A Long Winter

I began wearing my Lands' End hooded down coat in mid-October, 2008. Today--April 13--the day after Easter and the day of the Cubs' home opener, I'm still wearing that coat. And a space heater still hums next to my feet in my office.

I'm in the midst of my 11th winter in Chicago. The severity no longer surprises me: Every year, I expect feet of snow and sub-zero temperatures, possibly even burst plumbing in the condo above ours.

But the duration ... the duration grinds on me every single year. Six months in a down coat. Too long.

But 60 degrees is on the horizon, maybe even by the end of this week. :-)

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Saturday Diary

6:30 a.m.
Enter sons' room. Notice oldest son is covered in poop. Both socks. Outside of underwear. Sheets. Shirt. Oh, and poop on the floor. Son is playing with matchbox cars.

6:35 a.m.
Sheets, socks, underwear, blankets are in the washing machine. Oldest son is in the bath.

10:35 a.m.
Youngest son completely wigs out at the indoor gym we attend on weekends. Seriously. He's freaking out. I literally wrestle him into his coat and out the door. In front of about 35 other people.

10:51 a.m.
McDonald's drive thru. I order a Happy Meal. They won't even let me order Happy Meals until 11 a.m. I wait 9 minutes and drive through the drive thru again.

2 p.m.
Youngest son wakes up from nap and cries. I let him cry for a few minutes. Hey, I'm drinking a cup of hot tea, and he can wait.

2:03 p.m.
I go to get my youngest son out of his crib, and notice his diaper is around his knees and he has two handfuls of poop.

2:05 p.m.
Youngest son in the bath.

2:30 p.m.
I hear water running. Well. Dripping. Uh, oh.



Yes. Pipes froze this week when we had 40 straight hours of below zero weather. Today, Chicago reached a balmy 18 degrees, and the pipes that were frozen solid thawed. All over my bedroom, bathroom and hallway.



6:30 p.m.
I open the mail and find that I've been called for jury duty. On February 13. That's Friday the 13th.



7:30 p.m.
This is my bathroom ceiling, after a four-hour visit from the plumbers.



Tomorrow will be better. Right?

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Cook County (non-) Elected Officials

Pure class. http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1383355,CST-NWS-bird17.article

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The Bammer

Freeze nails. Pound a banana with a hammer. From a FOX news interview this morning. Yep, it's really that cold here. The Bammer.

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Snow Days

It began snowing this morning around 5, and nearly nine hours later, it's still snowing. Not a blizzard at all; in fact it's beautiful fluffy stuff.

We have more than 6 inches of snow now and we're supposed to have about 10 inches by the end of the day.

Here's a pic from the courtyard just a minute ago:



I started thinking about what a 'snow day' meant to me, as a kid growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas. Basically, if the sky looked like snow, school was cancelled and there was a run on milk and bread at the grocery store. Any kind, or any amount, of freezing precipitation meant we were staying home. That was a great feeling, but I'm glad my kids won't have the same experience.

A foot of snow in Chicago just means it will take about 30 minutes for my wonderful husband to shovel my Freestyle out of the snow so I can take the kids to school before I drive to work.

As it should be.

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Obama and the Pastor (no, not that one)

So, I was just reading this article on AOL:

[headline] Obama's Pick for Invocation Under Fire
[first graph] In a move that's infuriated some rights activists and other supporters, President-elect Barack Obama has chosen an evangelical minister opposed to same-sex marriage to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.

Has it really come to this? Already? "Activists" are up in arms because someone (a minister) with a point-of-view with which they disagree is going to say a prayer at Obama's inauguration. Really?

I voted for Mr. Obama because I believed him to be thoughtful, balanced, fair and bi-partisan to a certain extent. This choice--as well as a few of his cabinet choices--bolsters my belief in his sense of wanting to include people from all walks of life in his administration, his inner-circle and his contacts in general.

We voted for "change," right? I suppose we could have elected a Democrat who did nothing but toe the party line, but isn't that what we've done for generations up till now? I'm probably not a fan of Pastor Warren (I'm a Catholic Democrat after all) but I'm open to the idea of listening to him and others with different points of view. And I'm open to supporting a new President who will think and behave differently than our previous leaders. He'll make mistakes to be sure; but if he didn't, he wouldn't be trying very hard.

What's the worst that could happen if we listen to a prayer delivered by a pastor who's very popular (apparently) with a bunch of folks? So what if he supported Prop 8? It doesn't mean that Mr. Obama supports Prop 8 or anything like it. It just means he chose a popular pastor to deliver a prayer.

By the way, I can't recall listening to a single pastor, minister or priest with whom I've agreed on every single thing. In fact, I'd guess that I disagree with most pastors/ministers/priests on a lot of very basic, everyday things. And let's face it: These guys (most of them are guys) would be out of business fast if they delivered only the sermons or homilies that people wanted to hear.

But I digress ...

Do we really want another president with a "with-us-or-against-us" attitude on every single thing? I don't.

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First Responders

One of the best things about my north-facing window here at work is the ability to hear and see the city-sights/sounds on the street six floors below.

Several times a year, new recruits from the Chicago Police Department or the Chicago Fire Department run as a group down Fulton Street (today, it was the guys from the CFD). Usually they're shouting or chanting something in unison, military-style. I always hear them when they're about half-a-block away, so I have time to get to my window and watch them running by.


Several years ago, it was a pleasant amusement for a single woman. Now, I'm thinking that my three-year-old son would find the whole thing really, really cool because they're all wearing matching shirts and they're usually followed by a squad car or a fire department car.

Funny how things change. :-)

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What is News? (And why isn't it what I think it should be?)

I think this is something that everyone thinks from time to time. Especially with the proliferation of media outlets: it seems any flunky can get his own talk show and any soap box is good enough to televise.

This morning, I was having a discussion about what constitutes news with someone who thinks it strange that the Chicago papers gave front page treatment to the deteriorating economy pre-election; now that the election is over, the Chicago papers are running front page stories about President-elect Obama's family members and his choice of advisors.

When I was in journalism school, more than 20 years ago, one of the first things we learned were the five things that constituted “news.”

Timeliness, significance, proximity, prominence, and human interest were the five. And the stories that meet those five criteria will vary depending upon the media outlet, the location, the readership, etc. Proximity is a big one: meaning a story that is either geographically “close” to the readers or a story that has special significance for most of the readers of a publication.

So, for the Chicago papers and Chicago readers, the Obama girls and the Obama cabinet positions meet all five of the standards for a local audience, most of whom are not c-level execs. Many of them probably fall into the 250,000 people who showed up downtown on Tuesday. Hence, the front page treatment of Malia and Sasha and Rahm.

However, today's Wall Street Journal’s above-the-fold headlines are these:

“Global Push to Beat Economic Downturn”
“Hedge Fund Selling Puts New Stress on Market”
“A Snowblower Maker Braces For Slump’s Blizzard of Woe”

Those articles meet the five criteria for the WSJ readers, many of whom are c-level execs or business-owners, people who are definitely interested in the economy before anything else.

None of this implies that coverage is impartial in any media outlet. The days of any media outlet being impartial are over. Every publication writes for its own readers; and we, as readers, seek out the publications that please us, interest us or meet our own standards, and we read them. It’s called custom publishing, baby.

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A Great Day

It's a great day. A fresh start.

The scene at Grant Park was beautiful, at least from my vantage point (in bed watching TV).

The overwhelming majority of the crowd downtown was peaceful and happy; thankfully not in an "in-your-face" kind of way. (An aside: As the mother of two toddlers, I was surprised at how many parents seemed glad to stand outside for hours and hours, late at night, with their sleepy children in tow. Not in a million years, I say.)

The election was called early (by 10 p.m. CST) and there was no doubt about the legitimacy of the outcome. Refreshing.

And best of all, my husband and all the other police officers and public safety personnel made it home safely.

Our popular new president and his beautiful family have their work cut out for them. (Another aside: After Obama's speech last night, I couldn't help but feel really, really happy for Joe Biden and his family.)

Every one of us will need to sacrifice something to put our nation on the upswing again. I hope President Obama specifically asks us for that sacrifice and lets us know exactly how we can help. And I sincerely hope we participate, step up and take ownership of this process, knowing that it won't be easy and it may not be fun and it will probably get worse before it gets better.

But it must be done.

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Just Plain Stupid

What follows is a true story about how the city of Chicago, or at least the 35th ward, managed to screw up the democratic process for hundreds of people on the most-anticipated election day in decades.

It all began more than three weeks ago.

On October 12, the "NO PARKING from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m." signs were posted on Palmer Blvd between Kedzie on the west and Sacramento on the East. The parking ban was in effect weekdays from Oct. 14-17, so that the badly pockmarked, potholed Palmer Blvd could be resurfaced.



For three days, hundreds of residents had to find somewhere else to park when they arrived home from work in the afternoons. Unless, of course, they wanted to get out of bed at 5:50 the following morning to move their car before the tow trucks arrived. (Click the image above for a better view ... everywhere there is a green line is where no one in the neighborhood could park for the better part of a month.)

Not the end of the world, and worth it if the street is resurfaced. Right?

Well ... things are just never that simple in Chicago. From Oct. 14 to Oct. 17, the road crews completed only the first step--grinding up the old surface, leaving the boulevard looking even more unsightly (but actually easier to drive upon).

The following Monday, Oct. 20, the signs were updated: "NO PARKING from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 21-24." So, another week when residents had to relocate their automobiles, sometimes blocks away from their homes. A lot of fun when you have two small children and all of their gear to transport from car to house.

Here's the great part: nothing was accomplished that week. Nothing. The street crews and their equipment NEVER SHOWED UP. So we were all displaced for absolutely no reason at all.

Guess what happened next? Yes, you're catching on. New, updated signs went up the following week, indicating there was no parking on the boulevard through November 6.

And it gets better.

The street crews actually resurfaced the westbound side of Palmer on Thurs/Fri last week. They began resurfacing the eastbound side today. Great, right?

Except for the fact that a major polling place (St. Sylvester school) sits at the corner of Palmer and Sacramento. Now, not only is there no parking available for residents, there is no parking available for people who will show up to vote. And--here's another kicker-- the side streets (Albany and Whipple) that are normally accessible to/from eastbound Palmer today are blocked off with orange cones and tape with steamrollers doing their thing. So, even if voters want to park on a side street, good luck with that.

When I left for work today at 8 a.m. it was already a clusterfu*k. People circling the block, backing up in the middle of streets, making U-turns, etc., to no avail.

Thanks Chicago. Thanks Alderman Colon.

You had nearly four weeks to complete the most basic of city services, and you choose ELECTION DAY to resurface a major street in front of a polling place, while blocking access to/from the side streets. During that time, there was at least a six-day stretch in which NOTHING happened. Job well done.

There's so many other ways this could have happened. Here are some ideas:

1. How about moving the parking ban from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. or 8 a.m? That way, residents can park in front of their homes at night and can get up at a decent hour to move their vehicles.

2. How about displacing people only when you know work will actually happen? Seriously, why was there a parking ban for a week when absolutely nothing happened?

3. How about resurfacing a street in front of a polling place ANY DAY BUT ELECTION DAY?

Sheesh!

Don't even get me started on the disgrace that is Palmer Square Park.

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Officer Friendly

Patrick and I are at the kids' school every day for drop-off and pick-up. But we make an effort to be there for other occasions. Like field trips, or holiday programs. Or safety week.

During safety week, the kids learn about ways to stay safe: everything from not touching a stove to what to do if there's a fire to not going anywhere with strangers.



























This is the second year that Patrick has visited the classroom of ODS, decked out in his police uniform (he's a detective, so we rarely see him in the uniform), riot helmet and bulletproof vest. In addition to the firearm, he's armed with coloring books that instruct the kids about various dangers they should avoid.

He has a great time doing it, and ODS is WAY excited when his dad shows up at school as Officer Friendly.

Officer Friendly will be in uniform for real this week: On Tuesday, Barack Obama scheduled an election-night rally in Grant Park and invited 65,000 people. Which might have been OK, except the mayor then went on TV and invited, like, the REST OF THE WORLD to attend.

Nevermind that the police are undermanned in this city; nevermind that our murder rate just shot past NYC and Los Angeles this year; nevermind that--the last we heard--there won't even be portable toilets available at this shindig. Yes. The best thing to do is encourage everyone, everyone, to converge downtown on a weeknight when Mr. Obama will not even make an appearance until 11 p.m. at the earliest. Great idea.

So on Tuesday, his day off, Officer Friendly will be working in uniform, at night, downtown. Everyone, please be careful.

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From Wrigleyville to Logan Square

The second-to-last sentence of my last post, Mister Manners, may have given you the idea that I don't enjoy living in Chicago. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

In fact, when I met Patrick, I was one of those Chicago transplants who was still--five years after moving here--giddy-infatuated with our fair city. I did what most young(ish) people do when they move here: I got an apartment in Wrigleyville, bought a bicycle to ride by the lake, left my car parked on the street and rode the el to my job downtown. At the time it all was very exotic: City Life.

I'm a big fan of city life, probably because I grew up in the south, where big cities still are viewed with suspicion by a lot of folks who think it's weird that so many people would want to be in such close physical proximity to other people who don't look or act anything like them. And I always thought they were weird for wanting to live on giant pieces of land with so much space between them and other people who looked and acted exactly like them.

You can keep Los Angeles; San Francisco is beautiful; St. Louis is nondescript; and Miami is too humid. But more than once in my life, I thought I'd move to New York. I thought New York was my favorite city until I moved to Chicago.

Like most new residents, and all the tourists, I marveled at how clean Chicago is, how efficient it is, how it "works." And that is true much of the time ... if you're downtown, or near downtown. However, if you venture a little further west and north away from the tourists, you'll discover neighborhoods of people, residents who've lived in Chicago their entire lives.

And guess what? Everything is not shiny and clean. Lifetime residents of Chicago know that many things don't really "work" they way they're supposed to. Corruption in city government is rampant and--worse--incompetence is standard operating procedure. I have friends (also transplants) who defend this situation by way of explaining that corruption is a fact of life in every city government and incompetence is a way of life for some people. That may be true to a certain extent. But in Chicago, the corruption and the incompetence are in, your, face.

And this causes lifetime residents to view the rest of us ("blow-ins" is how Patrick refers to us) as a giant pain-in-the-ass. Lakefront liberals who are so damned impressed with the flower-boxes and wrought iron fences downtown that we enable and even promote the current corrupted condition by continuing to vote for the very people who are doing the corrupting. And after nine years here, I'm coming around to that line of thought.

I still love Chicago for all the reasons I loved it when I moved here nine years ago. The architecture. The lake. The neighborhoods. The food. The culture. The shopping. The attitude. The people. And I absolutely wouldn't want to live anywhere else. But my enthusiasm now is tempered by the fact that I'm a permanent resident, with a family to raise and property taxes to pay. I see things I didn't see before, when securing a parking space in Wrigleyville on game-days was my biggest concern.

To be continued. :-)

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Anticipation

Even though we have precious little summer weather here in Chicago, and even though the first crisp breath of autumn weather means full-blown winter might be less than a month away, I still love fall. The feeling of anticipation is one I recognize and fully enjoy every year, but I rarely analyze it.

So this morning, my two young sons were piled into the back seat of my car and I drove them to preschool, as I have nearly every day since each of them was 3 months old.

My oldest son, who now is 3 years old, was dressed head-to-toe as a firefighter. (There was even an under-the-helmet head-scarf and fire-engine underpants involved.) He and 19 classmates were off to a firehouse today for a field trip, and ODS (oldest dear son) was about as into this outing as anyone could be.

When I was a kid, fall signified field trips, school plays, new clothes and lots of holiday breaks from school. For most of my adult life (before kids), fall meant new clothes, sitting in bars drinking and watching sports, enjoying the smells and sights and sounds outdoors, and radiators that hissed and clanked for the first few days of operation.

And Thanksgiving--I always went home for Christmas, but Thanksgiving was a great excuse to spend four uninterrupted days with my best friends: cooking, drinking, watching TV and generally doing nothing productive while feeling not the slightest bit of guilt.

And now, with two kids, I get to enjoy most of the aforementioned and more. Well, not so much the drinking or hanging out with friends; and our condo doesn't have radiators, much to my chagrin.

Still, fall signifies so many possibilities right around the corner: Patrick and I attend field trips with our sons; we help them choose Halloween costumes. We will attempt trick-or-treating with our boys for the first time this year.

Thanksgiving no longer is four days of slothful behavior but it is a few days with a big family who knows how to dress a TurDuckIn.

Fall is Notre Dame football. (Other schools have football teams, too.)

In an election year, we all have a chance to stage an autumn do-over, and that's cool.

And even though it really bugs me that their preschool stages a Winter Musical instead of a holiday-themed (religious or not) gala, the boys still get to be on stage, singing and shaking it for the cameras.

Of course, Christmas takes on a whole new dimension for parents with kids young enough to really, really believe in Santa and reindeer and The Grinch.

Fall rocks.

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