Until this past weekend Chicago’s winter had average temperatures and less than average snow. That changed with the fifth heaviest snow storm in the city’s history, 19.3”/.5 meter.
It snowed from Saturday night through Monday morning, often in blizzard conditions, officially defined as sustained winds of 35 mph/30 knots and visibility of less than ¼ mile/402 meters for at least three hours. For most of Sunday we could barely see across the street.
Yesterday was a physical therapy day for me. I tried to walk. The streets had been cleared, but most of the sidewalks not. I floundered through thigh deep drifts for half a block, almost falling three times, before I said to myself, “What are you doing, you old fool? This is not working.” I fought my way out to the street and walked another half block to the train station, arriving for my therapy session a half hour early.
By the time the session was over, the sun was shining and more sidewalks had been cleared and I did walk home.
A little more snow is due this afternoon.
This does not compare with what has fallen in the east. Since we moved from Boston nine years ago—which makes this, even though I’m not here all the time, the longest I’ve lived at one address in my adult life: for years I was not even in one country for more than four consecutive months—all winters, except the last one, have been worse in Boston than Chicago.
Motivated by my app, I may bundle and boot up and walk down to the lake this afternoon.
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In what I consider a major achievement, I did not see a single minute of Super Bowl pre-game hype, though that did occasionally require lightning reaches for the remote when I was caught off guard. I didn’t even turn on the game until after the national anthem and cleaned up the kitchen during half time after Carol had made world class fish tacos for dinner.
I know I am not the only one to avoid the pre-game hype. But those of you who live in other countries have it easier. Here it is ubiquitous.
In the ongoing chronicle of also ubiquitous wretched excess, the NY TIMES reports:
The average price of a ticket being offered for resale on game day was $10,466.11, which is over four times more than last year, when the average price was $2,567.
It was a good game; but no game is that good.
