Commuter Shoes Revisited

I was at the suburban job for about two months before returning to my old company downtown in a new role. The experience taught me a lot about what makes a good job and a good company. Meanwhile, I expanded my commuter shoes theory.

My current (new-old) job is at an urban office full of a very diverse workforce who live all over Chicagoland and commute via public transit. At lunch, there are dozens of nearby places - all within walking distance - and the area is very amenable to head-clearing lunchtime strolls.

Other Company was in a suburban office park. There was an attached parking garage, and (nearly?) everyone drives. (One of the IT interns often had a bike helmet on his desk, but that could have been a red herring.) Schaumburg has a seemingly great network of bike routes, but they don't connect with Elgin's nor those of the towns in between, and sometimes end mid-block, answering the question of where the sidewalk ends. My window cube overlooked the forest preserve, and I could watch hawks soaring around, looking for lunch.

However, working at Other Company added a new dynamic to my Commuter Shoes theory. For the uninitiated, my theory of commuter shoes holds that the easier the commute, the more likely you are to wear practical shoes.

When I lived in the city, I took the El to work, which was usually standing room only. Not only were the cars overflowing, but you were pressed up against strangers, and the lightweight cars would sway and jerk violently from side to side, throwing you into your fellow commuters. Yet, despite the difficulty in staying upright and holding your balance (which, with time, became a skill), the majority of the women commuted in impossible shoes - stilettos, tall boots, heels of all flavors, etc. Even in the summer, with a nod to "comfort," you would see a flotilla of flip-flops, which offer no support for walking any real distance. Yet, women who commute via the El likely walk the most and spend the greater part of their commute standing on their feet than those who commute with other modes.

While making the suburbs to city trek, I commute on Metra. I bought my house in part because it was an easy walk to the Metra station, so I knew I wouldn’t need to drive at all. In fact, nearly half of my 7-minute walk was through the Metra parking lot itself. Probably 95% of my fellow Metra commuters drive to the train. In the morning, everyone gets a seat – though in the evenings, as gas prices have risen, it has become more difficult and strategic to guarantee a seat – and then we walk to our downtown offices. In my case, it's about 7 minutes on the Chicago end, too. Even so, despite the much more comfortable, seated commute and the reduced walking, most Metra women wear what I termed “commuter shoes” – comfortable sneakers or, increasingly, the new athleisure shoes to carry them through the commute before changing into “work shoes” at the office. (I periodically purge the accumulated shoe collection from under my desk - at one point this spring, I had eleven pairs lined up.)

In an office where everyone drives to and from work and to and from lunch (as there’s very little in walking distance – and I got crazy looks when I walked the 15 minutes to the nearby strip mall for coffee), many women wear comfortable shoes all day. Many never have to step foot outside at all during their commute, yet Nikes seem to be the footwear of choice.

While at Other Company, I usually wore my work shoes (sandals with heels) to and from work. I did discover one important caveat – the grocery stop. Where I don't pass anything on my Metra commute, while working in the suburban office park, I passed nine, count ‘em, nine grocery stores on my normal route home – more if I deviated from the path. It was great to run in and grab a couple things or heck, even do my full shopping trip for the week – the stores are much less crowded on a Tuesday evening than on a Saturday afternoon. But high heels are not designed for grocery store power-shopping and can be dangerous in the slippery produce aisles. So I threw a pair of old flip-flops in the car to slip on when I need to snag strawberries.

When I made the decision to return to the city - albeit with more opportunities to work at home, or WAH - I happily dusted off my commuter shoes. It's great to be back, though I'm not looking foward to the icy days ahead.

Odes to Commuter Shoes

Bad job close to home
Better job, commuter shoes
I'm back on Metra

****

Suburbs nice to live
City better for working
Back to commuting

****

Morning drive to work
Quick, easy come, easy go
Job sucked - had to leave

Painting

It's been a busy few weeks!

I've been painting a ton. It started with the paint around the back door. But then, since I had the brushes, tarp and other fun tools out, I took on other painting projects.

Then, flipping through the pile of paint cans in the garage I tackled other projects. I also discovered that freeze/thaw cycles are not kind to paint. The previous owner had left a dozen or so paint cans in the garage, all labeled with the room they coated. Great, I thought when I found then can labeled, "Back hall." By its weight, it felt about a quarter full - more than enough to touch up around the new back door where we had removed the trim. I patched everything, sanded it down, changed into painting clothes, set up my tarp and ladder, pried off the lid - and discovered jell-o. The paint had congealed into a layer of gelatinous goo, topped by clear liquid. Interesting stuff.

Luckily, since the Ace Hardware label was still intact with the color name and pigment ratios, I took the can over to my local store. First, I asked them if they could shake it up and see if it was salvageable. It wasn't. Next, I asked for a quart, assuming I have enough unused paint hanging around the house, and wondering how many of the other cans were worthless. However, in the five years since the paint had been originally mixed, they had discontinued selling the base in quart-sized containers, so I was stuck with a gallon if I wanted the color. That was fine until I discovered that my gallon of premium paint was a whopping $43! Eegads! I've never paid more than $22 or $23 for a gallon of paint, and often buy it when it's on sale. The cashier saw the look of shock on my face and threw in a couple extra stir sticks, but sheesh. Had I know, I would have found a "close enough" color or just resolved to repaint the entire back hallway, complete with 16 foot ceilings where the basement opens up to the rest of the house. Instead, since it's a nice neutral color, I'll be repainting some other room - maybe the dining room or office? Either way, since I had plenty, I ended up painting two nice coats around the door and also freshening a lot of the space.

Moving along, I finally (after two years!) painted the second coat in the downstairs bathroom, bringing out the true color I had imagined - a subtle lilac that contrasts nicely against bright white trim and the light green kitchen. I also applied a second coat to the trim and touched up a couple places that had chipped on the kitchen trim.

Next, I did a bit of concrete patching on the front steps before applying a fresh coat of paint. The front steps were tough only because of our continuing brown bug problem. After washing off all the bug carcasses before I started, they kept landing in the wet paint! I kept having to retouch the slightly tacky paint, trying to remove the bodies before they dried, like mosquitoes in amber. There are a couple that I didn't manage to extract, but they'll remain entombed as a memorial to their brothers - I've killed hundreds this summer.

Meanwhile, our driveway project taught us some valuable lessons - namely, that asphalt is nasty stuff that does NOT come off of concrete or aluminum side. We had been careful applying it, but some had inevitably splattered in the process. So I repainted the foundation facing the driveway (and think I'll do the rest of the house soon, just to keep it even). However, despite trying two different products suggested by the Home Depot and Ace experts, we cannot figure out how to get the splatters of (black) tar off the (white) aluminum siding without also removing the coating (is it paint?). Especially since I redid the foundation, it looks especially bad. One product yellowed the siding, the other removed the paint-like coating, exposing bare metal. I think for now, our best bet is going to be touching up with white metal paint?

In the midst of asphalt cleanup, I also decided it was high time to repaint our white gate that closes across the driveway. It had a rough winter and a couple bare patches. Luckily, there was another paint can in the garage labeled "gate." I opened it up and discovered more goo! Sigh. Then I opened an indoor/outdoor paint in another shade of white and discovered pure jelly. My last option - without buying more paint - was to use the same white paint I've used for the bathroom and kitchen trim. It's labeled for interior, so I only did half the gate for now. I'll let it get through a couple rain storms (it's rained all day) to see how it holds up before doing the other half. Fence painting sucks - the slats take forever to coat evenly.

I think that's all the painting for now. I rather enjoy it for the first couple hours, but it gets tedious - and leaves me with a clawed right hand for a day or so afterwards. But it's one of the easiest and most cost-effective improvements - and you see the results right away.

RIP, Gus

Saturday afternoon, I was out in the front yard weeding the flowerbeds, and I saw all the neighborhood kids congregating across the street, in the vacant lot where the hill drops down. "It's a beaver! A beaver!" they kept shouting excitedly. I knew it had to be my old quasi-nemisis, Gus the Groundhog.

I first met Gus shortly after I moved in. This big, furry brown thing was hanging out in the side yard, attracting Collette's glare. Since then, I've seen him several times, always puttering around. I've almost hit him a few times at night, turning into the dark driveway.

I never had any real reason to dislike Gus, but I worried about him digging into the garage. My neighbor said the groundhogs must have a den in the side of the hill.

But Saturday, Gus met his fate on the side of the road. Don shooed away the kids and shoveled the roadkill into the woods.

Or maybe it wasn't Gus. We'll never know.

Driveway Lessons

Tuesday morning, common sense prevailed and I went out and bought more crack filler to do the job right. I could definitely see the difference between the cracks I filled properly and the ones that only got the liquid/spoiled sealant treatment. My dad's voice echoed in my head: "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing it right." Or, the adult version that he starting preaching when I hit college: "Don't do a half-assed job."

So I sealed the remaining cracks thoroughly and made sure that everything was nice and solid before leaving it to set overnight. (And then we took a road trip to Aurora for dessert at the new Sonic - and discovered a TWO HOUR WAIT that filled several nearby parking lots. It's fast food, people! Needless to say, we didn't wait.)

Originally, I had naively planned to do the whole driveway process myself, including the sealcoating. After all, my dad has always done the family driveway by himself, and it's twice as big as mine. But since Don had Wednesday off, we decided to knock it out together and (theoretically) get done twice as quickly.

Ha! Needless to say, it took much longer than we anticipated, and it took awhile to really understand the tips Dad had given us. For example, he recommended misting the section of driveway first to make it easier to spread the goop. However, working mid-day on a hot, sunny day, we were breaking off bigger sections than we could handle, and the sun was evaporating our thin coating of water before we finished the area.

Other lessons we learned:

1) Sweeping is really really important. In the future, we'll do a heavy-duty driveway cleaning the day before rather than the sweep-as-we-go the day of. We did a pretty good job scooping up all the stray leaves and twigs, but I didn't realize just how much dust and general dirt had gathered along the edges. Heck, powerwashing may be in order.

2) Edging with an old paintbrush was pretty effective and important, especially up along the house. I discovered that previous owners hadn't edged all the way up to the grass line in the yard.

3) After struggling all morning with the crappy old broom we had designated for the assignment, I discovered an older, crappier broom in the closet and brought it out to help after I finished sweeping and edging. This "midget broom" (so dubbed since half the handle was missing, hence its banishment) had much softer bristles and proved infinitely easier to work with and spread evenly. The softer bristles didn't hold the sealant as well, so they were more effective for spreading. The sealant really stuck to the coarser bristles, making it tough to spread.

4) The squeegee was useless. My dad had recommended a broom, and the pail said either a broom or a squeegee would do the trick. We figured we could reuse the squeegee for any future basement-water issues, but it really didn't do much for the driveway.

5) Rather than hoisting (and pouring from) the big 5-gallon pail, we used an old cool-whip container to scoop out a smaller, more manageable amount.

6) The water helped greatly, once we figured out to work with sections about 8 ft by 8 ft at a time (using the fenceposts as a guide). But we had to be careful not to overwater, especially in some of the lower areas of the driveway prone to standing water - actually, this was the one area we found the squeegee useful!

7) Make sure you leave an open entry path back to the house. Fortunately, as we were closing in on the back door, we realized this could be an issue, so we unlocked the front door.

8) Barricading the end of the driveway is not enough, at least on our block! Not ten minutes after "finishing" for the day and roping off the end of the driveway with garbage cans, the kids next door came tearing across the driveway at top speed. (They live on one side; their grandparents live on the other side of us. Both parents and grandparents constantly admonish them to use the sidewalk rather than our yard, but kids will be kids. Ack, the inner curmudgeon awakens!)

The end of the driveway looks better than the first sections we did, as we figured out the better way to do things. We may go back and touch up some of those areas since we still have some sealant. Either way, it looks infinitely better and about 8 shades blacker than before.

Now I just need to touch up the foundation where I splattered a bit... luckily, since the fence project is looming, I can ignore the flecks there!

Did you know...

...that spackle molds?

I sure didn't, until I opened up a half-empty tub of spackle to do a tiny bit of patchwork and discovered three different types of mold! I had an assortment of gray fuzz, orange splotches and black dots. I suppose since there's some water in spackle, and it's been humid, the little plastic tub provided the perfect breeding grounds for mold.

Fortunately, I had some wood putty (without fungus!) handy that did the trick, and the trimwork around the new back door is one step closer to completion.

Project week!

I'm taking a week off before I pull my commuter shoes back out of the closet (long story to be detailed soon). Taking advantage of the time off in the waning days of summer, I developed quite a list of projects I want to tackle. Some of them are ambitious - like sealing the driveway and "figuring out" (and hopefully ordering) my new fence and a pair of living room windows. I've also got some softballs padding the list to fuel a sense of accomplishment, like getting my oil changed and updating my IPASS account information.

This morning, I set off on my first big task: filling the driveway cracks so I can seal it tomorrow. Luckily, this week is blessed by good weather, so I can knock this one out early. But first, I realized I needed to do something about the pretty, wild grasses (read: weeds) along the edge of the driveway where it meets the fence. While I try to quash the dandelions as they rear their ugly heads, I've been more lax about the grasses, as they actually don't look bad and add a bit of color. However, they do some damage to the driveway edge, where their roots try to break through the surface, so they had to go so I could seal the cracks. In the blazing sunshine (pretty! I thought as I headed outside), I donned my gardening gloves, grabbed a yardwaste bag, and set to it.

Ninety minutes later, sweaty, itchy and covered by burrs, I had to call it quits for awhile to run some errands and escape the growing heat. I discovered that the nice, tranquil grasses were actually topped by prickly burrs that clung to my gloves, clothes and hair. And apparently I was allergic to one of the plants, as red and pink bumps erupted along my arms, though cold water stopped the itching and calmed the bumps.

A couple hours later - when the sun had dipped behind the house - I returned and dug out a couple remaining dandelion roots and swept out the cracks due to be filled. I had bought a jug of crack filler last summer but never actually got around to using it (witness the frost heave). LESSON LEARNED: crack filler does not keep through numerous Chicago freeze-thaw cycles. I shook the jug for several minutes (great workout!), it was still completely separated into liquid and solid. I tried pouring it into the cracks, but only the liquid actually left the jug, but I figured it was better than nothing, so I kept pouring as much as I could. Eventually, however, I realized it wasn't worth doing a half-assed job, so I went back in the house and pulled out some nasty asphalt-in-a-tube I had leftover from the door project. It definitely did the goopy, stinky trick.

LESSON LEARNED: on a driveway that slopes (hey, that's mine!), there are more cracks at the bottom of the slope. Start there when filling cracks to ensure you don't run out of goop on the big, long, deep cracks. The smaller hairline cracks should be fine with the liquid leftovers.

I also discovered that even though I missed my bike ride today, weeding and driveway work are quite effective workouts.

Tomorrow, to seal! And replace the broken beadboard in the porch. And, and, and...