Ice, baby!

Remember when I said Chicagoans are the nicest people around? Well, I'd like to take a step back from that. They are nice in general, but not when it comes to sidewalks.

It's been snowing on and off now since December. And the last few weeks have produced more than a foot of snow, and the temperature has spent very little time above freezing. It's usually closer to 0° to 10°F lately. I'm fine with that. I've got long underpants and thick socks and soup.

But the home/business owners who never bothered to clear their sidewalks of snow are now protected by Death Moats of Ice. A Death Moat of Ice is an area covered with a layer of ice about 3-inches thick and slippery as fuck, where there used to be a sidewalk. And my neighborhood is chock full of Death Moats of Ice. Between the train station and my house, there are several entire blocks that are unpassable, mostly due to one apartment complex full of old people that hasn't cleared snow all winter. I think they're just trying to keep the oldies inside.

The Tribune had an article today about more and more people going to the ER with ice-related injuries. (This is after ice fell off skyscrapers and hit people on the head earlier in the winter, mind you.) It's really fucking dangerous out there, especially at night when there's a fresh layer of snow on top of the ice and you have no idea which step will turn you horizontal like Daniel Stern in Home Alone.

We actually saw a guy in running gear the other day. Never mind the fact that he had shorts on at 12°, but all he was doing was slowly trying to navigate the Death Moats of Ice. There was no running going on. You have to be super careful on that stuff in shorts, cause once you slip and your upper thigh touches the ice and sticks, you're going nowhere until April.

That's it. Just wanted to let you know how much colder and dangerous-er it is here.