Monday, May 16, 2011

I Interrupt This Message for a Weather Update

Spring has arrived!


To a Chicagoan, these three words are top most important to our vocabulary, if not the most important three words that any Chicagoan will utter in wonder at the first warm day.  




Never mind that Mountain Dew, just concentrate on how beautiful that ground looks!  
To live in the Midwest means to grow a thick layer of skin and be perpetually hibernating.  We've just gone through one of the most wretched winters in four years.  For about a week, snow just kept falling, thousands of flakes after thousands more of flakes, and they piled into one giant sea of snow.  Again, those three and a half feet of snow froze over, trapping each Chicagoan to his or her home for a week.  It's all cabin fever.  It's torture!


Though faced with a wall of snow, he wanders on.  Image: chicagonow.com


One day, though, Chicago thaws out.  Snow finally melts and Chicago just becomes this gray, rainy mess for weeks on end.  It's like riding down the river in Heart of Darkness; perpetually surrounded by this never ending fog.  


This post was dedicated to the crazy Midwest weather because secretly, Chicagoans love bragging about the "haphazard" weather.