Monday and Tuesday (and Wednesday too, actually) in Fort Wayne, IN

I'm just going to pop in what pictures I've taken here and there to break up all my blabbing (which is more my benefit than anything else - I tend to start forgetting details of one day by the next day!)  It may make for confusing reading, but I think everyone enjoys the pictures more than the writing anyway. :)

Don't know why I said Monday and Tuesday cause it's now Wednesday and as far as I can remember I didn't do much of anything on Monday.  Took a shower which as the girls had warned me was not the most pleasant experience I've ever had.  It's quite a small shower stall, it doesn't seem to have been installed too well because there's a good 1/2" gap at the bottom of the door so the water sprays out on the floor with gay abandon, and the shower gizmo is I'd say 1/3 functional.  It's one of those where you can take the center portion out and still have water coming out of the ring up at the water supply (although not with this one) and the handheld part has a center cluster of holes and two side bars of holes with only the center sending out a jet blast of water.  I had a really hard time knowing what to do with any of it - if I let it hang down it invariably pointed toward the door, if I put it back up in the holder it was very high and beat down on me from above, and if I held it and tried spraying me, it was actually kind of painful.  A new shower head will be a real improvement and January is planning to find one.  The stall is small but not as small as the 27" square one I had in Florence, so that's a blessing!

This photo is looking towards downtown after I walked half a block up from the house, turned and walked another block and a half to the main one-way boulevard into town.  I left the foreground in to give an idea of how close they are - it's just a couple blocks until you start getting into the "city" type area.  

Other than that, Monday was mostly spent waiting to hear if the futon I had ordered and was told would be delivered Monday was, in fact, going to be delivered and, no it wasn't.  So I loaded the dishwasher, worked on and finished the first Fort Wayne post, read, played my Simpson's game on my phone and stuff like that.  January cooked us a luscious dinner - I think I said she was going to make the shrimp bar-b-q in my last post and that's what she made and wow! it was nummy.  Been a long, long time since I've had it and quite a while since I've had such delicious shrimp. They were just the Kroger brand frozen shrimp so I may try getting a bag for me at home.

This picture is taken from the same intersection as the one above.  It's just a house that I thought was real attractive.  There are a lot of nice houses in the area.

Then last night (Tuesday) she used the remaining shrimp and sauce as a pasta sauce for spaghetti, adding lots of parmesan cheese and that too was just excellent.    They're both really good cooks.

Now this is maybe three blocks down from the intersection above.  I don't know what the big white building is - I took this picture just to show the tall buildings.

This is a huge Lutheran church complex and even though it is very unornamented and basically plain, I think it is beautiful.  I love that it seems to keep climbing up and up and finally reaching the wonderful, soaring steeple.  

Tuesday day I finally got a call saying the futon was in Fort Wayne and the earliest he could get it delivered would be Wednesday morning.  I moaned around a bit about that and he said well, he could see if later in the afternoon one of his drivers was free and deliver it.  So just as I had left the house and was walking towards downtown, January texted to say that he had called her and it would be delivered in 40 minutes.  Back I went and it was probably more like an hour but I had time for some lunch (I had been going to walk to Subway) and here he came.  With bad news.  The package had been damaged in shipment and he could tell through the holes that the fabric on the futon had been ripped.  So I could either accept it and contact Walmart or he could take it back and do something - I couldn't really figure out what.  I really was uneasy about any of it but finally decided to have him leave it with a note on his paper that I signed saying it was damaged on arrival.  I then called Walmart and much as I do not like Walmart, I have to say, they pretty much instantly put through a return request, and an order for a new one and gave me a discounted price on the new order.  Now we just have to hope that it actually gets picked up and a new one delivered.  It won't be on time for me to sleep on it though. :(

This is a portion of (the entrance to) their baseball stadium.  Opening night was I think Sunday, the ninth and around 10 pm or so, we heard extensive fireworks.  Their team is called the Tin Caps and that's because of Johnny Appleseed.  He wore a tin saucepan as a cap apparently and in this picture you can see a red blob down low on the brick building which is an apple with a saucepan on top.  I knew Johnny Appleseed but I have to admit I didn't know he wore a saucepan on his head or if I ever did I had forgotten.

This is the main county library and it is huge.  January (and a man on the street) told me that they have the largest genealogy library in the United States!  It's a beautiful setting and I will visit it on a future visit.

The rest of the day was good.  I ended up walking downtown anyway, stopping at Starbucks and eating my chocolate graham cracker with a nice hot cup of tea.  I walked all the way to the visitors' center but I had waited til too late and they were closed.

This building which I think is delightful, was a firehouse built in 1893.  I don't know when it quit being that but it is now the Firefighter Museum.  Outside there is a sign saying "no smoking in front of the firehouse" which may be somewhat "tongue in cheek".

I meant to get to the Visitors' Center today but again, it was really chilly and windy and I wanted to get to the grocery store and a Tuesday Morning store I had noticed (finding my way is yet another saga which I won't bother with except to say Siri needs some help with Fort Wayne!) After finishing with that I met Maggie for lunch near where she works so we walked to that.  When we got back to the Arts Center where she works, she showed me all around the theater and that was a treat.  Maggie is the Costume designer and costume shop supervisor in charge of all the costuming so where she works is filled with boxes and boxes of finished pieces, fabrics, trims, everything.  She showed me the magnificent coat for the play "Joseph and Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and it is just so beautiful it makes me want to see it in action.  She didn't make that costume and it has, in fact, been used every time they've presented the play but she does make costumes and has three sewing machines in her work station.  She oversees two other women who are not quite as gung-ho a worker as Maggie is and she is gently working at getting them motivated.

These pictures go together because this is the block long Grand Wayne Center and it took two shots to get it all in.  I assume it's like a convention or a civic center - used for special events and such.  It's an attractive building and the paved area in front will be very pretty when the trees are in leaf.  It's nicely situated with the two very tall AEP buildings standing behind.

Tomorrow I will see where January works and have lunch with her (maybe at the coney hot dog place?) and tonight I think we're going to try a place called Wine Down that has small plates and wine and beer.  They've not been there yet and want to try it and, of course, it sounds like my kind of place so that's fine with me.

The man on the street also told me this is a nice apartment complex going up.  Pour moi perhaps?  No, probably not but I sure am liking this city.  Am quite happy that I decided to opt out of Chicago at the last minute and spend more time here.