One Step at a Time

After eighteen M, I was almost certain I'd never be back.  I'd rounded the corner, glanced ahead and saw its huge bleak visage staring me down, insolently daring me to say something, to complain about its presence.  I doubt I had the strength to say it aloud, but my internal dialog definitely contained the phrase, "you've gotta be f***in kidding me."  If it was a joke, it was at my expense, but without time to argue I took a shaky breath and pressed on.  Moments after I'd left it in my wake, I reached the nineteen I was looking for, and eventually, the apex.

Let me rewind briefly.  On my infrequent visits to downtown Chicago, I'd grown enamored with the skyscrapers the city held.  There was something starkly beautiful about them, their outstretched yearning toward the sky, the sheer mirrored sides of endless glass.  Everyone knows about the Sears (Willis) Tower, but my favorite was always the John Hancock Building, with its distinctive X's up the sides.  On a memorable sixth grade trip to a Cubs game, we'd stopped at Water Tower Place to learn about the history of Chicago.  After exploring the Pumping Station, we straggled through the mall, eventually coming out onto the next street over.  I glanced up, and there, towering over me, was the Hancock.  I craned my neck as far as it could go, watching the structure seem to curve back toward me, gaping at the unexpectedly overwhelming sight.

I eventually regained my composure, joined my classmates and had a good time at the ballpark.  The Cubs may have even won - I can't recall.  But I remember standing at the foot of the Hancock Center, being an insignificant speck on the sidewalk compared to its height.  Thereafter I moved to Ames, Iowa for school, where the tallest building was probably an apartment complex in Campustown, and eventually on to Des Moines.

In terms of overall height, Des Moines' skyline is pretty insignificant compared to a city like Chicago (192 vs. 442 meter tallest).  But our centerpiece skyscraper was, on its construction, the tallest building between Chicago and Denver, Minneapolis and Tulsa.  And even more importantly, 801 Grand has character.  It wouldn't have taken much to put up a bland rectangle in downtown Des Moines and claim victory with the tallest building in the region.  Not doing so was a great decision by the designers, as it provided me with a downtown that held some skyscraper allure.  From my first trip to Des Moines looking up at its angles, to my poorly-received attempt to sneak my siblings to its top story, I've had a fascination with this building for some time.

That's why, when the opportunity arose to climb it, I signed up immediately.  What was then known as the "801 Grand Power Climb," a fundraising event for the American Lung Association, allowed participants to race up the stairwells from the ground floor all the way to the private club at the top.  41 flights of stairs for an opportunity to view my city from the highest vantage point possible - it seemed like a no-brainer.  And with prior years' top times in the sub-ten minute range, it didn't even seem like much of a challenge.  Which brings me back to eighteen M.

Brimming with nervous excitement, Id launched out of the starting gate, eagerly bounding up stair after stair.  This worked well.  For about 4 floors.  I rapidly discovered the shocking decreases in air quality that occur in confined stairwells, especially with hundreds of runners panting their way up.  My legs started to tire, but they were very secondary to my lungs.  As I slowed from a run to a jog to a quick walk to a trudge, my breath felt like fire entering my chest.  Floor numbers on large signs proudly proclaimed that I was still in the teens, and needed to reach 41 to finish.  16... 17... 18...  And there it was.  18 M.  What kind of cruel joke was it to put an extra floor between 18 and 19?  All love for the beautiful exterior fled my mind as I mentally cursed the demented architect or engineer who drew up this floorplan.  I clambered on, fueled as much by this anger as a driving urge to be done with the agony.

It turned out that 18 M was a mechanical floor for the HVAC systems and whatnot, and that it was in fact included in the tabulation of 41 floors comprising the climb.  I eventually relented in hating the building or its designers and some time later caught my breath and enjoyed the view from the top.  But it was in the realm of hours before my breath felt fully normal again.  It makes for a good event for the American Lung Association. If you can't empathize with people who struggle for breath after running this event, you have either emotions or lungs of steel.

After our first try in 2008, Stacia vowed she would never participate again, and I agreed.  It was hard, it wasn't fun, and it cost a lot in donations.  But time can change a lot of things, and for various reasons I've been gradually reconsidering.  You might call it a short-term memory issue, since I apparently can't remember how much I loathed climbing stairs three years ago.  That may be partially true, but I have other reasons, too, and most of them are better than forgetfulness or plain old machismo.  That's why this Sunday, while you lie snug in your beds, at 9:10 in the morning, I will be taking the first step of many vertical ones for the day.

I won't be climbing 801 Grand though.  Due to construction conflicts this year, the event was moved to a series of three other downtown buildings.  This was good news for me, as I doubt I'm in shape to do 41 floors again.  With three sub-events, participants can climb one, two, or all three.  I'm keeping my sights set realistically, and sticking to the EMC insurance building.

It's smaller than 801 Grand, but it's still 18 stories (and 99 meters) tall.  And you know what, it's got some character too.  When we gave my architecturally inclined brother a tour of Des Moines, this was one he selected as one of his favorites.  Add in that it's for a good cause and is a nice physical activity and it sounds rather pleasant.  Of course, I'm sure my opinion on that will change mid-climb, but at the very least there is one thing I know will go better than last time.  EMC is only 18 stories tall.  It can't have an 18 M.

A Boy and His Dog

I grew up in Elgin, Illinois, about 40 miles and potentially several hours travel away from downtown Chicago.  Of course, when I started college at Iowa State University, none of that mattered.  The people I met at school came from various backgrounds and a wide geographic range.  They were from rural areas, small towns and bigger cities, but very with a handful of exceptions, very few of them came from suburbs of any sort.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I met people who weren't familiar with even the concept of a suburb.  There were some fellow Chicagoland expatriates who heard "Elgin" and gave a nod of name recognition, but by and large I found it easier to simply say that I was from "Chicago."

Note to all real Chicagoans: I realize that this is heresy, and it is insulting to sully the name of your great city with claims to Elgin.  I'm not sure all Elginintes want to claim Elgin, so I feel pretty confident in saying that Chicago certainly doesn't want it.  I'm just saying that in some instances it was easier and not everyone really needed the complete story.

The upside was that people I didn't necessarily want a long conversation with were content with my explanation.  The downside is that they pictured my home being this.

When it was really more like this.  I can see my house from up here!

Again, not really a problem, but their logical assumptions about my Chicago life just didn't jive with the reality I hadn't bothered to explain.  I have never seen Blues Brothers, I've never shopped on Michigan Avenue, I've been to two Cubs games in my life, and I don't especially like Chicago Style Pizza.

For some reason that last one really gets people, which caught me off guard.  How could I not like the food that my city is famous for?!?  Well, to me, it just didn't register that pizza was that famous, since we didn't do the whole Chicago-Style deep dish all that often.  So I started to think about what I did like from Chicago.  Eli's Cheesecake, for sure, but New York apparently claims cheesecake as its thing.  Then it hit me one day as I was grocery shopping.  I hadn't realized how much I'd missed this item, simply because it isn't even available in Iowa.  Without seeing it for the years I'd lived in the state, I'd almost forgotten all about it.  So what is this famous, and Greg-loved Chicago food?  Well, it's this.

A hot dog?  Well, yes and no.  This is no ordinary hot dog.  It's a Chicago Style hot dog, and until recently I thought you couldn't get them in Iowa.  Let me break it down for you.  First, and perhaps most importantly, is the dog itself - all beef, usually Vienna Beef brand (from whom this picture comes).  The flavor is totally different, and the skin has a snap to it that the soggy flavorless Oscar Mayer dogs don't come close to replicating.  You'll also notice the bun has strange little black specks on it.  No need to fear - those are poppy seeds, another key ingredient.  If you walk into a grocery store in Elgin looking for hot dog buns, you will be faced with many different brands of poppyseed buns, but in Iowa, nary a one.  They don't impart a ton of flavor, I'll admit, but it's tradition!

The other thing that might look different about this hot dog is all the stuff on it.  Chicago style dogs are described colloquially as having been "dragged through the garden," with necessary toppings of tomato wedges, pickle relish (optionally neon green), diced onions, mustard and a sprinkle of celery salt.  I've seen dogs with either cucumber or pickle wedges, but you need to have at least one.  The little peppers are called sport peppers, and I wouldn't begrudge you leaving them off.  Some like 'em, some don't; I personally feel they overpower the other flavors so all you feel is heat.  I usually order them, then pull them off and munch on them on the side.  It's a kick, but a fun one.

One last thing - the one item you absolutely do not see on this hot dog.  I hesitate to even speak the k word here, but you shall not defile your Chicago style hot dog with ketchup.  Not that I have a problem with ketchup in general.  It has its place, on things like french fries, and you can even douse your Ball Park hot dog in it if you so choose, but never ever on a Chicago style dog.  Again, this is largely tradition, but try tasting a true Chicago style hot dog and tell me it would be better with ketchup on it.  And then run, because I'm not going to be pleased...

So what's a Chicago(land) boy to do when he has a craving for home?  Well, there are three options.  1) Drive back to Chicago, go to Portillo's or one of the many dog stands I've not tried, and order a hot dog.  Do-able, but a long drive just for a meal.  That said, I can't remember a trip home in recent history in which we've not had hot dogs, either out or at home.  I'll get these when I can, but there are times that it's just not feasible.  Which leaves option two.  2) Go out to eat at a place in town that has Chicago style dogs.  I never knew these existed, and satisfied myself with periodic trips home for hot dogs.  But lo and behold, there exist three locales in Des Moines in which such succulent wonders can be found.  Principal Park, home of the Iowa Cubs serves them.  Nice for a gameday meal, but on its own merits not the best dog in town.  Chicago Dog and Deli is a cute family style restaurant on the North side, which expectedly has Chicago dogs on the menu.  Very nice, but the bun was a bit chewy, more like a hoagie roll than a steamed hot dog bun.  And last but not least, Ted's Coney Island, the victor of the Des Moines dog shootout.  Given the New York-centric name of the joint, I wasn't expecting much, but their dogs are faithful to the Chicago formula.  This was a major happy find for me.

And option three?  3) Make them yourself, which is what we did this past weekend.  You can mail-order Vienna Beef or bring them back from Chicago, but this time we came very close with some natural casing Niman Ranch all-beef hot dogs from Gateway Market.  Major snap on these casings, but also a significant cash outlay for hot dogs.  But hey, they're from humanely and naturally raised cows, so it's all good.  Unfortunately we couldn't find a single poppy seed bun in Des Moines, so we had to make do with regular buns.  Fortunately this wasn't a huge problem, since as I said the poppy seeds don't really add flavor.  It did make our hot dogs just a little less authentic though.

Dragging the dogs through the garden felt a tad bit disingenuous at the end of winter.  Our tomato, cucumber and onion traveled a ways farther than I typically prefer to get here so much out of season, but the flavors were right.  Our relish wasn't neon green, but I'm not one who feels it needs to be.  And we even grabbed some La Preferida sport peppers, though Stacia and I both opted to keep them on the side and leave our delicious hot dog flavors intact.  It wasn't totally authentic, but I bet there are lots of Chicagoans you could serve it to without missing a beat.

The first bite of our homemade, 340-miles-from-Chicago-style hot dogs reminded both of us why we'd gone to the trouble and expense of making such elaborate dogs when you can get plain Farmland ones for 99 cents a pack.  The casings snapped between our teeth, the crisp tomato and cucumber lent a cool fresh flavor, and the relish, onion and mustard melded together with the celery salt to make a dreamy tangy concoction.  We'd planned to each only have one dog and accompany it with sides to make a meal, but within moments we'd finished our first and wanted more.  Our eyes met with the well-known "I'm having another, you do whatever you want" glance, and we rushed to the kitchen to restart the assembly line.

Two dogs, a side of baked beans and a Birch Beer later, we were stuffed and totally satiated.  I've heard all the exhortations about how good Chicago style pizza is, but there's no way I would have traded one for our dinner that night.  I may not be from Chicago, but I know at least one thing I love about it, and I'm glad I can replicate it without a five plus hour drive.  That said, when I travel to Elgin next month or so, you'll know where to find me...

Filmfest 1936-1939 - Perseverance

If there's one thing I'm not great at, it's sticking with something and seeing it through to completion.  In high school I joined the track team only to quit when I decided I didn't like practicing every day.  I've set so many lists and goals for watching movies, reading books, cleaning my house, exercising and more that I can't even list them all.  And I started a resolution project this year that the more I think about it, the dumber and less achievable it sounds.  I'm just not good at it.  Once I get partway through something, I'm much more apt to want to start anew than to finish.  Fortunately, this movie project is the exception to the rule.  It's going really well: I've seen 20 of the 123 films on the list, and more importantly, I'm enjoying the process so I'm likely to want to stick with it.

In terms of other areas, though, I might do well to take a lesson from the protagonists of some of these films.  Lucky Garnett and Snow White each persevered to find love, David Huxley persevered to keep his sanity around Susan Vance, and Scarlett O'Hara and Jefferson Smith just personify perseverance in all things.  If those folks can stick with something, I should be able to, right?  I'll tell you what, next new project I start, I'll finish that one.  ;)

Movies 16-20

1936 - Swing Time (#90) - I contend that life would generally be better if people more often broke into spontaneous song and dance in everyday situations.  I distinctly remember one time that my Mom and I were waiting in line at the DMV, and instead of grousing about the wait she suggested that we should jump onto the counter and sing something starting with "I'm tired of waiting!  I'm tired of waiting!"  Unfortunately we didn't have the rest of the song written yet and I'm sure I would have been too shy to do any actual dancing.  I guess until we all come up with some good choreography and lyrics for common scenarios, I'll just have to stick with song-and-dance musicals to get my fix.  Emotions of all sorts are heightened by song, and who doesn't love a good dance?  With all that said, a simple romantic comedy starring Fred & Ginger with sweet songs and impressive choreography should have been a great film, right?  I did enjoy aspects of it: the chemistry between the leads and the comedic value of the supporting characters were right up there with songs like "A Fine Romance" and "The Way You Look Tonight."  But if there's one thing I hate, it's an overly contrived ending, and this movie had one of the worst conveniently-happy wrap-ups I've ever seen in film.  I really liked the way things were going, but they went and rushed through a lame ending, which left me feeling rather disappointed.  I'd like to rate it higher, but the last thing you see is what sticks with you after the movie.

Three pairs of tap shoes out of five

1937 - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (#34) - In our house growing up, there were two sets of VHS drawers, the "kids movies" and the others.  With eight years between my sister and me, there was a long period of time where the only options available to us when we were home alone came from the kids' drawer.  Which was fine because most of those films were great, especially the Disney options.  I can't tell you how many times I've seen The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Anastasia or Mulan.  However, one movie we didn't seem to watch too often was Snow White (I don't even know if we owned it or not, but either way we seldom watched it).  I had seen it, I knew the story and the characters, but watching it again as an adult was a strange experience.  Let's just say that this movie, though historic as Disney's first big film, doesn't hold up as well as many of the others.  The animation still seems to be a work in progress, and a lot of the people/creatures that are supposed to be cute kind of looked creepy to me.  Snow White's singing voice is, let's say, not great.  And the plotline is really simplistic; where the heck did this prince come from anyway?  So it's not my favorite Disney movie, I probably won't rewatch it a ton anymore, but it's a classic.  It gets some love for being an animated classic, but I'd rather spend my time watching a newer one.

Three apparently useless diamonds out of five

1938 - Bringing Up Baby (#88) - I'm learning that I apparently like the genre known as screwball comedies.  It Happened One Night, the soon-to-be-reviewed Philadelphia Story, Woman of the Year, and this film; just as they all share a similar plot formula, these movies go through a similar process when I watch them.  I watch, laugh and enjoy.  Then I deliberate on how to rate the movie and think to myself that it was rather silly, kinda dopey and probably doesn't deserve a high rating.  I'll put something like two stars on it, then every time I look at my list I want to raise the rating, remembering some funny scene or moment.  Eventually it ends up being somewhere around 4 stars, so I should probably just admit to myself that I like these movies.  Bringing Up Baby, in particular, has a great dynamic between Katherine Hepburn as the confident independent woman and Cary Grant as the nervous, socially inept scientist.  Sure, it gets pretty zany at times, and you might think there's too much screaming and running around, as I believe I mentioned in my prior review.  But at its heart this is a witty and funny movie, and if you watch it for what it is, it's really enjoyable.  I particularly enjoy the scene in the jail, and the dinner at Hepburn's house with the very confused big game hunter.  Just thinking about it, I have to smile a little bit.

Four dinosaur bones out of five

1939 - Gone With the Wind (#4) - How can you not love Gone With the Wind?  Well, I can think of one reason, and it kind of jumps out at you when you look at the DVD box.  Running time: 238 minutes.  For those who don't want to do the calculation, that comes to 3 hours 58 minutes.  It's a lot!  I usually end up having to break it into a few views, but even so, that's a big commitment to one story.  But if you can deal with the incredible length, you are in for a really good movie.  Following spoiled plantation girl Scarlett O'Hara before, through and after the Civil War, the plot is expansive, the sets grand and glorious, and the emotion huge.  The score also does a great job bringing the story to life.  At its heart, though, this is a great movie for the characters.  The suave and charming Rhett Butler, played to perfection by Clark Gable.  And the duplicitous and scheming Scarlett.  She's a character you love to hate (or is it hate to love?).  Scarlett is a survivor, and will do just about anything to get what she wants.  At the same time as you want to commend her for her successes, you can't help but to be incensed by how she got them.  It's really fascinating, and I'm not sure if anyone else could have pulled it off as Vivien Leigh did.  Some might argue that this movie romanticizes the plantation era, and perhaps it does a bit, but its so much more a character study and a tale of how we are changed by unexpected events.  But for the length, it would be a five.

Four fancy hats out of five

1939 - Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (#26) - Put simply, I love this movie.  I think it's my favorite of the entire reboot project, which is saying quite a bit given the company that it's in.  There are few movies that I can think of that are more inspiring, more patriotic or make you want more to do something of lasting value in life.  And in our modern political climate, it's something it would do many of our representatives well to watch.  If you haven't seen it, it's the tale of a simple honest man who is selected for his naivete to replace a Senator who's died in office.  As Mr. Smith moves a bill forward, he comes face to face with the might of the major political machine and how things really get done in Washington.  I don't want to give too much away, though you might be able to guess how things go, but let me just say that the filibuster is one of the best sequences in any movie ever.  And the speech that Saunders gives to Jeff Smith at the Lincoln Memorial is profoundly moving.  I've seen discussions online trying to decipher which political party Smith would have belonged to, but this film transcends that, with Smith's quest focusing more on "plain, decent, every-day common rightness."  It's enough to give you hope in our government, in our process, even in a time that frankly looks rather dire, politically.  Watch this movie, and be inspired.

Five boy ranger badges out of five

Only in Dreams

For a couple of brief occasions, I have kept a dream journal.  And no, I don't mean goals or resolutions, I mean the things that happen while you're sleeping kind.  I'd wake up, and in that fleeting time where you can still remember what your mind was playing with, jot down what I could recall.  I'd seen it done in movies and TV shows, and it always seemed that whatever dream the character had would end up being of vital importance later in the episode.  So I gave it a try.

The only trouble was, I didn't have dreams that illuminated some big quandary in my life.  As a side note, apparently dream interpretation is not considered sound psychological practice anymore, according to my psych-student sister.  But even if someone did try to examine my dreams for deeper meanings, they'd struggle as hard to find anything as a literature student reading Ulysses.  (Bam!  Take that, James Joyce!)  I distinctly remember one night where I awoke convinced that I had just had the most amazing dream ever, and I needed to write it down so I could tell Stacia about it in the morning.  I stumbled about in the dark to find a pen and paper, then scrawled down everything I could remember.  I went back to bed happy that it wouldn't be lost.  When I awoke, I grabbed the paper to see what amazing subconscious idea I'd had, only to find a nearly illegible but rather detailed summary of the film The War of the Worlds.  It was a great story, all right, it just wasn't mine.

The other issue for me is that seldom do I have one contiguous dream.  Often it's more a series of unrelated vignettes, each only lasting a few moments.  Like the dream I had last night, for example, which lead me to wake up and say to myself that it was technically impossible to have a more awesome dream.  Ever.  In fact, when I woke up and decided I'd write about the dream, the working title for the blog post was "It's all downhill from here," implying I'd never again experience such an incredible dream.  So what was it?  Two things:

First, I was feeding a sandwich to an ankylosaurus.  If you don't know what an ankylosaurus looks like, here's a picture.

Also, if you don't know what a sandwich looks like, here's a picture of that.  Though if you truly don't know what a sandwich is, you really have better things to do with your time than read my blog.

In this case it was a salami sandwich on white bread, and the ankylosaurus ate it in four little bites.  Then I got on the back of the ankylosaurus and rode around while he ran laps of the room we were in.  It was awesome.  Then I woke up.

So what's the moral of this story?  I really don't know.  I suppose when I look at this dream from my very logical cubicle, it seems silly and meaningless.  But I'm not the first person to ride a dinosaur, and who's to say that those guys didn't feed their steeds sandwiches too?  I do know that I enjoyed the hell out of that dream, and that if any bizarre set of circumstances arose that allowed me to experience it in real life, I'd be off to the deli as fast as I could go.  I guess that works for all kinds of dreams, nocturnal or otherwise.  You might think they'll never get more awesome, and once you shake off the grogginess you might realize that it wasn't as great as you thought, but you bet your ass that you'd live that dream if you could.

I may never meet an ankylosaurus, but that's not going to stop me from trying my darndest to have a sandwich ready in case I do.  I think we could all use some.