It's like thunder, lightening...

We had some impressive weather here in Chicago last night. Even in a town given to highs (102 degrees on our first wedding anniversary) and lows (we've seen raw temps below zero, wind chills below -20 degrees), it's not every day you get to hear a tornado siren sound. Especially in downtown Chicago. I just always assumed a tornado couldn't make it through the city with the building density and such. I was right, to an extent, in that later reports said there were no actual cyclones spotted, but it was a little Oz-like nonetheless. In late evening, the sky clouded over, and the nice people in the TV showed us the rain pelting down on Wrigley Field (several miles north of our apartment) before it ever reached us. But then things started moving a little more quickly. A city tornado siren sounded ominously. Rain poured, and lightening seemed to light up the sky every two or three seconds, with almost no time for thunder. (Wes and his father were, mind you, at this point out on our balcony -- on the 13th story.) It was around the time Wes actually heard what sounded like a twister that he decided we should relocate to the ground floor of our building -- which is happily surrounded by buildings taller than it. My wondering as to whether anyone else would do the same was answered when we reached the lobby -- and found half our hallway (most of whom have infants or dogs or both) already there. The babies had been wakened from bedtime in their cribs to go somewhere safer, and the dogs were playing with leashes still attached. The menfolk would periodically step outside to "get a better look" while the women sat and chatted about teething and bumpers and the like. Lucy, per Wes's decision, was left upstairs. Without any thunder, she was unresponsive to the nasty weather (though she did spread some of Paul's dirt around the apartment while we were gone).

After about 30 minutes it seemed like the worst had passed and we came back up. The weather channel showed lightening strikes around Chicago, and the whole map was absolutely covered. This morning, it's slowly clearing -- and heating -- up.

The saddest part of the whole event was that it cut the Cubs game short, which meant the Astros took the win 2-0 in eight innings. The Cubbies could've pulled through in the ninth -- really.