Windy City, Indeed!

You know how I can tell that the Cubs may actually go to a World Series this year? Because the world here tried to end last night. And you just know that the two events would have to go hand-in-hand. You see, 100 years ago, The Baseball Gods made a decision -- no Cubs to the World Series...ever.

And they are angry about this First Place thing.

It got a little crazy last night as our Eduoard wanna-be storm came through. Our city was a disco-tech of lightening, strobing to where it nearly hurt to look outside. Then the rain -- you know you're in trouble when it blows both horizontally and back up. And the wind -- 70mph!

As U-Dad was putting Urban Kid 2 to bed, U-Kid 1 was watching (aka: being distracted from the psychotic storm outside by) a cooking show. The Emergency Broadcast Thingy knocked the DVR off three times, specifically mentioning Lakeview in it's robotic, staticky voice. In the seven years that we've lived at this address, we've never had a power outage, but I felt the need to gather flashlights and candles. Then WHUMP, darkness! Being her first power outage, U-Kid 1 freaked hard.

I went to U-Dad and informed him that 1.)it was raining back up, 2.) the emergency sirens were wailing - much like his firstborn, and 3.) you noticed it's dark inside now too, right?

Off we went to the basement. After a few minutes of "there-there's" to U-Kid 1, I finally growled at her to quiet down already! All I could hear was her wailing, and I wanted to listen for the sound of a train. And no, I don't mean the el. 'Cause if I heard the sound of a train, we were going to scramble for another section of the basement -- a storage locker with two concrete walls and no windows. At which point, U-Kid 1 and I could begin a duet of wailing.

Meanwhile, Wrigley's stands were evacuated and everyone hustled into the concourse.

They even locked the gates so that no idiot could say, "what's a little rain?" and head out to the street. 'Cause you know there's one in every crowd.

As the winds lightened up, we came back upstairs. My battery-powered shower radio told us that it could be *gulp* days before the power was back on. So how did we cope? By eating all of these

from the defunct freezer. Bummer there wasn't a pint of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream in there, huh?

This morning, I learned that our gas gizmos -- namely, the stove and hot water heater -- have electric ignitors for the pilot lights.

Thank God this place, just at the corner, DID have power:

I learned from Mike the Landlord that we are on the same transformer as the public school on the same corner. And it was out of power too. And it's on some sort of City Super Duper Priority List when the power goes out. So our lights (and TV and computer and hot water heater and stove and refrigerator and freezer and radio and land-line telephones -- and a/c!!) were all back on this afternoon.

Stocking up on these

probably help speed things up too, huh?

If the Cubs actually go to the World Series, I'm thinking of boarding up the windows. And if they actually win the damn thing? I'll be blogging from under the desk, I imagine. And I'm assuming that we can kiss the car good-bye.

On a completely different note, sorry to go so long between posts -- out of town guests for four nights who stayed in the same room as the computer. (i keep telling the u-dad that we should have gone laptop!) Then, y'know, the Angry Baseball Gods thing. Hoping to get back into a regular schedule!