… getting on the plane with Sharmila without a passport in my pocket. One of those rare, domestic flights together.

Off to one more of those weddings of a friend’s daughter. I have reached that age, I guess. This one is special though. The aforementioned bride was a colleague in my previous company too! So, technically, I am attending the wedding of somebody who had to suffer through my meetings!

Not sure whether I should refer it as the mouth. Normally, a river flows into a lake or sea or ocean or have you. As Chicago River also used to empty in Lake Michigan. Till 1900. In a marvel of engineering, the river, ever since, has been made to flow in the reverse way!!

It has hosted multiple Presidents in the past, it seems. In fact, Warren Harding was nominated as the Republican candidate here too!

This is how you might look on top of the roof of the tower, if you could ever get there and withstand the winds and swaying…

The simulation was very realistic with all the vibrations and real motions of a train.

Back in the 70s and 80s, I grew up in India being taught that Sears Tower was the tallest building in the world. This was true until the turn of the century. In my world then, seeing a 5-story building was rare and thrilling. Let alone one with 103 floors.

Later, that building was renamed Willis Tower. The name – as well as the original retailing company whose name it bore – is barely in vogue today. The building still stands tall. Taller, in fact, because of two humongous antennae that were put on the roof later. In the last 10 years, I must have made over 100 trips to Chicago (I worked here for 5 years), but never made it to the erstwhile tallest tower.

So, you would think I would be very excited when Sharmila declared that we were going to the Skydeck this morning. This Skydeck has a glass-covered Ledge that sticks out from the tower’s 103rd floor, where you can literally stand over the city.

Except that I am deeply acrophobic. If a hotel elevator has glass walls, I will stare at the door as if it owes me money – only to avoid seeing down. I just freeze at the knowledge that there is a precipice under my feet. You may recollect the climb once I did up the dirt sides of the volcano in El Salvador without turning to take in the views.

The elevator started shooting up. I could see the floor display inside the elevator rapidly changing. Almost as rapidly as my blood pressure! After what seemed like an excruciatingly long time (in reality, less than a minute), the said elevator disgorged us on the top floor.

While standing in the short queue, I tried calming my mind by reasoning that millions of people had done this before me. I even tried to distract myself by calculating how long it would take me to hit the ground if I fell off. Sixty seconds later, I finished my math. So did my wait.

It didn’t exactly help that they had put a sign there that said: “1.5 inches of glass separates you from the city”. And, to make matters worse, they had a picture of how much 1.5 inches is. Unfortunately, for me, drawn accurately to scale!

And my stupid mind was going, “Well, then, how much weight will that add to the ledge?” 🙂

Eventually, I could not get myself to walk straight into the ledge. To my lizard brain, I was walking into thin air. So, I tricked myself by turning around and backing into the ledge while looking at the people in the queue. All of them were bewildered, no doubt, at my predicament and the stupid, nervous grin plastered on my face.

Finally, when the picture came out, I could not help but laugh out loud! I was holding on to Sharmila. And she was BEHIND me!! In any physically realistic scenario, she would have gone over the edge first!

My amygdala is an idiot!

In a related note, we also visited the Museum of Illusions in Chicago!

The first time I came to downtown Naperville was exactly 20 years ago – in 2006. Main Street had cobblestones, and there was a lot of construction going on. I have come back here a few more times, but this was the first time I brought Sharmila here. She was not disappointed. One of the best downtown suburbs we have enjoyed.

This looked beautiful

This is in downtown Naperville.

That guy has a disturbingly desultory pace of alighting the stairs with a fire literally breathing down his backside.

While walking in Millennium Park this morning, we saw a lot of bicycles riding on the road. The roads had no vehicles. But it could not have been a race. There were no bibs, and the bikes (and some of the bikers) did not look very race-worthy.

Upon enquiring, found out from a security guy that we had hit upon the 25th Annual Bike the Drive in Chicago. You bring your bicycle and bike around at your own pace. Go as far as you want, and bike as long as you want. They even had bike repair tents there!! I got inspired to bike more myself just watching all the folks there. In fact, started discussing how to put a hitch in my car so I can take my bike to different trails.

I wanted to be one of them!!!

Later, in the evening, I was telling Sharmila about an old colleague of mine – Dave Simmons – who had left our office to start Ride Illinois. He is crazy about biking and would like all of us to get into it. I was mentioning to her that if I had known the event was going on, I would have asked Dave if he was there. I was quite sure he would have been there.

What do you know? I got a Facebook comment from Dave later asking if I was around. He swore he saw my doppelganger going around the spot where he was volunteering. We checked the location on the map – sure enough, we were there!

What a missed opportunity!!

Dave, next time, I will make sure to meet you and pick up some biking inspiration from you!!

Will be 100 years next year. That is amazing!!

The parking in these buildings are valet only. And you can see why? Cars have fallen into the water – but for movie and commercial ad purposes only. None accidental!

Sharmila and I were here in Chicago for a wedding. I am connected to two of the family members. Aratrika – the bride – was a colleague of mine at work. Her dad, Ranajoy, and I went to school in Durgapur and in Narendrapur way back in the early 80s!

Both of them are here, getting ready for the Daddy Daughter Dance!