A few moments later, I saw on the Metra site that the Metra Electric line was shut down. The rain and ice storm that happened overnight had caused problems for the wires, and no trains were running. So out of nowhere: the closest thing I, as an adult, have to a snow day: an unexpected work from home day.
This was due, I’m sure, to the fact that we had some seriously cold days last week. But it made me wonder if the missing bikes were due to people fleeing the neighborhood, or due to Divvy not being able to come and re-stock the bicycles.
I wish I would have taken a photo or two, but when I pulled up to my usual laundromat (Kimbark Laundry), I saw that the whole space was dark. On peering in through the window, the place was absolutely empty – totally gutted.
I’ve been going in to work a bit early, the last few days. This morning I happened to look over as I walked by the loading area for Treasure Island (which closed down a while ago).
Continuing a trend of meeting neighbors, tonight I attended a holiday party at my neighbor Dawn’s house. She last had a holiday party two years ago, and I had a fun time chatting and meeting several of her friends.
We got to meet our new neighbors Mark and Anna tonight, who moved into the Paley’s place a few months back. While we were visiting, we got to try some mead for the first time. And also got the option of not one, but two desserts!
These photos are a bit old, as the actual paving work happened a week or two back. But given how long all the construction had been going on… it felt right to at least document the final, finished product.
On the way home, we decided to swing by Bibliophile – a recent desert bar that had opened up in our neighborhood that we were eager to check out.
Yesterday, right as Bob was here with a truck full of drywall… wouldn’t you know it, the crew was just starting to pour the cement for our driveway apron. We had scheduled some help with Dolly, and had two helpers scheduled for the morning.
There was a lot of changes on our street, when I got home after work. I’d heard that they would be doing some restoration work (replacing the curbs and repairing all the concrete along the street)… but I wasn’t quite prepared to see the state of the street.
Not a lot of photos to share, this Halloween. With Liz under the weather, she only manned the door a few times over the course of the night. Since she didn’t want to risk being outside too much (still recovering from the flu), I ended up doing a lot of the door greeting and handing out of candy.
Whenever I found myself impatient and waiting in line, it was usually at Treasure Island. And each time, I’d think about how grossly inefficient grocery store lines were, and how tedious the manual checkout process was. And how I longed for someone like Amazon to swoop in and change things up.
I’ve gone there this morning for breakfast, and was remembering an episode that happened a long while ago. As I was paying for my purchases with a credit card, I asked the woman (the owner of the store) for change. I think I may have had a $10 or $20 at the time. She said no to me (and I think she also said sorry), but also muttered something under her breath in French and I heard the word “bank.”
For over a year, Liz and I have passed and watched the construction of the Sophy Hotel as it’s been built up, bit by bit. The hotel officially opened a few weeks ago, and before her trip last week… Liz and I decided to have a quick date night dinner, after work, at the hotel’s restaurant. The decorations everywhere were…
Spotted this near the end of our block, where it seemed like some excess water was being relieved. I’ve spotted something like this a few times before, and the amount of water coming out always varies – sometimes it’s a steady stream, sometimes it kicks out in a strong burst.