Recently the temps warmed up, melting snow and allowing rain to fall on Chicago's fair streets. Shortly thereafter the weather returned to wintery normal: very cold.
This phenomenon known as winter weather (which occurs annually!) causes all sorts of havoc, such as ice, snow, slippery conditions, cold and even shivers! Anyway, the rain, followed by the cold formed many patches of treacherous ice on sidewalks. (Not streets so much, as they are well-salted.) Furthermore, snow that fell yesterday has now covered the ice, causing hidden ice! Yikes!
All my civilized readers are probably saying, Hey, shouldn't someone take care of these sidewalks? Like, maybe the people who live in the homes adjacent to them?
Yes!
Dear property owners, inhabitants and likewise, it is your responsibility to keep your sidewalk clear. And, if you at least try to, I can't even sue you when I fall on my face/knee/rear.
This brilliant Chicagoist post sums it all up, law-wise. Seriously: you are obligated to shovel and clear your sidewalk. Legally obligated.
And you should also shovel because falling isn't fun. Even if you drive everyplace you go, it's good for you that everyone doesn't. I completely realize that shoveling and clearing ice is a bother. But it's good for the rest of us. It's good for our community -- I'd love to think my neighbors love our neighborhood and Chicago enough to clear their walks and keep passersby safe and happy. That's a pretty nice notion, isn't it?
I've found awesome Thank You For Shoveling sign from the city! I'm going to try to print some and pass them around my street to my good neighbors!
(Granted, I live in an apartment building that does the clearing for me. They also do beautiful gardening for me in the summer! Renting isn't so bad, sometimes.)
I'm hoping to get deputized by Chicago's next mayor so I can issue citations for not shoveling, parking like a jerk, blatantly using your cell phone while driving, leaving sprinklers so they spray water on sidewalks and such offenses. Watch out!
B and I are on a serious 2011 calm-down streak. After the mayhem of the holidays, we're thrilled to spend time at home taking it very easy. This weekend we had friends over for wine-drinking on Friday, did very little on Saturday and watched the Bears game with family-friend-types on Sunday. Perfectly relaxing.
I'm starting both school (my LAST class before nursing school!) and a new job(!!!) this week. This means I'll be a lot busier than I've been. I've been, a welcome change of pace. We've been doing a lot of cooking, movie-watching and book-reading. Here's a run down of the highlights:
- Presently I am watching the amazing movie Clue.
- I'm also enjoying re-watching 30 Rock and How I Met Your Mother, at least the episodes we have on DVD.
- I've got a queue of books headed my way through the library. I just finished Atul Gawande's Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science - it's a great account of the way surgery works and the difficult questions in medicine.
- Now I'm reading Gimme Shelter by Mary Elizabeth Williams -- an interest story about buying homes. It takes place in NYC, which I think is a whole 'nother ballgame compared to any other market, but it's still a good read.
- We've cooked our share of soups - yum!
Lots ahead -- but I think our restful ways are preparing us perfectly.
Our New Year's Eve party was a perfect event - lots of guests, lots of drinks, lots of fun. Sadly the lots of food we prepared was not required - our guests showed up fed and late (but we are still happy that they showed up).
This means that dinner all week is delicious stuff like bacon-wrapped dates and mini-pizzas made from pitas. Delicious! Not totally nutritious, but we bought a bag of spinach for salads, so that counts for something.
I've got a job interview(!!!) tomorrow for a part-time position at a Y nearby working in their preschool program. Hopefully this is a good balance of work, but not too much - allowing me to continue to watch my niece, study, work on nursing school applications and be just a little lazy sometimes. I'm really excited about the interview - a reason to dig out my dress clothes! Seriously, I literally haven't worn dress pants since May.
It's still cold out - the radiator is hissing away right now, but the snow melted during the tropical heat wave of New Year's Eve. Chicago is ready for a new blanket of pretty snow - no crunchy gray stuff for our streets!
This post isn't focused whatsoever - my apologies. I've got school applications to do, a dear friend in town on break, jobs to interview for, bad television shows to put on at the gym while I work out, wine to drink, books to read and all that. There's a lot ahead for this 2011 business - and I like it.
The photo here was taken on our honeymoon at Channel Islands National Park in California. It's got nothing to do with 2011 except that I think it's a cool photo and it's my blog, so I do what I want. Might as well share good photos, right?
