Summer Update: My car got flooded!
Dear friends, family and supporters,
At long last, here is another update from Marie, coming at a time when she is in need and wants to ask for your insight!
So I will start with that- things are well in the life of Marie! It has been a relatively uneventful summer (if you can believe it!) resting and preparing for fall quarter teaching and performing, and the continuation of my DMA after coursework. BUT just over a week ago, Evanston (where I live) was hit with a pretty impressive storm in the middle of the day. I had just picked my dad up from the airport and we were planning to take the train into Chicago to revisit a restaurant near the Art Institute that she loved (Russian Tea Time- we both had been with her over the years). That day was the 41st anniversary of Mom and Dad’s wedding, so there was some sadness, nostalgia and wanting to remember that accompanied our plans. However, it looked like rain and the train was delayed. After waiting 20 minutes, we ducked into a coffee shop just as the rain started. After an hour or so of lovely chatting and looking at old pictures, we were getting hungry and realized at this point we should just wait for Nick to come pick us up and drive us downtown, so we found our way over to a local diner, the Sher-Main Grill, and weathered what came to be a pretty impressive downpour and windiness while eating greasy sandwiches and fries. We even made some friends.
After the storm, we were going to go to my apartment a bit to wait, but the street was hugely flooded. I had seen it flooded before, but this was different- there was two feet of standing water, over the curb- not to mention all of the trees down in the neighborhood. Some had fallen on vehicles. My car was spared the trees, but it was not spared the flood.
A little background on my car: it was my mom’s car and after her death (it will be ten years ago on January 1st) it became a family car. Anna used it, I used it- even Ethan used it for half a year. I drove back and forth across the country in that car more times than I can count during and since Covid. I can’t tell you how safe I felt in it though. There was a sense of Mom there. On many of those longer trips, I am not sure how I made it where I was going without falling asleep, but I felt protected.
But it has been several years now since the AC in the car stopped working and it didn’t feel worth $900 to fix it. It was only dangerous if it was hot and rainy because it would steam up from the inside, unfortunately discovered in a summer downpour driving back to NYC from Six Flags with a couple of friends (Gabe and Matt) in 2023 (I think?). After that, I avoided driving the car in the summer when it was rainy.
Not to mention, the car has 285,000+ miles on it. But it’s a Honda- they’ll run forever if you take care of them.
Finally, two and a half months ago, I transferred the Honda’s title into my name, as I settle more into life in Illinois and the potential of it being my home. It cost some money, which felt like more to me than it would to others, but it was time.
But alas! The floodwater was over the door line. Dad started it up and drove it out of the flood, but there was standing water on the passenger side and it sounds a bit like the muffler got messed up.
Therefore, it is time. Time to say good-bye to a car that has meant more to me than just getting me from point A to point B. Time to grow up and find something more appropriate for a professional adult, a bit of manifesting, I suppose.
If any of you knows of a car, or someone with a car that they are selling independently because they decided to upgrade, that is relatively small, runs well and gets reasonable gas mileage- please let me know! It could be that it is just time for me to go to CarMax and find something, but my budget is on the lower side, seeing as I am still a student, though I will be working more this year. But if there is another good option, I would be happy to travel to get it (not internationally!).
So that is that!
Otherwise, I had written an update at the end of the quarter, excited to be finished with coursework and reflecting on my academic career of overwork. But mostly I was still quite burnt out when I wrote it and I didn’t feel like it had my voice entirely.
I started a weekly whiffleball game with friends in the park across from my apartment in Evanston. I started taking improv classes at the iO theatre in Chicago. I am co-leading a workshop of script-writing for worship drama at Reba Place Church (part 2 on comedy writing tonight!). I am teaching about 15 students here and there this summer- many privately, some through a local academy (you have to drive to their houses…) and some through an online academy. I am preparing to teach a self-created course for non-music major NU students called Music and Comedy in the fall. I am also preparing for a creative recital project with my friend Bobby in November that started out as his project and is turning into mine… oops! So that is shaping up to look like it will be a degree recital performance.
Nick and I are working to balance attending two churches that represent our faith-culture backgrounds: Reba Place Church and Saints Peter and Paul Greek Orthodox Church. He is especially busy as he is both working full time and working on coursework and fieldwork hours for a second license (to become a BCBA in addition to being an SLP), but we still find time to play board games at our favorite coffee shop in Evanston, cook together once per week, and spend time with friends (such as playing whiffleball).
So there you have it! I think this might be one of the tamest updates I have posted- shouldn’t make anyone feel too exhausted :-)
Yours from Evanston,
Marie
