casual ultimate » nostalgia

i understand that chicago is under approx. 400 inches of snow and temperatures are arctic. well until a few days ago it was 45 degrees and sunny in new haven. and you know what i said when the weather took a turn for the chilly, dropping 30 degrees overnight with a windchill of negative one? good, i said, now this is winter. i’m sick of the lond island sound’s moderating effects, turning what could be snow into rain - i want lake effect snow, damn it, and piles of it. i hope all of you back home are fulfilling my childhood fantasy of building tunnels to your friends’ houses. i know miss casual has recently fulfilled my current fantasy of making an entire batch of cupcakes and immediately eating them. good work.

if you couldn’t tell i’m on a bit of a chicago nostalgia streak which translates into a casualultimate.com nostalgia streak. remember 2006, and winter 2007? those were fun times, filled with laughter and merriment among friends.

given the allegiance that former chicagoans seem to have for their native land, i think i have a good business proposal: the chicago-of-the-month club. miss casual, if you’re thinking of smurfing your smurf, you may want to pick this up to supplement your income. following the model of the wildly successful bacon-of-the-month club and the somewhat less successful fossil-of-the-month club, the chicago-of-the-month club will send subscribers reminders of their home town through the year. of course a deep dish pizza packed in dry ice will be included, but let’s not forget the other chicagos: that of anarchist labor organizers (May package, which will include vintage bullet casings and a worker’s time card punched for eight hours), racial and ethnic segregation (October package, comes complete with map of north shore suburbs clearly delineating where jews and blacks can live, and cuisines from ghettos past and present including harold’s chicken, corned beef and cabbage, and sauerkraut), and deeply rooted democratic history (November package, containing various democratic paraphanelia including lapel buttons for all 12 Daley election campaigns and a timeline of Chicago history for the 40+ years the family has been in office). But don’t forget a full-length recording and accompanying songbook for Chicago tunes (the Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow song, Go Cubs Go, etc. for July) and clippings from the plants in Millennium Park, to plant in your own yard far away from home (April). Think about it. I’d pay up to $39.95 for twelve months of such enjoyment.