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I know, I’m sorry, I came home to a ton of work and have had absolutely no time to blog more about our trip north. I still don’t have a lot of time and I’m working on a series of posts about moving that won’t come ’til next month – hopefully this will tide you over for a while.
When we arrived in Chicago and had that weird automatic that expected me to shift, we took a quick driving tour of houses we were interested in seeing – we started with a house in Lincolnwood then hit two more in Glenview. From there, three houses in Wilmette and then onto five in Evanston and then finally two in Skokie. By the time we hit Evanston, TW was ready for a pit stop so she said “if you see a McDonald’s, I’d like to stop” (code for I have to use the bathroom.)
This caused me to realize that we’d been driving for a very long time, covering a lot of territory and I hadn’t actually seen a McDonald’s or any type of fast food besides Dairy Queen, Jimmy John’s and Einstein Bagel – all in strip malls. We’d also seen Starbucks in strip malls. But no stand alone McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell etc… hmmmm
I kept driving and finally when we hit Dempster, I knew we’d find some because I had heavily researched Dempster because I was SURE we were going to rent a house on that street. (We didn’t.) I pulled into McDonald’s – TW raced for the restroom – I pulled out my phone to call Michelle. I also ordered a coke and while I was ordering, I said to Michelle “Well, it took us two hours of driving to find a McDonald’s.” The woman who had just ordered in front of me turned around and burst into laughter. I thought for sure we were going to see ourselves on Overheard in Chicago. heh
A lot of you have asked “So, what’s it like in Evanston/Glenview?”
It’s hard to describe, particularly if you’ve never spent much time in Indiana or Illinois. It looks like THAT. I think we boiled it down to “Evanston looks like Chicago but without the stuff that makes Chicago cool.” and Glenview looks like a suburb of Atlanta would look if Atlanta was in the midwest. Does that help?
Let’s see… what else can I tell you?
I finally ate at Cheesecake Factory. I’ve never been – I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. I’ve always wondered why people go there for birthdays and make a big deal of it. It’s a chain, what’s the big deal. I see now. It is a chain but it’s a specialty chain. And I enjoyed it.
We went to Trader Joe’s, finally! Yay. There’s one around the corner from where we will live. No more care packages from California are necessary (though I have greatly appreciated the ones I’ve been sent.)
Also, The Blind Faith Cafe in Evanston was awesome. I had this Shiitake Gorgonzola Biscuits thingy and it was awesome. I said awesome, right? We also hit the Cafe Express on Dempster and the chick working was very nice, coffee was good, too.
What else do you want to know?
More from the great north Read More »
Rather than just sharing my deli.cio.us bookmarks with you, how about I pledge to share some good stuff that I’m reading but am not bookmarking?
Paula blogged about “telecommuting” and the home office. Hah. I like working from home. I like the “isolation”. I could NOT function in those little cubicles.
How low self esteem almost ruined my marriage – click over and read the post. Hmmm
The Maypole, that enormous phallus. hah.
While we’re thinking about umm maypoles(?) did you know clever woman have trouble reaching orgasm? Hah.
Maybe it’s just me, mom of a kid still searching for a college, but I really liked Leslie’s post about green campuses.
Gena, I don’t know jack about statistics either.
Maybe this is behind my bouts of insomnia?
Turning over a new leaf Read More »
We have discovered a silver lining in this sow’s ear of a move. Living within a few miles of the mother of THE Jory DesJardins… being able to see the childhood home of THE Jory DesJardins… being able to sit at a desk in the girlhood bedroom of THE Jory DesJardins…being able to wander into the basement that THE Jory DesJardins spent time in as a child… what a silver lining that is.
I mean seriously. Jory’s house… we walked in and we felt immediately at “home” even though the house itself didn’t look like my childhood home, it felt familiar and comfortable. But let’s not talk about the house. Or about Jory. Let’s talk about Joy – from Joy of Six.
Joy is awesome. She’s fun to work with and fun to hang out and chat with. We laughed and we laughed and we laughed, and we weren’t always laughing at stories about Jory as a little girl. We laughed about all sorts of things.
I still don’t really relish the idea of moving north but at least Joy will be there and she’ll let us come and hang out with her in that cool house and she’ll tell us stories about her kids and her grandkids and we’ll just laugh and laugh some more.
Silver lining.
Dear citizens of Chicago, Evanston, Wilmette, Skokie, Glenview and beyond….
When you meet someone who says “I’m moving to Evanston from Florida” your answer should really NOT be anything remotely similar to “Are you CRAZY?” Also, blank stare, mouth hanging open and “You’re kidding, right?” is also not all that helpful.
I understand the shock. Believe me. I understand. I’m going through it.
It would really be very helpful if you would just answer with “Welcome to Evanston” and leave it at that.
After all, if you can’t say anything nice about your own town… maybe it is better if you don’t say anything at all?
Thank you.
Flamingo House Floridians Moving North
A little helpful advice… Read More »
So yea, we’re in Evanston, Illinois. We got here via the nice folks at Air Trans and the flights were relatively uneventful – though on the first leg my seatmate was a drunk offensive man and I am thankful that the trip was only 45 minutes and that he fell into a drunk slumber right after take off.
At the Chicago Midway airport (which we flew into only because TW hates O’Hare) the woman at the Hertz car rental desk was very very sweet and very very confused about why we would ever consider moving to her neck of the woods from Florida. Her exact words were “Are you crazy?” Yea. Pretty much but here we are.
I had reserved a tiny car from Hertz, the reservation says “Hyundai Accent” or similar. Small, easy to park, good on gas for all of the house hunting and touring of our new neighborhood. That was my goal.
She handed me the paperwork, I looked down and I saw “Outback” and I thought – “Huh? What’s an Outback?” (I know, I’m clueless…) I walk over to the baggage conveyor belt thingy and show it to TW, she said “What’s an Outback?” and then she said “Ohhh it’s the brother to my little blue car.” Duh. Yes. A Subaru Outback, of course! My next thoughts came back to haunt me…
Cool. Since it’s a Subaru, we’ll probably feel more comfortable riding in it and driving in it than we would another kind of car that we don’t have any experience with.
We find the car. We get in. I look around at some of the controls. Adjust some mirrors. Adjust my seat. I turn on the car. It has a weird red security light on – but that goes off. I put it in drive and there’s a weird red “1” with an “up arrow” next to it. Uh. What’s that? I drive through the parking garage, glancing down at this red “1”. I pull out of the parking garage, still looking at the red “1”. I pull out onto a busy street, still looking at this red “1”. I drive. Red 1.
I feel like the transmission wants me to shift. But. This is an automatic. How the hell do you shift an automatic? There’s nothing that says “over drive” or anything LIKE that. The traffic was bumper to bumper so that transmission revving noise was minimal until I merge onto the freeway, where it’s still bumper to bumper but now b2b going 30 and the transmission really wants me to shift.
So. TW suggested I shift.
I tentatively push the gear and that red 1 changed to a red 2 with an up arrow and a down arrow! And there was no more transmission complaining noises.
Then, I get to drive a little faster… and the transmission wants me to shift again! So tentatively hit the gear again and it moves to a red 3 with an up arrow and a down arrow. WTF?
Four gears. In an automatic. And it drove me infreakingsane for about a half hour because who the hell pushes a gear up to shift into second gear? You shift DOWN for second gear and DOWN for fourth gear! 30 minutes of crazy, those gears drove me crazy.
Thank goodness TW found the Subaru Outbook manual hidden in its secret compartment and discovered how to turn those gear thingies OFF. I love a manual transmission but that thing was not a manual transmission. It was an automatic. There was no clutch. If there is no clutch there should be no freaking gears. And you should NEVER have to shift UP to get to second. EVER. For any reason.
Other than that, I like the Outback.
(for the record, that shifty thingy is called the sportshift)
2008 Subaru Outback – WTF moment Read More »
No, I’m not here to suggest that the Evanston area is a step from heaven. It is not. A Step From Heaven is a YA “problem” book that was up for a Printz Award.
We started listening to it on audio during our trip to Tampa last weekend and TW and I finished it up on the way to the airport yesterday.
It is a YA problem book or more to the point, a YA Korean immigrant problem book. The best type of problem book, according to those who nominate books for awards. Problem books – good … Immigrant problem books – better!
Or not.
How depressing. With a happy ending!
Ho hum.
A Step From Heaven Read More »
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