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August 21, 2008

Comments

Oh, how I have such mixed feelings about my home town. There are so many things to love and just as many things to be disturbed by in that city.

For sure, next Summer I'm taking the girls there for a few days to see a Cubs game and go to Navy Pier and some of our favorite museums. I might do the nostalgia part of it too and check out my grandma's funeral home and Chicago Ridge cemetery where my grandparents are buried and my mom's ashes are sprinkled. Wow. Maybe it is the 70's again. I better go find my denim wrap around skirt and shiny disco shirt to match.

I think Chicago is the greatest city in the country. Really I do. Great post.

And if you lived here you would be in a cage death match with your sister over a grocery list some distant relative penned in 1964 on the back of some Barbie stationery.

And you would eat 6 meals a day, 6 days a week.

And you would not go outside from December through February.

And you would see a lot of movies during that time.

Cubs:

Feh.

I love the museum of science and industry!!! that was my second home growing up!

Oh, I love Chicago, too (says the New-Yorker-at-heart)! My fifth-grade teacher in N.C. was from Chicago, and from the moment she began to talk about it, I was longing to go. Didn't make it until I was 30, but it completely lived up to all my expectations -- and still does every time I visit. Seems a lot of my favorite people are from/have lived there. (And just between you and me, I can tell you're really from Chicago and not from L.A. -- but don't tell any of those famous L.A.-ers with whom you spend time that I said so).

Why is it so many of us love Chicago but still left it.
I've told my kids the only nice months I remember in Chicago were May and September. The rest were either hot and humid or really cold and damp - the sky - always cloudy.
I moved to Colorado for college and lived in Arizona and California for over 18 years before moving back to Colorado.
I'd tell my family "Chicago's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there."
And now, my 18 year old daughter has started college in ... the Loop! Columbia! Oh, the irony.
So, we drove there to drop her off and couldn't believe how nice and clean downtown is. And lots of other parts of city are too.
Of course Chicago now goes on forever. Everywhere north and northwest that used to be nowhere is now full of houses. Who can remember all these places? I'd get lost trying to find my way home.
But, the city has become so cool!
By the way, about the food...the portions they serve in Chicago are bigger. No, really, go to the Cheesecake factory in Denver and you get a seared tuna salad that is adequate. But, at the one in Old Orchard it's enough for two - well, okay - one and a half.
No wonder it's the city of big shoulders and other areas too.

As a transplant to Chicago 20 years ago, the city continues to amaze me.

Chicago is a world-class city and we have visitors from all over the globe to prove it. Weekly lunch-hour walks through Millennium Park reveal the many languages and cultures of the tourists as they snap their photos in the reflection of Cloud Gate (the bean). From the architecture to the museums to our magnificent lake shore, Chicago has it all.

I love the seasons, especially Fall. I moved here in October 1988, and I remember sitting on Loyola Beach in Rogers Park on Halloween and going for a swim. I said, "this is unbelievable." It was 75, sunny and the water was still warm enough. I cherish the memory, and the season.

Winter can be a bit long. It takes fortitude to walk through an arctic blast in the Loop in February. It takes endurance to see the calendar read April, while you pull on your boots and hat and head to the El. It takes character, but that's what makes Chicagoans so great. If it was pleasant weather all year, everyone would live here. I like to think Chicago winters help keep out the riff-raff.

Come for a visit if you've never been. Check out something new if you've been here your whole life. Chicago, my kind of town.

I've lived here for 17 years and I know why you live in sunny California!

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