Chicagoist on the CRAZY WEATHER SO CRAZY. Last night was the first time I’ve heard tornado sirens in Chicago. Growing up in Wisconsin, we’d have bad storms occasionally but, as my mother would always remind us when huddling freaked-out in the basement, we were too close to the lake for a real tornado, and I had assumed the same applied here since in twelve years, no sirens.
They went off last night and Mr. A and I packed up the dingos and moved them into the hallway as directed by the building apocalypse plan, and we watched as the rain lashed and the wind blew. Puck slept through most of the whole thing, Riot was unconcerned and more focused on getting into my lap on top of the warm laptop, but Bucky jumped and eeped a few times. The power flickered but never went out, which is weird, because my block loses power when somebody downtown sneezes.
This morning, we still had power, but no Internet (cable down) so I set off on my bike in search of access. My local coffee shop and office-away-from-home had no power at all and a big sign that said basically, try us tomorrow, maybe ComEd will have unfucked itself by then. My office had no power either, which I learned when I flicked on the air conditioning and nothing happened. Hope nothing important’s in the fridge. The second choice of coffee shop, on the same block as the building where I work, was also out as was the traffic light, and lots of bad-natured honking and cursing was going on. Tree limbs all over the ‘hood, people out all over the place cleaning up their lawns.
Across the street, though, thrice-blessed Caribou, with coffee, wifi, lights on, and a line out the door. Dunno if they have a generator or what, I do not care. I stalked and stared until some people left their table and now I’m hooked back into the Matrix. Did I miss anything, other than the usual right-wing fuckery and everybody being upset because Obama didn’t suck McChrystal’s dick?
A.