This is my iBook’s desktop with OSXplanet. Every spring, this parabola frightens me. It’s the shadow of some unimaginably large monster, and it’s looking for me.
Parabola monster
Tag Archives: weather
When it’s this cold
Do you see what I see?
Snow. And plenty of it.
Holiday party and a winter’s day
There’s something about spending a single night away from home that makes me feel more disoriented than returning after a week-long trip. J. and I went to the last Hyatt party Friday night, and it was Monday before my sense of strangeness started to dissipate.
On Friday at about 6 p.m., I met J. at Moonstruck, one of my favorite places downtown. We started the evening with watching the dancing, which become less coordinated and more creative as the night wore on. As I stood on the second level, I couldn’t help thinking of ballroom dancing in 1930s movies and how much has changed in what is a relatively short period of time. For a moment, I could imagine the sweep of tuxedos and gowns.
When most attendees were at their happiest and most uninhibited, Exhibit A shows me nursing a midnight coffee — proof that I am old or dull or both. For the first time at this event, I could not be persuaded to dance, although I am not sure what held me back.
On Saturday, after substituting breakfast for a swim in the pool that no longer existed, J. and I headed to the Rosemont elevated stop, where we saw a flock of perhaps 80 Canada geese divided into four parts nibbling on the small islands of grass along the Kennedy Expressway. It struck me as an odd sight, a glimpse of nature adapting to the unnatural and unpleasant speed and noise of the expressway.
The weather was perfect for spending an hour and a half at the outdoor Christkindlmarket — a little below freezing, not too cold, no wind, and with a steady flurry of snow coating everything. While J. shopped, I found myself fascinated by the snow-covered model train as it made its monotonous rounds. A few boys watched the train for a bit, then commented in a deprecatory tone of voice to prove that they were too old for such toys. I envision them in 20–25 years, telling their children about the model train at the Christkindlmarket, even if it is by then more of a feeling than a memory.
Near the train tracks we came upon a snow-covered bench occupied by tiny snow people, made of regular-sized snowballs with evergreen twigs for arms. I named them Peter and Héloise, as doomed lovers. They were such a charming couple that almost everyone who spotted them did a double take, then snapped a photo of them. One woman even looked at us strangely as though we were the responsible parties. I wish I were that imaginative! It was with great reluctance that I left Peter and Héloise behind.
When all I could feel of my hands was pain, I dragged J. away on the bus and home with me, where a well-fed Hodge greeted us. I lit candles, plied J. with Holiday Dream tea and a Homemade pizza and cookie, and put on the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol with Reginald Owen so J. could sleep through it. Fortunately, the pizza and cookie revived him in time for a second showing.
In the meantime, the weather had become truly frightful. At 8 p.m., when we went downstairs to wait for the cab that never arrived, the wind was whipping The Flamingo’s awning furiously, and snow was coming down heavily and even less realistically than in a Hollywood movie. Since J. had to wait another two hours for the next train, I plied him with fair trade hot cocoa while we watched a Judy Garland, Dean Martin, and Frank Sinatra TV concert. I told J. that times have changed; today, Judy Garland couldn’t get away with a bare stage, a simple dress, and pumps. She would have to have a full band onstage, scantily clad chorus girls and dancers, a light show, and fireworks. During this performance, though, the stage, lights, and outfit didn’t matter. All attention was on that tragic face and that remarkable voice. You don’t need to distract your audience when you have talent.
J. finally arrived at the train station, after a 20-mph taxi ride in blizzard-like conditions. I couldn’t see Lake Shore Drive from my bedroom window. When I called him at 2 a.m. to see if he’d gotten home in one piece, the weather was still howling and blowing. Yet by 8 a.m. Sunday, it was sunny, clear, and calm, with the new coating of snow the only evidence of the previous long winter’s night.
Early November at Promontory Point
I am out of tune with the seasons — I thought most trees were bare by early November, but the colors seem to be around peak here. Enjoy.
Riders on the storm
Caught this as a storm built up from the west during an hour’s time. It’s coming down now in horizontal sheets, with lots of great lighting and sound effects. Time to curl up and read.
Edit: It became much more violent later. At one point there were 5–6 nearly simultaneous flashes.
The morning after
Last night, just as I was thinking of walking to the store, a storm began that turned into a frightful experience. At first, there were nearly incessant flashes of sheet and streak lightning, beginning at about 8:15 p.m. This lasted for about an hour unabated. It began to rain, then to rain hard, then to rain so hard that sheets of water hurled themselves at the windows while the lightning continued and thunder sounded. Suddenly there was a terrifying roaring as the wind picked up, tossing the trees back and forth and seeming to cause the building to shudder.
I surprised myself by feeling scared.
At the moment when I was beginning to realize this was the worst storm I’d ever weathered, worse than any of those in western New York that made the trailer seem instantly frail and vulnerable, there was a blinding flash and a simultaneous, deafening thunderclap.
My heart stopped and then raced.
I have been that terrified at an autonomic level only a few times in my life, and even while sensing danger at the door, I felt acutely alive yet disconnected and detached.
This morning presented a scene of minor, yet disturbing devastation. I noticed last night that a half-dead tree in Burnham Park across the street had fallen on the sidewalk. It was not the only tree to succumb. A couple of my favorites, large shade trees, were among the victims, either fallen or snapped off partway up the trunk. Partial trunks and huge branches littered both nearby parks. The landscape was altered, as trees that had been growing 30–40–50 years cracked or crashed in an instant.
The Chicago Park District was at Burnham Park today at 7 a.m. to clear the tree blocking the sidewalk that the police use to enter Burnham Park and Promontory Point. It was a curious operation in which 4–5 men stood around and watched a truck awkwardly scoop up the not-very-large branches and place them in a dump truck. The scooping method was inefficient, and I’m not clear why so many people needed to supervise the operation. From what I could see, it would have made more sense for the 4–5 men standing around simply to pick up the branches and toss them in the truck. It would have taken half the time and would not have wasted the fuel. But we are no longer a society that does anything “by hand” or respects manual labor. We are slaves to the machine.
Tonight, I walked around part of Burnham Park and Promontory Point. So many trees wrenched out of the ground, or split in half, or with limbs torn off and strewn about. I found the two gingko trees I have spent many hours reading under torn in half. They were usually the last to lose their leaves in autumn. It looks like last year was their final fall. They will shelter me no more.
I looked up at the Shoreland from near the underpass. Trees no longer filter most of the lower part of the building. The tree line is broken, open, scarred.
It took decades to create the beauty of mature trees.
And minutes to destroy it.
Sound of summer
After going to bed late, for me, I woke up shortly after dawn to the loud sound of a close thunder crack — a sound that reminded me I had left two or three windows wide open to dispel the heat and stuffiness. The sky had already opened, so I rushed to close them. For a few moments, the rumblings of the thunder, the splatter of the rain, and the whoosh of the breeze masked most of the traffic noise, and for that moment I could have been home again, helping my mother to close the windows when a sudden thunderstorm transformed sky and land alike.
I love storms.
More spring storms
The day began sunny and became warmer than expected. At about 3 p.m., a thunderstorm blew through, and the temperature dropped 18 degrees. Then the sun came out, so I walked to the lake, where I ate a late lunch. Then it got cloudy, and I sat there watching lightning streaks come out of the sky down to the horizon behind the buildings in South Chicago across from Promontory Point. It was lovely. The thunder came. Then I heard kids down toward the beach screaming and running, and I watched a wall of rain move through the air north from the beach toward me until I was hit. I heard it when it was about 20 feet off. It was fascinating to watch the wall move, the people flee, and the drops hit the water.
Sunset of the apocalypse
This overcast evening I walked to Promontory Point and watched as an ominous black cloud, reaching down from sky to earth, almost like a tornado, traveled north. It left in its wake peaceful white clouds and mist, all tinged pink by the setting sun. It did not cast a shadow on the water, but turned it a darker green as it passed overhead. Meanwhile, the wind was roaring in my ears and whipping the water into a frothy frenzy.
To the north — the sound and the fury. To the south — the reflections of the last rays of a summer’s day.
I will be surprised if I do not dream again tonight of an apocalypse.