Chicago: Claremont

Our first house. Or, as the Chinese would call it, 花園洋房: western-style house with a garden. An American dream.

We rented a small office on the second floor of the Walgreen's building on the corner of Lawrence and Western in 1994. We drove on this one-way street after work to go home and passed this house for two years and noticed the for-sale sign. We knew we didn't have much money to afford a house.  This little bungalow was out of our reach.

The sign was gone for a long time and we were relieved. But one day it came back. We thought maybe we should at least check it out. Finally we called the number on the sign. We met with the owner Mr. Greenwood and we bought the house.

The name of the street is Claremont. I called it 青山街. I was proud to own it.

The first time we came to the house, Max ran off the tiny deck from the backdoor and fell on the ground on his face. After the deck was built, he wouldn't step on the deck until I step on it first. Seeing that I did not fall, he followed and soon loved being out on the deck watching the neighborhood.

I hardly walked him any more after moving into the house– just let him out in the back yard. Would Max regret it as I did?

We had to remove the ugly carpet and repair the wood floor. The powder room had pink sink and pink toilet. Yucks! John had Korean silk wallpaper put on, a big mirror (now in our dining room) and laid thick white carpet. And he painted the door so beautifully. Vezire once made a comment: "I could live in this bathroom!"

On November 3rd of 1996 we moved in.

Fudo, the handyman working for the apartment next door to our Hoyne condo, helped us with the remodeling of the kitchen. He and his wife Rahima moved back to Romania shortly after.

We tiled in the kitchen and the sun room floors, made half wall between living room and the tiny bedroom, and we opened up the wall between living room and the stairs, and added a skylight. The small and dark house all of a sudden looked lovely.

A deck was added next summer. For the first couple of summers we spent just about every evening on the deck.

We used to go out for dinner on my birthdays. Now I always asked to have my birthday dinner on the deck. As the Mexicans would say, "Better than nothing!"

We strung white Christmas lights under the umbrella. Dinner was always shellfish: Shrimp, crab, once in a while lobster and champagne. I loved cracking shells for both of us.