Blizzaster!

Unless you live under a rock or in the tropics, desert, etc - you're familiar with the awful winter weather we've experienced across the entire Midwest over the course of the past week or so. For my Chicago people, we have been buried under 20" of snow for almost a week now. If you want to know how my parking situation is, I wouldn't know because I have tried not to move my car since the first flakes began to fall last Tuesday. I did have to venture out for one short trip (one to two hours) each day Thursday-Saturday, but I was able to recapture my shoveled out parking space each time without any altercations with my neighbors. If you're wondering what I'm talking about or curious about how my neighbors are handling the parking conundrum, please look back to last year's blog archives and read my post about the topic.... or visit the Chair-Free-Chicago website. This should paint the picture. These people are idiots. If you're one of these people, I'm not sorry for saying that and may god have mercy on your soul.... and pick your shit up out of the street! Anyway, we should have a better, more productive week, although I feel like this snow is going to be sitting around for awhile, getting dirty, so we'll have to deal with puddles, snowdrifts, short dog walks, and "street furniture" for probably another month... ugh.

For my St. Louis friends and family, seems like you've been dealing with a different kind of weather torture... ICE! Having lived in St. Louis for the majority of my life, I get it.... it sucks. Truth be told, I'm glad we don't get that crap and I'm happy to deal with mostly snow - it should be noted that our blizzard of 2011 was the 3rd worst storm in recorded history in Chicago. Back to the ice. You guys got hammered with sheets of ice and not much snow, after preparing for the blizzard conditions that we experienced. Then I heard when a dusting of snow was being forecast, you got several inches. If it wasn't for facebook, I probably wouldn't know any of this... Thank you, facebook. A lot of what I was reading on there seemed like a little bit of freaking out and preparing for the worst - then astonishing disappointment when there was no snow. This seems kind of weird to me, but I can remember hearing similar freak-out moments when I lived there (not by me of course), so I guess it's just the nature of the beast. I suppose being right in the middle of two climate systems and experiencing a mixture of their respective effects can do that to a region of people.

Back to the snow. I don't think I have to tell you how much Jake loves playing in the snow. He enjoys running and jumping in it, smearing it on his face, and digging to try to find the grass underneath. He's just lucky he doesn't have to drive or get to work in it! I guess while I'm working at home and not having too many meetings out of the "office", I get to reap the benefits of that "luxury" as well. So I suppose until this stuff clears and business gets back to bustling and hustling, I'll just continue to sit here in my shamrock pajama pants and tell you all about my week...