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OY! TEAM
| Blair Chavis, contributing blogger
It is only fitting that Blair Chavis is an Oy! contributor, as “oy” is one of the most frequently uttered words in her vocabulary, according to her co-workers, friends and family.
Blair is a reporter at the Chicago Tribune’s Triblocal.com, a suburban subsidiary (try saying that three times fast), focused on hyper-local community news and making the Web hip for newspapers. She reports on happenings in the North Shore of Chicago—an ironic twist—because that’s where she grew up.
At 18, Blair stepped onto the hippie-filled sidewalks of Madison, WI, to later graduate from the University of Wisconsin in 2006 with a double degree in journalism and English.
Before working for the Tribune Company, Blair tried her hand at broadcast journalism, first at an NBC affiliate in Madison and then moved back to Chicago to join forces with Chicago Public Radio. First as an intern, and then as a freelance reporter and producer, Blair covered a broad range of stories about local and national politics, immigration, housing, the environment, healthcare, education and the arts. Blair still does freelance work for Chicago Public Radio and other public radio stations around the country.
When she’s not wearing her journalist hat, Blair enjoys writing creatively, watching foreign and independent films and eating dessert first. She also has a weakness for Hugh Grant movies and all things Food Network.
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ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR
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by Blair Chavis 06/04/2009 As a twenty-something journalist living in Chicago, my daily rush consists of commuting, interviewing, writing and sometimes remembering to eat. Despite the madness, I have a side hobby. I love collecting recipes, and one of my most cherished possessions is a huge cookbook I’ve been compiling over the past year. In fact, some friends poke fun that I bake to de-stress. |
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by Blair Chavis 07/02/2009 As the saying goes: “It’s a small Jewish world.” I say, “Use it.” I was on the phone with a friend the other day, recapping a funny Saturday night we’d had at a party. The hosts were from Deerfield and she and I are from Highland Park. We knew the hosts and a few of their friends. After playing some serious, Jewish geography that evening, it wasn’t long until about 50 of us discovered we were mishpuchah.
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by Blair Chavis 08/27/2009 There is nothing like a Jewish mother’s love. She loves so deeply that she wants her daughter’s life to be filled with love too—but, he must be Jewish. I was sitting at work late one Tuesday afternoon and my mother called me, her voice filled with adrenaline. She had just come home from the grocery store, and apparently she tried to pick up a little more than milk and eggs. |
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by Blair Chavis 10/08/2009 For a recent article I wrote for Triblocal, I interviewed a Jewish couple living in Highland Park that is about as nontraditional as it gets. The two met later in life after previous marriages, already had their own children and are now enjoying their marriage of only about five years. The husband is an African American male who converted to Judaism in his 30s; the wife was born Jewish and scarcely identified with her roots. Together, they’ve found Judaism in perhaps an unusual place—a comic book. |
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by Blair Chavis 10/30/2009 I’ve been thinking about Halloween a lot lately, and this year I have been a bit stumped about what to wear. When I was little, my idea of the perfect costume was simple. I usually went as some variation on a witch. One year I even went as a baby witch: I wore a witch’s dress and hat and carried around an absurdly large plastic baby bottle. |
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by Blair Chavis 01/14/2010 Just as we do around the High Holidays, I think New Year’s and the subsequent weeks after provide a good time for introspection and goal setting. In fact, I think society might be a whole lot healthier if people took quarterly inventories of their lives. |
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by Blair Chavis 02/11/2010 Perhaps, the Canadians have young Jewish women figured out better than anybody. Recently, I have become enamored with the show, Being Erica—so much so, that it made my highly selective DVR list a couple weeks ago. |
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by Blair Chavis 03/11/2010 Nothing brings religion more prominently to the forefront in a relationship than milestones like marriage and having a baby. The scenario becomes, perhaps, more interesting or complex in a situation of mixed marriage—or so goes the Jewish, parental parable I’ve heard since my emergence from the womb.
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by Blair Chavis 04/15/2010 I’ve lived around my fair share of dog lovers. One needs only to trace some of the cities and neighborhoods I’ve lived in: Growing up in Highland Park, I saw owners dress their pets in hats, sweaters, dresses and bedazzled collars and serve their dogs in Evian-filled water dishes; in London, where I studied abroad, I found an entire Burberry-for-dogs clothing line in Harrods department store and lived across from a park filled to the brim with Sunday-afternoon dog-walkers. |
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by Blair Chavis 05/06/2010 A few weeks ago, my friend invited me to a costume party. There were no witches or vampires. Instead, our task was to dress as a stereotype. Ironically, while many of us seek slutty versions of everyday professionals for our Halloween costumes in October, my friends and I all went maternal in April.
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by Blair Chavis 07/01/2010 As for many Chicagoans in their mid-20s, for me, this past spring and early summer has meant two things: weddings and moving…and, well, more weddings. While moving is a time when one must decide which memories to hold onto, weddings are a time to make new ones. |
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by Blair Chavis 08/30/2010 While the Chavis family is one of Eastern European descent, my sister and I have a running joke in which we affectionately refer to ourselves as The Sisters Chavez—a wordplay on the novel called The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The joke, however, has nothing to do with the novel. I am, if nothing else, an English major nerd at heart. |
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 COME TOGETHER at the annual celebration to support JCC Chicago. Enjoy a reception with friends, food and drinks before a night of fabulous music from the Beatles' tribute band, The Fab Four. Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010 at 6 p.m. Are you in? For more information visit gojcc.org/benefit or call 312.775.1834.  Taglit-Birthright Israel is a FREE 10-day experience of a lifetime. If you are Jewish, 18-26 years old, and have never been on an organized peer program before - let your journey begin this summer! With Shorashim you experience the adventure of Israel through the eyes of Israeli peers. Shorashim is the Taglit-Birthright Israel program where all groups travel for 10-days with Israelis your age. Visit http://israelwithisraelis.com for info.
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