Category: Travel

Ready, set …

~ Chris ~ 6 Comments

Right about now I have a squirming urge to bolt, to unshackle from the boring and banal, to hop a jet and vacate this place somewhere faraway, to get the hell out of here, to go go go. Sure, Mexico City was only six weeks ago, a distant, wondrous dream doused in humanity and habanero, but plans must be made when that itch called wanderlust screams for scratching.

And so I plan. And I move fast. And I’ve picked where to go next. And, greedily, I’ve chosen two discrete destinations for early 2026. And they’re probably not what you would think.

Because they’re not what I would think, either. Marseille, Aix-en-Provence and Arles in Southern France happen the first week of February. Then, in a whiplash turnaround, I hit Nashville, during the first week of March. 

Nashville? you ask in italics. Me, too. 

In an abbreviated checklist, what the country musical capital has going for it: a slew of top-tier southern food restaurants, like the legendary Prince’s Hot Chicken (extra spicy fried fowl); the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum; the National Museum of African American Music; pour-happy whiskey distilleries; vibrant ‘hoods, including the hip, boho East Nashville, where I’m staying; and of course neon-bedazzled Broadway, where practically every bar — miles of them — is a honky-tonk or a venue hosting crunchy Americana in lieu of touristic cowboy hats.

The Strip slash Honky-Tonk Highway, as it’s alternately dubbed, is also where I will urgently avoid the famed flotillas of inebriated bachelorette bashes that turn the avenue into a twerking, tongue-flashing parade of sorority swillers. In pink cowboy boots, to boot. They should rename it Hell’s Highway.

Nashville’s blinding Broadway

Now, to France. Despite the grungy reputation of Marseille — France’s second largest city, animated by African and Italian immigrants, graffiti, a picturesque port and world-class cuisine — the character-rich, seaside region has found its footing in recent years as a must-do destination. 

It’s “the underrated city in the South of France that should be on your bucket list,” toots Condé Nast Traveller, calling it an “untamed labyrinth, the dusty-rouge Mediterranean Port City” that delivers everything from grand cathedrals to transcendent bouillabaisse, Marseille’s iconic seafood stew.  

And it’s affordable. For instance, my hotel, the whimsical Mama Shelter Marseille, is less than $100 a night, and it’s no dump. It has personality, pizzaz and a penchant for partying. (Grandpop here is bringing earplugs just in case.)

From Marseille I’ll catch under-an-hour train rides to Aix and Arles. These quaint, leafy, cobblestoned villages in Provence are where Roman ruins — ogle the gaping 2,000-year-old Arles Amphitheater, home to bullfights today — dot the stomping grounds of great painter Cézanne and great paint-eater Van Gogh. Both towns exude Old World charisma, naked charm and uninterrupted beauty. I’ll spend a day in each, then rail back to the grit, graffiti and gormandizing of Marseille.  

And then, sigh, my journeys will be complete for the first part of 2026, and I won’t embark on another one (or two!) till fall, when the weather cools and, critically, my wallet recovers. Wanderlust is an incurable disease and I’m inflamed and afflicted. I do what I can about it. Which invariably comes down to go. 

Marseille’s famous Vieux Port 

Getting stuffed on the bounty of Mexico City

~ Chris ~ 3 Comments

Twenty-two tacos. That’s all I could devour over seven days in Mexico City before I hit taco fatigue, a malady that beats Montezuma’s revenge by a long shot. (I was gratefully spared that gastrointestinal massacre.) Too many tacos — poor me. But it happened: I burned out on the tortilla-wrapped meats and spices, even though they were otherworldly delicious. Al pastor remains a gastronomic god.

I knew I peaked during an exhaustive nighttime taco tour, which included a pitstop for a heady mezcal tasting. I could only devour seven of the tacos served — including a rather average one at the only taco stand in the world to earn a coveted Michelin star — and had to pass, bloatedly, on the final two. (That would have been nine tacos in three hours, if you’re counting.) I simply couldn’t finish, unless my tour mates wanted to see the feeble American provide a gut splash on the sidewalk. 

During my week in Mexico City, I wasn’t on a journey to eat as many tacos as possible. There was no quota. From the start, I wanted to leave room for an array of local delicacies, street food to fine dining, enchiladas to empanadas. Mission accomplished. Pizza even slipped into the plan. Thanks to its strong European tang, the city is famed for its prodigious pies. It was amazing.

The city surprises like that. CDMX, as they call it, is a sizzling melange of cultural influences, a vibrant swirl of art, cuisine, architecture (note the heavy Euro inspiration), lovely people, dogs, parks, museums (only second in the world for the sheer number of them, after London), sports, and, crap, a serious and grueling traffic problem. Don’t get me started. No, do. Some Uber rides took an hour, stop-starting, for just a few miles. The Ubers were nearly all dusty, dented beaters, but they muscled through and delivered. The streets — as clean as Tokyo. And there are no public trash cans. Pride reigns.

Located in the center of Mexico, the megalopolis sits 7,350 feet above sea level, which makes it higher than Denver, with thin air and temperate climes. It teems with life — 22 million people live there. That’s a lot of humanity, not to mention the multitude of pleased and pampered pups I saw all over the city.

I usually take wads of pictures of camera-happy hounds on my travels, but I only snapped a few this time. Here’s one, among a smattering of shots, a taco-y taste of CDMX. 

In line at the Frida Kahlo Museum. I forgot her name.
Frida Kahlo looking pensive, near the museum. The city bursts with street art.

Cooking up one of my favorites, pork tacos al pastor.

Al pastor up close. That’s marinade, not blood.

A cathedral in the City Centro.

The famous interior decor of the main post office.

The ludicrous circus-like spectacle of lucha libre: wrestling theater. The crowd of 7,000 goes wild at the backflipping, body-stomping, mask-wearing rivalries. It kind of gave me a headache, in a good way.

One of the better pizzas I’ve ever had, even in Italy. Perfection.

A typical park smack in the city. Joggers, yoga, musicians, dogs, salsa dancers.

Palace of Fine Arts (Palacio de Bellas Artes)

Rear is chicken taco al pastor. Front is octopus al pastor. Awesome.

Breakfast before a three-hour tour of the astounding Museum of Anthropology.

A random facade in City Centro.

Large tortilla chip with guacamole. On top: grasshoppers. Yes, delicious.

Making me a killer cocktail at Tlecān mezcal bar. It’s ranked #23 in the World’s 50 Best Bars 2025 and #3 in North America’s 50 Best Bars 2025. It, like Mexico City, lives up to the hype. Ultra-modern with a hearty, heartfelt nod to history.

Halloween, if little hallowed

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

It’s positively pouring rain, cats, dogs, giraffes, and it is blustery, leaf-dislodging, noisy on multiple levels — water, wind, things blown over, gutters gushing — and it’s kind of great, though going outside seems like unnecessary peril. Thus: homebound. 

The day before Halloween — can you imagine the poor kids and parents braving this mayhem? — yet things look up for the big bloody day. The forecast is sunshine and 60 degrees. Boo-yah! as a ghost might cheer. 

Nowadays the most I do for Halloween is steal fun-size Reese’s from the brimming bowl meant for trick-or-treaters and the parents who steal Reese’s from their children. My Halloween dress-up heyday was when I was Paul Stanley from KISS one year and Gene Simmons from KISS the next. This was during the Reagan Administration, so slack must be cut. Like Marley’s Ghost, I wore metal chains as Simmons. Totally rock. 

Damn, it’s like a monsoon out there now. The skeletons on the lawn probably have hypothermia.

On my last blog post, I hinted that Cubby the dog would go well with some guac and salsa. Well, he’s since got a bath — no longer is his scent eau de tortilla chips — and a haircut. He now looks like Moe from the Three Stooges. He’s spiffy and perfumey and the groomer tied a natty bandanna round his freshly coiffed neck. It’s too late for a photo of the transformation; he’s growing out, the bandanna is gone, and already he’s starting to smell like a Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme. 

Mexico City beckons. I leave in a week for seven days. As always before a trip, I’m angsty-excited, a nervous muddle of dread and joy. Like, what if I catch Montezuma’s revenge, or get mugged at the ATM? Flip side, what if the food  (tacos tacos tacos tacos) spirits me to rapture and the locals’ hospitality restores my faith in humanity? I’ll report later on this uncharted adventure. Bet you can’t wait. 

It’s been 20-plus years since I read two ecstatically received literary novels — Annie Proulx’s “The Shipping News,” which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and Ian McEwan’s massive seller “Atonement,” considered the prolific British writer’s crown achievement. (I’ve read seven of his novels. He’s spectacular.) 

Now. My response to both books, back then, was: meh. What a child I was. I just finished “The Shipping News,” and its deep-grained, lyrical, downright poetic and funny prose carried me along its often exotic world-scapes and among its colorful characters. It’s a trip, and one worth taking. There are a lot of fish.

With “Atonement,” a high-toned, very English story, I have only begun rereading it and already I’m snared by writing that seems crafted with a laser beam, so specific, rich and dazzling, you want to kill yourself, if you care about these things.

Unfortunately, I do. 

Good news, bad news. What’re you gonna do?

~ Chris ~ 4 Comments

The dog smells like a bowl of stale Doritos. The nor’easter is splatting rain and blowing tree-tossing gusts. Our sociopathic “president” continues to appall on a daily basis (no, you’re not getting the Nobel, so shut up). And I have a zit on my forehead that’s festering like Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D.

Otherwise things are just super, grand and dandy, unless you consider that Diane Keaton, one of the most charming and beautiful creatures ever to grace the big screen, has died. Crushing. Long live Annie Hall.

I go to Mexico City in precisely one month, though just days before that I have a dental appointment I’d rather not keep but will, because two of my teeth appear to be turning gray (this mad world!). I’m afraid I am becoming wizened.

If you squint really hard you can squeeze out some of the bad news and unfettered horrors — Gaza, Ukraine, the new Spike Lee movie — unfurling across the world. But it’s not easy, and almost certainly not possible.

But back to the one kernel of okay news, my vacation in Mexico City, a full week in November. I’ve been booking tours and making reservations with tentacular zeal. And I’ve also been uprooting prior plans. In an earlier post I mentioned that I registered for a tacos al pastor cooking class, a splurge and a mash note to my favorite taco. 

Well, I nixed the class (sorry, Anne R.!) for two expeditions: one a three-hour guided tour of the National Museum of Anthropology (sounds deadly, but I’m assured it’s essential) and the other a festive, three and a half-hour Tacos and Mezcal Tour, whose price tag I blush to share with you. Guess which tour I’m looking more forward to.

Other good news lurks. Fall has fallen, and despite the nor’easter, which is really quite mild in these parts, the weather is totally dreamy. Usually I’m abroad for Halloween — Europeans try very hard to get it down, though it’s still strictly amateur hour there — but I’ll be around this time and that’s a plus. 

I dig a good monster mash. I also like all the costumes that I can’t tell what the hell they’re supposed to be. Is that a ballerina werewolf? I hope some savvy kids deck out as Annie Hall: men’s tie, vest and khakis, and that wide-brimmed hat. Sartorial genius. They can flummox all their friends who still dress in Pokémon.

On a side note, what ever happened to the smashed pumpkins in the street? In my day, that was as mandatory as begging for goodies. Kids today. So thoughtful. Or clueless.

I guess in the end that’s also good news. Smashing Pumpkins is a great band — pay special attention to the superhuman drummer — but smashing pumpkins is just boneheaded vandalism. Thus I hesitantly cheer its extinction.

Good news and bad news will always share a table, so we’re kind of stuck. Israeli hostages are freed (yay). Diane Keaton dies (boo). Leaves are falling with the temperature (yay). Jeff Tweedy releases a solo triple album (boo). Paul Thomas Anderson’s new movie, “One Battle After Another,” is an apparent masterpiece (yay). Oh, and the dog. Yes, the dog. He really needs a bath (self-explanatory).

Diane Keaton as Annie Hall

Roaming Roma

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

About that Mexico City trip I’m taking in November, I think I’m getting carried away. I’m there for a week and already I’ve booked four dinners and six tours, and I’m scanning more adventures in the heaving megalopolis, which goes by the sporty acronym CDMX. 

The gargantuan city is so overwhelming, with so much to see and eat, I feel I require more guidance and guardrails than on previous trips. I’m so fretful that I woke at 2 a.m. to make a pair of rarefied restaurant reservations just to make sure I secured them at the exact right time. (Scored!) 

But I’m also a loner, so, when it comes to tours, I really don’t want to get stuck with too many chatty chuckleheads from, say, Melbourne and Milwaukee. I can roll my eyes only so much. Still, I have six tours on my slate, a personal record, which could be a canny or foolhardy proposition. 

That said, I’m probably going to spend the rest of my time strolling the many neighborhoods solo and uncover my own delights. The place is frightfully big, so this expedition will either be sweetly exhilarating or operatically tragic. 

One of the tours I’ve booked is of the vibrant Roma area, billed as a paradise of local markets, parks, trendy restaurants, bars and hipster cafes. If that’s my sort of  thing — and it is, though I do love my grunge — it also evokes writer-director Alfonso Cuarón’s 2018 memory film “Roma,” set in the neighborhood during the much different 1970s, when the socio-political scene was uniquely combustible. (The area, incidentally, is named after Rome, Italy, as a tribute to its wealth and culture.)

The award-dappled movie is a languid stunner, an autobiographical portrait of growing up in Cuarón’s tight upper-middle class family, with special focus on the domestic help, namely Cleo, who, beyond sweeping up dog poop and making beds, takes care of Cuarón and his three gangly siblings.

Deceptively simple, “Roma” — shot in shimmery, Oscar-winning black and white that looks like quicksilver — is family drama at its most heightened and honest. Its verité verve is pure documentary immersion.

From the director of masterworks “Y tu mamá también,” “Gravity” and “Children of Men,” the movie examines with a flea comb the daily dynamics of living and loving together, and all the pain and joy that involves, including fatal frictions between husband and wife. 

And then there’s quiet, big-hearted Cleo, cooking and cleaning and embracing her role as part of the family — and in the process, becoming a sort of angelic savior keeping the clan together. The movie ranks #46 on the New York Times list of best films of the last 25 years.

The tour I booked has a lot to live up to.

(On Netflix.)

Wrestlemañia

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

It’s billed as the “BEST NIGHT EVER,” comical hyperbole that actually might live up to the puffery. How? Why? Because we’re talking about an excursion starring tacos, beer, tequila and — wait for it — tickets to Lucha Libre wrestling at the main arena in Mexico City. All for $84. Bust the bank? Let’s bust some chops.

What is Lucha Libre? Poor dears. Much like the muscle-bound, spray-tanned, flamboyantly theatrical wrestling spectaculars in the States, this is Mexico’s native version, with its own zingy flourishes. It pops with spangled spandex, gasping acrobatics, high-flying punishments and, of course, glittery but menacing masks. It’s like a ‘roided-out Cirque du Soleil with pile-drivers instead of creepy puppets.  

You might know it from “Nacho Libre,” a 2006 Jack Black comedy I found flat, though some people swear by its broad satirical swipes at easy cultural targets. (And, really, any movie starring the frenzied Black, who looks like a stout, overstuffed burrito in his glistening wrestling regalia, can’t be all bad. Well, yes it can.)

The sport — more like “sports entertainment,” because these shows are about as real as a Bugs Bunny cartoon — is massively popular in Mexico and boasts a cast of characters who act out elaborate storylines of good vs. evil, much like in American professional wrestling. Villains are lustily jeered, heroes cheered, feuds and rivalries fanned, and the wrestlers, known as luchadores, egg-on the rowdy throngs. 

The clownish masks that fit snugly over the brawlers’ entire head denote their identity and persona, like superheroes. “Losing a mask in a match is a significant loss, sometimes even more devastating than losing a hair match where the loser shaves their head,” that according to the web. (Think about a hair match in American wrestling, where the men fling their Goldilocks in a weird kind of virile vanity. It would never happen.) 

Back to that BEST NIGHT EVER (Trumpian all-caps theirs), which unfolds when I visit Mexico City in November. Our small group meets at a cantina for tacos (al pastor, please!), beer, tequila and mezcal (another pour, please!) before we head to Arena Mexico, dubbed the Cathedral of Lucha Libre, holding 17,000 fans. 

It’s going to be bedlam, sheer madness. Fans going crazy, beer being hawked, wrestlers executing thunderous body thwumps that rattle the giant ring, masks all over the place. I’m not a big public noisemaker, but I understand our host gives us our own Lucha Libre masks. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be whooping it up, too. I’m rooting for the villains. 

Revving up for Mexico

~ Chris ~ 4 Comments

With a trip to Mexico City planned for early November, I’ve been flipping through a couple of travel guides to see what I’m in for. (I smell tacos al pastor. Dog-ear that page!)

The place is ginormous, the sixth largest city in the world and the most populous city in North America, with 22 million people. I plan to weep as I inevitably get lost in the grand sprawling Spanish-speaking metropolis. What’s the Spanish word for “mommy”?

Yes, I am going to eat tacos on an epic scale and drink tequila and mezcal with stupid abandon and avoid the sun while lapping up kaleidoscopic art and archeological thingamabobs and trying to figure out why everyone’s so batshit about Frida Kahlo. 

There’s a Kahlo museum set in her childhood home or some such, but I’m more interested in the massive murals painted by her lecher hubby Diego Rivera — he had more mistresses than murals. Either way, it’ll be an art orgy.

I’m staying in the leafy, shady, unspeakably bougie La Condesa neighborhood, where a gorgeous park resides and is evidently the city’s dog capital, which makes me serene about the fact my hotel is charging me two year’s salary for a six day stay. Perros! 🐶

But my canine pals are just a bonus on a trip that promises heaps of highlights, be it the spectacular, art-stuffed Palacio de Belles Artes or insane, masked Lucha Libre wrestling; the lavish Catedral Metropolitana or self-explanatory Museum of Tequila and Mezcal. And, of course, street tacos out the wazoo.  

I really don’t know what to expect. When I was 14 we took a cruise down the Pacific Coast of Mexico, strictly beach stops — Cabo, Mazatlan, Acapulco. But Mexico City is a landlocked, high-altitude megalopolis teeming with fine dining, clubs, bars, galleries, museums and such. (Like any major city, it also has unfortunate pockets of crime and squalor that shouldn’t be ignored.) 

Mexico City. What am I doing? I ask that before almost every journey — Budapest, huh? — and almost always return enlightened, brightened. It’s about discovery, learning, seeing, and in this case, a lot about tacos al pastor. I’m seriously considering taking a $70 class on how to make these scrumptious finger foods while I’m there.

That sound you hear is me turning pages in my guide books with increasing excitement, the revelations and expectations. It’s all part of the trip — an expedition of the known and the unknown blended in a zesty imperative: show me what you’ve got.

Palacio de Belles Artes

I hate everything

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“I wish I was like you/Easily amused”  — Nirvana, “All Apologies”

Someone just pointed out — sooo boringly — how I don’t like anything. It’s an asinine statement that can only come from the congenitally cheery extrovert who unthinkingly likes almost everything, no matter how lame and degrading it is. These are the loud laughers and knee-slappers. Ha! What a hoot! The kind that still thinks “SNL” is funny.

It’s true, I’m a rough critic with shades of the pessimistic and a tendency toward the comparatively negative. I’m a dark spirit with high standards and a low tolerance for mediocrity and pure crap. I try many things. I am usually gravely disappointed.

Too many people like too many things. It’s as if they like everything. I consider myself discriminating. I don’t need, nor want, to like everything. Most things are middling or overrated, and I feel like a chump for investing time in them. I once interviewed a critic at the San Francisco Chronicle, and he admitted that most shows, films and concerts he sees are worth two out of four stars. I nodded wisely. 

And so, I’m labeled a hater.

Just because I find Taylor Swift numbingly average, think team sports are boring and obnoxious, abhor nearly every Wes Anderson and Quentin Tarantino movie, and am convinced the American version of TV’s “The Office” is grating and unfunny and not a whisker near the greatness of the British original. And Marvel: like daggers in my eyes.

Call me cranky, call me what you will.

But I’m not having it. 

There’s so much I do love, such as, in no order: 

World travel, books, reading, writing, drumming, snow skiing, romance, vintage BMX, animals, “Breaking Bad,” the Beatles, Philip Roth, stellar art museums, Iranian cinema, Paris, cold weather, big cities, director Michael Mann, “Hacks,” old film noirs and screwball comedies, Beethoven, architect Frank Gehry, ice cream, Radiohead, the Marx Brothers, “Top Chef,” David Bowie, nice people, the singer Mitski, rollercoasters, “The White Lotus,” Toni Morrison, boygenius, Martin Short, “SCTV,” an inspired cocktail, a great meal, Al Pacino, and — surprise — Anderson’s “Rushmore” and Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” … and so on and so forth. I could rattle off superlatives all day.

I should just keep my mouth shut, because too often my opinions suck the oxygen out of the room. People simply can’t believe I don’t think “The Wire” or Springsteen are unvarnished genius (they’re not). But below the negativity gurgles a sparkling river of all that I praise to a degree of adoration, even obsession.

Nope.

When I was a theater critic, years ago, readers complained about my cynicism to the point that my editors did a scientific breakdown of how many negative reviews I had given as opposed to my positive reviews. The result was 84 percent positive. People, I think, like to cling to the negative response, all that contradicts their self-righteously proclaimed passions that they protect like little bunnies. Free Britney!

Still, it is true I find dissing unworthy cultural totems liberating, a perverse pastime, and I’m not alone in this (see: Larry David). More things that make me recoil: Donna Tartt’s overrated novel “The Goldfinch,” souped-up cars, dinner parties, Harry Potter, bros (frat, finance, tech, gym, etc.), most tattoos, Kanye, that 40-year-old skateboarder … 

Bah. 


Stuff, etc.

~ Chris ~ Leave a comment

One of the cats died recently. He was kind of the rotten cat, the one that shreds up the carpet, craps where he feels like it and was extra aloof, like an Aviator-wearing rock star who hates giving autographs. Anyway, we’re saddened and miss the ornery fellow. I’m not sure what to do with his ashes: urn them nicely or chuck them over the fence at the squirrels. 

I don’t trust social media as far as I can spit. If I had a girlfriend, I’d ask her, quite nicely of course, to get off that shit.

Voyeurism is the opiate of the masses, not religion. Think about that for about four seconds.

Just guess who I think embodies all of these descriptives: racist, greedy, venal, petty, megalomaniacal, misogynistic, heartless, rankly sophomoric, vulgarian scum. Bingo.

I’ve planned a trip to Mexico City for November, but I’m so traveled-out right now, the whole thing sounds terrible. Five months is far off, so I should be refreshed by then. Thing is, the weather runs in the mid-70s to 80 in November and I’m barely any good over 70. I hate the heat; I’m a San Francisco wuss. I read that t-shirts and shorts are frowned upon in Mexico City, and I’m not a fan of them either. It sounds like when I was in sweltering India and everyone was swaddled in jeans and long sleeves. I wore jeans with t-shirts and I sweated like swine. Drenched. Two showers a day. I don’t want any of that crap. Maybe I’ll push the trip to December. Or January. Or never.

What I’m reading: “Demon Copperhead,” Barbara Kingsolver’s gritty, funny, unsparing ode to Dickens’ “David Copperfield.” The novel won a Pulitzer last year and rollicks with knockabout wit and wisdom and with more than a dash of social commentary about the sorry state of many of our states (opioids, poverty, detox). The damn thing’s a cinder block so it’s taking me forever to plow through, but it’s worth it. The title character, a teenage boy, both tart and talented, is one for the ages. He’s like a super smart Pig-Pen from “Peanuts”: brilliant but with a cloud of flies and dust buzzing around him. It’s his lot. But he’s one wily fighter, a scrappy, red-headed hero (hence “Copperhead”) in a bedraggled, Dickensian wasteland.

The cat died; the dog thrives. Cubby the wonder mutt needs a bath and a haircut and those crunchy, coagulated eye boogers extracted, but otherwise the aging fella is in fine fettle. OK, he’s been doing the occasional “revenge pee” in the dining room, meaning when he feels abandoned he’ll whizz on the rug when no one’s around. Stealth urine is as bad as any urine, but it’s worse, because you know the scruffy rascal’s doing it with a puckish glint in his eye.

Green with ennui

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The Chicago River is a goopy green, a mossy Monet, the emerald algae cast of a veggie power shake. As I spluttered down its tributaries last week on a boat tour highlighting the city’s ample architectural gems, I noticed the murky waters as much as the man-made wonders. I’m dorky like that.

Of course, Chicago actually dumps green dye into its giant river on St. Patrick’s Day in a festive gesture of verdant overkill. To my eye, the river hardly needs it. It’s already an “Exorcist”-ish hue of those minty Shamrock confections served at McDonald’s around St. Patty’s, the ones I loved as a kid but that I would probably barf up now.

What was I doing in Chicago? Nothing. And everything. And yet nothing. Just kicking about the Windy City — those storied gusts are a billowy reality — to cash in some flight credits that were soon to expire. I hadn’t been to the city in seven years, and I enjoyed it the first time: Millennium Park, the Art Institute, a foodie tour, the thickets of neck-craning architecture, a terrific play, actual cooked pig face at award-winning restaurant The Girl and the Goat. 

I’d be fibbing if I said last week’s visit lived up to the one in 2018. This was a journey of diminishing returns, and I’m not totally sure why. The weather, wind and all, was sublime. The food, from tortellini filled with lamb cheese at Monteverde to the double smashburger and Red Snapper cocktail at hip gin joint Scofflaw, met Chicago’s lofty culinary standards.

But something was missing. When I glance back at photos from the previous trip I see discovery, the shock of the new, a frisson of excitement. Looking at the few pics I took this time around I see ho-hummery, just another big bustling city — one crunched and ravaged with road work on every block, potholes and the plain pits. 

Chicago lost some of its sizzle. My highly acclaimed “luxury” hotel was worn, calling for renovation and more accurate PR. (It sold Pringles in the lobby shop.) I kind of shuffled through the two marquee museums, one of which, the Art Institute, boasts masterpieces of world eminence, hoping the good paintings would come to me, instead of vice-versa. A few did, many did not.   

But the few-days journey wasn’t a total bust. Peaks include my feast at Monteverde restaurant, whose server couldn’t have been more zealously attentive and helpful; a walking tour of indoor architectural pearls (which I almost ditched, I was feeling so listless) that knocked me out; the invigorating American Writers Museum, wondrously clogged with words words words; that Scofflaw brunch of burger and cocktail; and a factory tour of the Goose Island Beer Co., with deep pours of complimentary suds. 

Still, oddly, overall, my mood remained a shriveled azure. I was down. Now I ponder the big spearmint Chicago River, shades of grass and Tiffany glass. 

And I think, with Kermit in mind: It’s not easy being green. It’s also, I might add, not easy being blue. Blue like Lake Michigan, that oceanic mass kissing a faceted, world-class city, the one where I was doing nothing, and everything.

The Chicago River dyed Day-Glo green on St. Patty’s Day, like battery acid.