Right. We’re suburbanites. We hardly ever go to downtown Chicago – except for that time recently when I had jury duty at 26th and California. However, we made an exception because of Hanukkah. Here’s how things work in this family – sometimes it’s hard to get everyone together unless it’s one of those holidays that you’re supposed to keep clear. So when my mother-in-law tried to organize a Hanukkah/holiday season get-together, it was harder than ever this year. One of my sisters-in-law is in law school, the other has 4 kids, and their spouses (spice) are also busy and hard…
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These little yellow dudes come out anytime there’s a problem in our buildings – they’re protecting the area where broken safety glass may have fallen from the shattered window on our floor.
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There’s been excitement galore around the office today – a huge new shopping center opened up nearby and the parking lot is visible from our windows, high over a typical vista of mid-American stripmalls. We’d gotten used to seeing a giant empty lot, then a giant empty hole, then a giant empty store, and so on. This went on for almost 2 1/2 years, owing to some zoning hangup or other. Then it seemed that loading up the store and getting it stocked took forever – we got used to seeing a vast expanse of parking lot, with freshly painted…
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This is the infamous House O’ Big Inflatables. The people that live here apparently subscribe to the More is Better mentality when it comes to cheap plastic crap and tasteless seasonal decor. This is a tiny image of the giant bunny inflatable they had up after Valentines Day. It stayed up for about a month and a half; all the way through Lent everything. At Christmess, they had 11 (eleven) large inflatables. Last year, they had 10. The year before, they had 8 or 9. This is all on a normal sized front lawn. There’s very little lawn visible (or…