There are some things I don't miss about California.
Most of them, actually.
When I first told people I was moving to Chicago, they acted very much as though the sky had fallen, taking out their childhood home and a few bunnies for good measure. "You can't go!" they said. "It SNOWS there!"
And so it does. Sometimes quite a bit. And occasionally, when it's, let's just say, April, and spring is just refusing to come out of its hole, and winter is still hanging out all ha ha, I gots the comfy chair and I ain't movin', and oh bring me some pretzels while you're up, then I feel a little bit nostalgic for a land where people get teary-eyed over a little rain.
When I first moved here the first order of business was to find a good winter coat (note: I moved here in May. I like to be prepared). I remember telling a friend of mine, a lifelong Midwesterner, that I had a coat for when it was just a little cold, like 50 degrees, but I needed something for when it got colder than that. She laughed. "Fifty? You don't need a coat when it's FIFTY!" I thought that was crazy talk at the time, but now five years later I wear that 50 degree coat all the way through winter, and the bulky coat hangs out in storage. When it actually gets to fifty I put on flip flops.
There are lots of reasons why I love Chicago. The weather is actually one of those reasons; few things are more gratifying than the first really warm day after a long winter. Everyone gets a little crazy, and rightfully so. It's something everyone should have a chance to experience - a temperate climate just does not deliver the same level of awesome. The snow is really cool before I get sick of it (usually by January). And annoying as it can be, there is something very real and concrete about Chicago. Scraping ice off your car window. Pee wafting through the air on a warm summer day. The shriek and grind of the El.
I was even pleasantly surprised to find that you could find produce in the city. Produce! Like, tomatoes and peaches all, and not even in cans! That caused me to reexamine some of the ideas I had long held regarding all of those flyover states.
There's definitely something to be said for being in the middle of it all.
When I first told people I was moving to Chicago, they acted very much as though the sky had fallen, taking out their childhood home and a few bunnies for good measure. "You can't go!" they said. "It SNOWS there!"
And so it does. Sometimes quite a bit. And occasionally, when it's, let's just say, April, and spring is just refusing to come out of its hole, and winter is still hanging out all ha ha, I gots the comfy chair and I ain't movin', and oh bring me some pretzels while you're up, then I feel a little bit nostalgic for a land where people get teary-eyed over a little rain.
When I first moved here the first order of business was to find a good winter coat (note: I moved here in May. I like to be prepared). I remember telling a friend of mine, a lifelong Midwesterner, that I had a coat for when it was just a little cold, like 50 degrees, but I needed something for when it got colder than that. She laughed. "Fifty? You don't need a coat when it's FIFTY!" I thought that was crazy talk at the time, but now five years later I wear that 50 degree coat all the way through winter, and the bulky coat hangs out in storage. When it actually gets to fifty I put on flip flops.
There are lots of reasons why I love Chicago. The weather is actually one of those reasons; few things are more gratifying than the first really warm day after a long winter. Everyone gets a little crazy, and rightfully so. It's something everyone should have a chance to experience - a temperate climate just does not deliver the same level of awesome. The snow is really cool before I get sick of it (usually by January). And annoying as it can be, there is something very real and concrete about Chicago. Scraping ice off your car window. Pee wafting through the air on a warm summer day. The shriek and grind of the El.
I was even pleasantly surprised to find that you could find produce in the city. Produce! Like, tomatoes and peaches all, and not even in cans! That caused me to reexamine some of the ideas I had long held regarding all of those flyover states.
There's definitely something to be said for being in the middle of it all.
posted by Bathtub Mary at 11:01 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home