To the Summer of Spontaneity

School’s out and I’m happily involved in summer school at a location very close to my house. No long commutes, just roll out of bed and I’m there within ten minutes. My coffee is still piping hot, and I’m in an air-conditioned school, unlike the one I teach in during the regular school year. I love to invent classes, and am teaching a grammar guru class, passport to adventure, advanced composition class (with mainly 7th and 8th grade boys) and a study skills class. Am I nuts? Hardly. I love grabbing the attention of a middle school student and getting him interested in learning. Plus, I’m out at 12:30 daily and can enjoy myself with ladies who lunch, massages, and exploring ethnic Chicago neighborhoods. Am I thinking of my recent lung cancer surgery or my completion of my chemo treatments. Nope… this summer is gonna rock with getting my life back together!

For instance, on Tuesday, I had a doctor’s appt, but his office cancelled early in the morning by saying the doctor was under the weather. Hasn’t he heard of the old adage “an apple a day….”?

I called my cousin and told her I wanted to “kidnap” her for a birthday lunch in some part of the city we needed to explore. Of course we would have more fun than Columbus, since we didn’t have to contend with rolling seas on a “flattened” earth. Just your normal everyday construction and “rush hour” traffic that we crawled through bumper to bumper.

Once we arrived, we found a charming place for lunch called “Feast”, and that’s exactly the advice we took – we dove into Mediterranean salads with chicken kebobs steepeled in the center surrounded by a circle of hummus underneath. Perfectly satiated, we began to explore the various boutiques and adorable shops with their extravagant merchandise.

All around us were a variety of people we don’t normally run into in our neck of the woods. I’ve never seen more tattoos that extend from the neck area and snake up and down the length of both arms. All of them were done in vibrant colors too. I wondered if there was a new fashioned Wizard of Oz who provided this service instead of your more mundane requests for courage and a heart and a balloon ride back to Kansas?

On the way to our car and the trip back to reality, we snuck into a tiny gourmet store called “The Goddess and the Grocer”. I happily ordered stuffed chicken breasts with goat cheese and red velvet cupcakes. I stored my treasures in the back seat of my car and off we went, back on the Edens Expressway towards suburbia and the big box store of Home Depot. Our spontaneous mini get-away would be remembered for quite some time, particularly because of those little velvet cupcakes and their moist and magical flavor…