Chicago — The return

I got back to my parents house around 11pm last night. It’s already been a surreal trip. I haven’t been home for more than a day since Craig and April got married last October.

That makes it eight months since I’ve last been home for any extended period of time. In that time it’s like I got amnesia about home. I’m reaching for light switches where there aren’t any. I’m forgetting names of streets I used to drive every day.

Maybe the hardest thing to handle in the past two days is how isolated my parents house is from anything. They don’t live miles down some private drive. It’s actually the opposite. They live in a 50 year old subdivision, three quarters of the way down the row of houses. On the right. Red brick. Really, you can’t miss it.

But that’s part of the problem, too. No one in the suburbs does anything at night. In Boston, if I’m on my front porch for more than five minutes – and it’s not 3am – people walk by, cars drive by. I might have a conversation while I’m out there.

Last night I went outside to sit on the porch and there was nothing. And it was dark.

Living in the city for so long has made me forget what it’s like to be dark at night. In Boston you can barely walk down a street without a street lamp flickering on once you get 15 feet past it.

Here, an old gas lamp was putting out a feeble light and everything was still. It almost felt like I had gone blind. It’s weirdly relaxing. But as I was smoking on the porch last night, I swear I could hear an anonymous neighbor just moaning.

Enough about that.

Today, I made it into the city proper to watch my beloved Cubbies lose to the Pirates 6-4. Zambrano got shelled in the first, giving up three runs. Matt Murton dropped a routine fly ball and made a throwing error. The Cubs offense came on three home runs. Aramis Ramirez and Angel Pagan hit solo shots and Michael Barret hit a two run, pinch hit homer. That was it.

But Wrigley. Oh, Wrigley. My dad and I were sitting 19 rows up from home plate and were behind the netting. I took about 40 pictures but I left my USB cord in Boston, so you’ll have to wait until I get home to upload them.

One of the best parts of the day was getting to the game. If I was going alone or with friends, I would have taken the Metra to the Davis Street CTA stop in Evanston. I would’ve transferred over to the Purple line and ridden it to Howard then switched to the Red line and gotten off at Addison – aka, Wrigley Field.

But going with my old man? Two hours on trains? “The hell with that,” he succinctly said. Instead, he decided to drive down to the Howard Street El stop, leave the car and ride the El the 12 stops to Wrigley.

I asked him how long it had been since he had ridden public transportation in the city of Chicago. He couldn’t remember.

Once he said that, I knew this was going to be the most fun I’d ever had on the El. And I wasn’t disappointed. Dad looked at map above the doors after every stop. I could tell he was counting down.

I tried to point out the Riviera and the Aragon, but he was too busy staring at a guy who was getting on the train. He was wearing ear buds and listening to his iPOD so loud that we could hear it from the other side of the train car. (I tried to explain the iPOD revolution to my dad, but he didn’t get it.)

I saw the “what’s that noise” look on my dad’s face. (Growing up, I learned to recognize it early.) He opened his mouth and went to stand up. I had to put my hand on his shoulder to stop him from saying something. Later, he asked about a smell. I laughed a lot. Then the two of us got shit faced at the ball park and I laughed some more.

I’d go into more detail, but this one, I’m keeping to myself.

End of day one and a half from Chicago.

The Rites Of Spring

First Fire of the Year
Originally uploaded by packyourlunch.

Sunday I had Mike and Kristen over to the apartment for the first barbeque of the spring. It was nearly 60 degrees in Boston, the sun was out and the steak and chicken tips were perfectly cooked. It’s getting to be the time of the year where I can sit on the porch with a glass of whiskey and not go anywhere all night. The porch is its own event for the evening and the season is almost upon us.

I can’t wait.

Neighborhood Characters Part One

Once it warms up I’m looking forward to getting back out on my front porch and wasting the hours away. I did it all last summer once I moved into my apartment, and it was more fun than I ever thought it could be. Those few months made me appreciate why my old man always talks about sitting in a comfortable chair and watching the sun set.

One of the most enjoyable parts about the porch is how I try to talk to and interact with everyone who walks past. Young, old, male, female, dogs — doesn’t matter. I’ll say hello, offer a beer or a steak if I’m cooking and try and strike up a conversation. Sometimes it worked; most times it didn’t, but it was the effort that counted. After awhile Steve started calling me the Mayor of Somerville because everyone seemed to say hello while I would sit out there.

In the course of meeting these people, I met some neighborhood fixtures that have become recurring characters in my life — kind of like Comic book guy or Chief Wiggum. Dave and I have come up with nicknames for them over the past seven or eight months.

Johnny Morocco

His name isn’t Johnny Morocco. It’s Yassir, and he runs the beloved breakfast restaurant Sound Bytes. He’s a tall Middle Eastern guy who is known to chain smoke cigarettes while ushering people in and out of the restaurant on Saturday mornings. He can be pretty gruff — especially if you try to order something off the menu, take a bigger table or linger too long in his establishment while other people are waiting to get seated. Some nights, when he’s not working at Sound Bytes Two: Son of Sound Bytes across the street, he’ll chain smoke cigarettes in front of El Guapo, a Mexican joint right next to his. He’s known to force cups of coffee on the unsuspecting masses and take your breakfast order. Plus, he’s a pretty good guy if you catch him while the restaurant is slow. But where does he live? What does he do when he’s not managing his budding Somerville restaurant empire? Why have I never seen him in the same place as Denver Bronco’s former quarterback John Elway?

Licorice Joe

Licorice Joe has nothing to do with licorice. In fact, he works part time at the liquor store up the street from me. The word liquor is about as close he gets to licorice. I just come up with the nicknames, I don’t explain them. He’s a slender guy who also happens to live down the street. He’s been known to give wine recommendations and have shady dealings under lampposts long after most reasonable people have gone to bed. I know this happens because I’ve seen it, drunk and playing the guitar on the porch at 4:30 in the morning shortly before the police arrive and tell me to quiet down. (That’s happened a lot at my place too.)

Officer B

I won’t give his full name in case it gets him in trouble, but everyone needs a little police muscle. Office B is mine — when he’s not leaning on me for noise complaints. He came because Dave, Dee and I were on the porch surrounded by four or five empty wine bottles and a case worth of empty beer bottles one night. He didn’t think we were being that loud; we thought he was pretty cool and chatted with him for a while. He left and then came back later in the night. Then a day later. Then a day after that. Always on his break, always wanting to chat for a few minutes before he went back to collaring perps. I think someone in his office started sniffing around his trail because he hasn’t been patrolling his usual beat. I haven’t seen him in months. Although my roommate did one night. He rang the doorbell and asked for Dave and me. We weren’t home, but it’s always nice to know you’ve got the Bulls in your corner.

Coming soon, Part Two: Gollum and Sloth.