The longer I go without posting, the harder it is to get around to it. It’s been a pretty slow and quiet month. I’ve been doing some knitting, I even broke out the spinning wheel, but I have not done a lot of either. I should really already be done with Scott’s scarf, it is an easy pattern. It’s been a month of procrastinating for some reason. I usually feel slow and lazy in January, but I feel like I really have gotten even less accomplished this time around.
We did have a fun weekend with friends and family over a couple of weeks ago. We have friends that are spread out all over Illinois, Indiana and Ohio that we only see a few times of year, usually on our semi-annual camping trips. So, we started having a winter party to bridge the gap between the Fall and Spring camp-outs. They were of course here during one of the coldest weekends of this Winter so far.
This Winter just won’t quit. I am looking out my window and it just keeps snowing. Sigh. It looks lovely from in here, but it makes me feel like a hermit. I am just not all that keen on Winter. Yet, once I get out in the snow, assuming I don’t have anywhere to be in a hurry, it’s kind of nice. Yes, that’s the best I can do, kind of nice. I am a warm weather lover. But, like any good Chicagoan, I make the best of it, and never let it keep me from going where I need to go. I have to admit that having a garage and living really close to the bus stop has made this all that much easier. However, we are responsible for shoveling the snow now. Oh well.
One of the places I am happy to leave to house for is the new Hyde Park Produce. It is now open in its new location, and thank goodness given that we no longer have the Co-op, and Village Foods and Jewel just don’t have a lot of what I am looking for. Hyde Park Produce doesn’t have it all either, but it is a produce store, and so much more now. The deli is great! The produce, of course, fabulous, and varied. Not to mention the community pride in the store. I went the day after it opened, and everyone was chatting about how happy they were to see the new store, and oh look at what they are carrying now, and congratulating the owner and employees. The last time I talked to that many random people in a store was when the Co-op was closing. That was not as fun, but I do like the way people in this area stop and talk to each other when something is up. We chat at the bus stop about foreclosures and the CTA, and whatever else is going on in the area. We talk at our neighborhood stores about the good and bad. There was a little bit of that when I was a kid in Lakeview, but only in the really old established businesses like Dinkel’s, Paulina Meat Market, Meyers Deli and at the hair dressers. I don’t see as much of that any more when I stop by the old neighborhood, which is hardly the old neighborhood anymore. Almost all the old residents are gone, and only a few of the old businesses remain. Mind you, it looks a lot better than the ghost town it was becoming in the late 80’s, and I am glad to see open store fronts. I still enjoy stopping at Dinkel’s and the Paulina Meat Market (best bacon in Chicago!), but it is an outsider now. But that’s what neighborhoods do, and to some extent have to do, they change, they evolve. I know that’s what I want for Woodlawn. I want businesses to move in to the empty store fronts, to have a nice Metra stop like in Hyde Park, the wooden boards to come off of the foreclosed houses, and construction to continue in way that is sensitive to the needs of the neighborhood. I don’t want to see my neighbors displaced, I just want to see new new neighbors added to the mix. I know the neighborhood has a longer way to go than Lakeview did. Lakeview had the advantage of the Ravenswood (Brown) Line stop, and copious bus lines, along with a few anchor stores that stayed through the hard times. But there needs to be more cooperation, and in Woodlawn I hear a lot of resentment instead of hope, but there are those who are looking forward, and we need more of that. You can’t forget the history of the area, and how it came to this point, but nor can you cling to that in bitterness.
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I just got up to answer the eleven-billionth pre-recorded message from a candidate. I am ready to unplug the phone! I don’t have a phone in my studio, and I often forget to bring the cordless phone up with me. I am sick of running out to get the phone and have it be a pre-recorded message. grr.
That does remind me that I need to do some homework and look up more about the candidates, since all they tell me is what is awful about the other person, I don’t know enough about their own positions. Idiots. Maybe next time I will rant about how much I dislike our electoral process.
