Easter in Tudor Style

Today's Easter Sunday and despite the cold gray sky and snow flakes, I indulged myself for an Easter treat...lunch at the Tudor Room in Indiana University's Memorial Union Building also known as the IMU. Since my first visit to the Union Building when I was only in 5th grade, the building has seemed like a castle with its fire place that's always burning, the leather club furniture and English Tudor style archways and beamed ceilings.


Situated in the heart of the campus, the Union's proud history dates back nearly 100 years t0 its founding in 1911 as a gathering place for students, faculty and visitors. While the smoke filled lounges and bridge games in the Commons have been replaced with franchise fast food, computer kiosks and bank machines, the Tudor Room remains today as I have always remembered it with its stained glass windows and two-story vaulted ceilings hung with tapestries and banners.


The Easter brunch buffet probably wasn't the tastiest holiday fare in the area and certainly less opulent than Easter buffets in larger cities, but it honestly reflected the tradition and tastes of the collegial community. Today was not a day to stick with the Weight Watchers point counting. It was time to enjoy ham and lamb, spring carrots and delicious desserts and to be reminded that spring will soon arrive. Once again Bloomington will shed the grays of winter and burst into pinks and greens with the Union Building proudly standing in the center of the colorful display.



One more important point about the IMU is its incredible art collection. The IUM's web site describes the art collection as follows:

"Indiana University and the Indiana Memorial Union have a rich history of commitment to the arts and creative expression. Started in 1923 when IU students purchased six paintings from artist-in-residence Theodore Clement Steele, the Union’s collection now boasts more than 1,200 two- and three-dimensional pieces including works by distinguished Indiana artists Wayman Adams, C. Curry Bohm, Marie Goth, William Forsyth and Rudy Pozzati."

Rain Dancers Wanted Immediately

I hate to admit this, but Al Gore might have been right--not about creating the Internet--but global warming. Maybe that's the cause of the desert conditions we've been living. Not only have we been without any noticeable precipitation for what seems like months, the temperature's been hovering between 95 and 100 degrees for the same amount of time. It's been so hot and dry, that is seems the Bloomingtonions are going through the same type of cabin fever we suffer each February. It's not pretty! Crime goes up. People are cranky and ornery and just want the season to change...or at least a bit of cloud cover. Even some schools are letting out early for the heat...just like the winters and snow storms. As you see in the photo, a gaggle of college ducklings blew up their wadding pool for a Friday afternoon swim in the middle of Dunn Meadow. (You know Dunn Meadow--the playground for students earning advanced degrees in Frisbee throwing or war protesting and the Sigma Chi intramural football team.)

Then there's the draught. While our Midwestern neighbors have so much water their creating adjunct great lakes, our ponds are so dry that fish are becoming amphibians and heading for the high grass to keep cool. My gardens have gone into a terminal state of dormancy and any grass that's green is an extra hardy strain of crab. This weekend, we sat and watched the red globs on the "Doppler 9000 Super Whopper" weather radar with fingers crossed just hoping those globs would dump on us. Instead the clouds just slid right over our little Bloomington without so much as a droplet of rain. But as folks around here say, "Stick around. The weather will change." But why is it taking so long? Maybe I'll have to break down and read "the Algore's" book after all.