Something Like A Smithereens Song

By request, and a clever one at that Hackimer, here's the virtual tour of our lovely Bucktown apartment. I don't think I actually realized how gentrified the neighborhood was until I was taking pictures on the street today. I stopped for a 50 cent lemonade at a stand run by the neighbor kids. The lemonade looked good; slice of lemon and a couple of fresh mints leaves as garnish. I was equally impressed by the sugar on the rim of the cup until I realized that it was actually Splenda. It made me miss the lemonade stands of the early 80s I gotta tell you.

So, this is the street we live on:

Charleston Street. It's a pleasant street.
Except for the bar across the way. It looks like a nice enough place. We've been in for beers a few times. It is completely overrun by a certain class of people I have come to refer to as "Jazz Jerks." Liking jazz is OK. I have been known to enjoy some jazz. Jazz Jerks though, are the type of folks who turn into insufferable assholes when confronted with philistines who cannot be "down" with their extended xylophone solos.

Screw that. I live in a strictly "no xylophone zone."

This is our building. Standard issue, turn of the century brick. One of the few left in our neighborhood. Slowly but surely all of the other classic buildings are being razed in favor of tacky condos.


Across the street from us live the current bane of our existence. We thought the Jazz Jerks were bad but The Moped Posse across the street is enough to drive you to drink. Their little club rolls out the mopeds a few times a week. They rev the engines in the driveway for about 20 minutes at a time and then roar off. Usually they circle around a few times before taking off to where ever mopeds are acceptable means of confirming coolness.
Below is The Orange Offender. I swear, I am going to do something horrible to that machine one of these days.

I'll spare you the walk up four flights of stairs and just bring you right in the front door:

It's a modest kitchen but, it gets good light. And there's room for the table. I like the openness of the space. I would like to toss the noisy closet full of Goodman model central cooling air conditioner out the F'ing window at that moped. But I shouldn't complain because, no matter how disruptive the noise is to daily life it mostly gets the job done.

Hiding on the other side of the front door is the bathroom.
And hidden it shall remain.











You enter onward into the living room. It's got, um...sofas. And bookshelves. Also a table...Well, two actually. It's the living room.




Oh, and also - it all totally matches the cat perfectly:




We, natch, have an entertainment center set up in the living room. You know, with entertaining stuff? Yeah, we've got all that.

And, as you can tell in this picture, there's a bedroom over that way.
It's Beatrice's bedroom. But, she leases it out to guest at very reasonable rates.
We've come to face the reality that everything we own is covered in a fine sheen of cat hair. So, take your allergy meds before you come over.


But wait, there's more!
This way to the master bedroom, if you please.


That on the floor is our poor, abandoned mini-Weber grill. It's hard to grill out a window I tells ya.
Oh, and this here is General Robert E. Lee. Apparently it was some sort of package deal. Bird wouldn't move without him. So now he watches everything we do.








The entire second floor is one, big room. The only drawback is that the walls are slanty. You know, the kind of space you think sounds really cool when you're reading about the attic-bound heroine in the V.C. Andrews' book. But, in reality means limited vertical space. Not so bad for me. Terrible for the tall boyfriend.

Up here is also where all of the creative stuff happens. Bird has his music and I have my desk nook. I have a nice view of open sky above my computer. It's only distracting when The Air & Water Show is in town. The sky fills with all sorts of airplanes. Bird likes to sit and watch out the window. On a clear day, you can see all the way into downtown.



I guess the last thing left to show you is the closet upstairs. It's very roomy. Yep, lots of room for clothes and shoes and storage and...well, you get the picture.


That's about it folks. You want to see more, you have to come for a visit.
Oh, who am I kidding. Here: I'm a sucker for photos.