We Take Ourselves With Us

After rocking out Friday night, our little rebels slept in on July 4th.   We wandered around the hotel for a bit, taking in the old world glamour.  Seriously, we loved the Pfister.  It reminded us of the Driskill in Austin or our frequent haunt in Toronto, the Royal York.  Great public spaces in which chandeliers are sprinkled like fairy dust, and everything glows golden. This is the way the Pfister celebrates July 4th: red, white, and blue flowers.  For all this glamour (with a u), it was actually one of our lower cost options in the heart of Milwaukee on the holiday/Summerfest double slam weekend.  Lots of the folks in the hotel seemed to have stayed there so they could watch the fireworks from the top floor. Making plans for May 1, 2093! What is art? Keys through the years: Harper has spied an old phone.  "How does one text on that thing?" she wonders. Summer rates at the Pfister have gone ...

We started Friday morning with a breakfast with a view.  Harper rediscovered the joy of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chided us for never have "regular bread" in the house.  Ah, the midwest and white bread--a match made in demography!  Note that Penn's breakfast somehow included tiny candy bars.  Where are this kid's parents?! Our first goal of the day was to visit the neighborhoods of my childhood.  We started in St. Francis, which is where I lived for almost a decade, from 5 to 14.  My house was just off Kinnickinnic (or KK), three doors down from this bar: Here it is.  When I was little, there used to be a gigantic evergreen in the front yard between the "picture window" and the small bedroom window, so it didn't seem as stark.  The view from that picture window used to be a grocery store parking lot (where I learned to ride a bike), then it was a used car storage lot, then nothing.  Now, it's a huge ...