Saturday, March 15, 2003
I wish I had something wonderfully profound to write today, but I don't. I'm simply besotted with bliss because today is the first spring day we've had in Chicago - temps in the 60's, sunshine, thumping bassbeats and cooing pigeons on every street. We'll probably get another blizzard next week, but who cares. Today, it's spring, and I've been waiting six months for it.
Barely managed to escape downtown Chicago this morning, as all the main streets are blocked off for the traditional Saint Patrick's Day parade - the one you saw in The Fugitive (and the Chicago Hilton in the South Loop that was in the movie, too). Since I don't like my beer green, don't care for massive crowds in this Age of Terrorism, and generally don't enjoy having to wash someone else's puke off my sneakers, I won't be going to the parade.
Would you believe the city dyes the river green for this momentous occasion?
I put on a CD I haven't listened to for years - Zenyatta Mondatta by the Police - and close my eyes, letting the afternoon sun gently burn red through my eyelids. The windows are open, and the air smells of a tantalizing mixture of mud, grass, exhaust and meaty smoke from the diner down the street.
It's springtime in Chicago. Let it be.
