Windy City Blues

I got up this morning and looked at the thermometer before taking the dogs out. Thirty six degrees, not bad. It's been colder than that this season, eighteen one morning. So I fed the dogs and then I hooked Scout up for her walk. I opened the door and saw things being blown down the street. Not small things, but big things like my neighbor's Christmas decorations. The giant Christmas dragon they had on the lawn, branches from another neighbor's tree, and goddamn there goes the wreath off my front door. Seriously, the winds were gusting over fifty miles per hour. I have to give credit to Chicagoans. If this were Florida, the schools would have been closed, airports closed, and at the supermarket the bread and canned tuna shelves would have been stripped bare. The only difference between the wind in Chicago this morning and a storm in Florida is that it isn't called a "Tropical Storm" here. You pin that name on a storm and people go goofy. They all run to the Home Depot to buy batteries and wood. Lines form at gas stations. The Publix market turns into a riot zone. Not here in Chicago. Branches are blowing down the street, small children are being lifted off the ground, and my dog's poop gets caught in the wind and shoots out sideways as she squats. Yet Chicagoans go to work, go to school, do their business like nothing is happening. So much braver than Floridians. Of course, if you added some snow to that wind in Chicago they would look and act just like Florida, stripping the stores of tuna, bread, milk, and batteries. Traffic would grind to a halt, airports would close, and kids would get one of those coveted 'snow days'.