SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A brief break between engagement party blogs

One must have a mind of winter....

Last night, I lay at the bay window of my Chicago hotel room, upside down, and watched the snow rage down. The way the flurries were lit up by the sodium lamps made the lamps look as if they were surrounded by billowing white skirts. At times, the wind was so powerful it howled around the hotel making the snow fall up rather than sideways or down and sometimes the whole window went white. It was gorgeous. On the way here in the service bus, we saw a small baby rabbit rush into the snow drifts.  One of the women on the bus with a strong Jersey accent lamented 'It's real sad.'

So I arrive in Chicago almost to the minute that the most intense storm in decades descends. There are warnings of tornados, 'thunder snow', sixty mile per hour winds, blackouts. I love storms. And I love the way these kinds of minor disasters create this camaraderie, a kind of bubble society of the people trapped together. The people at the airport were extremely helpful, rushing out into the storm to see if our bus had arrived. They set up hotel reservations for us, gave us vouchers for reduced price--sometimes American service can be the best in the world--after years of dealing with foreigners and living in foreign countries where the US is almost always an object of criticism, it's nice to come home and feel proud of something.  The Turks are fantastic hosts. We are fantastic service providers--usually.

And there's an American style of camaraderie with strangers that I like.  On the bus, everyone was talking up a storm (ahem!), cracking jokes, and making plans to have dinner together--me, a the New Jersey accented woman who, as it turned out, lived in LA; an old Texan farmer and a Mexican American business man all hanging out together...