Consider the Lilies

Lent is a good time to start something new. It's a time for refocusing, examining our lives and habits, stopping some things and starting some others. It's a season of renewal.

The good news is, that doesn't have to stop at Easter. In fact, it shouldn't: did this time of refocusing help you? Did you start a new habit that's turned out to be fruitful? Have you made progress on something you've been meaning to cut out of your life? Excellent! Don't turn your back on that progress. There's a beautiful line from An American Victory, "Every season ends that another may begin." Rejoice in how far you've come and begin again today.

Every freaking thing in this city is built on a slant.
I suppose they really had no choice.

About two months ago, construction crews began tearing out and carting off dirt from the empty lot behind my apartment building. Fortunately, I took this photo of some new bulbs sprouting up on top of an old wall just two days before they were all gone. However, some of them didn't go far: a couple of the bulbs, after being cast aside, managed to re-root themselves in the ground and are still growing. Another one clung to just enough soil for roots and leaves to continue to grow, even though it didn't get back into the ground.

I've had my eye on that little clump (I thought it was daffodils, but a gardener on Twitter said it looked more like daylilies) for weeks, watching it hang in there, and thinking to myself, "I should just take it home and put it in a flowerpot." Earlier this week, I noticed that the leaves were starting to look wilty, as if they'd done all they could on their own, and I decided that I'd reached now-or-never time for these tenacious little bulbs. So I pulled back enough of the fence to reach under and grab the root ball, then carried it home in my hand. (And managed to sprinkle some dirt into my lunch bag, as I discovered when I went to take a sip of tea from my thermos and got a mouthful of dirt. Good thing I have a strong immune system.)

So the daffodils-which-are-probably-really-daylilies went from this:

Yes, I willingly dumped dirt onto my kitchen counter.
That's part of the fun here in Su-Land.

 To this:

And then from my kitchen counter to my window, where I hope it will get enough sun to thrive. It's been getting about 10 hours a day of sun in the construction site, and inside my apartment it will probably get about two. Google says they'll grow in any light conditions, so here's hoping... and besides that, we all know bulb plants are long-lasting, hardy creatures.

Jesus himself said, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin," and while he did not add, "and yet a human will pick one up off the side of the road and take it home to be her own," I think the sentiment is there. These are plants that will survive cold and heat, lots of sun or little sun, being tended with loving care in a garden or being tossed aside by large machinery to make way for a parking lot. And if this little slice of creation can take all that and keep going, how much more can we?

"Will it grow?" "It will." 

One of the reasons I feel so passionate about having a strong community is for moments like this lily was having--when I've given all I can find within me and it's still not enough to get through the day, along comes someone who can say, "Let's take these next steps together." I hope you have the same--someone who can offer a hand at just the right time, someone you can call on when your inner reserves are tapped, someone who can plant you into their spare flowerpot. (Okay, so there is such a thing as taking a metaphor too far.)

The season of Lent has come to an end, and I pray it brought you blessing and strength for the season ahead of us now, and a community to sustain you through the times when the inner strength is just not enough. Happy Easter, my friends.

M is for Mural #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

I'm pretty sure blank walls are not allowed to exist in Cincinnati.

I should have gotten this one for my
Cincinnatus day. True story: my sister-
in-law saw this and said, "Oh, I thought
those were real steps!"

Cincinnati ArtWorks is responsible of a bunch of the murals around town. The rest? I have no idea, but appreciate the artists who have brightened up the place. No way was I going to let the A to Z Challenge go without getting as many of these as I can here for you to enjoy, too.

I had to step into a literal deserted alley to get this one.
Totally worth it.

Some of these are obviously old advertisements and not murals,
but I think those are also cool to see.
One of these is across the river in Kentucky. Meh.
So this photo is huge and I hope it doesn't wreak too much havoc on your browser,
but to make it any smaller makes the photos too small to see well.

My kind of urban art. And look! There's the ArtWorks signature.

And my absolute favourite one of all. I've never really managed
to get a decent pic of this mural, but that's not going to stop
me from trying as often as possible.

L is for Library #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

If I had to pick one thing I love more in Cincinnati than anywhere else on earth, this is it: the local library. And happiest of happenstances, this letter has come up during National Library Week.

I had thought I had read somewhere that the Cincinnati-Hamilton County Library has 42 branches, which obviously is the correct number for a library to have, but when I double-checked this morning I only saw 41 on the list. Bummer.

How do I love the Cincinnati Library? Let me count the ways:

1. It's connected to the OhioLink system, which means I can borrow a book from any municipal or university library in Ohio (participating libraries, that is). 
2. The librarians are incredible. I mean, all librarians are superheroes, but these are superheros who are able and willing to chat about everything. Seriously, there's nothing these folks don't know.
3. The Main Library is the busiest library branch in North America.
4. ... and The Public, a movie that deals with (among other things) homelessness and mental illness, just finished filming there a couple months ago. I may even go see that one in the theater.
5. Books auto-renew on the first due date.
6. Their social media team is first-rate. Want to follow some amazing bookish folks? Find them on Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram. Especially their Pinterest. Holy smokes, that Pinterest page. Don't miss it.

The Main Library downtown:

It's not a great pic on the lower right (the library, and thus
this garden, was already closed for the day when I arrived),
but that's one of the local pig statues, pulling a cart of books.

It is a magnificent place, and among its many wonders is a delightful Friends of the Library store. The New York Public Library gift shop may have gotten more of my awe, but the Cincinnati Library shop is much dearer to my heart.

My own branch library:

is the Corryville branch, which just celebrated its 100th birthday earlier this month. It's a Carnegie Library, just like the original library in my hometown, but unlike that one it's still in active use as a library. I love it so very much, for all that I tend to swoop in, drop off read books, pick up on-hold books, and race out again.

Also at the Corryville library, there's this:

Some of the many, many "Libraries are for all" signs in
bunches of languages all around the library.

 and this:

and I definitely wasn't moved to tears at the sight of either of those things when I saw them at my library. Nope. Definitely not me. Must have been some other person who cries over every freaking thing. (Obviously, me being moved to tears would be a bigger deal if it didn't happen approximately 4158 times per day.)

Come visit me. We'll go to the library. (Yes, I may take you other places after you've seen all the book places in town, but only if you're appropriately enthusiastic about all the books.)

K is for Kroger #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

There's a new Kroger in the neighborhood. That's not a euphemism; a new Kroger just opened a month ago and it's about a mile closer to me than my previous Kroger.

What's great about it: there's a bar and seating upstairs (yes, it has an upstairs!), an enormous prepared foods section if I ever need curry in a hurry--and let's be honest, when do I not?--and an outdoor patio with some fancy-looking artwork they're still installing.

I've always thought of myself as a Kroger kind of person, even all those years when the nearest Kroger was hundreds of miles away, but the truth is that I'm a nearest-supermarket-to-me-with-decent-bike-parking kind of person. Speaking of:

All this time as a bike advocate, I had no idea that's what bike racks
were for! Thanks for clearing that up for me, Kroger. ::eyeroll::

This is the nearest one to me now, so that's where I go, and I make it a point of locking up my bike right alongside the carts, in full view of an employee if I can manage it. (Not that I blame the employees. I'm sure they're following management's dumb instructions.) 

Cincinnati is Kroger's home base, or at least I think that's what the giant building downtown with "Kroger" on all four sides means. Which is admittedly not as cool as living in the home base of Whole Foods, but it is considerably cheaper.

I think this is Kroger's way of connecting to the neighborhood.
I admit it's working when I stop to take pics.

One more thing that is frustrating about this Kroger--they closed the old one that was a mile up the road the day before this one opened. When Kroger initially announced plans to close that store, the neighborhood rallied round to keep it, many of them making a point to shop more at their local Kroger to justify it staying... and it came to nothing when Kroger pulled up stakes anyway. Even more irritating is the number of transit-dependent folks who used to be in walking distance of a Kroger and now aren't. That neighborhood has not only been abandoned by their local store, but I've heard that Kroger's leaving has turned that area into a food desert. A couple friends live in the neighborhood that's been left behind and they're justifiably annoyed with the decision. Unfortunately, their anger is not enough to keep me from shopping at my neighborhood Kroger, because I'm not that good of a friend.

By the way, I've set up my Kroger Rewards to benefit IKRON Corporation, because that's part of the fun of working at a nonprofit. If you have Kroger Rewards and were wondering what to do with them, IKRON is a good choice. (Yes, this is a shameless self-promotion, but that's also part of the fun of working at a nonprofit.)

J is for Joseph #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

Joseph-Beth, actually, and Joseph-Beth Booksellers, to be as precise and unsurprising as possible. A few weeks ago on a Friday night, I thought, "Why sit here when there's a bookstore I haven't been to yet?" and I jumped on a bus and went. Yes, really. That's the sort of thing I think to myself on a Friday night.

Y'all. It was love at first sight. I have a running list* of my favourite independent bookstores in the world, and Joseph-Beth has not joined the list so much as barrelled its way in, knocking books off of shelves as it went. (It's still behind BookPeople and the Strand, though. Those are sacred spaces in my heart.)

I'd been inside for about three minutes when I saw this, which I promptly posted on all my social accounts:

It's like they knew I was coming, y'all.
And as if this weren't enough, they had the
Hamilton cast album (the clean version, obvs)
playing, and two employees in my earshot
were having a lengthy discussion about it.
My people are clearly hanging out at Joseph-Beth.

And I said:

Also at @JosephBethCincy. I am in love. (It's totally normal to be in love with a bookstore, right?) pic.twitter.com/eQqPzjurZM

— Su Wilcox (@cheekysu) February 4, 2017

And then they said:

@cheekysu Absolutely it is. We're in love with Flourish and Blotts. Totally normal.

— Joseph Beth Books (@JosephBethCincy) February 4, 2017

I should find out whether their social media person is my type. Anyway, you can understand why, when my sister-in-law and niece came to town last weekend, I offered a couple suggestions for what to do with our Friday night, and when the general consensus was "bookstore," we landed in Joseph-Beth. If they'd let me bring a pillow and blanket, I'd move in.

So, if you're planning to come visit me, know that you'll be seeing Joseph-Beth and I won't let you leave until you agree that it's one of the world's great book places.

*In approximate order of current love: BookPeople, Austin; Strand Books, New York; Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Cincinnati; Bookmamas, Indianapolis; Caledonian Books, Glasgow; Politics and Prose, D.C.; Hester Books, Lubbock; Fountain Square Booksellers, Cincinnati; Books & Brews, Indianapolis.

I is for Inclines #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

I'd never heard of inclines until one day I was wandering around the University of Cincinnati's local section and saw Melissa Kramer's book, The Inclines of Cincinnati. Cincinnati had five inclines (not all at once) hauling folks up some of our sizable hills from 1871 to 1948: Bellevue, Fairview, Mount Adams, Mount Auburn, and Price Hill. (They all also had a bunch of other names.) I have two thoughts about this: 1) This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping to learn when I started this A to Z Challenge, so yay! and 2) Dang, I really wish these things still existed. They were already gone even before my grandma lived here as a young woman.

Here's what they looked like in action:


The Mount Adams Incline was also the star of a bunch of postcards from the era (see this and many, many more at Cincinnati Views):

I've heard that the Price Hill Incline is the only one with any kind of commemorative signage letting people know what used to be there. In fact, I-71 runs over the base of the former Mount Adams Incline, so it would have to be a pretty big sign to tell people what they're driving over. However. One of inclines was replaced by an even slower form of transport: stairs. Right here in my own neighborhood, the footprint of the Mount Auburn Incline is preserved in the form of the Main Street Steps. So naturally, I took a stroll down them. It's pretty cool, really; Main Street comes to a T in the road and the only way to continue on Main is to go up the steps.

What it looked like in the late 1800s:

Source: cincinnati-transit.net.

What it looked like Sunday morning:

I think this was on the second segment down.
The steps are .17 mile long in total, according to
 my preferred mapping site. I'm no expert,
but I'm pretty sure that's longer than
your average staircase. Even if you're Tevye.

There was a public house at the top of the hill when the Incline was in service. There's a park there now, but again--nothing to indicate whether the park was the site of Lookout House (I'm just guessing that it was), or that an Incline once ran here. I can't get over my astonishment that despite their existence being otherwise well documented, this pretty cool slice of Cincinnati history goes unremarked-upon in four out of five sites where it happened.

Mind you, people probably still drink here. Just not legally.

More of the Incline's former footprint (plus other sights on the way down). The steps cross three streets as they cut through the neighborhood toward downtown, and as you can see, even have their own street sign at one spot.

There are outdoor stairs all over the city, by the way, although I feel like I see as many "steps closed" signs as I see steps in active use. We have some hills, y'all. I imagine all the closed stairways will remain closed, given how much investment it would require to basically rebuild them.

This one is probably the saddest, although given the fence and the
fact that you can't even see steps there any longer, it's also
the most redundant.

Couple more cool artifacts from the Cincinnati Views site. Definitely drop by and give them a look.

Sources: Cincinnati Views: Inclines and Cable Cars, Cincinnati Transit.

H is for Hamilton #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

Hey, look! I managed to use Hamilton two A to Z Challenges in a row! Come back in 2018 and we'll see if we can make it a three-peat.

This time around, though, I mean this:

which is the county I live in, not this:

which is a musical I'm pretty sure I'm going to be the last of my friends to see.

So my thing has been for a while that I only moved to Hamilton County because Ohio doesn't have a Valjean County. Indeed, there does not seem to be a Valjean County in the entire country, although there are the Valjean Hills in California and postal code 24601 in Virginia. Hamilton it is, then.

For a government building, the county courthouse isn't terribly ugly:

I was hoping one of the quotes on the façade would be a
quote from Alexander Hamilton, but alas, it was not to be.
(Why not, I don't know, because he wrote quite a lot of stuff down.
The building could be covered in his quotes and there would still
be some left over for a book in the main lobby.)
We do get Micah 6:8, though, at least the bits of about doing
justice and loving mercy.

Also at the courthouse. I kind of want to meet the
unheard-of birds, but there didn't seem to be any around
yesterday morning. Which is, obviously, a real bummer.

I always stop to read historical markers, except the ones on 60-mph roads.
Those I tend to pass by. This marker is relatively new, even though the
events described happened in 1884.
Read about Sherrif Hawkins in a more reasonable print size here.

Springing

As spring progresses, I grow ever more convinced that my seeing The Secret Garden for the first time before my first spring in the Midwest as an adult was by divine intervention.

Every tulip I've seen has been so bright and amazing that
it's almost hard to believe they're real. 

I don't think of God as a giant puppetmaster pulling strings and controlling day-to-day life, though, which I suppose means that I don't really believe that thing I just wrote. But still, it was a remarkable confluence of circumstances which has led to me five months later strolling through this, my favourite of seasons, singing "And you'll be here to see it." (There's just one verse of the song in the first minute of that video, although the whole thing is worth watching.)

For here indeed I am. After a frustrating 2016 filled with false starts, I've landed on my feet with a job I enjoy and coworkers who fill me with delight, plus a church home that's ditto with bells on, and getting out of bed most days is not as hard as it once was. And while my heart may still belong to Austin, I do stop to look around every day and marvel at all this green. In many ways, every day for me is like Dorothy walking out of her house into Oz. (But before the whole shoe incident with Elphaba.)

Not every tree is blooming yet, but the ones that are--I can
barely take my eyes off them.

I went for a nice long walk before church this morning.
Great way to start a Sunday in a good frame of mind to
go tell God that he's pretty cool.

I don't need summer to get here in a hurry. In fact, I need it to not. I need plenty of mornings of singing "Winter's on the Wing" on my walk to work and loving every second of it. This is a season of rebirth and it's helping to heal the holes in my heart.

What is spring doing for you?

G is for Glencoe #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

Today's post is a two-fer, because I asked for suggestions on The Social Network that Is an Abomination and Shall Not Be Named but Is Still Useful From Time to Time, and I don't want to ignore them completely.

Graeter's Ice Cream was suggested and seconded. However, I haven't been there and I don't really want this series to devolve into "here's another local restaurant that I've heard of but haven't tried." But we did discuss it at length at Bible study earlier this week, which led to an interesting conversation about when a mom-and-pop store becomes a chain (I think 10 locations was the consensus we finally reached with the help of Google), which led to a brief mention of Schoolhouse Rock, and eventually left us all kind of hungry and craving ice cream. (Except me. Ice cream and I have a weird relationship that I shall not go into right now. I crave fro-yo instead and it's been working out well for about 15 years.) All that to say: If you're coming to Cincy and you need some ice cream, this is probably a place you want to check out.

One thing we have a lot of around here is cool old walls.
At least, I presume they're old. I suppose it's technically
possible they were built last year and were just
designed to look old.
Anyway. This is the wall on Glencoe Place.

So, Glencoe. It's a short street in my neighbourhood that is currently more of a construction zone than actual street. So why give it a post in the A to Z Challenge? Because here in this land where I waste a lot of time trying to pronounce all the German placenames in Spanish (a habit that will probably wear off eventually, but seriously, y'all, after 16 years in Texas I don't expect it to go away any time soon), I'm not about to turn away from a Scottish name that I can already pronounce, whose namesake I've visited to boot.

Having said that, while Glencoe village itself is a lovely place, and IIRC is the first place where I saw signs in both English and Scottish Gaelic, the first thing I think of when I hear "Glencoe" is somewhat less pleasant and I have to wonder who in Cincinnati's past thought, "Hey, let's name a street after the site of a brutal massacre!" If there had been social media in 1692, the street sign would probably have a hashtag on it.

Look at all that green. Spring doesn't screw around in
Cincinnati. Unrelated: I had to crop so much rubbish
out of this photo. Stop littering, folks. It's disgusting.

F is for Flying #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

As I understand it, Cincinnati was a major pork market once upon a time, and the locals have been slightly obsessed with pigs ever since. Why the pigs have wings, I'm not sure, although I've heard the winged pigs represent the generous souls of the long-gone porkers.

Also, the local marathon is called the Flying Pig. I'm going to miss it this year because it's the day after the Indy Mini and I'll still be in Indiana. 2018, though, I'll be there with wings on.

Anyway, a few of the pigs, flying or otherwise, that I've spotted around town:

This was the first pig I saw in Cincy. And he's one of my favourites, as you can
probably imagine. He lives outside the Cincinnati Shakespeare Theatre
and I presume he's moving with them when they head to their new home this summer.
I don't know why he doesn't have any wings, except yadda yadda Shakespeare's
words already have fancy wingsipants. Or something.

Left: The little gal with lots of hometown pride lives at my post office.
I say hello to her when I stop by.
Center: Phantom of the Slopera lives at the Aronoff Center.
Presumably, one does not need wings when one is haunting
the basement of the Slopera House. I wonder if being a Slopera Pig
also earns 20,000€ a month? (Yes, I know it should be francs and not euros,
but the franc symbol is less widely recognisable.)
Right: This musical lady lives at Anderson Center, a quite nice facility
where I attended a work training. One of my coworkers patiently
held the door for me while I took this pic, because they've only known
me a few weeks and yet they already tolerate my quirks and foibles. They're the best.

E is for Echo #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

The building is
Sharlie-approved.
(Sharlie is my bike.
 She's named after
Charlotte Brontë.)

I had the best of intentions of doing research on the beautiful building where Echo Church meets (we rent part of the building on Sundays, and that's all I've bothered finding out so far), but sometimes things just don't work out. My boss has a massive book filled with Cincinnati's history that I should probably ask to borrow one of these days and this building is probably in it. It obviously began life as a church, but that's literally all I know about it.

Anyway! You may remember I did quite a bit of hand-wringing trying to find the church that would essentially be my Red River Junior, and I'm happy to say I have. And while they're lovely and wonderful, this post is essentially to show you how pretty the building is.

While I was taking pics on Sunday morning, I heard my sister-in-law telling someone they were for the blog. So whoever that was: here it is!

Probably my favourite two of the stained-glass windows.
And of course, the view of the old stuff is slightly obscured by the
(necessary) new stuff.

I thought I got a pic of that window from
the inside, but since I didn't, here it is from the
outside instead.

D is for Donut #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

Grilled cheese donut, that is:

Image source: CincinnatiUSA.com.

I have not tried this. In fact, I feel ill just thinking about it and if I look at that pic long enough I might get a contact migraine. But for all that they've spread across the country, Tom+Chee is a beloved local restaurant, and I acknowledge that many of my readers are probably happy to try this. So, lots and lots of props to Adventure Mom for taking the plunge and writing about it. If you want to know more about this as-seen-on-TV restaurant that may also be near you, she's your gal.

Maybe someday I'll be brave enough to try a grilled cheese donut.

C is for Cincinnatus #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: I'll share a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati, every day for 26 days in April.

This is the guy Cincinnati is named after:

Because of course there's a statue.
This photo is from last summer. Green leaves
are popping out, but we don't have that many yet.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was (according to my swift research on Wikipedia) a farmer who led the Romans in war and then gave up power and headed home, possibly after singing "One Last Time" (in Latin, natch). The historical record is a bit muddled about that last bit.

During my young life in the Midwest, it wasn't hard to figure out that most place names in this part of the country are either Native American or German words, so I spent most of my life thinking "Cincinnati" was one of the former. Clearly, I should have done a bit more reading about that. Late to the party is better than never coming at all, yeah?

B is for Bridge #AtoZChallenge

Join me on the A to Z Challenge: for 26 days in April, I'll share something from my new home, Cincinnati.

It didn't take me long to find this glorious local landmark. I was walking around the start line area at the Turkey Trot last November, turned a corner, and thought... Where am I??

If it looks familiar--and it should!--that's because it was built by the same folks who brought us the Brooklyn bridge. Cincinnati's version is named after the guy who built it, John A Roebling, and predates Brooklyn's slightly more famous bridge by 16 years. During those years, the Roebling bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world, only to be surpassed when its baby sister was born in Brooklyn. 

So it was love at first sight when I found out we have this gorgeous bridge living right here, a love that has only been compounded by the further discovery of good-sized bike/ped paths on either side. 

The Roebling Bridge is also the star of this, clearly the best of all the adverts at the Super Bowl this year:



The music is by local group Over the Rhine (and they're obviously fantastic), but I was totally enthralled by the bridge itself the first time I saw it. On subsequent viewings, I've appreciated both the gorgeous song and all those blue scarves. I guess you have to work at Cincinnati Bell to get one of those.

I haven't quite embraced Cincy as home yet. I'm getting there, but my heart still belongs to Austin in oh-so-many ways. Which is one reason I chose Cincy for my A to Z Challenge theme this year--there's more than one way to make someplace home.

What I Read: March

So, here's the thing. I can't listen to podcasts and read at the same time. I'm trying to divide my time between the two things and it's not working out that well. All that to say, look! I read three books in March! Yipe. (Please don't read that as "yipee.")

Books are in alphabetical order by title (ignoring articles, naturally; I'm not a barbarian). If you want to see them in a different order, let's be friends on Goodreads and you can peruse my shelves to your heart's delight. As always, book images and links are from Goodreads, and that's where you can read my reviews, too.

First-time reads:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
In the Unlikely Event, Judy Blume
X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking, Jeff Gordinier


Re-reads:
Going Postal, Terry Pratchett


Books by women:
In the Unlikely Event, Judy Blume


Goodreads challenge: 10 of 52 books in 2017


What are you reading?

A is for Aronoff #AtoZChallenge

For 26 days in April, I'm sharing a different thing from my new home, Cincinnati!

The Aronoff Center is the Cincinnati home of the Broadway touring series, which is enough reason for me to make it my kickoff A to Z Challenge post. I've seen three shows there so far, so stay tuned for more. The best thing about the Aronoff? Everyone who works there is fantastic. From box office to ushers, I've not met a single person there who wasn't incredibly friendly. This has not, alas, always been my experience with regional theatres.

Outside:

Inside: