
“You have two choices,” Kierkegaard continued. “You write these posts or you don’t. And either choice is fine, but the struggle is in not making a choice. Being stuck in writer idea land. ‘Well, it could be about this, could be about that.’ Sure, it could be about anything. And that’s what holds you up, you’re lost in all the possibilities. Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom. You will actually feel better making a choice because you’re moving forward. Or you can make the choice not to write the article and make that final. Either way is fine.”
“But it’s like, I’ll enjoy doing this post, I’ll enjoy publishing it, I’ll be happy to have the story out there, but then it’s just onto the next story. And I’m not complaining, I just don’t know what I’m working towards. Can a writer ever retire? And not just writing, any type of work. I’ll strive for a goal, some type of milestone, whatever, and when I hit it, it’s just onto the next goal. High school to college. College to job. Job to a higher paying job. Try to climb higher, save more money. And I’m not saying, ‘What’s the point of doing anything,’ I just wonder, does the finish line always keep moving further down the road?”
Kierkegaard held his beer up to the light.
“You know, if anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin.”
I nodded my head again, this time understanding a little bit more.
“To venture causes anxiety, but NOT to venture is to lose one’s self,” Kierkegaard said. He stood up from the seat. “And to venture in the highest is precisely to be conscious of one’s self. So you’ve bought yourself an extra seven days, but really all you need is a couple of hours. Write the article. Publish it. Then meet me back here next Monday night and we’ll talk about it.”
Kierkegaard patted me on the shoulder, left the bar. I closed my eyes and felt Rosario, Argentina fading away. The bar disappeared. I opened my eyes back in Illinois, sitting in the writer’s chair, looking at my laptop screen.
Time to get started.
Despite the name, Medium Rare isn’t normally a food blog. But for the next several weeks, I’ll be featuring great local restaurants around the Lakeview neighborhood in hopes that readers support them with pickup & delivery orders now and go in-person later this year. Other posts include:
To subscribe to Medium Rare via email, just enter your email address in the box below. And to subscribe to the Long Overdue monthly newsletter, click here. See you next week!
I was born and raised in Midland, Michigan and moved here to Chicago a couple years ago after graduating from Hope College. I live in the city with my beautiful wife Ashley.
A little bit about me – I go to bed early, I enjoy greasy food and would wear sweatpants everyday if I were allowed to. I just signed up for a year-long Divvy membership, but could very well be the slowest bicyclist in Chicago.
I write the Medium Rare blog and will have a new post up every Monday.
What have we adults done to deserve them? The children. The pure, enigmatic, creative, spiritual, insightful, always hungry, and sometimes stinky little beings. The tiny humans that will grow to, hopefully, be better humans than we are. Better adults than we are. If we only gauge our behavior in accordance with how we are reflected back to ourselves through their eyes, they can teach us so much. We need to listen more to these tiny humans, or even listen more to our own childhood selves.
But who can remember anything about what it felt like to be a child? What it felt like to be loved unconditionally by your parents. What it felt like to be protected from the scariness that is the world out there. I wonder, now that I am the unconditional lover, the protector, am I doing a good job? Hopefully. And as I watch my own career prospects dwindle in front of my eyes because of it, I wonder, am I doing too much? Is that a thing? Could I have reigned in my love, my desire to protect my children enough to allow myself space in the world?
I reassure myself, as I watch my student debt burden paradoxically grow every time I make a payment, that I’ve done what needed to be done. I did what I had to do for the love and safety of my children. And I expect nothing in return. That’s not exactly true. I do expect respect. I do expect a modicum of love in return. I do expect to see what I’ve put in come out in their interactions with the world.
When my twins were tiny, tiny babies they weren’t supposed to be here. They came into the world 8 weeks early. We had to wait forever for them to hit each of their milestones. The milestone that seemed like they made us wait forever for, however, was the first smile. I can’t remember when you’re supposed to get your first smile from baby (don’t tell my inner judgmental self that I should have all of this on the tip of my tongue from med school), but I remember we had to wait a really freakin’ long time. Months. For months, we fed, diapered, woke up in the middle of the night, endured crying spells that persisted despite everything we did to quell them. That’s all the little beings did: eat, poop, sleep, cry, and demand. And dutiful parents, we jumped to answer every demand.
Then one day, it was like they realized that we, their dutiful parents, were entities that existed outside of themselves. Perhaps they considered that it would possibly be a good thing to acknowledge those entities that had kept them alive thus far. The twins took measure of their parents hearts and souls and decided (after some discussion with each other, I’m sure) that the action of recognition that would bring the most bang for their baby bucks would be the elusive smile.
Photo by Bernard Hermant on Unsplash
So that’s what they gave us. A smile. And that smile melted their parents hearts, melted their parents souls even more than they had already melted. I exist, said the mom. I matter, said the dad. And that’s all I ever expected in return. Even today, 10 years on, when said twins are testing their boundaries, becoming their own people, to get that elusive smile in response to something I said or did brings it all back. There’s a reason I’m doing this. There’s a reason I’m doing every single damn thing I do. And that reason is the smile that just appeared, now disappeared. You’d do everything you can to make that smile appear again.
Then the world outside comes crashing down. The world around those precious smilers comes tumbling down all at once (for them, anyway, you knew the guise of a stable society was just that and was destined to come crashing down). You wonder, what did we do to deserve this. We were here, eking out smiles. We were here, fighting for what was right the whole time, just so we could continue to see those smiles. And not only so we could see and protect our precious smiles, but so others could enjoy their own precious smiles as well.
It dawns on you then, that there are people in the world who aren’t doing every damn thing they do to get a smile from a beloved child. There are people out there who could care less if your child smiles or cries. Or lives or dies, for that matter. People that would (and do) profit off the deaths of other people’s precious smilers. And your heart begins to race, not only because you’re angry, but also because you’re scared. You’re scared that you haven’t done enough (but what else could you have done?). You’re scared because for the first time in your 40 years on the planet, for the first time you really realize that the villains in every superhero movie or science fiction book you ever read are real people, not just characters on a page that someone made up to illustrate the possible depravity of mankind if left to its own devices.
But what made you, you? What made you a person who would never find anything good in creating an anti-smile in a child. You were left to your own devices, weren’t you? You grew up, you learned lessons, you got bullied, maybe did some bullying yourself just to feel what it felt like (not good). What is it that prevented you from fully exploring your villainous ways?
Anyway, back to the children. They won’t be children forever. And I have hope for their future. They’ll make it something better. What else can they make of all the shit the adults have put them through in their fragile little lives? School shootings, manifesting in active shooter or intruder drills, coronavirus, Trump being an absolute warthog of a human (I’m sorry for insulting all the warthogs out there). Their parents struggling with debt, questioning their own self-worth, oscillating between drinking coffee and drinking wine just to keep up and slow down, to turn off the thoughts that consume you at the end of the day because society is fucking falling right goddamn apart in front of your very own eyes!
Keep it together, mom. You have to. For the children.
As I look out on the sea of toy Civil War soldiers my son has set up on the kitchen island, recreating some battle or another (and yes, he’s very specific in his kitchen table battle re-enactments), I wonder what really does go on inside his head. Two groups of soldiers: Confederates and Union soldiers pointing their archaic weapons at each other. Does he make them talk? What do they say? Does he know how relevant this battle is still to this day? He must. He sees it play out when he sits with his parents watching the nightly news. Confederate flags flying in northern states protesting abortion, gun control, and most recently protesting lockdown orders to protect the people living in this world from getting a deadly virus. What is it that these people today have in common with those people back then? A way of life? Perhaps. An economy dependent on slave labor? Not likely, as it seems these are the very people who are most being exploited by low-wage (or no) jobs, lack of healthcare, and lack of quality education. Have those people, then and now, been duped by those in power into thinking this is about them? Unequivocally, yes.
I’ve made it a point, when speaking about the Civil War with my son, to always make clear that the frontlines of Confederate soldiers were not the owners of the plantations, were not the owners of the slaves. The frontline Confederate soldiers were the poorest of them. Looking for a hot meal, perhaps a wage, a place to take out their anger at being left behind. Some of those wealthier Confederates that had been conscripted even outright paid other, poorer men to take their place for them in the fight. It’s the same today.
But I digress.
My daughter often catches me staring at her. She says it’s creepy. Half the time I don’t realize I’m doing it. (And half the time I’m doing it on purpose to annoy her.) The reason, in my heart of hearts, that I get lost in looking at her is that I find her (and her brother) to be the most beautiful creatures on earth. My eyes delight upon the sight of her face, the sight of the beautiful, strong young lady she has become and I see her future there. Well, I don’t exactly see her future. I wish for her future. I wish her a future of what the millions of young people who have had to endure what the adults in power have put them through and have put their parents through can dream up. I know they’re dreaming of something better I just know it. And it’s a future none of us can even begin to imagine.
But sometimes my mind turns dark, dystopian. And I think of all the possible ways I can prepare her for a future that’s even more bleak than the present. This scares me. Because I know I will not be able to adequately prepare her. But I know what can. Books.
Books are most likely the reason why the majority of us aren’t freaking out right now. Why most of us aren’t taking to the streets with our Confederate flags, protesting lockdown orders designed to protect us. (Seriously, how would these lockdown protesters have responded to air raid sirens in World War II Britain? “I will not let the government control me. I will not black out my windows. I will not take shelter. I will stand outside with a red target painted on the top of my head.” Ugh. I can’t even.) Honestly, it would really be one thing if the only people the lockdown protesters were endangering were themselves, but unfortunately, they’re putting innocent, vulnerable people at risk in the process.
But where was I?
Oh yes. Books. Books have prepared us for this moment. We’ve read and read so much about so many worlds and so many problems and met so many people, none of which have ever existed outside of an author’s, and our collective, mind. Books are the rehearsal for real life. And not only books. TV shows, movies, video games, stories of all kinds. These are the things we consume that prepare us to face the unexpected. Allow our minds to live through situations and circumstances. Allow us to make up and act out our own stories. Allow us to gauge our behavior before we even have to think about taking any real action at all. Our very childhoods have prepared us for this moment.
So then I’m left to wonder, what happened in the childhoods of those who seek the anti-smile from our beautiful children? Were they not allowed to let their minds wander free through the stories of others. Were they not allowed to make up and journey through their own imagined realities? Were they not allowed to see the infinite permutations their actions could result in? Were they not allowed to envision how things could be beautiful, not only for them, but for everyone? Were they not privileged enough to see what happened when they gave their parents that first smile? Or did they not get the reaction they were looking for? Did that smile not bring appreciation of the beautiful, tiny, helpless beings they were? What a horrifying existence that must have been as a baby, as a child, and must still be as an adult.
I’ve rambled on quite a bit here, but I’m not quite done yet. Near the beginning of the lockdown, during the first week or two, my twins were in the front yard kicking the soccer ball back and forth. The ball rolled out into the street straight into the path of an oncoming delivery truck. My kids are both aware enough to know you don’t go running out into the street after a ball, so they stood at the curb as they watched what they thought may be a tragedy for their soccer ball. But no tragedy ensued. The delivery guy stopped his truck, unbuckled his seatbelt, got out of the truck, and kicked the ball back to the kids. In that moment two things happened. First, my kids were blown away by this tiny act of kindness. “Thank you,” they yelled, smiles taking over their faces. “He’s so nice,” I heard my daughter reflect aloud through the closed windows. At that moment, both the kids internalized the delivery man’s kindness. Whether they remember the moment or not, they’ll remember how it made them feel and they will likely go out of their way as adults to bring a smile to the face of child.
The second thing that happened was that the delivery driver was taken back to his own childhood. Did someone perform a simple act of kindness that impacted him and made him smile when he was 10? Did someone do they opposite and, after internalizing how that made him feel, did he vow to go out of his way never to make a child feel the way he felt? We’ll never know the answer to that.
But I think we’ve discovered the answer to how we can all make society a better place. With every action we take, we can think whether or not that action would make it more likely that a child somewhere in the world would be able to share their beautiful smile with those they love. Idealistic, I know. But actions create re-actions that are amplified throughout the world.
So what can we do to make the world a better place? We can offer our stories, offer our children opportunities to rehearse for the future, allow them opportunities to smile. We can do this by making sure they have quality education, healthcare, good nutrition, ample housing, and love. We must keep fighting the good fight. Be well.
The transition from cubicle to a corner of your home hasn’t been easy for many of us. Working from home has really been a huge adjustment. What to buy? Where to set up? During a pandemic??? All of this can be a bit overwhelming. Luckily, the “work from home” territory is not new to my world. As a freelancer, you become accustomed to self-motivation, isolation, and what you need to make your home office work efficiently. So it’s a pleasure to share a few products, with CBS 2 Chicago viewers, that makes things a little bit easier.
The Lenovo Thinksmart View makes collaboration simple, improves video conferencing, and can be used without disrupting work. It has a built-in speaker, camera and microphone, and video works with Microsoft Teams. It will be available to purchase at the end of April.
TapeACall records phone calls with the push of a button and works for incoming or outgoing calls. It transcribes calls to Word or PDF documents and sends an email of the transcript. There is unlimited cloud storage, making it great for meetings or interviews.
The Tripp Lite USB-C Adapter turns your television into a second screen. It plugs into your laptop or tablet’s USB-C port and works with an HDMI cable.
The Everlet Charge is invented by a Chicagoan and father of five. It prevents kids from stealing chargers by locking your charger down in the one place you want it. It comes with a lightning-fast charging cube and charges all devices.
Relay: $49.99 for the device and $9 a month for a plan
Relay works like a walkie talkie so you can remain in constant contact with the kids while working. Because it is cellular-based, there are no more out of range issues. It has GPS tracking built-in so you can check on kids’ whereabouts. It’s screen-free and safe for kids. Relay can be purchased at Target or Amazon.
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These limericks are all pure. It is the topic that is unfortunately obscene!
Dr. Fauci and Pritzker suggesting
That my lab should be doing some testing
But we can’t get machines
By any old means
I’m just worn out from all my requesting!
The virtual meetings are endless
While on transportation we spend less
Please use Facetime or Zoom
To dispel all your gloom
Or else you might end up as friendless.
It’s legal now to smoke chronic
The best stuff is grown hydroponic
But since COVID requires
I control my desires
I’ll stick to a cold Gin & Tonic.
Campaigning is tough for Joe Biden
But there’s something he’s got to decide in
He must choose his VP
A she, not a he
The White House someday she’ll preside in.
The downtown streets are all empty
But getting there just doesn’t tempt me
The rats are emerging
In big waves they’re converging
Don’t want them to all rub against me.
The swans on our pond are reposing
How many eggs in their nest not disclosing
They really can’t care less
About our COVID 19 mess
For them, it’s the geese they’re opposing.
We spend lots of time doing puzzles
While coffee and tea we both guzzle
The crosswords are tough
And Sudoku’s enough
To exercise every brain muscle.
If it’s in our house we have cleaned it
We have dusted and polished and sheened it
But to our great dismay
From March up till May
There is no one around who has seen it.
If you’re on the front lines we extoll you
Don’t want anything bad to control you
In your jobs please be safe
Though those face masks do chafe
You don’t need a virus to mole through.
Or if you prefer haiku. And as always, be safe out there!
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Hi! I am Les, a practicing pathologist living in the North Suburbs and commuting every day to the Western ones. I have lived my entire life in the Chicago area, and have a pretty good feel for the place, its attractions, culture, restaurants and teams. My wife and I are empty-nesters with two adult children and a grandchild. We recently decided to downsize, but just a bit! I will be telling the story of the construction of our new home, but also writing about whatever gets me going on a particular day. Be sure to check out the “About” page to learn more about where we plan to go with this blog!
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he can envision baseball games being played without fans this summer at Yankee Stadium and the Mets’ Citi Field.
“Be creative. Try to figure it out,” the Democrat said during his briefing Sunday. “But if players could get paid more than staying home and owners would get some revenue versus total shutdown, why not? I’d love to watch.”
Cuomo says he has spoken with owners of professional sports teams, but he did not identify which ones. They would have to make the economics work without gate revenue but with broadcast revenue.
“It would have to be up to them, that they do an economic analysis that says, yeah, some revenue is better than no revenue, and my players are willing to negotiate a contract reduction,” Cuomo said. “Everybody has to think outside the box, right? Because there is no box.”
ChicagoBears (Photo by Kena Krutsinger/Getty Images)
Now that the 2020 NFL Draft is over, how can Chicago Bears general manager fill in the gaps via free agency? We have a few ideas.
The weekend is over and the 2020 NFL Draft is in the books. For the Chicago Bears, it was a bit of a mixed bag in terms of results. General manager Ryan Pace was likely to make a move or two within this draft, but hardly anyone thought it would mean trading up — twice.
To start with, the Bears stayed put in the second round. First, they grabbed the top tight end in this year’s class in Cole Kmet, the hometown kid out of Notre Dame. Tight end was a massive need, but not everyone thought they would address it so early.
Next up was the pick many thought Pace would deal. But, instead of trading back, the Bears kept the selection and brought in cornerback Jaylon Johnson out of Utah — whom I believe will end up being the steal of the draft. In Johnson, they have their second starter now and their secondary looks like it’s in pretty good shape.
From there on out, things got a little weird. Pace traded up twice in the fifth round, first going with pass rusher Trevis Gipson out of Tulsa. Edge rusher wasn’t exactly a big need, but adding depth to that spot was something that was within the realm of possibilities.
Pace went on to grab Kindle Vildor, a cornerback out of Georgia Southern, followed by wide receiver Darnell Mooney from Tulane, giving the team a trio of fifth-round picks.
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In the seventh round, Pace grabbed two offensive linemen who look to be shots in the dark. The team did not have a sixth rounder due to the trades in the fifth.
Now, the question is, whom the Bears could look at to fill out the rest of the roster via another wave of free agency. There are still some positions of need, and lucky for the Bears, there are some interesting veterans available. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
We turn our attention to what quarterbacks the Chicago Bears could have their eye on in the 2021 NFL Draft.
The 2020 NFL Draft has concluded for the Chicago Bears and once again, Ryan Pace refused to draft a quarterback — at all. Despite indicating very early on in his tenure that he thought it was a good idea to add one each year, he has done it only once in the last six drafts.
When questioned about it during his post-draft press conference, Pace indicated that to draft a quarterback, things have to “align for us the right way.” Apparently over the last 42 rounds worth of NFL drafts, things have only “aligned” once. Even then, that’s not entirely true as Pace had to “align” things himself by trading up for Mitchell Trubisky in 2017. It’s not as if he left it to the gods of the NFL draft to decide. Be that as it may, the fact remains there is no young, developmental quarterback on the roster once again.
Therefore, Bears fans will have to look towards the future and the 2021 NFL Draft for their next opportunity to select a franchise quarterback.
Of course, Bears fans are probably salivating over the thought of having a shot at a guy like Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence or Ohio State’s Justin Fields, but there is virtually no chance of that happening absent a cataclysmic failure on a number of fronts. The Bears simply have too much talent to be picking near the top of the draft. However, there are still likely to be some quality options for the Bears in the middle of the first round, and so that is where we begin our way too early look at quarterback options in the 2021 NFL Draft.
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