Blizzard 2011- welcome respite!

And there's the happy shoveler himself. 

This is right in front of our building- BEFORE....

And AFTER....

Pose for the camera.  You can see our car just behind him. 

And here's a view down 19th street, looking westward.  Our car is on the left. 

We’ve endured Blizzard 2011 with comfort food, Masterpiece Mystery videos from the library, and NPR.  The 60 mph winds elicited new and curious sounds from our apartment building, and our car has been fully and graciously insulated by several feet of drifting snow, but we remain relatively unscathed and well slept.  CPS has had an historical 2 days school free, and what a treat it’s been as Chicago looses its reputation of being so tough on snow days, and the blizzard breaks an impressive 12 year streak.  The core personnel were supposed to be at schools so that if children showed up they would be able to be fed, at least.  Since we’ve moved back to Chicago we haven’t yet gotten wireless in our apartment, neither did we bring movies or too many books, so our entertainment skills have been tested and we’ve been cooking, and eating and listening to the radio ALOT.   I would be a great candidate for the NPR news quiz right now because, it’s been on nonstop for the past few days.   Nick made a delicious bread, we made a soup of curried roasted root vegetables, I made cookies (with an improvised recipe because we don’t have the internet or any cookbooks), and we made awesome nachos with mango peach salsa, jalapeños and queso. 

Now we are contemplating leaving the apartment, braving -3˚F temps to bus it to Home Depot for some peaceful, sage green paint that will adorn my new desk that the house husband made.  

On a somber note, hearing about the struggles of the Egyptian people continues to bring home the extremity of our freedoms.  Our biggest daily complaint here is about how the side streets haven’t been plowed, and probably won’t be for quite some time.  Or, about how we have to walk to a coffee shop for the internet, and don’t have any good movies at home.  We operate on an expectation of entitlement, we deserve to have certain things, and yet the things that we deserve are luxury for so much of the world.  People regularly give their lives for basic human rights that we have often taken for granted in this country. 

The juxtaposition of prayer and rebellion is incredible: how such different feelings can be simultaneously so strong is really moving.  Yahoo image link

Irony of ironies.  It was too cold to walk to Home Depot, and we are at McDonald's again to WIFI and observe the legions of older men that are having social hour.   Nick makes a good commercial, he is hipstering up McDonald's!