Mrs. Mike vs. Snowmageddon 2011

One of my favorite novels growing up was Mrs. Mike. Set in the early 1900s, it's the story of spirited city girl Katherine Mary who falls in love with hunky Mountie Sergeant Mike Flannigan and travels with him to the great Canadian north to "set up their homestead." Think Little House on the Prairie only with blizzards, bears, deadly mosquitoes, a three-month journey by dogsled to the nearest civilization, mountain men who unhesitatingly abuse their "half-breed" women and "savages" who needed teaching and taming. (Hardly PC, but fabulous all the same.) When I got married and became my very own version of Mrs. Mike, I was tickled. I had daydreams about my future kids' little friends calling me by that beloved name when they came over to hang out after school. (A la: "Thanks for making us Bagel Bites, Mrs. Mike!") OK, seeing that in print, it's so much dorkier than it was in my head. Whatever. Anyway, this week, with the appearance of Snowmageddon 2011, I had another kind of Mrs. Mike moment. Holy St. Patrick (as Katherine Mary would say) did it snow. I honestly thought the media was sensationalizing a bad weather story, but they were right on. Since I didn't have to fear for my life like Kathy would have, this Mrs. Mike had an absolute blast.

This week's Gold Stars go to:
*Our honest-to-goodness snow day: Mike's office closed on Wednesday as did Kellogg both Tuesday and Wednesday nights. So we enjoyed our first bonafide snow day since we were teenagers. It rocked. We even made a snowman on our patio. His name is Harvey and, if I don't say so myself, he's awesome. One of my favorite memories so far in our new house.

*Urban Skiing: We took a walk when the snow let up and actually saw...wait for it...people cross country skiing down a side street. You definitely don't see that every day in Chicago.

*Solidarity: As good of a day as Wednesday was, Thursday was just one massive black dot. No Internet, a distractingly pent-up little dog and me walking in circles in knee-deep snow, slippery slush and below freezing temps in an effort to find a neighborhood coffee shop with an empty chair and working Wi-Fi. Good Lord, nothing was going my way. I finally found a place with a vacant easy chair, ignored the fact that it was wedged inconveniently between two other occupied chairs, ordered an off-diet mocha and two cookies, asked one of my two intensely concentrating neighbors to move, yet again, to let me back into my corner, set up my laptop and plopped down with a sigh. Only then did I realize that this coffee shop, too, was without Internet. A loud gasp of frustration escaped me. I was trapped and about to blow. Angry, belligerent, out-of-control Jen was about to make an appearance. The woman to my right suddenly looked up and gave me a rueful smile. "I know what you mean," she said in a confidential whisper. "If that woman over there doesn't stop talking on her phone...I mean, I don't want to sound grumpy, but what does she think this is? Her living room?!" In spite of my own grumpiness, I had to laugh. I wasn't the only one having a craptastic day. Misery loves company.