Have you heard the one about the parking tickets?

(This is not a joke.) The one where I got 6 parking tickets in a period of about 4 weeks? Two of which were for having "smoke" tinted windows? Suffice to say I figured it was better for my wallet (not to mention my stress level and the feeling of being targeted by those parking ticket cops) to simply have the tinting removed rather than risk additional tickets.

Three hours and $90 ("If you pay cash we won't charge you sales tax..." says the guy as he pockets my $90 cash) later, my windows are clear as the day I drove my Honda Accord off the lot a little over 2 years ago.

But getting to the point of the post, the tint shop I chose to use happened to be in an area of town that I'd been meaning to visit: Pilsen. Pilsen was to be the embodiment of this California-bred girl's dreams. What dreams, you ask? Well, I'll tell you: good Mexican food. Suffice to say I've been disappointed with the Mexican food I've had since moving to the mid-west. But Pilsen, I'd been told, would fix all that & satisfy every craving. Essentially, "Welcome to the Mid-West's Mexico." So even though it was only 10:30am when I dropped my car off for what was supposed to be an hour long procedure, I decided it was lunch time.

But alas, although this food was indeed better than other places I've had since last August, it was no Rudy's (Oh, Rudy's, how I miss your bean & cheese burrito, no salsa!) or La Adelita (your enchiladas - one chicken, one cheese, no rice, extra beans!). There's just something different about the way they do Mexican food out here in the land-locked mid-west states. Not quite sure what it is, but I sure do miss my Mexican fix. (Even the canned pinto beans are different. They don't sell Sun Vista. GASP!)

But getting to the real point of this post: after eating an early lunch I wandered around Pilsen and snapped a few. A lonely chair sitting beside an alley dumpster caught my particular interest.


With many old, interesting buildings, colorful graffiti and other Mexican restaurants for me to try out in search of the best Mexican food in Chicago, I'll be back with a purpose.

PS. If you curious about the parking tickets, they were for the following offenses: no Chicago city parking sticker, parking on a curb (that had been covered with snow when I originally parked, and was revealed to be a curb when it melted), "abandoned vehicle" (after it'd sat parked in the same spot for 8 days. 7's the limit), expired California plates (I had my IL plates but didn't have the wrench needed to replace them), and, of course, the 2 (2 weeks apart) for tinted windows. Fun!