I live downtown. Is it a neighborhood?

Shortly after I moved to the South Loop from Edgewater, someone asked me how it felt to not live in a neighborhood anymore.

The question came back to me as I read about the Chicago Neighborhood Project. The University of Chicago initiative invites people to draw their neighborhood borders as they perceive them. There are no right or wrong answers, reflecting the fluid nature of boundaries here, but the researchers are hoping to find more consensus about neighborhoods. You have until December 31 to take the survey at https://chicago-neighborhoods.com.

Christmas changes after parents are gone

When our parents were still alive and living independently, my sisters Patty and Nancy spent the day after Thanksgiving doing Mom and Dad’s Christmas shopping for 13 kids, spouses, and grandkids. In the meantime, at Mom and Dad’s condo my brother-in-law Bob and I put up two tall Christmas trees, a nativity scene, outdoor lights, and other decorations. When my sisters returned with dozens of gifts, the wrapping began. By the time we went to bed the Friday after Thanksgiving, gifts were stacked up to a half-dozen deep under the tree in the living room. They were opened on Christmas Eve after we ate a traditional Slovak meal made from my grandmother’s recipes.

The last such Christmas was in 2018. Dad and Mom died within the past four years. This is the second year I’ve done no Christmas shopping. Family members in my generation once bought for everyone, and then we cut back by drawing one name each, but now we don’t even discuss whether we’ll exchange presents. 

Reconsidering masks

Here and there I see someone wearing a mask, but for the most part, it seems that the end of the pandemic and the end of mask wearing coincided. An Axios/Ipsos American Health Index in August found that only 15 percent of Americans wear a mask at least sometimes, a decline from 23 percent in May and 30 percent in February.

I was glad to give up masks. They’re uncomfortable and make it harder to hear and to breathe. The loops occasionally knocked off my hearing aids. Masks block my vision when I’m looking down, which is scary on uneven sidewalks and steps. 

Since my recent bout of COVID, however, I’ve been thinking about whether to mask in some situations. Here’s a sampling of medical advice.

For my birthday, I got COVID

“During COVID,” people say, relegating to the past the period of lockdowns, masking, and horrific death statistics. Indeed, the US government declared the COVID-19 public health emergency over in May.

We think we’re past COVID until we get it.

Turning 75 calls for adjusting, not giving up

Remember the controversial 2014 article by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, then 57, an oncologist, bioethicist, and Rahm’s older brother, where he announced that he would stop getting medical care after age 75? It’s downhill from there, he said, and going on would be a drain on society.

I’ll reach that age at the end of this month.

Why I'm in Medicare Advantage

It’s Medicare Open Enrollment season until December 7. New enrollees can sign up for a plan, and those already in Medicare can switch plans if desired. 

There are two ways of enrolling in Medicare.

Grappling with a play about Mexican wrestling

When I pooh-pooh a critically acclaimed show, I generally don’t spend a lot of time second-guessing my reaction. But it bothered me that I was bored watching Lucha Teotl, on stage at the Goodman Theatre through Sunday, because I suspected that cultural unawareness was at play.

Toward better understanding of accented speech

Some time ago I wrote about my problem with accents in a stage play, but a more frequent issue is not understanding people with whom I’m speaking routinely.

Returning to “bland” white walls

When I moved into my present condo 10½ years ago, I had read a number of articles encouraging homeowners not to be afraid of using deep colors on their walls. They persuaded me to pass up safe and “bland” white. Since I had a gray sofa and thought orange complemented gray, I had the kitchen, bathroom, and one wall of the living room painted coral and everything else gray.

What I did not consider is that with only two banks of windows, there’s not a lot of natural light coming in. Gray and coral did not lighten and brighten the space. Gray also felt depressing on overcast days. After a decade of living with the colors, I wanted a change. 

Being alone needn’t keep me at home

The sister of someone I know stopped traveling after losing her husband a few years ago. She misses travel, I heard, so I asked why she does not take tours with groups that cater to single women. "She wouldn't do that" was the answer. 

A Houston couple shared a table with me at a Yellowstone café. "You're traveling alone?," asked the woman, a retired teacher. "That's brave."

I've traveled alone so much that I hardly give it a second thought. In retrospect some of the trips look gutsy – like car camping through New England for six weeks and going behind the Iron Curtain – but I didn't think so at the time. Plenty of things scare me. We're probably all brave about some things and not others. 

Strong muscles make for robust aging

Hearing aids at 66 and cataract surgery at 70 didn’t make me fret about aging. I was still able to do everything I’d always done.

Knee and back pain, on the other hand, restricts my activity. Osteoarthritis, the most common cause of joint pain as people age, has caught up with me. For the first time I’m starting to feel my age.

Deciding which books to part with

My condo will be repainted next month. The painter asked me to empty the bookcases so that he can move them easily. How many books three bookcases can hold has surprised me. The living room is cluttered with 20 filled-to-the-brim brown grocery bags. If the painter is going to be able to move around, I need to let go of a good many books.

My great-great-grandfather’s name is popular again

A former cat of mine was named Silas after my great-great-grandfather, Silas Buck Goss. My oldest ancestor photo is a portrait of Silas with a gray beard and a white shirt, black jacket, and cravat. 

Silas is significant in family history because he and his wife, Hannah Abbott Goss, relocated the Gosses from New England to the Midwest. I wasn’t paying tribute to Silas, however, when I named my cat after him. I just liked the name — for a pet.

It comes as a surprise that contemporary Americans like the name for their human offspring. According to Nameberry, Silas was the fourth most popular baby boy’s name for first half of 2023.

When an ex-spouse dies

Last week I found out that my ex-husband had died. My first reaction was shock. He was only 76. I’m still processing my other feelings. 

Following in my mother’s DIY footsteps

My late mother should have hired out as a home remodeler. She wasn’t afraid of taking a sledgehammer to a wall she wanted removed. She installed more of the ceiling tiles and wall paneling than my father did in the attic bedroom they created for my sister Patty and me. 

I saved a project that felt daunting — spray painting the bathroom sink with appliance epoxy — to do in Mom’s memory on her 96th birthday earlier this month. I tried to exercise the patience Mom always said I lacked as I did the prep, cleaning, sanding, and covering up of areas that needed protection from the spray.

On avoiding certain neighborhoods

“These tour guides are fighting segregation in Chicago,” read the headline in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune. The article featured two Black Chicagoans who are acquainting people with segregated neighborhoods where typically tourists don’t go. Sherman “Dilla” Thomas’s Chicago Mahogany bus tours take visitors, many of whom are white suburbanites, into South and West Side neighborhoods. Tonika Johnson’s Folded Map Project connects Chicago residents whose addresses are the same except for the “North” or “South” designation.

“Once you learn about the history of a place, it increases the value that you fell about that place, and it can make you question the things that you hear,” the article quoted Johnson.

Thomas admitted that his guests want to steer the discussion to gangs and drugs in his featured neighborhoods, which include North Lawndale, Bronzeville, Englewood, Pullman/Roseland, and Chatham. He doesn’t shy away from talking about gangs but discusses them in the context of causes. Last spring I took Thomas’s wonderful bus tour of North Lawndale, one of the most crime-ridden areas of Chicago. I wondered about how safe I would have felt had it been a walking tour.

Here’s to commonplace plants

In my 11th season of container gardening on a ninth-floor balcony, I’ve settled on what I’m going to plant next year and the year after. They are the shade gardener’s old faithfuls, impatiens and begonias, which are producing an abundance of pink, purple, orange, and white blossoms in six railing planters. 

Digital shopping at revamped Walgreens is not an improvement

The nearest Walgreens, at Roosevelt Road and State Street, is the first in the chain to move most merchandise behind locked doors. Customers must shop online or at self-serve kiosks at the entrance, except for a couple of aisles labeled “The Essentials.” Store employees retrieve the purchases. 

My first experiences with the new system did not go smoothly.

What a reunion showed me

In 1985 I returned to my hometown of Joliet as a feature writer at the Herald-News. An attractive job offer drew me back, but I felt as many do about their hometowns: I didn’t want to remain there. I made good friends among the staff but disliked some non-pc attitudes in the newsroom. 

When I left the Herald-News and joined Northwestern University’s publications office in 1990, I expected to find more political correctness (though the term wasn’t in widespread use yet). That I did, along with, at first, intellectual pretentiousness and snobbery. Well, I had been a snob about my hometown, so maybe the tough early years at Northwestern were payback.

Fast forward more than three decades to a reunion of former Herald-News newsroom staff last Saturday afternoon. I can’t remember when I was so comfortable and unselfconscious at a party.

A home that reflects me

So much everyday conversation concerns the buying or remodeling of homes that it’s hard to resist comparing one’s own. 

When a friend remodels, I look around my place wondering what should be changed. Would I do that had I not seen others’ homes? Or never invited another person into mine?

Medical screenings after 65

Recommendations for medical screenings change once we’re in our senior years. Some procedures are added, some go away. Most women can skip cervical cancer screening after 65, and most men prostate cancer screening after 70. People over 75 with negative previous screenings for colon cancer can stop having colonoscopies. 

On the addition side is a DEXA scan to detect bone loss, which can lead to debilitating fractures. A number of medical organizations recommend a first DEXA scan for women at 65 and men at 70.

Also recommended for older people are the one-time pneumonia vaccine and the Shingrix vaccine to guard against shingles, a painful rash.

Do actors’ accents perplex you?

I’m not the only person who has trouble understanding accents.

Many people complain about having difficulty on the phone with a customer service person whose native language is not English.

Those interactions bother me, too, but what I’m particularly vexed by is having trouble understanding accents on stage.

Taking a middle way on decluttering

In the 38 months before our mother’s death last October, my siblings and I cleaned out three residences of our parents: the 1,500-square-foot condo where they’d lived for 17 years; their one-bedroom, full-kitchen apartment in an assisted living home; and finally Mom’s room in a nursing home. 

Only the last one was a simple cleanout. Our parents didn’t let go of much. I resolved to be easier on my survivors. 

Revisiting my question about write-in and no votes

Readers of this blog may remember a post before Tuesday’s Chicago mayoral election in which I wondered whether a write-in ballot or no vote was ever a responsible choice.

Declawing cats is a more nuanced issue than I’d thought

Fanny, my cat, is perfect. That she scratches the furniture doesn’t take away from her perfection. Scratching is just being true to her feline nature.

It would be dishonest to claim, however, that her scratching has not bothered me or been destructive. For evidence, there are the new living room chairs that are shredded at the edges.

I would never have Fanny declawed, however, because I’m persuaded that declawing, which amputates the last bone of each toe, can cause lasting harm to cats. That message has been out for some time, so I was surprised that some animal advocates are not in favor of a bill in the Illinois legislature to ban the declawing of cats.

Is a write-in vote ever a responsible choice?

Back when nine candidates were running for Chicago mayor, I wrote about not supporting any of the front-runners. I voted for someone who the polls showed didn’t have a chance, knowing I’d face the dilemma again in the runoff election.

Now it’s time to decide between the two candidates who advanced to the runoff. Paul Vallas is former head of schools in Chicago and elsewhere and former Chicago budget director. Brandon Johnson is a Cook County commissioner.

A different twist in chiropractic

You might be surprised if you go to a chiropractor for the first time.

When standing straight and getting out of a chair became difficult, I decided to take advantage of the free chiropractic sessions my Medicare Advantage plan provides. 

I entered the office of Dr. Michael Luban on Chicago’s Pedway expecting to lie facedown while Luban twisted, pushed, and pressed my spine into alignment. 

In fact, Luban manually manipulated my spine only once for less than a minute during the four times I saw him. He mostly treated me with a high-tech instrument called a Pro-Adjuster 360.

Vacationing within 300 miles of home

Many of us have travel bucket lists, maybe including wows like New York, the Grand Canyon, Paris, a non-Western country, an African safari.

Cincinnati probably doesn’t make your list. Neither did it mine until a brief visit to my two early-20s nieces, who each landed her first post-college job there. I intend to go back. Because of an aunt’s funeral, my sister Pat and I had to cut short our visit. We didn’t get to the top attraction on my list, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. There wasn’t time for a tour of Over-the-Rhine, whose more than 1,000 historic buildings make up one of the country’s largest, most intact 19th-century historic districts. Both attractions meet my criterion for worth seeing: one of a kind, or nearly so. 

That outing reminded me that there are unvisited places within driving distance of Chicago that would interest me. After a trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons in September, I expect to be content to take less breathtaking vacations nearby. 

Thoughts after coming close to being a fatality

Many of us have experienced a close call with death. A car just missed hitting our vehicle and plowed into another yards from us. A plane we were supposed to be on crashed. We were present during a mass shooting — an increasingly common occurrence in America.

It’s natural to think, it could have been me.

On Monday afternoon I walked westward through the intersection of Wabash Avenue and Roosevelt Road less than a block from my home. I had just reached the other side when I heard a thud and screams behind me. Turning around, I saw a FedEx truck — with a body pinned underneath. The victim, who died, must have passed me in the crosswalk. If I’d been a few seconds later, I would have been in the spot where the truck struck her. 

Getting permission to read more mysteries

One of Chicago Tribune Biblioracle John Warner’s new year’s resolutions was to read more crime and suspense fiction because he enjoys it. 

I chuckled when I read that. It was the first time I heard anyone say they ought to read more genre fiction. It’s likely for people to resolve the opposite, vowing to cut back on mysteries in favor of “more literary” fiction. Even though critical appreciation of crime novels grows, a puritanical inner voice cautions me that mysteries should be like snacks between substantial nourishment. It felt like the Biblioracle had given me permission to indulge a secret passion. 

A voter’s dilemma in the Chicago mayoral election: not leaning toward anyone

Never in more than half a century of voting was I as undecided as I am about Chicago’s February 28 mayoral election. 

In defense of editing

A longtime Chicago Sun-Times columnist resigned over what he considered excessive editing of an upcoming column. 

“Good ‘editing’ does not necessarily mean making wholesale changes,” the columnist commented on his website. “Punctuation, grammar and fact checking are also a part of editing. In column writing, maintaining the writer’s voice and choice — notwithstanding any factual errors — of how to tell a particular story are critical.”

It sounded like he was suggesting that not a word of his writing should be changed, although he also said that everyone needs editing. 

Darn technology!

If you’re experiencing tech vexation, I empathize.

I’m not a technophobe. I don’t shy away from learning to use a new device or application. But setting up this blog had me so flustered that I signed a note to a friend with her name instead of mine.

Constructing a website on Blogger, my choice of a platform because of its reputation for simplicity, was harder than expected. Unlike the now-defunct ChicagoNow, on which I used to blog, it required importing widgets for subscribing and, I mistakenly thought, commenting. Those tasks were nightmarish.

Even for older adults, life changes when parents are gone

You’ve probably heard it said that you’re not really grown up until your parents are gone. “We don't fully grow up until some day we lose them,” NPR’s Scott Simon said after his mother’s death. By that measure, it took me awfully long to grow up. Both of my parents were alive on my 70th birthday. Dad died three years ago at 99, Mom last October at 95.

Surely I was a full-fledged adult decades before — self-supporting, living alone, paying my bills on time. I asked my folks to help me move once, and Mom hemmed my pants, but otherwise I tried to avoid behaving like I was still their little girl.

Yet life is different without parents in ways beyond missing them.

New name, new platform, same subjects

I was one of more than 200 ChicagoNow bloggers left in the lurch when the owner, Tribune Publishing, abruptly shut down the website in August.

After taking a few months to see whether I missed blogging, I’m launching Sincerely, Marianne.