Beautiful city

I'm home sick for Chicago right now. It's been cool and damp and knowing it will turn cold in a few days is very heartwarming and exciting for me. When the weather turns cool, I naturally turn to different things. I enjoy my bike rides tenfold, but I also enjoy memories, introspection, scrapbooking, as well as the cliches of a roaring fire and hot chocolate. Though it's not as cliche as it sounds because I in fact prefer a fire in the morning when I first wake up along with a hot cup of joe.

So to achieve a 'virtual visit' of my hometown, I decided to use Google Images to find scenes of winter in Chicago. There are literally scads of them. Here are a three that spoke to me.

The first one is pretty obvious why. But I have these very tactile memories of getting off the El and deliberately walking AROUND Wrigley Field to go home. I had these brown boots with a knitted wool lining. The damp mush on the ground would seep in (I was poor and couldn't afford boots that actually did what they were supposed to!) and my toes would start to grow numb. But I had to walk around my beloved ball park.. I love this picture because it's got soppy, urban ground.

And what says BRRRRR more than this picture? This reminds me of Sunday mornings when my neighbor Beth and I would get into our parkas and my expensive (!) boots and take a brisk walk in the sub zero morning. We'd eventually make our way to West Egg or Cambridge for breakfast and try to stop the inevitable nose runs. We'd talk about work, career, condo association, men, clothes and travelling. Beth, incidentally, looked and talked exactly like Miranda from Sex & The City and acted exactly like her too.

But once I moved on and started consulting, this was the snowy Chicago scene I was most used to:

Nothing like the view of a snowy, miserable O'Hare Airport. Coming from the lush tropical green of Orlando, the stark whites and greys of an urban prairie winter always gets to me. It's in the shades of grey that most of my memories of this tough city live.

But if we take an artist's eye and the most romantic memory of Chicago in winter, it would look like this.. Perfectly still, cold and glistening - this is the view of which I grew accustomed to seeing from the backseat of taxi cabs, racing over black ice and draw bridges on Columbus Avenue taking me home.

(Please, Chicagoans, don't be so pedantic to point out to me this wasn't take from Columbus anyway. You who have taken that cab ride from Jackson & Columbus to Illinois St know the flat canyon view I'm talking about!)

And, bugger..what I wouldn't give for a snowy day and a new Mike Royko column today.

"So if you visit Chicago, enjoy the many great courses, the Midwestern friendliness, and the cities other amenities. But if a stranger with a goofy swing wants to play for more than loose change, take a pass. It's a long walk back to your hotel in bare feet." -Mike Royko