I < 3 Cincinnati

Today I took a drive before work because I had to pick up pictures from the Meijer in Milford (apparently none of the Meijers closer to us have photo centers?). I drove through Indian Hill to get there, past the McMansions and what I really can only describe as plantations. Sometimes they even have stables and detached outdoor patios with real roofs...which is weird. Many of their driveways look like streets only they have signs that say like "9225 Shawnee Run" with an arrow...and the house is like a mile from Shawnee run....
Then I got to Milford and marveled at the 3 antique shops within a block of one another, the bike rental that I'm not sure how it supports itself in town with two stoplights and the cupcakery (!).
On my way from Meijer to work I refused to take the highway because my favorite road in the whole city is Wooster Pike. It winds through the aforementioned Milford, past picture perfect old farm houses, through Mariemont with it's old world German themed square and giant church park, along the river, past landmarks now mere shadows of when Cinci was still "The Queen City", up and down our fantastic hills, through Columbia-Tusculum with my favorite Painted Ladies (Google that shit, they're awesome houses!!), and around the tree covered corner where downtown just suddenly appears on the horizon.
Oh how I love Cincinnati! The diversity in its people, landscapes and architecture. The beauty in the contrast of new and old, the unique decrepitness of some places, the history everywhere.
Granted there are the days when I walk through the lobby and "the smell of Cincinnati" (aka stanky people) greets me, and parents are particularly stupid, and I see prostitutes or mentally ill people showing their underwear on the streets...but I love this place. I love my job and that it is both keeping me young and in touch with how kids feel and think but is also aging me ways that people decades older than me have yet to experience.
I love that I see the best and the worst and that sometimes what you expect to be the worst turns out to be better than what you thought was the best.
Cincinnati.
Yes, we have daily smog alerts in summer, we're one the ten poorest cities in the country, the asthma capital of the midwest, have almost nonexistant public transportation and a piss-poor football team, but WE ARE AWESOME!!
WHO-DEY!