Alley Walks: The Illustrated Version

A few weeks ago, I discussed my daughter and my new tradition of walking the alleys. What that post lacked was pictures. So here they are. Our alleys are pretty boring, as you shall see, so these walks are a process of finding something magical in practically nothing, an exercise that serves one well throughout life. Just the fact of walking through alleys though, where people generally don't, confers something special and otherworldly on the event, and I love to hear her digressions of thought and the feel of her warm hand slipping casually in and out of mine as she chatters. 

Here is a garage roof on the ground. The new roof is on the garage, you cannot see it.

This huge parking area behind/next to a building appears to be constructed with some thought as it is made from materials that absorb rainwater, rather than sluice it straight toward Chicago's overburdened sewers. But in all our alley walks (3 total), we have never seen a car parked here.

 A rare bit of color.

There is really not much of interest in our alleys. They are prim and sterile. The nice thing about the dearth of interesting is we get real excited about practically anything, including these two toolboxes. We approached timidly, as if they contained bombs.

 But—nothing.

 Lets play: what is this?

 Nice arrangement, but no thanks.

This got us a little excited because we thought it was an impaled animal.

 Aw, that thingymabob is smiling at us.

Now we're talking—a fenced-in vacant lot. She wants IN.

 But there is not much to get in for. Is it so ugly it's beautiful—or just ugly?

 It looks like a beach, Jessie says. I find this strangely beautiful. Unlike the Northern California coast, which is just beautiful beautiful.

 Whoa, a huge pencil and a rock.

OK, she's in. The mere fact of being fenced out made crawling under the fence irresistible.

I feel like I'm visiting her in jail. I hope this isn't a portent.

Super great find—a padlock. Her brother was so taken by this treasure, he insisted on going on an alley walk also.

The Hard Boiled Eggs In The Oven Phenomenon

Whew—want to meet some excited people? Google "hard boiled egg oven," or Bing it if you're on a PC. You too can get swept up in the greatest improvement to cooking since red quinoa: oven-baked hard-boiled eggs!!! For some reason, this topic is an over-punctuated one, and fraught with indiscriminate capitalization:

People are really excited about oven-baked eggs. As they should be. Oven baked eggs, purportedly:

1.) taste as good or better than boiled
2.) can be baked in the oven!!
3.) instead of boiling!!

Not one to fight a sound argument, seven eggs are baking in my oven as I type. I have high hopes for this oven-baked thingie because hard-boiled is the only way to eat eggs. Scrambled eggs look like scrambled placenta (cuz they are). Ditto for omelettes, quiche, poached, over easy . . . I'm feeling queasy even typing these dishes . . . but hard-boiled, now there's a yummy way to chow down on some embryonic fluid.

And ladies—yes, most of these oven-baked egg aficionados are ladies—if I may dial up the egg goodness even further: please consider free-range, organic, brown, oven-baked eggs. I was shocked how many photos demonstrated the egg-baking process with white eggs. Say no-no-no-no way to white eggs! White eggs from the grocery store will taste like Tupperware after your first time with an organic brown egg.

I interrupt this post to report that eggs baking in the oven give off that gross cooking egg smell (fellow egg-avoidants will know what I'm talking about), whereas we all know that hard-boiling eggs produces no smell. Mark that as a pro or con, depending on your predilection. Oh, hello! How could I have forgotten to tell you the recipe: cook the eggs for 30 minutes at 325 degrees.

Behold the glory of the oven-baked egg:

I'm told not to worry about the spots, not that I would've, but in case you are—don't. And yes, the muffin tin is the suggested container. I suspect the reasons are mostly aesthetic in the way that Pinterest users love order and things that fit nicely into slots.

It's very late, so I will conclude this post in the morning with a taste test.

MORNING UPDATE: The eggs did not peel any easier than hard-boiled, contrary to many enthusiasts' claims. Here is a photo of the peeled egg, whole and cut. I am not a fan of the two brown spots or the big air dimple at the bottom of the eggs. Aesthetes sigh.

They are drier than hard-boiled eggs and maybe even a little tougher. In a blind taste test, I probably could not tell the difference, but I don't plan to switch to oven baking my eggs any time soon unless I need 50 or so for an egg-dying party. And if I tell you I'm hosting an egg-dying party, please send me to a psychiatrist at once.

Things That Push Me Over The Edge

Parenting is a long hard row of stickiness, colds, smells, messes, whining, drama, and chaos—occasional moments of unparalleled joy thrown in to keep the species propagating. I have mostly accepted this. Whatever tasks comprised a busy day before kids I now accomplish before my first cup of coffee. But there are still things that push me over the edge, things that are bewildering and unexpected, that shouldn't be, therefore I cannot get used to.

1. Not being able to get up before the kids. If you are a writer, and you have children, and you thus have trouble finding time to write, writing books browbeat you into getting up before your children and write before they wake. E-Z breezy! Problem solved. Ignorant advice brought to you by the same people who told you sleep-while-your-baby-sleeps! back when you had a newborn and were near-dead with exhaustion. Don't listen to these insidious deceits. No matter how silently I creep down the carpeted steps, how stealthily I situate myself in the remotest part of the house the furthest from their rooms, how silently I press pen to paper, the children WAKE! Bleary-eyed, confused, tired, up hours before their usual time, they trundle down the steps to find out what all the racket is about, and upon finding none, make one.

2. Nothing being more fascinating to the kids than me writing. If my kids have friends over, or giant bunnies arrive bearing candy, or Despicable Me is on TV, their entire beings will be deliriously drawn to these things like moths to a flame—unless I am trying to write. In which case, their bat ears detect the nib of my pen rolling across paper, which must sound to them like a chain saw ripping through a tree, because they come running over to find out what is going on. "I'm writing," I say, words that are the kiss of death to the writing process. They cannot keep themselves from wrapping themselves around me asking what I am writing about and whether I would like suggestions to make the story better. They also like to watch me write, it's like a lava lamp to them. Forget the Pied Piper, just pull out a writing notebook. Children materialize. And they don't go away.

3. Things I can't identify, in places they don't belong. It's one thing to find the broom on the front lawn, or the colander in the bed, or the training potty in my office. These are all things we own and they drift hither and yon throughout the house, aided to various locations by the little people we live with. This I understand. It's when mysterious items appear: a circuit board on the dining room chair, some kind of thermocoupling device in the bathroom sink, the styrofoam packing to what looks like a flying saucer in the cupboard. What are these things? Where did they come from? Are they important? Is the furnace going to explode because this essential gee-gaw is lying on my pillow? Forget asking the kids where the whooziewhatz came from. They've never seen it in their lives.

4. Bags of second-hand clothes appearing like spider eggs around the house. Where did this bag of clothes come from? I ask my partner. She does not know. It just appeared, bursting with clothes of various sizes for various types of weather. Winter coats appear in July, shorts in February. Of course the coat is expensive and high quality and barely worn, a perfect specimen of a winter coat but for the broken zipper. One never wants to toss a bag of clothes, especially an expensive child's North Face full-length down jacket with a broken zipper. Because someone could fix that zipper! Take it to the cleaners. Yes, we will take it to the cleaners, and for the prize of a zipper replacement, we will have an expensive child's North Face full-length down jacket. Trust me, the jacket will never get to the cleaners. The zipper will never be fixed. Nothing short of absolutely essential tasks ever get completed and even those, such as  our roof replacement, sometimes years late.

Alley Walking

Because my 8-year-old daughter is into alley walks, and I: her unreasonable and unyielding mother, will not let her walk the alleys of Chicago alone, I have been going on alley walks lately, usually starting before dusk and ending after dark.

These walks have led to all manner of interesting conversations, including why someone would paint red stripes on their garage gutter, how electricity works, rain run-off on concrete vs. pebbled parking areas, how sewers work, why there are so many mattresses in alleys, and what graffiti means. Also, due to the walking, and the uniquely relaxed nature of alley walking, much stream-of-consciousness thoughts and questions are shared by the little thinker, including:

Jessie: How tall is a yay?
Me: A yay?
Jessie: You know—something is yay high?

and—

Jessie: What would you do if you saw someone walking away from you but it turned out they were really walking toward you?
Me: Um.
Jessie: What would you do?
Me: Yelp.

and—

Jessie: Can we make a deal if we find something cool that's clean, we can keep it?
Me: It depends on what it is.
Jessie: Let's say an iTouch.
Me: You think we're going to find an iTouch in the alley?
Jessie: Thanks for walking with me.

One finds all sorts of interesting things on alley walks, including enormous garages that must have been stables at one point, hidden parking lots, electrical generators, and trees growing out of garages. The smells are surprisingly nice too, including burning wood and flowering trees. I highly recommend alley walks.