Things Change

My old house on Wellington in Chicago

 Mark and I are planning to move to Chicago next year. Well, I am planning to, Mark is grudgingly "considering" it. This is going to be a massive undertaking for somebody like me who is basically lazy. I moved here twenty six years ago with no more than my car towing a trailer, three cats, and an ex-boyfriend who wasn't an ex yet. I had a furnished townhouse in Fort Lauderdale waiting for me so it was easy. This time it will be much more difficult. I have to sell my property here, buy property in Chicago, then move a massive amount of crap there along with two dogs, possibly two cats, and a kicking and screaming Mark. There is a lot of planning to do between now and then.


Having moved from Chicago twenty six years ago I realize things have changed. The neighborhood I moved from is out of bounds for me now. I cannot afford it. The street where I actually owned a house back in the 1970's is out too. I sold that house for twenty two thousand dollars. The house sitting on that same lot now is worth over a million dollars. It's not the same house of course, they tore that shit box I lived in down. So Mark and I will have to look farther out, you know, just a neighborhood or two further than the hip and happening neighborhoods. That is why I have to find an affordable place on a nice tree lined street with a fabulous kitchen. Yes, the kitchen will have to be fabulous. Because if the house isn't up to his standards, if the kitchen looks like Aunt Bea's, all old and smelly, if it isn't just right, getting Mark through the front door would be like trying to put a freaked out feral cat in one of those little cat carriers.