As
much as I pretend never to do so, I whine. Sometimes. Not a ton but I still do.
Sometimes you do too, right?
(So I laid it on pretty thick (the whining thing).)
I’m
being a little dramatic here but I don’t care for this weather at all. Not one
bit. As a lifelong Chicagoan, I’m obviously always prepared but never ready for
it. Never.
[And I have a husband home all day. The nasty
weather has reduced the number of ways I have to entertain him…I’m kidding! It’s
only 4:00pm and we’ve read some, played Jeopardy, made chili, watched Homeland,
Shameless, and Masters of Sex (multiple episodes). Plus I got busted when the
UPS man (who the dog and I know pretty well) rang the bell to deliver more
books for which I am sort of on probation.]
Recently, Mary Schmich (a popular Chicago Tribune
columnist who’s pretty funny) published an article called “The Rites of Passage
for Becoming a Chicagoan” that I found interesting and true. In it, she
provides a “short list” of things newcomer must “go through before attaining
full Chicago citizenship.”
Here are two that pertain to today.
“Moving to Chicago does not make you a Chicagoan no
matter what your driver's license says.
1. You buy the wrong winter coat until you
buy the right winter coat.
If you've come to Chicago from a warmer place,
you'll buy a winter coat when the weather gets nippy. You'll discover it's a
jacket. When the weather gets even nippier, you'll buy a real winter coat.
You'll learn it's a fall coat.
It may take you a decade to get a coat that keeps you as warm as you deserve to be, and that coat will be down. In other words, it will be ugly, no matter how hard it tries not to be.
You become eligible for the Chicago club only when you give into the truth that in winter you can't be both warm and cute and you'd rather be warm.
2. You buy the wrong winter boots.
See "wrong coat" above. The right winter
boots never involve high heels.”
Oh so true! In Chicago, we are resided to either
looking cute or being warm. There’s no overlap really.
I think I’ll take a little break from husband
entertaining (kidding) to pull out the down coats and the ugly boots. Maybe he
should lube up the snowblower.
It’s only just begun.
10 comments:
Hah. I remember when my BIL moved to Chicago for grad school my mother made a comment about how long it would take for him to figure out what he needed to wear versus what he thought.
She'd kill me if I told you how long it has been since she lived in Chicago, but she was born there and lived there until college.
Haha!! I love the coat buying method. As a walker now, I started with a cute winter "jacket", but had to change to something that could not be called cute because I don't like to be frozen.
I have never been to Chicago but a amused about the wrong winter coat concept,
That's exactly right! It's fereezing right this very minute (chilly coffee run).
I remember you told me that she grew up here. And for a long time. Her blood is too warm now from so many years in the California sun.
I've missed you a.eye!!! How's NYC? You know just the weather. Well almost, it's not as cold there.
It's very true! You should visit. I put on a big, warm coat early this morning to go get coffee. I was still cold.
She complains about that to me. Every time she visits my little sister in Jersey she tells me about how it is never as cold there as it was in Chicago and how she can't take it any more.
I grew up in the snowbelt in Western Pennsylvania, so I get this, completely. The cold and snow that everyone I know in New York complains about it nothing. The winters here are downright balmy compared to Pittsburgh in January.
Once you go warm, you can never go back? I don't know. It's really cold today too but hope springs that this weekend will warm up. It's what we talk about here sometimes...what it's like to be really cold and what to do about it. Silly!
I've been to New York many, many times in the winter months.It's like spring. No need for jackets, etc. Yeah, they have no idea. You have to get a good wind whipping through the farmlands for hundreds of miles first, then add the below freezing temperatures and sprinkle in snow! Wait, when it's that cold, it's usually too cold to snow. I know you get it!
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