Clown Car Condo

by Cathy

We are a family of four, living it up city style. That means, we have a two-bedroom condo in a six-unit building in a bustling, trendy neighborhood in Chicago. Although we looooove our neighborhood and our place is more spacious than your average two-bedroom condo, we're kinda bustin' out at the seams.

First off, we have two girls. Girls have a lot of stuff. And since one is still a young seven year-old and the other is on the brink of teenageapalooza, the stuff varies from dollhouses, zillions of stuffed animals, coloring books, legos and Barbie/American Girl accessory overload, to an unGodly number of scarves, purses, shoes, makeup, hair products, hair accessories, techy gadgets and...clothes. My God, the clothes. They are simply. Everywhere.

Our condo goes through a sort of rebirth every few years or so, which is imperative if humans are to live there. I've purged, reorganized, rearranged, redesigned, remodeled, rethought, recycled, reused, stored and purged again all of the stuff we've accumulated over the course of the 16 years we've lived there.

About a month ago, a teenage cousin of Joe's flew in from Mexico and will be our houseguest for six months, which spacewise, translates into half a century. A whole different type of flurry ensued in the two weeks I had to prepare for this. I desperately stacked stuff into Leaning Towers of Pisa on the shelves of my closets, based on the urging of my husband to "Use the space going up!!" So dangerously high are these stacks of blankets, sheets, sleeping bags, comforters, pillows, duvets and bedspreads, that one strong breath or slight nudging of a hanger below them, will send the entire cotton/polyester blend of a mass tumbling down upon us, whereby we will literally be suffocated by stuff.

Since our guest is sleeping on a pull-out sofa in the living room, the front hallway closet, where we normally keep all of our outerwear, has now been assigned as his closet. This means, there is no rhyme or reason to where any of the former contents are stored; each one-fourth of our coats, sweaters and jackets are respectively downstairs in storage, in my bedroom closet, on the kitchen/mudroom coat hooks and a portion still stuffed into the corners of the original closet he is now using.

That closet was also being used to store my handbags. Behold, now, their temporary storage space:

Why, yes. That is the toy chest in my girls' bedroom you're lookin' at there. I have become that mom who tells their kids that handbags are more important than wads of stuffed animals. But have no fear, they aren't going without; we still have clusters of cuddly thingamabobs dangling from the rafters in their room, piled high on their beds and crammed into their closet, so as priority would have it, the plush critters from the toy chest are tucked in our basement storage space for now....or...for EVER.

No, it's not fun finding the space within an already confined space but it really is fun having a houseguest through which we get to experience the great city of Chicago as tourists all over again and whom the girls can hang out, chat and play with as the older brother they never had. And bonus! Joe and I get a built-in babysitter for some much needed time out of the house.

Now, if we could only find our jackets...


(*For more clown car fun that is our lives, check out Patti's "Clown Car Purse" post!)

Beggars CAN Be Choosey

by Cathy

Stopped at a stoplight. Walking in and out of stores. Walking down the street. Running down the street. We've all been confronted by peddlers while doing any one of these tasks and then some. Some give what they can, some ignore, some give no mind at all. (Bless my daughters' kind hearts, they want to give money to every person holding a sign at every intersection, and every street corner, every day. In Chicago, that's a lot o' dollars.)

We give what we have, when we can. That's a realistic approach we've exemplified for our girls. They've watched my husband and I hand our leftover food to homeless on the street while coming out of restaurants, buy an extra cheeseburger for the ones loitering around the McDonald's drive-thru and heck, Joe once even reached in and handed a beggar everything he had in his pocket, just because he was feeling good. I think that was about $30. Like I said, we give what we can, when we can.

So it baffled my husband to no end when, the other day, he was scoffed at by a beggar. As usual, minding his own business, stopping in for a coffee at a local shop, he was handed a piece of paper by a man. The paper claimed that he was a deaf mute and could he please help him out with any change he is willing to spare? Joe dug into his pocket, and all he had was .18 cents. He placed the change into the now wide-open palm of the eager man, who sat and stared incredulously as he counted the change. He slowly and deliberately rolled his stare up to meet Joe's eyes and shrugged his shoulders in a "What's this?" kind of way. Joe could not believe what he was encountering.

He turns to the cashier and says, "Can you believe this? I give this guy the change in my pocket and he gives me attitude." The cashier shakes her head.

He turns back to the man, who has now deposited the change into his pocket, and motions for him to give it back. "Give it back," he says, not knowing if he can hear him or not, yet the beggar knew exactly what he had set off. "If you don't want it, give it back. I can use it if you can't."

His eyes shifting everywhere, the beggar now is fumbling around in his pockets, dragging out the process as if to say, "On second thought..."
"Hmpft. Yeah. Forget it," Joe waves his hand at him in dismissal. "Just keep it."

So which saying applies here? You're damned if you do or damned if you don't? or No good deed goes unpunished? Both seem fitting. I'm not saying all peddlers are finicky even though there was a hungry (his sign said so) homeless guy downtown whom I gave my leftover pizza slices to and he paused to curl his upper lip in thoughtful decision. There was that homeless guy who actually returned the diamond engagement ring a woman inadvertently dropped into his cup. All I'm saying is that we do what we can, when we can and when we don't, I will try not to feel as guilty about it.

Moonraker of Chicago

by Cathy

I've mentioned before on this blog about how city living comes with its disadvantages when it comes to sleeping and how we wait all winter to throw our windows open, only to have to shut them lest we turn into zombie insomniacs a la World War Z.

After years of this, however, we start to become immune to some of those noises: lawn mowers, leaf blowers, barking dogs, chatty, early-risin' neighbors, equally early and energetic kids, 20 variations of chirping birds, garbagemen's whoops and hollers, garbage truck's BEEP BEEPing to back up and even the occasional firework (or gunshot). But last night, we encountered a new one.

It was about 11:30 and we had just settled our tired bones into bed when we hear SCRAPE, SCRAPE, SCRAPE.
Half asleep, I muttered to Joe, "Are you shifting your feet against the covers?"
"No, that's from outside."
"Huh?" I shot up in bed and leaned my ear towards the open window.
SCRAPE, SCRAPE, SCRAPE.
"What the..."
"It sounds like someone is digging something," offers Joe.
Okay that was comforting. Yet we didn't move either because we were too scared or too tired. A few minutes later we heard it again. Then again. Then....yet, again.
"That's it," said Joe, throwing off the covers. "My curiosity is gonna get the best of me."
He shuffles into the living room, dislodges the balcony door from its rain-soaked door frame and minutes later, lets out a sharp whistle.
Then, silence.
He shuffles back and says, "It's the guy two doors down. He's raking."
"Raking!?! Raking what?"
"I dunno, leaves...." Joe's illogical mumbling trails off towards the kitchen.
"LEAVES? In June?" I got up to see this for myself.

Can't sleep? Try this!!

Sure enough, in the light of the foggy yet brightly-lit full moon, the dude had a rake and was scraping it on whatever he was raking. Grass? Rocks? Gravel? His sidewalk? I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I went back and checked the clock. 11:47pm. Was this guy nuts? Was he Dexter from the hit HBO series?
After some contemplation about calling the police, we just decided to...what else....shut the window in order to get some shut-eye. Sure enough, as what often happens when we shut the windows in the summer to take slumber over noise, I woke up in a pool of sweat a few hours later and re-opened the window. I stopped short to listen for any other sounds. Ahhhhh, sweet silence.

Yet another night of sleep-seeking in the city. I just never thought that midnight raking from an insomniac looney down the street would be added to the list of things to keep us awake. Yet again, this is city living. This is Chicago.

Stuck in the Middle with...Them

by Cathy

I live in a six-unit condo building. Each side of the building has three units - the top and the bottom of which are duplexes, the middle ones are simplex units. We're in one of those. We have the most number of people in the entire building (4), yet we are the ones living on a single floor while one- and two-people families are living in the spacious two-floor units.

So until we make the move to a single-family home, we are sandwiched - and not in a good way. As irony would have it, the unit below us has only one woman living there. She's an attorney who works from home, and aside from the occasional late-night phone conversation or clarinet practice for her Klezmer band (which she does in her basement), I can barely even tell she lives there. Now why couldn't SHE live upstairs from us? Instead?

Instead, a loud Italian family and their 90-lb. German Shepherd live above us. Granted, here I am, the pot calling the kettle black. We are a Greek/Latino family and we are loud as heck. But at least my upstairs and downstairs neighbors have the option of fleeing one floor above or below us when the going gets loud. We have nowhere to go and as such, are subjected to every fight, toddler tantrum, dog-barking episode that occurs. And when does most of this occur, you may ask? But of course, waaaaaay before we wake up in the morning. It's bad enough I have outside noise to deal with when asleep but noise emanating from within your "house" that's not your doing - that's a whole other component to city living.

We never had much luck when it came to upstairs neighbors since we moved into this multi-unit building 15 years ago. The first couple was the building developer and his wife. How bad could that be, right? No kids. No pets. Well, they were both over six-feet tall and heavy-footed as hell. The scenario that stands out the most with them, happened one night when the guy walked back from a local bar, drunk as a skunk in a funk. It must have been around 2 a.m. and Joe and I were fast asleep when I heard a key searching our back door for a keyhole. Then the knob was turning incessantly and the screen door slid along the tracks in one fell swoop. My eyes flew open and I froze, with the exception of moving my elbow hard enough to nudge Joe in the ribs. "Someone's at the back door!" I whispered and shrieked simultaneously.

In seconds, he was on his feet and stepping cautiously down the hallway, wide awake now. After a few tense minutes, he returned.
"I didn't see anyone," he said shuffling back under the covers. "What did you hear?"

As if on cue, we heard the supposed intruder stumbling into the room above us. He obviously found the back door keyhole that fit his key. After a series of boom-boom-booms heard criss-crossing the floor above us, we felt the ceiling, walls and floors shudder and all the furniture and pictures on our wall shook with electricity as we heard the loudest THUD! ever. We simultaneously shot up in bed, our hearts racing and our breaths still, waiting for more. But there was only silence. Apparently, he shuffled his drunk weight around the room in an attempt to remove his pants and naturally, got tangled in them to the point where he lost his balance and tipped over like a tree falling in the forest. There he lay flat on his face and slept for the rest of the night while we hardly clocked a wink.

The people who moved in after them were a single mom and her teenage son, another lead-footed, shuffler who listened to loud rock music at all times and had friends over almost always.

And now, we have the loud Euro family. We've had them as upstairs neighbors for nine years now so you would think we'd be used to this but we never do because every day brings with it a unique, loud-ass scenario that could be as simple as their four-year old using the bathroom and screaming out to her mother. "Mommy! I miss you! Mommy! Can you wipe me?!?" As luck would have it yet again, they are also a Shrek-sized family. Both parents are over six-feet tall (noticing a pattern here?) and their "toddler" wears a shoe size that looks dangerously close to the size I wear, as Bella delicately pointed out to me today. "That's just wrong," we said, almost in unison.

That big-footed toddler doesn't run as delicately as a girl her age should. She flops her feet in a dead-weight fashion with every leap forward. More than once, my heat has kicked in simply by having one of the parents stomp-walk above my thermostat. Meanwhile the dog jumps off the couch and my light fixtures shake, rattle and roll. We all know that Greeks and Italians talk so loud it sounds like they're always fighting, but when in fact they are fighting? Fuggedaboudit.

Now this family is finally moving into the single-family home they need to be in but the question looms large: Which big-footed, loud-mouthed, zoo-toting family will move in?

Windows & Eyes Wide Shut

by Cathy

I love two things: sleep and nice weather.

I love them even more when I can get them at the same time. However, Chicago weather rarely allows you the opportunity to crack open the windows of your house because the temperature here goes from 30 degrees to 90 degrees overnight - which means you can have the heat on one day and the air conditioning on, the next; no natural air flow.

When all the weather Gods decide to smile down upon Chicago and all the planets align and the earth is at the most precise point on its axis to where I get to throw open my windows and let some natural air flow into my stale, incubated home, I revel in the act. Once the crack is heard and the humidity-swollen windows unseal themselves from their frames, I lift them high above my head like an Olympic weightlifting champ and take in the summer breeze that blows through my hair as I shut my eyes and smile widely - much like those women do in those commercials for anything from chocolate to shampoo.

Having the windows open is a perfect compromise for me and Joe because he H-A-T-E-S the air conditioner much like a vampire hates holy water. At night, we settle in for a comfortable night's sleep, feeling the cool breeze flow in as we snuggle under the summer blankets and sleep like a babies until...

...someone's godforsaken, f*&^$ing car alarm undoubtedly will go off at some insane time of the morning - every morning I get to sleep in. WEEE-OOOOOOO-WEEEEE-OOOOOOOO-WEEEEEE-OOOOOOO-WEEEEE-OOOOOOOO and on and on until I start dreaming, half-awake, that I am releasing the safety on my rifle as I prop myself out of that open window and aim at the alarmed car - alarmed by some phantom force that comes out only to nudge cars into shriek mode and annoy me when I have my windows open and trying to sleep in.

...one of my neighbors decides to mow the lawn (again, at an insane time of morning - don't these people ever sleep IN?) with the loudest electric lawn mower on the face of the earth, then uses a leaf blower to blow debris off his property and onto mine (I never understood the purpose for those damned things) and then uses an edge trimmer to get his lawn to look more manicured than my nails will ever be. And now...I'm up.

...one of the 1,397 dogs within a one block radius of my building will inevitably see that phantom force haunting all the car alarms in the area or maybe just notice a bee buzzing by, but they will bark their hearts and lungs out until they are satisfied with how well they've done their dog duty for the day. This is usually followed by the owner's urgent, reprimanding requests to stop. So it will go like this: bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, howl, bark, bark, bark-bark, bark, howl, bark, bark-bark-bark, bark..."Timber! Stop!" Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark-bark, "TIMBER!" And guess what? Now, I'm up and annoyed as hell.

...you know how in Cinderella when the sweet, little chirping birds gracefully and beautifully sing-song the sleeping maiden awake in the morning and braid her hair and make her bed and give her a bath and help get her dressed? If a bird is going to do all that for me, then that's the only time it's okay for it to sit on my windowsill and shriek out it's little chirping bird call. Otherwise, it should go sit on the windowsill of the dog owners/landscape artists who are already awake and bringing down the neighborhood.

...and finally, I know they're just doing their jobs but when the garbage and recycling trucks come through at 7am and of course, they need to reverse, because who can always drive straight ahead down an alley, right? When they reverse through the crossroads of my back alleys, the automatic safety feature kicks in to alert the entire neighborhood that the truck is reversing with a series of BEEEEEP-BEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEPS. Then there is a pause as he straightens out the truck, only to reverse again: BEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP. "WHOA!!!" screams the spotter to the driver, who can't see what he is inches away from hitting. We get this TWO mornings a week - once with regular garbage pick up and once with recycling. I know, I know, I should be thankful that we HAVE garbage pick-up and that I am not living in squalor being swallowed up by my own wasteful consumption. But can't they do it at lunchtime?

Of course let's not forget the fire trucks, ambulances and kids that wake up at the ass-crack of dawn who are out playing and screaming and fighting while their bleary-eyed parents are face-planted in a mug of coffee the size of a flower planter and too tired to shush them down.


I am well aware that I sound like a cantankerous old fart and you would think I'd be used to all this by now given that I was born and raised in Chi-town. However, when I was younger, I could sleep through a world war. Now that I've had kids my body has programmed me to hear a pin drop in the middle of the night.

Maybe it's my age. Maybe I'm getting to old for city living. Maybe I ought to move to the suburbs. Or maybe...I should just keep my windows sealed shut FOREVER so I can get some shut-eye.