neighbors

When you live in a city of millions, you get some pretty odd neighbors.  I don't mean the lady from New York who lives next door, or the couple with the big dog, or the guy who is hardly ever here, but is on the owner's board of directors.  They're the normal neighbors - the folks you find anywhere, the ones you expect.

There are others, not entirely unexpected, but no less neighbors, like it or not.  This weekend I decided to walk down to the "magnificent mile" of Michigan Ave to buy some shoes so I could walk some more and maybe do my booty some good at the same time.  The goal was to find those trendy exercising-while-you-walk tennis shoes that look like someone stumped their toe while pouring the sole and overdid it a bit.  What I ended up with was a pair of the more-than-twice-as-expensive specialty brand of the same type shoe which I found on sale at a bargain, which means I paid as much as I would have for the cheaper brand not on sale.

At any rate, the good thing about being able to walk to Michigan Ave is, well, being able to walk there.  And home again.  While enjoying the many sights and sounds and people and buildings and smells all along the way.  The bad thing about it is the guy on the corner saying "don't you think you could help me with some breakfast", or the one walking up and down the sidewalk talking to himself (no, there was no bluetooth - I checked).  Or the guy wrapped up in a sleeping bag in a recessed doorway which was on the north side of the street so he was in the sun (it was a bit cool).  Homeless or vagrants, or beggars, or whatever they may be, they're not completely new to me, but I don't know that I will ever be able to comfortably ignore them.  There's a sad repulsiveness about them so that I don't know whether I want to help them or kick them.  And yes, they can be a little unnerving.  Not really scary, but you just never know.  And the guy in the sleeping bag?  Could have been a zombie.  I mean, it was just a shape - there was nothing human visible.  Who knows?

The other neighbors, the ones that I didn't really expect, have wings.  Anyone mentions city, you automatically think pigeons, but I've yet to see a pigeon in Chicago.   Instead, I have a constant reminder of the gulf coast.  At first I thought "what the heck is a seagull doing here?????", but then the duh moment happened and I remembered we actually are right next to a lake - actually more like a sea.  In my life, however, seagulls have always meant sand, sun, waves, jellyfish, and Hawaiian Tropic.

I think it's neat, having seagulls instead of pigeons.  Seagulls have personality and are graceful and slender.  Pigeons strut around looking lost and fat and stupid.  Not that I'm biased.  I mean in a perfect world the city birds would be lovely songbirds or colorful toucans or magnificent eagles.  Since this isn't a perfect world, I'll make do with the seagulls.  As long as they keep their droppings out of my hair.

I guess the best I can do is learn to coexist peaceably with all neighbors, while keeping a slight guard up against droppings or crazies or zombies grabbing my ankles as I walk around the city in my new expensive even on sale booty shaping shoes.