I'll Follow the Sun . . .

Chicagoland has been awash in warm temps, blue skies and trees of orange and red as the fall season is in full color. We have enjoyed fabulous weather as of late - 8 straight days of sunshine and high 70 degree temperature. A real treat for us, since already this year we have had a blizzard, an earthquake, a tornado, a major power outage and most recently, the floods of the summer.

With a welcomed day off from work, I woke up and tried to decide what to do with my time. The house is clean, the laundry is done and my bills are pretty much organized for payment. What to do? Every fall I like to embark on days that I call "My Selfish Days", days when there are no kids, no tasks, no errands, thus no worries. In the past, I would spend those days on long rides to DeKalb, the home of my college years, to enjoy walks around the lagoon, a beer nugget or two and trip down memory lane around campus. One other year, I took it upon myself to visit a food shop I wouldn't normally go to, just for a treat. That food shop was Brown's Chicken for a serving of their fried mushrooms. One time, I took the "L" downtown where I connected with Beatles pals for an amazing Beatles adventure.

This year, I decided that my "selfish day" would be spent this day in my car, with the sunroof open to enjoy this beautiful weather. IPod was strategically connected to my car's stereo system and off I was going to go! But first, I had to include a few routine homeowner tasks. My new job, as great as it is, still leaves me only a few full days to get household jobs done. So today, I hopped into my car, sunroof opened and welcomed the bright blue sky, dawned my newly acquired Jackie Kennedy sized black sunglasses and looked toward the wide open opportunity that would be my day on the road.

Sometimes, life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. . .

On the way to my first stop, my call to the village Finance Department to report my water meter reading directed me to voicemail saying offices were closed. Okay, I thought, defer that task for tomorrow. My next stop was to pay the gas bill . . . only to realize when I pulled up to the post office that "oops, no mail service today". Well, foohey, more to do tomorrow I thought! Guess I might as well make my way to Schaumburg for a little shopping. . . but first, there was another bill I could pay while out that way! I was bound and determined to get something accomplished during my selfish day!

However, when I arrived in the parking lot of the Secretary of State's office to renew the license plates stickers for my car and Sarah's, I found the office dark and parking lot empty. Yeap, they were closed too. Foohey . . .

As a reward for all my efforts on this, my selfish day 2011, I decided to visit a large box electronics store splashed in blue and yellow. It had been a while since I last had visited but it was time I treated myself to the new George Harrison/Ravi Shankar boxed CD set. Today, for my selfish day, I was going to give myself a treat.

Sadly, there are now more vacuum cleaners in this store than the rows and rows of CD offerings that they used to offer. Their CD collection displayed as few music offerings as possible, with Blue Ray and other gaming technology encroaching upon their familiar space. No George Harrison CD's, and to say that there might be a boxed set was like shooting a stars. It simply wasn't going to happen! I was going home empty handed.

So I took my sad, sorry soul back to the parking lot, to my nice car, parked under a tree to keep cool from the bright sun, waiting for me to zip back home. However, I forgot to close the sunroof. As I opened the car door, both the passenger and the driver seats were full of fallen leaves. Sometimes you just have to sweep a few leaves out of your car to enjoy an open sunroof.

(Post script-I did not arrive home empty handed. On my way home, I stopped at Costco who had the latest George Harrison book "Life in the Material World" on sale for half price. I snapped a copy up and brought it home to enjoy.)