Well, April went by in a flash of blue light. And now May is halfway gone.

I had finally gotten into a decent groove with Chaos Agent—1K+ words a day for over a week—when I broke the string by overnighting in Chicago to see Ivy at Park West on the 14th. I’ve liked them since the early ’00s, have all their albums. They had broken up for a while. Then one of the founding members, Adam Schlesinger, passed away in 2020, which felt like the end, period. But Durand and Chase rereleased remastered albums, then one with material that featured Schlesinger in every song.

It was a good show. They paid tribute to Schlesinger, and were really gratified by the reception they received. I don’t know if they will continue as a band after this tour. Hope so.

The next day, instead of catching the morning train home, I visited Lincoln Park Zoo for the first time. Walked all along the Nature Boardwalk and checked out the native plants (hey, I have that one…I should get that one…). Then I went to check out the animals. It wasn’t the best time, for whatever reason—I saw one rhesus monkey, but no other monkeys or great apes. No seals or otters.

I did see a male and a female lion, each gnawing on bones bigger than my femur. Ethan, the flightless bald eagle, rendered such due to an injury. Finally, two cinereous vultures. They have what look like white inner eyelids—when they close them, they look like zombie vultures. Annoyed zombie vultures.

After several hours wandering the zoo, I hit the hotel for a quick lunch, then headed to the train station. A total of over 7 miles walked, according to my pedometer. I am very tired.

But tomorrow, back to work.

In closing…I’ve been toying with putting together a Jani books playlist for a while now. I don’t subscribe to a streaming service, so unless I can find a song on You Tube I won’t be able to link, but most of those songs should be there. Some characters have only one song, while others have several. A bit of fun to play with in-between chapters.