It is currently -4 degrees Farenheit outside, and I�m curled up in my desk chair in my basement office so that my feet don�t have to touch the icy cement floor. Mrs. Stein is sleeping on the back of AJ�s computer monitor and doesn�t seem at all inclined to move. I can�t say that I blame her.

There is nothing like preschool dropoff time on a very cold day. All the children are bundled up to their eyebrows, and stagger around like miniature snow monsters, bellowing steam from a barely visible gap between hat and scarf. Once you unwind them from their outerwear, they are twice as wiggly and giggly as usual. I�m sure AJ�s class will be a handful today.

Our trip downtown was lovely. We stayed at the Hotel Monaco at Wabash and Wacker, a few blocks from our old loft. The rooms were cheerful with wide green stripes on the wall, and red upholstered headboards and draperies. The chief attraction for AJ, however, was the goldfish that came with the room, upon request. He was not there upon our arrival, but when we returned from lunch on Friday, we caught a hotel staffperson with an enormous two tiered cart full of fishbowls. Our own fish arrived shortly thereafter and AJ who could hardly be torn away from his new friend, whom he named GEF (for Green Eyed Fish). He spent a lot of time talking to the fish. Concerned that GEF might be lonely when we went out, he drew a picture of another fish on the phone message pad and propped it up against the side of the glass bowl. When he went to bed on Friday night, he jumped up before I turned out the light and ran to say goodnight to GEF. �Goodnight, GEF! See you in the morning!� And he gave the bowl a big kiss. After he was tucked under the covers once more, he looked concerned. �Do you think GEF will be scared when the lights go out?�

The other highlight of our hotel room was two large windows, which began a little above my waist and went all the way up to the very high ceilings. The very deep windowsills were cushioned and there was plenty of room for AJ and I to sit in one, which we did often. Once we were both ensconced on the sill, AJ would pull the curtains � �It�s like a playhouse!� � and we'd look out at the office buildings across the street, at the Chicago river on one side, and at the el tracks on the other.

The grownups were also taken with the bedding, which not only included cozy down comforters and pillows, but a downright decadent featherbed as well. This was particularly welcome after our cold walk back from the ice rink in Millennium Park on Friday night.

Unfortunately, our babysitter came down with the stomach flu, so I abandoned my husband with AJ while I met my friend L. and her boyfriend D. at the wine reception in the lobby on Friday, which featured champagne as well as the usual red and white. There was a fire in the fireplace and it felt more like a party in someone's fancy living room than a hotel lobby. There was a woman doing "handwriting analysis and psychic fun" (we didn't inquire as to what that meant) and a man giving massages in one of those inversional chairs that you sometimes see in airport terminals. We colonized a sofa and a tufted ottoman and talked, snacking occasionally on the Swedish fish that were the only food served, other than the ever-present bowl of Granny Smith apples by the front desk.

On Saturday we met L. and D. for breakfast and, after saying our goodbyes, walked around North Michigan Avenue, looking at windows and Christmas trees and poking our heads into Fourth Presbyterian Church to see the choir rehearsing. We also stopped into Loyola�s new art gallery, LUMA, which is currently hosting an exhibit on Caravaggio that consists entirely of photographic reproductions of his paintings.
I found the concept of an all-reproduction exhibit kind of provocative. I�m sure Walter Benjamin would have more than a few words to say about it. On the one hand, it was wonderful to be able to see these �paintings� at actual size � the reproductions were good enough that you could actually see the brush strokes and craquelure -- instead of in photos in Art books or slides in art history classes. There is, in all likelihood, no other way to see this group of paintings gathered together. Nevertheless, to see a bunch of reproductions presented as artworks in a gallery feels a bit wrong.
I was also interested to see the exhibit, however, because I�m finishing up Jonathan Harr�s The Lost Painting. It's non-fiction written in a novelistic style �the style actually reminds me more than a little of The DaVinci Code, which I�m sure is no coincidence. Although I have found it a bit too glib at times, and without as much information about the art as I would like, and is nevertheless a real page-turner. The characters are very compelling and, as a graduate student working in archives, also very familiar. A nice break from the feminist theory and German philosophy that has been hogging much of my time of late.

But back to our trip. After we checked out of our hotel at noon on Saturday, we took AJ bowling at Marina City, the twin corncob buildings on the Chicago river. The lanes have been there forever, but they�ve gone upscale since the last time I was there. This meant two things � very expensive frames and much better than expected food. Watching AJ bowl and dance around in his tiny bowling shoes was definitely worth the price of admission, in any case. We ended our downtown jaunt by meeting up with my husband�s brother, two of his cousins, and 2 of the children of one of the cousins at Loyola University in Rogers Park for a basketball game (Loyola beat Lake Forest). AJ, exhausted from his big weekend, fell asleep in the car and snored like a freight train all the way home.

When we got home, we had a pile of packages waiting for us, most of which were Christmas presents. One, though, was a pair of double-bladed ice skates we'd ordered for AJ. So on Sunday, despite the frigid temperatures (9 degrees!!), we took AJ down to the pond for his first skating lesson. He was excited and nervous and ultimately whimpering from the cold, but he did extremely well -- he didn't fall once, although he refused to try it without holding on to someone's hand. After he thawed out (thanks to some hot chocolate), he confessed that he'd had a good time and wanted to do it again.

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