Serena's story

Jane,

Today, November 8, 2008, is the first truly cold day of the winter that, plus posting on this blog, has me thinking of my first winter in Chicago in 2000. I am from the West Coast and I could not believe how cold it was here. I was truly shocked and surprised because I didn't know that it could get that cold outside of the North Pole. I remember one night waiting for the bus near the lake after working a fancy holiday party at a fancy house on Lake Shore. Somehow, serving food to people who had hired a bartender, server and piano player for a party of 10 people and then walking out to wait and wait and wait in the freezing cold, made the cold worse. They were literally sitting cozily around the fire and there the bartender and I were, waiting for the Sheridan bus in the howling wind, waiting for a bus that felt like it was never going to come. 

Today I found a quote online from a University of Chicago student who was working in Antarctica that same week in December 2000. She said, "The more I hear about the weather in Chicago, the more guilty I feel about being away in Antarctica. Reports include bone-chilling temperatures combined with lots and lots of snow." 

Finding that quote today was vindicating. It really was cold, colder than it has been since. I learned several things that winter. One, there are people with more money than they can use and two, layers are really, really important and three) never wait for the Sheridan bus. It never does come.