Scattered for Spring

I try, very hard, not to disturb the milkweed plants which sprout around the yard. This year, I was rewarded by the sight of 4 monarchs. It could have been the two I originally saw back in August, but I tell myself it was four separate butterflies. I would really like to enlarge that area with the rudbeckia and daisies but I need to hire someone to do that. My days of digging up my yard are limited.

Anyway, the second best thing about milkweed plants is when the seed pods open in the late fall or early winter.

The desiccated plants are easy to snap off and the pods pop open with a satisfying 'pook'. It doesn't take much to knock the main stem down and then the seeds are off with the wind.

The flight of the seeds is so pretty. A big gust can fill the air with dainty white tendrils. I remember, as a child, popping open the pods and throwing the seeds into the wind. There is something magical about their dance. On this date, the pods had opened and were just hanging around. There was no wind to toss them into the air and carry them around the neighborhood. I'm fairly certain my neighbors don't have the same admiration for milkweed that I do and consider it a nuisance.

Milkweed needs disturbed ground to settle and sprout but need nothing after that. I'm going to have a lot of the trash trees removed from the back and side yards this spring and part of that is to grind out any stumps to make sure the tree doesn't come back. That's 'disturbing' the ground for sure. There are a couple of places I think would look good planted with flowers, perennials, mostly, which will include more prairie plants. Common milkweed fits that description.

I weighed the removal of these volunteer trees and with the detritus of the winter with all the birds which seem to be in my yard now. The birds will hang around and I think, with more flowers to attract bees and butterflies, the overall attractiveness of my yard will remain high. That's the ultimate goal here. Dancing milkweeds and dancing butterflies and dancing birds.

Beverage:  Dunkin' Donuts tea

Deb

TWO!

Yesterday was a bad day. I awoke with a headache. I cannot tell you the last time that's happened. Since starting this regimen of drugs for RA, I rarely get headaches. No stress headaches. No tension headaches. Whatever would cause those things seems to be either kept in check or abated since adding RA drugs to my life. So, waking up with a monster headache, actually, having the headache wake me up, another rarity, was strange.

I've been having a bit of an RA flare since coming home from vacation. I'm pretty sure it was a result of the long distance and the lack of cruise control on the rental car. We stopped frequently, but it wasn't enough. My right eye has been red, a sure sign of a flare, since midday on Tuesday, and really goopy, proof of a flare. I know how to handle that, warm compresses over my eyes and sterile eye drops, but it takes time, once I'm in a full-blown flare, to get it under control. My sleep gets disrupted, too. But, thanks to the physical therapy, my sciatica is nowhere to be seen. That, alone, makes handling a flare easier. I even mowed the lawn in one sitting on Sunday, 45 minutes. After I did that, I spent 2.5 hours in the recliner with my feet up.

But this headache... There is a perfect Yiddish word for this, "Oy". I had breakfast and took a shower but the warmth of the water and steam didn't make it go away. I warmed a wash cloth and lie down on the bed, with it over my face. I lay as long as I could, grabbed left over spaghetti for lunch, and headed to the office. One aspirin and an allergy pill later, it seemed to abate, but it was never gone. I also found myself dozing off frequently throughout the day. It was a bad Monday.

And then I came home. Look!

The prairie flowers that I have at the southeast corner of the yard are in full bloom. I will take a photo tonight when I get home. The purple coneflowers and black-eyed susans are beautiful this year. Maybe it was all the rain? And you know I don't mow off the common milkweed that grows in my yard unless it's really not in a good spot. I've actually mowed around 5 plants in the front yard. They look kind of silly but I want them to grow specifically for monarchs.

There were actually two monarchs in this patch.

Such joy! I sat in my driveway and tried to capture their swirling dance around each other as they flitted through the plants. Later, as I watered the flowers on the deck, one came around, probably looking for water in the birdbath. It was so dirty that I had dumped it out in the morning and hadn't refilled the bowl.

This makes me so happy. I wish I could find a cocoon. I would photograph the heck out of that. I've never seen one and it's obvious I've got something of a habitat for them. As monarchs are endangered, this brings me a great deal of happiness.

Last Wednesday, a perky young woman stopped by my house to offer me bug killing services. "We'll rid your yard and house of bugs and spiders," she said enthusiastically. I was shocked. She couldn't guarantee that beneficial insects, such as my monarchs, wouldn't be harmed when their pesticide was applied. Why, on earth, do people want sterile yards? She gave me some clap trap about how spiders only remove 1% of the bugs in your yard. But they, and the bugs I see around me, are part of a broader ecosystem. If we remove the bugs, then there's nothing for birds. She couldn't or wouldn't, give me the scientific proof that spiders only eat 1% of bugs and she was stumped when I said, "Then there's nothing for birds or bats to eat." And, when I pointed out that you cannot completely eradicate bugs because your neighbor's property may not be sprayed, she said, "Well, we just spray everyone then and it all works out." No. No. No. It doesn't work like that. When she told me I was wrong for wanting spiders in my yard, I told her to get off my property and take her pesticide with her. I may have said, "And get a real job where you're not lying to people" as she walked away.

I'm right. We're all connected. I thought about the neighbor who wants no bugs. No butterflies? No moths? No ladybugs? No dances of orange wings on a Monday afternoon. I don't get it, but maybe I'm weird. My headache didn't go away and I wound up going to bed early and sleeping for 10 hours. I feel fine today. I hope the butterflies are back. I really want to capture the joy in watching them fly. That's happiness.

Beverage:  water

Deb

Dear California,

We have your water. You just need to come get it.

We were kind of overdue. The last blizzard was in 2011. I got 20 inches of snow out of that one.

I was stuck in the house for 5 days until I shoveled my way out.

The storm that settled over Chicagoland on Sunday only dropped 15 inches by me.

While the yardstick on the deck railing says 13, I know I got more than that. Glen Ellyn, to my east got 13. Carol Stream, north of me, got 19, and Winfield, to my west, got 16. It's over a foot. That's all I need to know. The National Weather Service said this is the 5th heaviest snowfall on record, according to the O'Hare airport total of 19.2 inches. Last year, it was just constant snow. This year, is one dumping, so far. Could we not try, every year, to break records?

The winds were not as strong as in 2011. The highest recorded was 50 mph, whereas in 2011, we had hurricane force winds, at times up to 75 mph. Still, that's enough to blow any snow you get and this was no exception.

Work was called off so we could dig ourselves out.

The drifts around the Jeep were 2 to 2.5 feet deep.

It didn't take me as long to shovel to and around the Jeep this time because the drifts weren't a foot deeper. Still, I took one look down the drive and sighed.

It had filled in. I realized that it was going to take me a couple days to dig out. I'd be able to get the Jeep out and to shovel the drive to the edge of the house, but I'd need to rest for a few hours and come back out in the afternoon to get the front steps shoveled off and shovel the walk from the house to the street, but any more was pushing it.

Then my neighbor to the south came over and said, "There is no way you're shoveling this." She got her neighbor to the south and the two of them blew out the drive and the front walk. I shoveled from the street to the house. I need to do some trimming of the drive at the street, but unlike 2011, when we were just people in our own little world, the neighborhood came together and I saw a number of people out blowing out drives and sidewalks. Is it because we are older and more inclined to help each other? Not sure, but I'm beyond grateful for the assistance.

As happens after a blizzard, the air following it was cold. The last time, it was single digits. This time, it started at 5 but rose to 12. There was no wind, not even a breeze. I removed my ear muffs and scarf and unzipped my coat because I got warm.

And it's so beautiful outside. I don't think the sky is any bluer than after a storm. That goes for summer, when we get heavy rain, or winter, when we get heavy snow. I love this blue color. It's peaceful and cheerful and I want this color around me. I have my bedroom painted a lighter version of this color, but I think I need to repaint at least the ceiling in this color.

I had to laugh when I looked up at the roof. Those a drifts on the roof.

We had a lot of melting yesterday. The front walk, all nicely shoveled, is mostly clear as are the front steps and the deck. Stuff slid off the roof all day yesterday. I'd hear a noise and go look and there would be a pile of snow at the ground. The snow painted trees lost their trimmings throughout the day, too. The snow in the drive was mushy in places. I'll be able to move more of that out of the drive to make it easier to get in and out. I need to shovel from the mail box to the drive. I usually do that for the post man, to make it easier to get from my house to the neighbor's, but it was too much to do yesterday. We're to get a couple more inches today which I'll need to shovel, but that I can do.

This can be our only snow of the winter and I'll be happy. It wasn't horrible to move around and it looks great. Life was disrupted for a couple days but we can all get on with things. Kids have enough snow to make snowmen and to go sledding and to pelt parents with snowballs. I have enough to marvel at the beauty that is winter.

Beverage: Irish Breakfast tea

Deb

Light Bright

I live in a fairly quiet neighborhood of Wheaton. We're close to the train station into Chicago, but, for the most part, not much happens around here. That's really okay. I'm not sure I would enjoy living 3 blocks west or 2 blocks east, both of which are secondary north-south roads on which there can be a lot of traffic. So, it was with some interest that I received a letter right after Labor Day from our Park District. There was going to be a 5k race to benefit the FT Cares Foundation. Based in Wheaton, the foundation raises money to provide resources to other charities in the area. They called the run "Light the Torch" and you were encouraged to dress up in lighted clothing, carry lights or wear glow sticks, etc. Each runner and walker was given a glow strip they could wear.

The reason I received a letter about this was that the race course was right in front of my house.

I live by the water/first aid station on the right side of the race route. We received another reminder, stuck in our front doors on Tuesday. The race would start at 7 p.m. but the street would be closed at 6:30. We needed to remind people, and ourselves, of this so no one was on the race course. Any cars parked would be towed to side streets.

The barricades were left at the street corners on Thursday.

I've never watched a foot race. I had no idea what to expect. Neighbors had been talking all week about standing in their parkways and cheering, adding lights to the front of their homes since the whole idea of the race was to add additional lights. I noticed, when I got home, that some people north of me had luminaria along their section of the street.

At 6:30, as stated, the barricades on the side streets went up.

Neighbors south of me strung up Christmas lights. I thought, I could have done that, or put something in the front of the house. We knew the race would start at 7 to the west of us. We weren't sure how soon we'd start to see runners after the start. I decided to just sit on the front steps and watch. I had to find the Deep Woods Off to combat the mosquitoes, although I was surprised at how few there were.

At 7:15, a police car came down the street. My little camera doesn't do well in low light situations. There is probably a setting for low light, but I couldn't find it right away. About 2 minutes after the police car passed, the first batch of runners came through. Most of them wore only the event issued light stick and that chartreuse-color shirt. Slowly, however, the colorfully decorated runners started showing up.

There were family groups running and walking.

There were friends and people with dogs or strollers.

You can see that some people really took the "bring your own lights" suggestion to heart.

It was fun to watch the race. I had a mug of tea and enjoyed a wonderfully mild September night. A walker was the last person to come by. She was followed by a police car. Neighbors cheered her as loudly as the first people to come down the street.

The whole event took an hour and 15 minutes. The street was not reopened until 9:00 to allow all racers to clear the course. About 10 minutes after this walker passed my house, a car came down the street. That car was followed, very quickly, by a police car and they were stopped just north of my house. I could hear the officer saying, "Those barricades are there for a reason ma'am." That's the time one goes back into one's house for a refill on the tea.

If this happens next year and they use the same route, I need to put Christmas lights on my arbor. They couldn't have asked for a better night, which won't always occur. This was fun and a nice diversion to the usual life of the block.

Beverage:  Scottish Breakfast tea

Deb

I Love This Town

I don't think I could live in the city. I value my more than postage stamp lawn, although I have to admit that it's more care than I can do right now. But when I have to go into the city, as I did in July to take the above photo, or last week, this town has a beauty I enjoy. Even though I don't partake of all it has to offer, and it has a lot of free stuff, just knowing I could is good enough for me.

Of course, getting there can be an exercise in supreme patience.

It's 7:05 a.m. and the Eisenhower Expressway going into the city is a parking lot. It's not any better to the left leaving the city. It used to be that going in didn't get "bad" until 7:15. Now, if you have to be somewhere in the city by 8, you best leave at 6:15 to be sure you get there on time. Still, when the skyline comes into view, it's so distinctive.

It doesn't matter that I've moved exactly one and a half football fields from the previous photo and it's 20 minutes later.

We're working in one of Chicago's oldest neighborhood called "Uptown". For many, many years, this was the end of the elevated streetcar line. Wealthy Chicagoans bought up the land and built large homes in the area and it was, if you can believe it, a vacation destination for those living in the city proper. Gradually, the city overtook the area. It's now not the nicest place to be. The grand old houses were torn down and the land used for apartments. Or the homes were converted into apartments which have long ago lost their sheen.

Neighborhoods come and go with the rise and fall of the merchants around them. There is a branch of Harper College here which provides a captive populace for those business owners, mainly restaurants, to eek out a living. Infrastructure improvements, including quirky bike racks, help make getting around the area easier.

One of the biggest projects is to completely redo the elevated line and its attendant station. There is a lot of history contained in the buildings.

The "glory" days of the neighborhood were in the 1920's-1930's when most of these buildings with the terracotta trim were erected. A lot of renovation and demolition has happened in the intervening years. Sometimes things were saved. Most of the time, they were not. The terracotta on this building, which is slated for demolition, will be removed and saved. The building behind the terracotta is not structurally sound anymore. The pigeon will have to find other digs.

In some cases, building owners understood the value of keeping the architectural details.

This is an example. I really like how the owners have maintained the colored terracotta features. It doesn't work for every building, but where it can be saved and preserved, it's beauty enlivens a neighborhood. This is an apartment building from the 1940's.

I finished my job and headed home.

Heading south on Lake Shore Drive gives you another view of the city part of Chicago. The John Hancock building, visible here, is not visible when you're coming in on the Eisenhower. That's the Sears, no Willis Tower you see coming in from the west. The two are too far apart to get into a small photo at these distances.

On a day like this, the best view was the one out my window looking east.

I don't have anything to compare this with. I have very little experience with the ocean so I don't know if it ever looks this blue green. The boats are inside the break waters so that area does not have waves. It was so incredibly placid and still. The big boat is The Tall Ship Windy which can be rented out for private parties.

Even when I curse my luck of having to drive in on a hot summer day when traffic ceases to move at 7:10 in the morning, they are the images that make me happy to live here.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Lights

'Tis the season of lights. We string them up, around and about. We ooh and ahh over a well designed display. We drive miles out of our way to look at a collection and they frame this holiday. NBC Nightly News has asked the people on the space station to see if they can spot and photograph from space the home in Australia with the Guinness Book of World Records most Christmas lights.

Lately, in my neighborhood, we've had lights of a different sort.

These are not the lights you want to see in your neighborhood and certainly not at 1 a.m., when the photo was taken. It was a rainy, foggy Friday night and I had just fallen asleep when I was jarred awake by the 'whoop whoop' of the emergency siren. I don't know what was the problem. The neighbors in that direction are unknown to me. I was drawn by the reflection of the lights off the homes and the wet pavement and how the building fog diffused the red flashers.

I like observing lights on a foggy night. There's something intriguing about how light is bent and blurred by the water droplets of fog. I know it's all very scientific, how that works, but what I like is the visual. Flashing lights, a misty night and the enveloping fog made for a mesmerizing scene. 

Beverage:  Irish Breakfast tea

Deb

So That's What They Are For

There is a massive sidewalk square replacement project going on in my neighborhood.

Many years ago, the city offered homeowners the chance to replace sidewalk sections for $40 per square. I had a sunken square in front of the house. A city engineer came out, took a look and said they needed to replace two of the squares. Because I had initially called only about one and it was their determination that both needed replacing, I could get both done for $40. I missed that there might have been a call for more people to ask for sidewalk replacement. We used to get a city newsletter in the mail. Now, it's posted online. I rarely remember to check it monthly for news.

There are a lot of these on my block. I have a cracked square in one of the pieces that goes through the driveway. I'm wondering if I had to call to have them check it or if they just walked the street and marked which ones would be replaced. I can't find anything in the city newsletter saying this was coming. It would be a slight headache to get into the drive if they removed the cracked piece. Neighbors across the street have had 2 squares in their drive removed. They have to park in the street until this is fixed. It looked kind of eerie last night, seeing all these flashing yellow beacons.

This is one of those "it will be so nice when it's done" projects. In the meantime, drive slowly through my neighborhood. People will be walking in the street.

Beverage:  Darjeeling tea

Deb

Just Some Moisture

With some kinds of weather, it can be interesting to note that 75% of the US doesn't know what's happening, even if it's looming large in your life. Take last night into this morning.

We got some rain in the Chicagoland area. It's part of a sweeping system that, if you looked at weather maps at 10 p.m. last night, stretched from Louisiana up to Minneapolis and north into Canada. The leading edge was rain, lots and lots of rain. There was localized flooding in Iowa and then, as it plowed its way east through Illinois, it seemed to pick up steam. When I went to bed, the weather map from Chicago to the Mississippi River was yellow with sections of orange and small pockets of red embedded. As the light stuff is blue and the heavy stuff is purple, yellow is a lot of rain.

It was heavy when I got home Wednesday night. This was the birdbath on the deck at 4:15 p.m.

I don't have to consider filling it for several days now. The rain wasn't that cold, surprisingly, and, if there had not been a wind with this, I might have stopped to consider that the walk from the car to the house was an exercise in puddle stomping as the back yard by the house was one big puddle.

When I prepared my bowl of cereal for breakfast this morning, the skies opened yet again and the curtain of rain was so hard, the view across the street was like looking through plastic. Yes, there's water in the basement, but that's kind of to be expected. Water has to go somewhere and this much water is going to send it places it doesn't usually go. I took a shower and got dressed and then became aware of yelling and banging outside. This was the view south from my front steps.

That's a lot of water. The two neighbors whose drives were under water were moving their garbage cans to other driveways. I watched as people came barreling down the street only to slam on their brakes at the sight. In chatting with my neighbors, the people across the street had 3 inches of water in their basement. My immediate neighbor to the south had an inch of water. The two neighbors whose drives were under water had sewage. I'm grateful for seepage, at this point.

I have to head to the office. I've really no reason to call off. I can't stop the seepage until it stops raining and, well, that wasn't supposed to happen until around noon. So, I hop in the Jeep and head out. I could go through the water in front of my neighbors but I thought that uncouth so I'll just drive east on other side streets. Water. Well, that I can drive through. Crest a small hill. Water. Well, turning around isn't an option so I drove through it getting cheers from the people in a small group in a front yard. And some people wonder why I drive an elderly Jeep. I got through when others couldn't. I approach the office and traffic is at a stand still. I see the street lights by the office are flashing red. Drive around and come in the back way. Traffic is being diverted through our building's parking lot. Is it...?

Yup. Flooded.

What you can't see are the two cars to my right who made it only to the entrance to our west parking lot before they died. There is a white mini van that made it through the water only to die and the black car which didn't make it all the way through before dying.

A quick check of the rainfall totals and my area got close to 7 inches of rain. I don't care how good your storm sewer infrastructure is. That amount of rain in 24 hours is bound to overwhelm it. Yes, the semi made it through the standing water. This was gone by 10:30 a.m. Neighbors were still pumping when I came home at noon. The water has stopped coming in my basement but it will take until the weekend to dry out.

I looked at these cars and I thought, "Why did you even think you could make it through?" I realized at that point, no one teaches this in driver's education and car salesmen don't bring it up. If you're driving a car, you should never drive through standing water that's more than 3 inches deep. I can handle deeper water because my Jeep sits up higher but I made triple sure to dry off the brakes by pumping them at the next stop sign. I learned that from my dad and from our driver's ed teachers because, in a small town, they knew everyone and everyone counted on them to teach their kids right. Water up into the engine causes a whole host of problems. I felt a bit of sadness for these people because I'm willing to bet they honestly didn't know they shouldn't do this. The only problem they were concerned about was would the car float in this much water, not, would they kick water up into the engine and stall it out.

The potential exists for more rain tonight, more localized flooding. And I have friends in Texas who would love even a tenth of this. While they couldn't handle 7 inches in 24 hours, there would be dancing in the streets if they got an inch.

We'd say this weather was only fit for ducks but they were nowhere to be seen this morning unlike yesterday.

This was taken out the rear door of the office building. I parked on this side today. I'm thinking that much rain was too much, even for ducks.

Beverage:  Root Beer

Deb

Hallo-weiners

For treats last night, I handed out mini Snickers and a few mini M&M's with peanuts. I started with the Snickers, of course, and kind of hoped there wouldn't be that many kids so I could have all the M&M's to myself. Why buy something that, if left over, you won't eat? There were 55 pieces in the bag and I had one Snickers. At the end of the night, I had given out 34 pieces including some M&M's. Oh well. I didn't need to eat ALL of these.

My neighborhood is usually quiet. There are a lot of little kids and families who come through on Halloween night. Junior high age kids just weren't out last night, nor were the young teenagers, except for 4 boys who probably wish they'd stayed home.

Trick or treating is from 4-7 in Wheaton. Most families are done by 6:15, however. You get the pre-teen or low teenagers who just wear what they have in their closet after 6:30 and I'm really not interesting in giving them anything so I turned off my light at 6:30. I hadn't made supper so I worked on that and, since I'd received a paycheck, it was time to pay the bills.

At around 7:15-ish, I heard yelling outside and the sound of people running up my driveway. Then came a crash. See, last night was garbage night, but because it's also Halloween, I decided not to drag the cans to the street. I had moved the recycling can, a dark blue plastic can with branches and a black can containing several garbage bags of cat litter (I completely emptied the litter boxes over the weekend. It was time to start fresh.) to the side of the house across the driveway to be moved at 10:30 before bed. From the sound, someone had collided with the recycling bin. But what were they doing running up my driveway?

I went outside and saw my neighbor from across the street holding on tightly to the hoodie of a boy. Two boys were picking themselves up off the ground having collided with the recycling bin and the black can, which, no, you really couldn't see in the dark. A fourth was standing, very self-consciously, in my neighbor's front yard. Her dogs were going nuts. My neighbor holding onto the boy was screaming at him, "Just what the hell do you think you were doing? You think you're so punk ass? I've got news for you, asshole." Um...yes. We were joined by another neighbor and the gal with the dogs who said, "I've called the cops." The look on the boys faces was sheer terror.

The police must have been within a block or two because it seemed like they were here instantly. One of the boys looked like he was going to burst into tears at any moment. The officer asked what was the problem and my across the street neighbor said he'd caught these guys stomping on his pumpkins and tearing down his decorations. The other across the street neighbor chimed in that they'd hit his house, too. The officer turned to look at the boys and he really didn't need to ask. Might as well have had a neon "guilty" sign over their heads. But he inquired quietly and calmly, "Boys, did you do this?"

At this point, a car screeches to a halt in front of my house and a woman gets out. She comes running up to our happy little group screaming, "These are my kids! What are you doing? They didn't do anything! Leave them alone!" Another cop car has arrived and that officer runs over to us to try to intercept this woman. I started coughing and realized I was cold so I said I was going inside to get a coat. I came back out and the officer with the boys asks if my house had been damaged. I said, "No. They just chose to run up my drive and collided with my garbage cans." He said I didn't need to be out there then and he would knock when it was all over.

It took 30 minutes to sort everything out. The neighbor who had chased the boys down knocked on my door and said he'd take my cans to the street for me. He said the boys were from Glendale Heights, a suburb north of me. Mom had blurted out to the other officer that they had gotten in trouble with neighbors up there so she packed them into the car and drove them down here where they didn't know anyone. Um...yes. That is very smart parenting. She had dropped them off and then drove to Starbucks to get coffee. Yet another example of extremely good parenting. It seems as if these kids went around my area and if someone didn't answer the door, they smashed their decorations. One of the kids had a dozen eggs in the bottom of his bag.

The officers read the kids the riot act and chewed out the mother, my neighbor said. Then they took all the candy these boys had accumulated and gave it to the families who lost their decorations. My neighbor laughed that that, alone, was probably the worst thing that could have been done to these boys. They had been trick or treating all evening and had at least a third of a pillow case full of candy. Everyone was released and warned to clean up their act.

This morning, the garbage and recycling cans of everyone on my street had been tipped over. I had a lot of water bottles brought home from work in my can so I had to spend a good 20 minutes cleaning that up off the parkway and in my driveway. But that was better than the people across the street. Their garbage had been gotten into by raccoons or opossums and was strewn into the street.

This doesn't happen in my neighborhood. I do just chuckle when I think of the horror I saw on the face of one boy when Erica came out and announced she'd called the cops. In two weeks, we'll have forgotten this. I'm hoping they were scared enough that they'll never forget. They might have gotten a kick out of smashing pumpkins but they didn't count on a dad being close to the front door and being faster than they were.

Beverage:  Green tea

Deb

Yard Waste

I hauled the garbage, recycling and yard waste out to the curb last night. This is what I did on Sunday, filled these three containers with sticks and pruned back one of the buckthorns, just enough that I can do more clearing this weekend.

You know what, as proud of doing this as I am, this hurts. These aren't that heavy. They are just awkward. It's difficult to haul them to the curb. Even with sturdy handles, the containers can bend my wrists in awkward and painful ways. It's times like this that I walk back to the house and think, "Why am I still here?"

That's quite the question to ponder. The black and white answer is that I can't afford to move. The financial problems begun in 2009, are still not, 3 years later, resolved or nearing resolve. Add medical bills to the mess and it will be years before I feel something other than loose sand beneath my feet.

But dealing with RA has thrown the idea that I would be better served to live in a condo, where someone else does maintenance, someone else shovels the walk, someone else prunes the bushes. I've done more this year than I have in the past two. I never knew I was as bad off as I was until someone said, "Let's have you take this stuff and see if that doesn't make you feel better." I do think about doing things that I just shrugged and filed in the "long, long range plans" file.

I like my home, love the town I live in and like my neighborhood, even though the kids across the street seem to get into trouble pretty much once a month. One of these days, an officer is going to come to the front door at 9:45 at night, ask if I know anything about someone keying a car across the street and I'll say, "Can you wait right here? I have to run back and help the guild kill Cho'gal," and he's going to look at me and ask, "10 or 25-man?" I can see, however, my time in this house is growing limited. That is inevitable. I can see me moving, not immediately, but down the road. I can see a condo with a deck with flowers and I can see myself being happy there. Hauling 3 containers of yard waste to the curb makes me think it's not bad that it could be sooner rather than later.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Happiness Is a Familiar Place

In heading off into the "wilds" of Chicago to attend a concert, I am mindful of the timing of things. Evening concerts require that you leave at a certain hour in order to get to the venue and find parking, if you are not taking public transport. That certain time to be out the door can mean that dinner, such as it is, has to be procured by the venue or on the way to the venue. I had to be out the door by 4:30, if I wanted to eat when I got down there. I also had to pick up my ticket at the "Will Call" window and I didn't want to be dashing in at 6:53 and have to stand in line and miss the opening song.

One of the great things about Chicago is the abundance of restaurants. You want a cuisine, you can find it. It might be a storefront place with 8 tables and a waiter who simply nods when you point to something or it could be white tablecloth covered, reservation-only places with a waiter in a tux who raises an eyebrow when you ask for water. In researching the restaurants around the Old Town School of Folk Music, I had my choice from Mexican to Italian to pub grub to American to sandwich and coffee shops to a German place a few blocks up the street.

In the photo in the post below, you can see the Grafton Pub and Grill. This is an Irish-themed pub with traditional and Americanize Irish fare on the menu. It is also, as you can see, about 35 steps south of the venue. I decided that arriving as close to 5:30 as possible would garner me a table, decent food and an easy walk without worry to the School. If there was a line, I could walk 4 blocks north and eat at the German restaurant. But, reality being what it is, when I finally left the house, at 4:35, the Grafton was sort of on the list and the German restaurant way farther down. I knew I needed to eat but feeling 'meh', I didn't know what I wanted.

There wasn't a line at the Grafton, but there was a semi-packed house. On Sunday evening, it appears they have live music and this has a following. Honestly, I didn't want noise beyond maybe music. The noise of people enjoying company and the tuning of instruments spilled out the open windows and doors (It was near 75 degrees Sunday night). I just didn't want to have to be sociable. So, north I went.

I dropped by the box office and picked up my ticket. With this vital piece of paper in hand, I started walking. There was an Indian restaurant on the corner. This one is Mexican. This is a bar with a patio. Here's a coffee shop and there's Starbucks. In my memory, the last time I was here, there had been a deli with reasonably priced sandwiches and lacking in anything more than utilitarian decor somewhere around here. That's what I wanted. A simple sandwich. Just enough to shove the hunger where it needed to be and to get me home after the show. If I didn't run into that deli, I knew, from reading the restaurant link, Subway was around here somewhere.

I passed a thrift store, a bead store, a used book store which was, thankfully, closed. And then, there it was, on the opposite side of the street.

Costello's in Lincoln Square is where I ate. Carole might remember them from when we saw Old Blind Dogs at Old Town. The decor has not changed although the yellow and red paint on the walls is new. Same colors. Same menu and I mean, the same menu. It's a bunch of tables, a window bar and a counter with a cold drink cooler and a soft drink dispenser. You order off the limited menu, which is nothing but sandwiches. I felt a familiarity with the place. This was not going to be weird food. This was going to be good, filling and familiar and the latter, above all, was what I wanted.

"Can I help you?" "I would like a turkey sandwich but there are things in your sandwiches that don't appeal to me tonight." "Well, let's make one up for you that you would like." It took about 3 minutes to place the order. "Do you want smoked, honey roasted or oven roasted turkey?" "Do you want pepper jack, Swiss, American, Colby, Monterrey Jack, Provolone, Muenster or Cheddar on your sandwich?" "Do you want white, wheat, Russian rye, Jewish rye, ciabatta, foccicia, hard roll, pumpernickel, or a wrap?" "Any veggies? We have lettuce, cucumber, onion, celery, carrots, cole slaw, tomatoes and peppers." Choice is good except when you're hungry and just want a turkey sandwich. The gal behind the counter just giggled when I said, "Wow. So many choices."

That's a turkey, provolone and lettuce wrap. I got mustard on it (Would you like stone ground, yellow, hot or German?). They bake it so the cheese melts and the wrap crisps. I don't remember the 5 different sides I could have. I stuck with chips.

Good. Very good. It was enough. There was a group of musicians in the place, too. They were playing folk and old-style country music. Two mandolins, 3 guitars, a banjo and I couldn't see what the one gal was playing. The place was empty except for me and the musicians and the staff. I call this a serendipitous moment. I just wanted a sandwich. I got music with it. It put me in the right frame of mind to fully enjoy the concert upcoming.

Chicago neighborhoods are filled with these kinds of treasures, from used book stores to simple delis. I sometimes think that actually living in the city wouldn't be a bad thing, but I don't think I could make that move. It was lovely to drive in and experience it, however. Subway will make me a turkey sandwich just the way I order it, anywhere, in the entire country. It will be absolutely the same. These kinds of places are fun to experience because the food is good and it may be a turkey sandwich but it was quite different.

Beverage:  African Rooibos tea

Deb