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Mural on a West Loop side street
I’ve spent the last week or so blissfully unoccupied (or mostly so) – wandering the city on foot, visiting new neighborhoods and enjoying the sights in between. Chicago in the summer is an entirely different universe, blazing hot but breezy and bright. And, despite the herds of tourists that crowd the streets of my neighborhood morning and night, I am enjoying it immensely. The mural to the right was taken on a side street just outside the annual “Taste of Randolph,” the final destination for my 6 mile stroll through Chicago’s Little Italy and Greektown.
I’ve also started working a couple of days a week with a local startup. They are launching a new beverage in the Lakeview Whole Foods this week, so it is officially “crunch time” as we strive to pull everything together to get ready for the launch. I’m helping out with the marketing, which for now means developing a communications plan and a production schedule for the printed materials they’ll use for in-store sampling, and then managing the production. It’s been a while since I’ve been this hands-on and tactical, but I’m enjoying it. Nice to know that your efforts have a real impact.
Negative messages about Starbucks adorn the napkins at my local Caribou Coffee.
Speaking of marketing, I’ve have coffee on the brain this week, so this napkin at my local Caribou Coffee caught my attention. Direct attack on Starbucks, but will it backfire? Time-constrained consumers may only take away the negative message and come to think of “burnt and bitter” when they think of Caribou Coffee.
Graduation. The end cap to my MBA. It hardly seems real. I have bid adieu to the kind friends and family who were here to celebrate the occasion and am filling my week as near to full as possible with last lunches, dinners and drinks with friends who will soon be departing for distant places. I am restless. I am irritable. I am not quite myself without the relentless pace of a thousand to-do’s looming large in the background of my conscience. I am reading again. For fun. Walking places because it’s another way to fill the time.
Time to pack away my school books and course notes, sort through the detritus of my academic career and save the bits that matter. Time to wrap up loose ends that have been left hanging. That overdue doctor’s appointment. My unfiled state tax returns. The mending pile. The seat cushions lacking screws. Used books to sell online. Letters to write. And over all of this hangs an impenetrable fug, a mood as gray and lackluster as the day outside. A general feeling of uselessness. And uncertainty.
This too shall pass I am sure. After all, tomorrow is another day…
