Halloween on Memory Lane

When I was younger, I always wanted to wear a bumblebee costume for Halloween. I’m not exactly sure why that particular costume created so much desire in me, especially considering how horrible I look in yellow AND the fact that I am deadly allergic to stinging insects, but I was adamant. The yellow and black striped leotard, the fishnet stockings, the black tutu, the headband with bouncy balls on it…I wanted to be the cutest gosh darn bumblebee in the neighborhood. And yet, it never materialized. Maybe my parents, in their infinite wisdom, decided that I would look just too ridiculous. Or maybe mom didn’t know how to make something out of stretchy leotard material…and she always made our Halloween costumes. Or maybe my parents had an aversion to their 8 year old daughter wearing fishnet stockings which are usually reserved for…shall we say…women of more experience. Whatever their reason, I was simply not going to be a bumblebee.

I do remember, however, the year that I was Sleeping Beauty for Halloween. Decked out in a light blue satin dress that mom had made- of COURSE it was the light blue one, since everyone knows that Sleeping Beauty’s pink dress was just plain ugly- I also had the pleasure of wearing a ridiculously long blonde wig. Obviously dressing up. Obviously not real. And just for further explanation, for those of you who don’t know what great looks I’ve been blessed with, let me describe. I have dark eyes. Dark hair. Very dark eyebrows. I really didn’t think that anyone would actually think the blonde hair was mine.

I learned then a lesson that has served me well ever since: never underestimate the stupidity of a high school student.

That “Sleeping Beauty Halloween”, as I was trick-or-treating with my father and sister, a group of teenagers came up behind us as we moved from house to house. You know the type; in fact, you probably were the type. Kids who wear their normal clothes and claim to be dressed as the “cynical youth of our generation” or would wear their sports uniform and be the famous athlete who plays that sport. Let me just say that even as an 8 or 9 year old I didn’t buy that. Go buy your own candy at the store, and then go in the woods and drink beers or smoke cigarettes or do whatever it is you cynical youth of our generation do.

But these kids were there. Even though they had been following us for a few houses, no one really had said anything and they generally affirmed my conviction at the time that people between the ages of 14 and 18 were generally stupid and not worth my time…I would rather be playing dry cleaner or orphanage (yes, I played orphanage), thank you very much. So they minded their business, we minded ours…until…one of them spoke. She was probably about 16 or so, dressed in what I now only remember to be jeans and a tshirt, though I’m sure she was trying to be a hippie or something. I guess, looking back, I shouldn’t mock this poor girl who was at least kind enough to offer a few words to the little Sleeping Beauty she kept running into. But passing her on my way from the door of some house where some man had probably given me a toothbrush or apple (that rant is for another time…who gives those out on Halloween?! All of American society has agreed that Halloween night is, in fact, the night that it’s OK to not brush your teeth and eat so much candy and sugar that you make yourself sick. It’s as American as the Constitution and the NAACP suing people!)…but the girl smiled at me and said, “Oh my GOSH. You are, like, SOOO cute! Oh my gosh, and is that like your real hair? I bet so. It is sooooo pretty.”

I think I probably stood there, stunned, for a second. Did I hear you incorrectly? Did you just ask me, the little girl who looks more Slovakian than Swedish, if this ridiculous long blonde wig is actually my hair? Do you not realize that one of the main tenets of Halloween is that you dress up to resemble something you are not? Oh my. No really…oh my. I just stood there. And then my dad called, “Let’s go!” from the driveway and I was gone, leaving stupid- high-school-girl-who-obviously-knows-nothing-about-Halloween-or dressing-up-or-the-basic-rules-of-skin-tone-and-hair-color behind to join her friends again. It would be years before my confidence was again restored in the teens of today (and it took a nose-dive when my sister reached that age). In fact, I don’t think it was until I myself reached the oh so mature age of 14 or 15 that I realized just how right, witty and pretty much perfect teenagers really are. At least this one was.

Happy Halloween. Or Fall Festival or whatever you want to call it.

I think the guy upstairs is throwing himself on the floor

It's really the only explanation for the noise, really.

Every day, usually in the afternoon or sometimes in the evening, we hear a LOUD thump, thump, thump, thump (repeated a lot) from upstairs. At first I thought maybe Man Upstairs was dribbling a basketball on his floor/our ceiling. Or a medicine ball. Because people do that, right?

But then yesterday, as I ate lunch with new friends in our kitchen, it sounded like the Man Upstairs was throwing himself on the ground. This wasn't a thump. It was a loud thunder. Repeatedly. What are we supposed to do about that?

Because the thing is, we don't know who the guy is. We only know it's a guy because sometimes we hear him walking around upstairs and he sounds like a guy when he walks. So we can't really go up and say, "Hey, you ok?" when we hear the thumps. And I've tried pounding on the walls (not out of frustration...just...to alert him to the noise) and that doesn't work either. Maybe he's deaf ("Justice for Gallaudet!")? Or maybe he just doesn't care? Or maybe he, like the guy in "Devil in the White City" is killing people and lugging them off to a furnace in his apartment. I mean it happened once. Seriously. Read the book. It's true.

Either way, between the radiators and the loud neighbor, sleep hasn't been coming so much the last few nights. Here's hoping we have a freakily warm winter here in Chicago and Man Upstairs stops, well...doing whatever it is he's doing.

Attack of the Swine

I don't actually know that it was swine flu, but it makes it more fun, doesn't it?

This weekend, I came down with something. And by something I mean head spinning, coughing my lungs up, throwing up and a fever. Fun times, right? Oh, and did I mention that I got a flu shot three weeks ago?

In case that wasn't fun enough, my infirmity coincided with my parents' trip up here to visit our new digs. I was fine Friday night and most of Saturday, but Sunday was just horrible. Being sick when you have guests? Not fun.

But now it's Tuesday night and I'm finally on the mend. Granted, I can't really talk and that whole coughing the lungs up thing is still going on, but my head isn't spinning quite as much and I don't feel like I'm going to lose my lunch (or dinner) every five minutes. And it HAS been nice to spend the last two days sleeping, since that's been few and far between since the ridiculously loud radiators first turned on. I've been so out of it that I've actually slept through the whistle and clap of those darn things. The flu, or swine flu or whatever, really takes it out of you.

And maybe just to show the swine whose boss, I'll have bacon in the morning.

Dancing King

On my way to and from work, I quite often see a man that I just HAVE to tell you about.

On first glance, he looks like a crossing guard. I think he has a badge and a hat and maybe a neon vest? Now that I think about, I'm not sure exactly what makes me think he's a crossing guard. Maybe it's that he's standing on the corner with a whistle.

Except...he's whistling a beat. Tweet! Tweet! Tweet! Tweet! And he's not waving cars by. He's dancing. Like full on "elbows move down towards hips and hips thrust outward" (also known as "humping the air") to the beat of his own whistle. Sometimes he changes it up, turns around and does the butt pump instead. I have no idea who this man is, or where he comes from. But man, does he make me smile.

You do the math

One of the things about M being a student at the University is that he has to prove that he has healthcare or else pay for insurance out of pocket.

It can't be that much, right?

Wrong.

The cost of insuring both M and myself through the University for a total of just over 3 months is $1,854.00. Yes, that's over $500 a month. For health only, ie not dental. I know, because we just got a bill for it.

The "cost" of my insurance coming out of my paycheck for better coverage is about $100 a month, and includes dental.

Am I the only one who thinks that's crazy?

Odds and Ends

There are a ton of different things I've wanted to blog about but just haven't had the mental clarity to compose a full, witty blog post. So here they are as jumbled bullet points.

-People who take up an extra ten feet when they parallel park really annoy me. I know that at your undergrad schools of Princeton, Harvard and Yale you had valet parkers, dear Chicago students, but please learn. Thank you.

-We bought a Mac. Yep, we did it. A MacBook Pro to be exact. Don't know what that means but we are loving it! Believe it or not, we've saved up some extra money and with our other computer driving me insane nearly every day, we decided to go ahead and go for it. Man, I'm a believer.

-The radiators are on here. It's October 6th, people. Oh, and it was a high of 60 today. Did I mention that they radiators first came on hissing and whistling at 4:30 this morning. That was pleasant.

-M is really good at this school stuff. I thought I was smart, but I look at his homework sheets and it looks like another language. What a smarty pants!

-I love my new job. Love, love, love it. And I actually love my commute...I drive right by the lake, then cut across at approximately the Sears tower (or whatever it's called now) and out to Garfield Park. It's weird to love a commute. But there it is.

-I have yet to make cookies for the neighbors, but I'm taking some in to the office tomorrow.

-I have as of yet not met any Chicago gangsters.

-I have not been to Starbucks once since moving to Chicago. Not even once.

That's all the news that's fit to print round these parts.

I love Wisconsin.

I know. It wasn't exactly what you had expected to read. But Reader, I loved it. Maybe it was the fried cheese curds. Keep reading.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we escaped America's Second City last weekend for our first anniversary. M surprised me, but I had a hunch we would be going north. I had no idea that I would find Wisconsin to be so beautiful.

First of all, it's not flat. Seriously. There are hills everywhere. And while there's tons of corn and cows (and cheese, I guess), it's really beautiful. Lots of streams, rivers and lakes, probably because it's so close to Minnesota which has like a million or something. And it's full of little towns like this:

Mineral Point, Wisconsin. M booked us in this beautiful, historic inn (it used to be a brewery, but now the top two floors are fantastic rooms. They still brew their own beer out back.)

We spent the weekend just lazing around, exploring Mineral Point and enjoying the perfect weather.

And then we went to Iowa. Yep, Iowa. I mean when you're 30 minutes away, you've got to make the short drive, right? Notice, however, that I didn't entitle this post I love Wisconsin AND Iowa. Because, let's face it, I didn't love Iowa. Dubuque, Iowa in particular, I guess, since I can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Or whatever that saying is. Maybe it was the fact that it was a Sunday. And there was literally no one ANYWHERE. There was one coffee shop open (yes, Iowa, I contributed $3.22 to your economy. You're welcome.) It just wasn't really anything to write home about. Oh, except for this.

This, my Southern friends, is the MISSISSIPPI RIVER. IT'S BLUE UP HERE. Not brown, not muddy. Blue. Clear. Extremely beautiful. Upon further review, this view made Iowa worth it.

So that was our weekend away, I'll spare you the romantic details, but it really was exactly perfect, especially because of the before-mentioned fried cheese curds. "What the heck?" you might be thinking. "Curds? GROSS!"

No, no my friend. I am salivating even writing about them. These fried little nuggets of, you guessed it- cheese curds- are an appetizer, served with varying sauces. And we're not talking about mozarella sticks from your local Olive Garden. We're talking high-quality, exceptionally yummy cheese. Fried in some sort of cornmeal/flour batter that was unbelievably good. Yeah, I know fried foods are bad for you. And fried cheese is probably even worse. But man they're good. And so Wisconsin if you know what I mean.

And in this perfect atmosphere we celebrated, laughed, looked longingly into one another's eyes, etc etc etc (fade to black) and thought a lot about what has happened this past year.

Wisconsin is known for its cheese, afterall.

The Wait is Over

Ladies and Gentlemen:

As of Monday, October 5th, I will be the newest employee of Breakthrough Urban Ministries, on the West Side of Chicago (www.breakthroughministries.com). I will serve as their Volunteer Coordinator, ie, be a liaison between the Program Directors (programs=men's shelter, women's shelter, kids programs-mentoring and sports, outreach to prostitutes) and volunteers, helping keep everyone happy, involved, etc etc and spending lots of time cultivating relationships. The perfect job for me? Quite likely. I love liaising.

Breakthrough's model of urban involvement is unlike any other organization I've heard of before. I can't really do it justice in just a few sentences, but I'll try. We've all heard it's not what you do, it's who you know, right? Breakthrough strives to specifically built up networks (call them "communities") of people to surround those who are part of each of these different programs. Therefore, when participants graduate from a program or from a school, they aren't suddenly left in isolation to fend for themselves and somehow market their skills to people who already have ideas and prejudices against them. Instead, each person has this network, this community, to continue to reach out to, to be encouraged by, to encourage. They may walk out of the door of a program, but they don't thereby walk into isolation. The reality is that it's these sorts of networks/communities that we know (because we've all experienced it in some form or fashion) that make a difference in our lives. That call us to that "better life", that help us network to find that job and help to encourage us when we're feeling less than our best. I think this just might be the way to help transform communities, be they urban, suburban, rural, black, white, Asian or anything in between.

And so I start on Monday. It's been a long road. In the last month, I've held four different jobs. No really, I counted. MCC. Consulting. Bakery. Law School. Each job has taught me a ton about myself, about people and about the value of work. And now, here I am. Health benefits. 401k. Paid vacation. I have never in my life been more thankful for a job. And the fact that I couldn't have dreamed up a better position? Utterly priceless.