three and a half

Three and a half.

The temperature last night was -12. So when I arose this morning, excited at the prospects of our predicted rise in temperature up above zero at some point today, I was disheartened to see that the morning sunlight ushered in a temperature at -17 with windchills in around -34.

So after warming the car up for 30 minutes (whirrr whirrr--"c'mon! turn over, turn over, turn over"--purrrrrrrrrrrr.), the girls and I ventured out into the Chicago Tundra. Because Chicago Public Schools never close. I joked the other day that it could be the apocalypse and CPS would not call off school.

So Jada and I dropped Zoe off at daycare and proceeded to my beloved Lakeshore Drive to make the 110-block trip to her northside school. We noticed only a few ducks perched on the ice today. Approaching 63rd Street Beach: WHAT'S THIS?!?! SOMEONE EXERCISE-WALKING ALONG THE PATH? Are you nuts. Then I noticed a car pulling out from the parking lot...WTF?!

Later we saw two more avid runners (read: fools) out there. I just can't for the life of me figure out why someone wouldn't wake up on a day like today and say, "ya know, maybe I oughtta skip that run this morning."

Weird thing is, a few days ago when it was hovering in the single digits ABOVE zero, we didn't see a soul out there.

So three and a half runners/walkers. The half, we reason, is the person leaving the parking lot.

p.s. I got a Chicago Tribune email alert when the temperature flirted with zero. Only to read that shortly after breaking the surface, we have since slipped back down into subzero temps.