Big Box Bust

In yet another example of Chicago's government doing something possibly well-intentioned but absolutely stupid, the so-called "Big-Box Ordinance" passed in City Council yesterday. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for people making a living wage. But to make a living wage, they have to get the job, and they won't get the job now that Chicago has passed a law basically telling employers of huge numbers of people to stay out of city limits.

Beside that little quibble, there's the problem of, why only "big-box" retailers? Why not all employers? We should be focusing efforts on raising the national minimum wage and improving life for all workers in all jobs, not just putting pressure on a few large, ahem, targets.

I'm so sick of my government, supposedly people working on my behalf, putting all their energy into things that don't fix real problems in this city. You'll notice they had time to give themselves raises in amongst all of this, too, of course. Either the big box stores will knock this down in court, or they won't build in Chicago, and the law will have no effect other than to waste time and get everyone riled up to no purpose.

For once, Daley was in the right about something, and the alderman chose this instance to oppose him. What is going on with this town?

Traveler's Karma

I do my best to build up good traveler's karma. That is, I learned long ago to always be helpful to the people with the map upside down, the ones searching in vain for street numbers or signs, the ones who clearly just got on the train going the wrong way, and especially people speaking another language. Only twice have I ever helped anyone in another language (once, strangely enough, in Paris, where I too was a tourist; once I helped a Frenchy get to Brooklyn when I lived in New York). But I always, always try. I'll give them the best information I have, and if I don't know, I'll recruit fellow locals to get the right answer. Usually, we'll end up having a nice little conversation, where they're from, what they're doing here, how Chicagoans are so very kind, and maybe I'll recommend a good restaurant and off they go, them with good directions and a better feeling about their fellow man, and me with another notch on my good karma tally.

This assures that when I'm on a train headed out of the Czech Republic and I need to get off at Cheb, when I attempt in awful Czech to ask my compartment-mate what town this is, he will understand me perfectly and tell me yes, this is Cheb. It assures that when I find myself lost and wandering by the docks in Genoa, I will not be kidnapped and sold into white slavery, but merely enjoy a very tasty espresso. It guarantees that I will never get horribly lost, pickpocketed, taken in a scam, jumped, stranded, or that any other disasters will befall me while travelling.

I'm particularly thinking of this this morning because on my way to work, a pair of out-of-towners (one appeared to be French, the other was American) were trying to find a certain street number on Michigan Ave. They were confused because they'd apparently been walking up from somewhere on South Michigan, and first the numbers had been getting smaller, and now they were getting bigger again. I explained about Madison and the grid, and they were educated and relieved to find they were only a block away from their destination. They smiled and went on their way, and I added to the traveler's karma stockpile in my backpack. Good thing, too. I'm headed to New York in a month.

Probably Not the Best Way to Put It

"In France, 40 people have been killed, thanks to the heat wave."
--Tom Skilling, weatherman and international diplomat (I'm paraphrasing from last night's WGN news, but the important part is word for word.)

City Living

This was created for New York, but it applies to any big city, I think.

Creepy

I don't know if this is supposed to be a joke or not, but given past things that have fallen out of this creature's mouth, I wouldn't be surprised if it was true.

Heat

Today they're predicting the temperature will hit 100, and it probably won't go below 90 for several days yet. I basically hid inside all day yesterday, enjoying the amazing luxury of central air conditioning. This is the first time in my life I've lived someplace with central air, and it made yesterday, no pun intended, a breeze.

But it reminded me of 1988, when there was a drought and heat wave that in my mind, anyway, lasted all summer long. This was back when my family didn't even have a little window-unit air conditioner. We had fans. That was about it. So we came up with what was either an ingenius way of getting around our monetary limitations or a pretty white-trash way of dealing with the problem.

During the day, we'd go out places where there was air conditioning, like the library and especially the grocery store, which it seems like we went to every single day to pick up a new supply of popsicles, ice cream, and especially Fla-Vor-Ices, those little plastic tubes of liquid that you freeze into the most chemical-tasting treat you could imagine. My dad must have eaten two boxes a week. Borrowing other peoples' air conditioning is something I used later in life, too, as a poor college student with no AC when I would hang out at cafes or the library or just ride the El during the hot afternoons.

But none of this helps with the worst part of a heat wave. Trying to sleep in the heat. You just can't. And in a heat wave, night doesn't bring that much relief. So we did the best we could. We all trooped down into the basement, which was really about ten degrees cooler than our rooms upstairs, where we had a pull-out couch bed. We set up a little box fan to get the air moving. And we all climbed into bed together and went to sleep.

It's weird thinking about this now, of course, and vaguely creepy, but at the time it was just a big slumber party. I was 7, my sister was 4. The idea of creepy hadn't entered into our minds yet. We watched TV (I seem to remember we had a free preview of HBO on our cable that summer) and sometimes would get a story read to us or songs sung, and then we all fell asleep in the relative cool of the basement.

Standard Operating Procedure

This is pretty much how my company, and every other educational publishing company in this country, works. Not the plagiarism part, obviously. But writers filling in for authors. It's called work for hire. They get no credit. They get cash. That's their job. It's not a scandal. The authors sign off on everything that gets printed under their names. They argue back and forth with the editors until everyone is, basically, content. If it's a huge conflict, they call in the lawyers, but that really doesn't happen. I don't see the problem here.

Blue Line

So, other than freaking me out for about 2 minutes yesterday when I realized that the Blue Line had exploded (well, caught on fire a little) and Todd wasn't home yet (he was fine, a friend heard about it before he got on the train and drove him home), the Blue Line accident yesterday mostly made me realize that a) people are really pretty much decent, helping each other out, caring for one another and b) no matter how much our daily lives might not reflect it, terrorism is a very real part of our psyche now. We see pictures of triaged commuters with smoke rings around their mouths and IVs strapped to them and we run right to that place in our head where shadowy men are trying to destroy us. Yesterday, with the bombings in Mumbai, was a particularly bad coincidence. But on any given day, anything having to do with several innocent people being hurt or dying or destruction of any major property has us thinking terrorism (Manhattan gas explosion, for example). Five years ago, no one would have thought that. 5 years ago we were just a few weeks away from beginning to think like that.

Oh, two side notes on the snarky side. My favorite comment from the field about the incident was Channel 2 was interviewing a passenger live, and he said, "I was coughing up black shit." About 2 minutes later, the anchorwoman said, "One passenger said he was coughing up black junk, as he described it." Indeed. And then this morning, I really wish someone would have mentioned that I'd be a celebrity just because of what train line I ride. At the Damen stop, Channel 7 was out getting some footage, and then when I come out of the station at Clark and Lake, there's Channel 2 all in my face, taping everyone coming through the turnstiles. And I didn't even wash my hair.

It's pretty much impossible

to walk down the street listening to Ben Lee's (poorly titled) Catch My Disease without strutting to the beat and feeling all perked up. It's the sort of song you really want to bob your head and clap your hands to, but you can't do that in public. Of course, I am all alone at home now, so maybe I'll just crank it up one more time...

Unacceptable Bathroom Behavior Parts I and II

Ours is a large office, taking up the entire floor of a major building in downtown Chicago. There are probably a hundred people who work here every day, most of them women (publishing's like that). The women share one bathroom with ten stalls, all in a row, which is kept nice and clean by an excellent custodial staff. However, I have two complaints to lodge against my colleagues. Not all of them, but a few in particular, because I wouldn't like to think that these problems are wide-spread.

1) If you come into the bathroom and only one of the stalls is occupied, it's pretty creepy for you to choose a stall RIGHT NEXT TO the only other occupied stall. It makes me feel like I'm being spied on. Just leave that buffer zone and we'll all be happier.

2) This should go without saying. We're adults. But really, people, wash your hands. I don't care if you've got dry skin or you're just really OK with the whole germ thing or what your reasoning is. At least make a show of turning on the water and putting your hands in the sink. It will make us all feel better. I've never seen anyone walk out of the bathroom without washing their hands, but I've definitely heard it when I was still in the stall. Toilet flushes, heels clip against the floor, door opens and closes. NO RUNNING WATER. Icky. I want one of the older ladies to catch whoever does this, because they have the authority to yell at them like a mama would and make them act decent.

It's Too Much

At 7:15am, I think it's a little too much to ask of the good commuters of this city to deal with glaring hypercolored monstrous ads of blobby, warped little creatures declaring things like "I have a meat beard!" and "I pooted." Seriously, we've only just managed to get down our first cups of coffee. We're not able to deal with that level of bizarreness.

On the way home, however, I think they're pretty funny, if completely useless in terms of making me want to get cable or watch the Cartoon Network.

Extra Long Weekend = Extra Long Highlights Reel

Here's the recap of the weekend (skipping the bad and/or boring parts):

Friday: Recovered quickly from an awful dinner (sorry, Innjoy, we mean it this time, we're never going back again) by drinking with friends until the wee hours at the best bar in the entire city, Zakopane. Shot a little pool, talked a lot of crap, had a grand time.

Saturday: Breakfast at Harmony Grill with best friend Kat and soon-to-be city-dweller Tom, her younger brother, who I will be in charge of once he arrives because he can't really be in charge of himself. Then on to the BEST BASEBALL GAME EVER PLAYED, where despite being at Wrigley I had an excellent time, jumped up and down, screamed, shouted, cursed, cheered, and finally watched the good guys win. Plus, Todd had inexplicably chosen to root for the Cubs, and so I got to tease him the rest of the evening.

Sunday: Cookout and amateur fireworks show at the brother-out-law's place in Indiana. Delicious burgers and corn, fun with the family, kids running amok, sweet no-longer-illegal fireworks, and a long game of poker which finally ended around midnight with Todd kicking everyone's ass.

Monday: Unofficial holiday = no work. Treat myself to breakfast at DeLuca, then lay around at home for a few hours until it stops raining. Head downtown to meet Todd after work to go to the Taste, which generally I avoid but he wanted to go, then walk around by the lake for a while until it's fireworks time. It was crowded and the fireworks were a little disappointing, so we'll gloss over that bit.

Tuesday: The actual Fourth, finally. Improvise a picnic and head all the way to Evanston to watch their fireworks. This show blows the Chicago one out of the water. It must have lasted half an hour, with awesome old pop songs and cheesy 80s music, plus of course a little Sousa, because I'm pretty sure that's in the Constitution. The sangria didn't turn out quite like I'd have hoped, but nevertheless it was a grand old time and a relaxing end to an eventful weekend.