Getting Around and Getting By

Thanks to this summer internship, I’ve learned it takes a little over a month to get comfortable navigating a brand new place.

In my case, I now know how to get from the North Shore to Oak Park and back — I even discovered a faster way to get home from Oak Park. It avoids I-90/94, thankfully. I can now also get around River Forest and Oak Park without looking at my iPhone’s Google map application, for the most part.

Speaking of traffic and driving around Chicago, I was rear-ended last week on Michigan Avenue, while I was sitting still in traffic. Here’s the kicker: It was a personal injury attorney who hit me. Maybe Alanis Morissette should look to my life for inspiration for the song, “Ironic Pt. 2." 

My car and I are fine, just a few scrapes on the car. It’s a good thing too, since I rely on it so much. I also would have been sad if I couldn’t have driven past the Turano bread factory anymore.

Every time I pass by that place and its amazing smells, I’m reminded of the fantasies I used to have in childhood about running away to live like the kids in the Boxcar Children series. For some reason, I always imagined them stealing bread (or maybe that’s something that happened in the books).

Regardless, isn’t it strange how the most random objects, scents or scenes can bring up the most random memories?

In a fit of nostalgia probably brought on by the delicious bread smells, last weekend I watched one of my favorite movies, Adventures in Babysitting. I hadn’t watched it in maybe a year or two, so I had forgotten all about the fact that the kids and babysitter stuck in Chicago are from Oak Park in the film. How cool.

Has anyone else seen that movie? Do you think it portrayed the suburbanites as too naïve of the city?

It’s amazing how far from Chicago they made Oak Park seem. After driving the distance multiple times a week, I can tell you it’s not the hours-long distance the film makes it seem.