"Secret" parking spot

Those of you familiar with where we live know that we are on a one-way street going south for a few blocks along the lake. Sheridan Road, a thoroughfare for those going north in our neighborhood, runs parallel to Eastlake Terrace (our street), but just north of our place, makes a reverse S-curve and intersects with our street. So last time my mom was in town, she was out late and returned to find no parking spots on our street (no big surprise there), so she parked on the one block of Sheridan that runs east-west at the north end of our block. Though there is room for a lane of parking and no signs or yellow curbs, we had always assumed that no parking was allowed because it's a very busy curve and we had never seen any cars there before. But, amazingly, my mom didn't get a ticket. So, now that we have a car that we drive now and then, we have occasionally used our "secret" spot when we can't find a space on our street, usually late in the evening. But the other day, we returned to the car to move it to a "real" spot, and there were two cars parked behind us! A few days later, we again arrived home in the evening and had to resort to the secret spot, along with 3 other cars, and as we got out of the car, we heard the folks entering their building right there muttering, "you can't park there...hummfereumpmermer" This morning, there were eight cars parked along the curb! I think the tiny block is now at capacity! I marvel at our ability to change parking patterns, and I mourn the death of our "secret" spot. Now we might have to walk up to 2 blocks! Oh the hardship. The parking situation (in addition to a dead batter/empty gas tank fiasco that turned a quick trip to the store into a 3 1/2 hour event) just serves to remind us of why we sold our car before we moved. Not only is it better for the environment, for our physical health, and for our bank accounts to walk, bike and take public transportation...having a car is a pain in the butt!

In other news, Eric has been working lots and is excited because he will start to train as a server next week! Though he has enjoyed his smoothie-making, dessert-slicing, and tie-dye shirt-wearing time behind the Blind Faith counter, he looks forward to the day when he will wear his black pants, white dress shirt, and silly black vest each and every day and get to serve a new set of picky vegetarians on the sit-down side of the restaurant. Seriously, though, once he switches over completely, he will be making significantly more money and working few hours. So that means more time and energy to pursue documentary-making experience. At this point, the next step will be enrolling in some classes at a community television station in Evanston.

This evening, we'll be going out for tapas and doing some salsa dancing with Andy and Lewis and some other friends! Please, send some rhythm this way. We both need it!