Save Yourself, Serve Yourself

Standing ON Lake Michigan after the blizzard subsided

Snowpocalypse has hit Chicago, and it is good. This morning, although it's sunny, the roads are still impassable, cars are covered with snow, and schools, universities, and places of business are canceled or closed for a second day. The windchill, overnight and today, is supposed to be between -25 and -40 degrees. Needless to say, I'm staying in.

Emily and I, watching the storm roll in on Tuesday night

Yesterday was the first snow day that I'd had in years. Growing up and going to school in a snowy climate meant that school was canceled only for the harshest of storms. So when we found out that everything was canceled, the roommates and I made swift plans for a snowball fight/snowscursion in the nearest park. It was positively amazing. Since the whole city was essentially shut down, people were everywhere, wandering through the streets, playing in the snow, and taking pictures of the crazy world we had all woken up to.

We followed up the snowball fight with a walk out to the lake, just to see what was going on out there. It was nothing short of surreal. Lake Shore Drive has been closed since Tuesday evening, and what is usually an incredibly busy freeway-like thoroughfare was abandoned, except for all the people out walking. And Lake Michigan was a positively unbelievable wasteland of fog and snow. It was so calm, and dark, and never-ending. I've never seen the lake look remotely like this before. Remote was the perfect word for it, actually. The whole world seemed far away from itself, and nothing like the Chicago I've known for three and a half years. It was incredible, and beautiful, and striking in its starkness. And knowing that it was fleeting, and that in a matter of days the city would be running at its usual pace again, made it that much more stunning.

In our insatiable snow-day giddiness, we also started combining every possible word with the prefix "snow-" or "sn-". We had a snancake breakfast, and after returning from our hours out in the madness, trudging through drifts that went easily up to my hip and diving into piles of fluffy white happiness, we realized that we had a bit of a snangover. Snow day hangover.

Sweater: H&M * Pant: Old Navy * Boots: Target * Socks: Target * Belt: thrifted

I actually did get dressed for work before the storm hit. I'm glad that some of my 30 for 30 picks are so winter appropriate, since I walked home from work in an almost complete white-out while wearing this. So I am on track for my 30 for 30 challenge, though I'm really quite glad that I allowed long  underwear, snowboots, and outerwear to be an exception (a snowception?) to the rule. Though the pants I wore for our snowball fight were one of my 30 pieces, everything else I had on was a combination of long underwear, breathable wool, and outerwear.

How did you all survive the snurricane/snownado/snowpocalypse/snizzard of Groundhog Day 2011? And whaddaya think? Six more weeks of winter? Seems likely.

Walking down a deserted Lake Shore Drive

Title song: R.E.M., "(It's the) End of the World (as we know it)"