The snow has started.  They\’re predicting gusts up to 50 mph and 4 to 10 inches of snow, but most of what will be to the south of us if the weather reports are to be trusted.   It\’s started to snow now, which you can\’t really tell in the foreground but that hazy bit down the alley shows it better.  The alley isn\’t usually this strewn with trash, but the wind has been hellish the last few days and blows all sorts of crap everywhere.  It\’s got to drive property owners nuts, because no sooner do you clean it, than it\’s littered again.  Grr.

Weather is strange.  It\’s one of those things we can\’t change, but we like to bitch about it just the same.  \”It\’s snowing!\”  It\’s February.  In Chicago.  \”It\’s cold today!\”  It\’s Winter.  In Chicago.  I\’d be more worried if those two things weren\’t happening at this time of year in this town.  No, this isn\’t a rant about global warming, though that is a rant that needs to be had and a problem that faces all of us who live on planet Earth, but my point about the weather is that it is out of our control.  If ever there was an answer to \”Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,\” weather\’s it.

So I take pictures of it.  I like weather, by and large, because it reminds me I\’m a physical body, not just keyboard operating fingers attached to a brain, and I have to wear clothes and make sure that I\’m fed and have emergency supplies if we get snowed in.  (And, while I\’m on that subject, how come I never get snowed in?  I want a snow day, damn it!)

What about you, Dear Reader?  What are your favorite weather coping strategies?