Orphan Scarves & Pizza Crusts

Unfortunately woke up with an eye infection today so had to take a morning visit to the doctor. The day improved, however, after using some medicated drops and I managed to walk around a bit in the South Loop and take these pictures. Later in the evening I met some friends for $5 thin crust pizza, quite good and it's what I call 'authentic' style as it had fresh ingredients and featured toppings like mozzarella, prosciutto and basil. Yum! The last photo, of the carved heart, was found carved in a post at an El (subway) stop-- urban romance at its finest?

Waiting for the Bus

This is typical of what I see on the way home-- remnants of the 'blizzard', piles of slush and a longer wait than usual for my always-packed bus. Due to recent CTA cuts the buses run less often, especially at night. Instead of a 5-10 minute wait it can be long as 20 minutes in the cold!

SNOW DAY!

Scenes from the 'blizzard' Chicago experienced today... there really isn't as much snow on the ground as I expected though there is more forecast for tonight. I didn't think six inches of snow would shake up Chicago like it has but it's probably more of the fear of what could happen than really what occurs. I'm not going to argue though as my school declared a SNOW DAY today. Okay, it was a little wimpy because they decided only night class and activities (so after 5pm) would be canceled but fortunately on Tuesdays I have a night class (6-10) and I TA for a class that goes from 3:30-6. As soon as the school activated our emergency warning (pretty much a glorified phone tree system), I started getting calls and emails from my students, wondering if we would still have class (for an hour or so). The answer was 'no' so that meant I was free to go frolic in the snow!

Never thought I'd get a Snow Day in graduate school, the last one I had was nearly six years ago in high school. To take full advantage of the snow I decided to do something a little crazy, I walked the mile from my El stop rather than taking the bus like I normally do. While my hair and coat ended up getting soaked from the snow I had a good time taking pictures with my iphone, crunching through the fresh snow and watching other Chicagoans out playing with their kids or dogs. Have to savor the 'pure' snow while it lasts as it will quickly turn into treacherous ice, piles of grimy blackness and the worst for shoes-- slush puddles of death that wait for you on the curbs of sidewalks. Have ruined more than one pair of boots by going through a slush puddle that had disguised itself to look like the surface of the road. :(