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What Most Terrifies Me About Trump's Dreams Of Conquest

1/14/2026

33 Comments

 
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      On Sunday, January 3, at 6:59 am I was sitting in my favorite writing chair in front of a cozy fire writing in blissful ignorance a blog about leftover Christmas cookies.
​      At 7 am my spouse turned on the radio to listen to the news and my visions of sugarplums suddenly turned into visions of a shock attack, bombs, explosions, and squadrons of  helicopters from which hordes of foreign soldiers rappelled to the earth.​​ 
        I knew that it was the United States that had attacked Venezuela, American planes that had dropped the bombs on Caracas, American cyber units that had sabotaged Venezuela's electrical infrastructure and plunged its civilians into darkness, and that it was American troops that had rappelled from helicopters into their capitol and captured their president and their country, and for what reason.
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            Still, for a moment in my mind it wasn't Venezuela but my country the planes were flying over, my country the bombs were falling on, my country that was without power, my country that the foreign soldiers were rappelling down from their helicopters to attack. And I was seized with a moment of fear.
            Because even before the attack on Venezuela Donald Trump had been threatening to  seize, acquire, or take military action against a number of countries, among them Greenland, Canada, Panama, Gaza, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Iran.  ​
      And when I heard that Trump, of his own volition, without so much as consulting Congress, had started a war with Venezuela, I thought, this is just the beginning. He won't stop with one country. He'll go right down the line, using  America's superior military strength to overpower  and vanquish country after country until the world finally unites to fight back back against us, and then the day will come when we Americans will look up and see helicopters in our skies with foreign soldiers rappelling down.
            I've thought that thought more and more often since January 3, as since then Donald Trump has doubled down on his determination to personally own Greenland, and to accomplish this goal either, in his his words, the easy way or the hard way.              Today's meeting in Washington D.C. among the Danish, Greenlandic and American (that is to say, JD Vance and Marco Rubio)  delegations resulted in no change in Trump's ultimatum that he will own Greenland, nor in any lessening in Greenland's resistance to his ultimatum. And Denmark's Defense Ministry today announced that its troops will fire on any enemy, including the American Army, that tries to take Greenland by force.
       In the meantime Donald Trump has cut off oil to Cuba, exacerbating the economic hardship of the Cuban people, and he's already talked about installing his Secretary of State Marco Rubio as that country's new president.  Trump continues to talk up taking military action against Colombia and Mexico, but front and center, right next to his threats to invade Greenland, are his threats of an imminent military strike against Iran. 
           I wonder if, when Adolph Hitler and his allies were raining down death and terror in Europe, Asia and Africa, they, as military superpowers, felt safe and impervious to conquest because oceans separated their territories from the United States, which was, in any case, a mid-level military power at best in the late 1930's and early 1940's.  According to the 12/11/2014 post on the U.S. Army website:

       "'The U.S. Army went into World War II with an end-strength of just 189,000, ranked about seventeenth in effectiveness among the armies of the world, just behind Romania,' wrote Cristopher R. Gable in the U.S. Army Center of Military History publication: 'The U.S. Army GHQ Maneuvers of 1941.'" (https://www.army.mil/article/139620/americas_entry_into_world_war_ii_remembered_73_years_later).
         But that was before Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor propelled the United States into a massive  and unprecedented ​ production of military equipment, a well-answered call for military enlistment, and the will to once again fight to make the world safe for democracy.
         I wonder how many countries Donald Trump's armies will have to invade before the day comes when an alliance of world powers decides to make the world safe for democracy by crossing the oceans and landing on our shores. 
 
​References:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Which+countries+had+Donald+Trump+talked+a+out+conquering%3F&rlz=1C1OPNX_enUS1166US1166&oq=Which+countries+had+Donald+Trump+talked+a+out+conquering%3F&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRiPAjIHCAIQIRiPAtIBCjE4ODkzajBqMTWoAgywAgHxBZL1JTZ-Fmmv8QWS9SU2fhZprw&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/article/poll-62-of-americans-would-oppose-us-military-action-in-greenland-215222605.html

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/03/trump-venezela-mexico-00710063

https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/10/politics/us-will-take-greenland-the-hard-way-if-it-cant-do-it-the-easy-way-trump-says

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/14/us/trump-news?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20260114&instance_id=169279&nl=breaking-news&regi_id=57152138&segment_id=213658&user_id=bd7dcba13f30625c4d8a54f9f4eaa28e


https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/01/what-would-trumps-threatened-strikes-colombia-mexico-or-cuba-achieve

https://www.army.mil/article/139620/americas_entry_into_world_war_ii_remembered_73_years_later
​
33 Comments

What The Videos Of The ICE Shooting Of Renee Good Do Tell Us

1/11/2026

1 Comment

 
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          Multiple videos have turned up of the shooting of Renee Nicole Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross last Wednesday, January 7. Most of the videos were taken on cellphones of witnesses. One of these evidential videos was taken by Ross himself on the cellphone which he held in his hand while circling Renee Good's car. He continued holding his phone and recording even while he shot her three times.
​          There've been all kinds of back and forth from opposite sides of the political aisle on what the videos tell us happened, and yet with all the captured angles and points of view and all the subsequent analysis and some rushed conclusions up to date, none of the visual footage actually shows how close Jonathan Ross was to Renee Good's car when she began pulling away, or whether he was in danger of being run over, or, what appears to be the most important element, whether Renee Good's car made contact with Jonathan Ross's body, and if so, when.
              Me, I don't get why someone doesn't just ask Jonathan Ross whether or not he got hit by the car. Or maybe the FBI investigators did ask him, but don't want to share his answer in case it does nothing to support the conclusion required of them by Donald Trump and his clownish vassals, 
FBI Director Kash Patel and Department of Homeland Security Director Kristi Noem.    
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​         But there are things that the videos do tell us, things so obvious that that you don't have to study the frames with a stop-action camera or a magnifying glass to see them.
           What the videos tell us is  that ICE agent Jonathan Ross was poorly trained for the job he was supposed to be doing. 
            According to Department of Homeland Security policy, officers are required to try and de-escalate tensions in potentially volatile situations. But Ross and his fellow agents did exactly the opposite when, instead of allowing Renee Good to leave the scene, they surrounded her car and ordered her to exit. 
          Also per DHS policy, officers are in general forbidden to shoot into a moving vehicle because shooting into a moving vehicle may kill the driver but won't make the moving vehicle stop (Duh). The vehicle then becomes a two-ton missile careening out of control that endangers lives and property.  
   
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​​       Tragic as the shooting of Renee Good was, one can only shutter at the thought of how much more tragic it could have been, had her car crashed into humans instead of  parked cars.
       The video footage further tells us that here is a law enforcement officer who knew no better than to record on his cell phone with one hand while shooting his gun with the other, cowboy style. And here's a question that the video begs: if Ross had time to pull out his weapon, why didn't he instead use the time to jump away from the slowly moving car? 
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       The videos tell us that Ross and his comrades were either ignorant of or dismissive of  the basic law enforcement training that instructs officers never to stand in front of or behind a moving vehicle, don't grab a door handle, and don't reach into a car.
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        I imagine that smashing a car window then reaching into the car is such unthinkable behavior for a law enforcement officer that no purveyor of police policy ever even thought to include forbidding it in the training manual. But it was this very behavior on Jonathan Ross's part - smashing a car window then reaching inside to try and unlock the door -  that caused him to be dragged and seriously injured just last June. 
         Which knowledge gives us the big picture of what it was we actually saw in the video footage.
​        What we saw was a man who underneath his mask and his Kevlar and his weapon and his authority was afraid.  A man who was perhaps still suffering from PTSD. A man who has been indoctrinated that these people are the enemy.
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    We saw a man who was angry that two women, one of them in a car, ​
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...were showing him no respect in spite of his boots and his Kevlar and his mask and his gun and his authority and his masculinity. ​
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      What the videos tell us is that this is what our country has degenerated into.
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Reference:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/09/us/ice-shooting-minneapolis-renee-good-cell-phone-invs

https://www.newsweek.com/jonathan-ross-ice-agent-shooting-minneapolis-minnesota-11332093

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/01/08/ice-shooting-minneapolis-use-of-force/88082677007/

​https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-02/23_0206_s1_use-of-force-policy-update.pdf

​https://www.justsecurity.org/128498/dhs-doj-cbp-policy-force-vehicles/#:~:text=or%20other%20Conveyances-,a.,solely%20to%20disable%20moving%20vehicles.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/01/10/minneapolis-shooting-ice-officers-training-policies/
1 Comment

One Outrage After Another. This Terrible One In Minnesota.

1/9/2026

4 Comments

 
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      What a  fearful, sad, disorienting time we live in. This is the age of Trump, where day by day, sometimes hour by hour, we're hit with a new shock, so that we can't absorb one shock  before we're hit with the next one.
      I regularly find that while I'm still searching for the words to express what I think and feel about the most recent act of cruelty, brutality, corruption, or aggression by Trump or his minions I have to abandon the effort because that outrage has been made obsolete by the breaking news of yet another outrage. Sort of a variation of a nightmarish Groundhog Day scenario. 
         And so here I am again today, here many of us are, once again horrified, angry, grieving, trying to find words to express what we're thinking, 
what we're feeling, about the latest outrage, the brutal killing two days ago in Minneapolis of 37-year- old Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three, who was shot to death by ICE agent Jonathan Ross,​
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...while she was attempting to move her illegally parked car during an anti-ICE  demonstration.
      Renee, videoed by Jonathan Ross on his cell phone moments before he shot her.
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​     The purported investigation of Renee Good's death will be carried out solely by FBI, no longer an independent law enforcement agency but beholden to the wishes of Donald Trump. To this end the FBI has blocked the Minneapolis police and Minnesota state officials from taking part in the investigation, such as it will (or will not) be.
​          But if Trump's FBI refuses to seek either truth or justice in the killing of Renee Nicole Good, and if Trump lackeys JD Vance and  Kristi Noem insist on broadcasting their preposterously fabricated narrative that Good was a domestic terrorist who was trying to kill ICE agent Ross, who subsequently had no choice but to shoot her in self-defense,
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...there are human witnesses and video footage that tell a different story.
       The story those witnesses and videos tell is that Renee Nicole Good trying to move her car was no threat to the lives of the ICE agents or to whatever mission they were there to accomplish in their combat gear and masks that morning in that Minneapolis neighborhood.
        They tell that there was no reason, while Good was turning her front wheels to the right, for Jonathan Ross to shoot  through her windshield from where he stood to the front left side of her car.
      That there was no reason, after shooting Good in the face through her windshield, for him to shoot her twice more through the driver's side window then  snap, "f**king b**ch" as her car and its lifeless driver careened away.   
        And though MAGA world is pushing the unproven account that Jonathan Ross at some point was hit by Renee Nicole Good's car, all the video stills show him on his feet the whole time, walking and looking just fine.
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          Some outrages are worse than others. 
​          Rest in peace, Renee. You seemed like a really nice person.
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4 Comments

Christmas Isn't Really Over Until All The Cookies Are Gone

1/3/2026

12 Comments

 
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        It's Saturday, January, 3, the day after January 2,  the day the Christmas holidays (or whatever holidays one opts to celebrate or not celebrate  between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day) officially close for the season.
          Today I intend to take down all the decorations,
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...except for the Christmas arch that we set up every year, 
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​...both the setting up and taking down of which is a whole day's operation usually carried out with the help of our son and a measure of agita.
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      And yet while it's up and glowing, the arch is a source of such visual delight to ourselves and, we're told, the neighborhood, that its construction and deconstruction are worth the effort.
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      So the arch will stay up a few more days. But the rest of the holiday things will be put away until next year. Including the holiday eating.
       Oh, that holiday eating. The feasts we had. In our house the feasting began on Christmas night, when the first of our out-of-town loved ones arrived for a too-brief, too-quickly-over six-day visit. 
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       The next night we ate at the Sakura Japanese steak house, to which we all gave five stars.
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     On the morning of December 28 my daughter Claire and her husband Miguel arrived from Chicago, and  after a quick brunch of waffles and Miguel's sublime specialty scrambled eggs, 
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...we all hit the ground running to get ready for a feast with family and friends that evening.
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      After the company left, everyone laden with leftovers, the family gathered in the family room for a movie and games.
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     The following morning, Monday, the plan had been to go out for brunch. But as it turned out, everyone was once again jonesing for some of Miguel's eggs and my waffles, so we brunched at home, where it was generally agreed that the food was superior to restaurant fare.
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      The next morning, Tuesday morning, was our last day of holiday feasting, when two more local relatives joined us for a final brunch, this time with French toast, tater tots, fruit salad, and Miguel regaling us with two batches of eggs, one mushroom and one veggie.
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      Early the following morning, New Year's Eve, all our out of town loved ones left. On New Year's Day, the last day of the Christmas season, I suggested to my mate Tom that the two of us ring in the new year by going out to dinner at Fado, an Irish restaurant at nearby Easton Town Center.
​       Easton was still festively lit up,
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...Fado was cozy,
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...and the food, Tom's super-tender pot roast and my tasty shepherd's pie, was just what we were in the mood for.
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      And now it's January 3, time to take down the Christmas decorations and stop the Christmas eating. Except I still keep seeing these cookies and candies around the place.
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     So I guess Christmas isn't quite over yet.
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12 Comments

Trying To Square The Christmas Circle

12/29/2025

3 Comments

 
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      When I came down on Christmas morning I caught a quick glimpse of the New York Times sitting on the kitchen table. 
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        My first thought was that this was some contemporary artistic rendition of the Nativity story, in which Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt with their newborn baby Jesus to save him from certain death at the hands of Herod, the King of Judea.
        But upon taking a closer at the newspaper I saw that this was in fact a photograph of Sudanese refugees who fled  their homeland to save themselves from certain death at the hands of a violent militia group known as the Rapid Response Forces. 
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     I wondered if the Times editorial board purposely chose this photograph for its Christmas Day edition on the hunch that its readers would likely make the same connection that I did. And perhaps to hand their readers the challenge of squaring  how we celebrate Christmas,
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...with circling back to that first Christmas, which, if we are to believe what the the Gospel tells us, has much more in common with this image,
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...than with any of the things we do to commemorate the birth of Jesus.
        But here's an idea. Supposing we gave ourselves permission to brighten up the dark, cold, winter days to our heart's content with lights, gifts, eating, singing, celebrating with family and friends, and spreading a spirit of joy, while the rest of the year we live the message of Christmas by caring for the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters on the planet.
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      If only.  
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3 Comments

The Spirit Of Christmas In Columbus, Ohio

12/24/2025

10 Comments

 
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     It's Christmas Eve here in Columbus, Ohio.
     Some of us spent the day getting our homes ready for this night,
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...putting the finishing touches on our baking,
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...burning our Christmas Eve bayberry candles,
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...for some of us the celebration of Christmas with friends and family beginning on this night.     
     Some of us were out during the day doing some last minute shopping or enjoying the festively decked-out stores and malls,
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...and some were in their homes, cowering in fear, unable to put together Christmas for their families,  unable to console their frightened children, too terrified to leave their homes to visit with loved ones, or even to shop for food. 
     This is because during this season, the overarching themes of which are peace, joy, goodwill, letting all contention cease, and recalling the story of the baby who was born in a stable and whose parents became immigrants who had to flee with their newborn child across the border into a foreign country, 
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...Donald Trump chose to bring his theater of cruelty,
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...under the direction of his cold-blooded, plastic surgery-skinned overseer of brutality,
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...to Columbus, Ohio for Christmas.
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​         But Columbus, Ohio, has chosen during this Christmas season to live the message of  kindness, brother-and sisterhood, and caring for the least among us  preached by the one who was born on that first Christmas day:
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​     Matthew 25:35 – “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.”
​       Leviticus 19:33-34
33 “ ‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them.
34 The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself.
       As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord and carry a whistle.
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     Merry Christmas, Everyone. May the Lord keep your city safe from ICE.
10 Comments

Chicago Is The Kindest City

12/21/2025

21 Comments

 
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       A few years ago I wrote a post on my impression that Chicagoans are the nicest people. The basis for this post was an experience I had almost half a dozen years ago when visiting the city in the icy, frigid, mid-winter weather.   (https://www.ailantha.com/blog/chicagoans-are-the-nicest-people​).
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      I had taken a train from the airport, and when I reached my stop I had problems with my suitcase, first getting it through the turnstile, an old-fashioned contraption that looked like this,
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...then getting it down the steep flight of stairs from the train platform to the sidewalk.
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       However, one nice young man stopped and helped get my suitcase through the turn stile, then another stopped and hauled my suitcase down the steps for me.
        Then, as I was making my way on foot from the train station to my destination I got a little directionally confused, and a nice man on the street helped me find my way. 
          And so it was during that visit that it struck me how nice Chicago folks are. 
         And it was during my most recent visit the second week in December of this year (See post from 12/16/2025,
https://www.ailantha.com/blog/walking-and-walking-and-walking-in-a-chicago-winter-wonderland), that I began to take notice of how kind a city Chicago is.
            Everywhere I went there were signs of tolerance and acceptance. I saw signs such as these on public restrooms.
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      In shop windows everywhere I walked there were signs standing up for the immigrants who were given refuge in Chicago only to be cruelly persecuted by Donald Trump's heartless ICE gangs.
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      For me all these signs brought a a spirit of Christmas feeling, a bit warmth to the cold winter air, a bit of solace in the midst of woe, 
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...and made me feel that Chicago is my kind of town.
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21 Comments

The Car Mitzvah

12/19/2025

20 Comments

 
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​                      Books by Patti Liszkay available on Amazon:   
     "Equal And Opposite Reactions"      http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
     "Hail Mary"                                           https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
     
"Tropical Depression"                        https://www.amzn.com/B0BTPN7NYY


​The Car Mitzvah

​...Continued from previous post:
        Mitzvah: A word that in Judaism, and also in the Liszkay family vocabulary, means a good deed.

      The following day, Tuesday, Claire decided to rent a Zipcar so that she and I could replenish her pantry with a trip to Costco and run a few other errands. 
     
Zipcars are vehicles that can be inexpensively rented by the day, hour, or minute, and picked up then returned to any number of Zipcar lots around Chicago. Zipcars also tend to sport their logo, which makes it helpful to find them after you've parked them in a parking lot.
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      And so whenever Claire and Miguel, who don't own a car, need to make a sizeable acquisition, they  conveniently rent a Zipcar.
       However we decided to start off the day with breakfast at the Bongo Room where we'd eaten the day before since, 1: the Bongo Room happened to be in the general direction of a Zipcar lot, and 2: the food there is so good. (See previous post, 
https://www.ailantha.com/blog/walking-and-walking-and-walking-in-a-chicago-winter-wonderland​).
         On this day the temperature was a little over half a dozen degrees warmer than the day before, just warm enough so that the ice and snow were was starting to melt a bit. Once again we walked the mile from Claire's house in Logan Square,
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...to the Bongo Room in Wicker Park.
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      Claire again ordered her Bongo Room favorite, the avocado toast,
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...this time with an artfully presented side of fruit.
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...while I tried the yummy breakfast croissant again with a side of those fabulous Bongo Room potatoes.
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       After breakfast we walked close to another mile to the Zipcar lot.
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      Claire was feeling a weence anxious about the Zipcar. It had been a while since she'd driven, but mostly she was nervous about the prospect of having to maneuver the car out of the particular lot we were headed for, which was rather small and cramped, especially in the slushy, still potentially icy condition of the pavement. 
      However, when we arrived at the parking lot Claire saw to her elation that whoever last returned the car she'd been assigned had been thoughtful enough to back it into its space so that she wouldn't have to deal with backing out, but could more easily pull straight out.
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      "Look at this," she said, "somebody did a mitzvah!"
​      "A car mitzvah!" I said.
      
Thus Claire was able to extract her Zipcar from its spot without nearly the agita she'd feared.
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         After running her errands and dropping off her purchases at home, Claire returned her Zipcar, both of us wishing one of us had the savoir-faire to back the car back into that space for the next user, but, alas, "from each according to their abilities."
           We then walked home from the lot, passing along the way the circus school in Claire's neighborhood. 
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     I love the idea of the  circus school. It sounds so whimsical, though I suppose circus folks must get their training somewhere.
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      That evening for dinner Claire, Miguel, and I decided to go to Belmont Cragin, the Chicago neighborhood that is home to the large Hispanic immigrant community that was under attack while ICE was in Chicago (and sadly, will likely be under attack once again now that ICE has swarmed back to that city). We wanted to support one of the neighborhood businesses. Claire and Miguel suggested a restaurant that they'd gone to before called El Azteca.
​       And so we took the bus into the heart of Belmont Cragin,
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...and made our way to El Azteca, a wonderfully charming little place all decked out for the holidays.
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       I had a steak burrito that had sort of a coleslaw filling, which was a delicious twist,      
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...while Claire had an equally yummy veggie burrito,
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...and Miguel had a dish of pork nestled beneath a corn cake, which he also declared delicious.
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       The following morning I said good-bye to Claire and Miguel's cozy little house,
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...and the three of us set out in the drizzle,
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...to a wonderful Logan Square eatery called the Cozy Corner, 
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...located conveniently next door to the train station.​
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     The Cozy Corner ambiance is pleasant and friendly,
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...and the server was kind enough to offer to take a picture of us.
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     The food was, as always, wonderful and plentiful.
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     After breakfast the drizzle had turned to snow, and Claire and Miguel saw me off to the train.
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      Surprisingly, I had the train pretty much to myself this morning,
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...and soon I'd arrived at O'Hare,
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...where this time my flight back to Columbus was delayed only 2 1/2 hours.
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20 Comments

Walking (And Walking And Walking) In A Chicago Winter Wonderland

12/16/2025

10 Comments

 
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​                      Books by Patti Liszkay available on Amazon:   
     "Equal And Opposite Reactions"      http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
     "Hail Mary"                                           https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
     
"Tropical Depression"                        https://www.amzn.com/B0BTPN7NYY

Walking (And Walking And Walking) In A Chicago Winter Wonderland 

...Continued from previous post:
     
 After my 6 1/2-hour-late flight from Columbus to Chicago, I took the train from the airport to the Western stop, 
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...where Claire was waiting to meet me. (See previous post, https://www.ailantha.com/blog/a-remedy-for-high-anxiety-at-the-columbus-airport​).
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      From the train station we walked  about 3/4 mile to Logan Square, where the snow and the lights gave the streets a magical look,
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...to Claire and Miguel's cozy home,
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...where the fire was so warm and welcoming,
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...and where Miguel had a delicious pasta dinner waiting  for us, mine and Miguel's topped with chicken, vegetarian Claire's topped with oven roasted tofu.
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      The next morning Claire and I headed out into the 20-something degree weather which Chicagoans seem to take in stride,
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...and we walked a mile from Logan Square to Wicker Park,
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...to a cute little eatery called The Bongo Room.
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...that has the best breakfast food.
      Claire ordered her Bongo Room favorite, the avocado toast,
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...while I had eggs and bacon with some of the best fried potatoes on the planet.
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​     After breakfast we walked several blocks to the Damen station,
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...from where we took a train to Daley Plaza in the heart of the Chicago Loop to join the bundled-folks visiting the Christkindlmarket, the city's annual outdoor Christmas market modeled after the Christkindlesmarkt of Nuremberg, Germany.
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      For all the times I've been there, I never tire of visiting the Christkindlmarket at Christmastime,
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...to look at the cheery displays and get into the holiday spirit.
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       After our tour of the Christkindlmarket we walked a few blocks,
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...and caught a bus to our next destination, the Shedd Aquarium.
      The walk from the bus stop to the Aquarium was about a mile but offered some scenic views along the way, 
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...among them the Chicago Field Museum.
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...Lake Michigan,
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...the Navy Pier,
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...the Chicago skyline,
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...and a statue of a guy holding a fish at the aquarium entrance.
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     Now, I don't know if the Shedd Aquarium is the most wonderful aquarium in the world,
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...but it's the most wonderful aquarium I've ever seen.
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      Claire and I spent several sublime hours gazing at the mesmerizing sea and fresh water creatures living in the aquarium.
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      Among the aquatic wonders we saw were an extraordinary reef exhibit,
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...a tank full of piranhas,
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...which apparently get a much worse rap than they deserve,
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...a group of sociable penguins,
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...a pool of playful belugas,
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...with a beautiful view,
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...and these creepy little critters that I'd kind of like to unsee, worms that rise up from the sand, have a look around a little, then sink back down under the sand,
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...reminding me of the sand worm in Beetlejuice, but fortunately  without the extra head.
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     Though it had been early afternoon when we entered the aquarium, by the time we left the sun was setting,
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...and it was dark by the time we walked the mile back to the bus,
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...which we took back to the Loop, from where we caught a train back to the Damen stop.
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     From there we walked 3/4 mile, 
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...to Barnes and Noble.
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     Here we caught with Claire's hubby Miguel, then we all walked a block to a little Palestinian restaurant called Rumi,
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...where we sampled the wraps, pitas, stuffed grape leaves,
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...and yummy feta French fries.
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     After dinner we walked a couple of blocks to Crumbl Cookies for some dessert.
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    While we waited our turn it occurred to me that when a place has a product as excellent as Crumbl Cookies, they can get away without putting any effort into the decor.
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      We were about a mile from home, but decided that rather than walk the whole way,  we'd walk a few blocks and catch a bus the rest of the way,
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...which left us with just a few more blocks to cover 'til we were back home.
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     To be continued...
10 Comments

A Remedy For High Anxiety At The Columbus Airport

12/10/2025

1 Comment

 
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​                      Books by Patti Liszkay available on Amazon:   
     "Equal And Opposite Reactions"      http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
     "Hail Mary"                                           https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
     
"Tropical Depression"                        https://www.amzn.com/B0BTPN7NYY


​A Remedy For High Anxiety At The Columbus Airport

         Last Sunday, December 7, I was at the Columbus airport at 7:00 am to catch a 9:00 am flight to Chicago for a visit with my daughter, Claire and son-in-law, Miguel.
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      The terminal was decked out for the holidays, 
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...and wasn't crowded,
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...and had a kind of nice Sunday morning feel.
       Even the Starbucks wasn't crowded for a change, and so I decided to stop there for a croissant and an ice tea. 
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      I sat  at a table next to a young blind woman who was traveling with her service dog. We chatted about traveling and about her dog and I told her about how back when I used to teach piano in peoples' homes one of my student families adopted a dog who had for some reason flunked out of guide dog school. When the family first acquired the dog he was so calm, the calmest, most well-behaved dog I'd ever met. But after a few months of life with kids he was as excitable and over-enthusiastic as every other doggie on the block.
       The young woman laughed and said that when her dog was out of harness he went back into full doggie mode, too.
        After my pleasant Starbucks encounter I strolled around the airport for a bit, enjoying a feeling of g
emütlichkeit and looking forward to a good, that is to say uneventful, flight. Then I headed over to my gate to wait.
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     And wait. And wait with everyone else until our flight's departure time came and went and we received an announcement that the new departure time would be 10:30 am. There was a line of folks who needed to reconfigure their Chicago connections,
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...but most of the travelers seemed cool enough, under the circumstances,
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...and  the airline even offered us a cheerful little spin on the situation.
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        In any case, I myself was cool enough over the hour and a half delay. I just texted my daughter that instead of meeting up for brunch when I landed we'd meet up for  lunch.       
        As our new departure time approached another announcement arrived that now our departure time was 11:30 am. But I was still okay with the two and a half hour delay. Everyone seemed pretty much okay. Until the next announcement that our flight would be departing from a different gate.
       The problem wasn't so much that our flight had a new departure gate as that the screen at the gate we were sent to  posted information for a flight to Chicago with a different flight number and departure time than ours.
       Now people were confused and I wondered if everyone else was starting to feel as anxious as I was starting to feel. Time went by and people were checking their phones, I expect for updated information, but I also expect their information was no more updated than mine was.
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     A group was loosely congregated around the podium but there was no gate agent there to give out any information even as our supposed departure time of 11:30 am approached.
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      I was worried that I'd gone to the wrong gate. A couple of people I talked to were worried they'd gone to the wrong gate. (Of course, if we'd been thinking calmly we would have concluded that if we were all at the same gate then it must be the right gate). But anxiety was in the air. And it was high. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just me who felt like grasshoppers were mixing it up in the middle of my chest. 
       Suddenly I was jonesing for a Diet Coke with ice. But I was afraid to leave the gate in case some announcement would be made about my flight. However there was a Wolfgang Puck a few gates away,
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...and so I zipped over to the restaurant's counter and asked if I might be able to have a Diet Coke to go. The kind server got me my Diet Coke and when I asked her how much I owed she smiled sympathetically and said, "It's okay, Sweetie, it's on me." I thought, Geez, I must look like one hot mess.
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​        Then finally help arrived at our gate.
​        It came in the form of a Newfoundland the size of a small pony,
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...whose job was to flop down on the floor and let us pet him,
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...which I did,
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...and he was so soft and fluffy and docile that I just stayed there petting him for the longest time. And it did make me feel better,
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...though in truth I don't know whether it was petting the Newfi that calmed my anxiety or my thought that, while we hadn't yet received any updates about our flight, somebody among the airline powers that be knew about us because they sent the dog over to keep us calm.
      Of course, eventually we received a quite apologetic announcement that weather conditions in Chicago had kept our potential take-off time in a state of flux. We were given a new departure time of 12:20 pm. Which later changed to 1:22 pm. Then to       2 pm, with the caveat that we might be put on a different plane, or passengers from a different plane might be put on our not-full flight. But now all was fine, as far as I was concerned, because at least now I knew  we were in the system.
         Eventually a departure time was posted for our flight and the flight that had been posted was moved to a new gate.
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      My flight would subsequently be changed to 2:30 pm, then 3 pm. then 3:30 pm, but I did finally make it to Chicago, where I took a train from the airport to the city,
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...and met up with my daughter, only 6 1/2 hours late.
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1 Comment
<<Previous
    Picture
    "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
     by Patti Liszkay
    Buy it on Amazon:

    http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
    Picture
    ​"Hail Mary"
    by Patti Liszkay
    Buy it on Amazon:

    https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
    Picture
    "Tropical Depression" 
    by Patti Liszkay
    ​Buy it on Amazon:   
    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTPN7NYY

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