the ultimate street festival

I still can't believe this is my view - from my windows, from my balcony.  Tonight is warm enough to have a glass of wine on the balcony.  The city sounds and lights and smells are all around me and I am loving it.  For a pure-bred country girl, I sure am taking to this mighty well.

There's a chocolate factory somewhere near enough that, when they're cooking up the cocoa, the sweet chocolate fragrance fills the air and makes you crave hot chocolate from scratch.  I don't know if it's the Hershey place or something else, but it smells good.  All I need is to mix some bacon with that stuff.  HA!

The city on a night like this is the ultimate street festival.  It's not a party, not crazy like that.  It's just people everywhere, doing what they do, going wherever they're going, but everyone is happy and light and full of the sweetness of the night.  Even sitting up on my balcony, I feel I'm a part of it all.

I know that the city isn't always a festival.  Last night, a young Chicago police officer was shot and killed outside his parent's home.  Not in the line of duty, just visiting, recently back from a tour of duty in Iraq and returning to his job on the force.  Tried to stop some guys stealing his bike and was killed for it.  That kind of thing happens here every day and brings you back to reality even on a night like this.

Still, I love being here, I love that I'm able to just walk out the door and do pretty much anything that I could imagine.  And that I feel perfectly safe doing it.  It's a good place to be on a night like this - the ultimate street festival every night.  Somehow it feels like home.