Just how cold is it?

If there is one thing people in the Chicagoland area can agree on, it is that we are sick of the weather.
Sick of the snow. 
Sick of the ice.
Sick of the slush.
Sick of the snow blower and shovel.
Sick of the slush freezing into more ice.
Sick of the salt-shortage stories.
Sick of the record-breaking snowfalls and temperatures.
Winter is not one category that I care to win a competition in.
Those of you hoping we will soon surpass the third snowiest winter statistics, get a hold of yourselves.
Watch what you wish for.
For those of you keeping track of our record-setting sub-zero days, knock it off.
Isn't one sub-zero day enough?
The only upside to the cold side of Chicago, is that crime drops.
Remember when the weather was on the 8s on the Weather Channel and at the 18-minute mark of the local news?
Now it is the lead, it is the center, it is the topic that makes the sports crew cram results into agate-sized air time.
Weather is breaking news. Something I don't understand since the TV stations forecast the impending storms for days before it becomes breaking news.
When we moved here 17 years ago from Florida, people thought we were crazy. My husband's former employer thought I was joking when I asked for a team of huskies and a full-length fur coat as part of our relocation package. After this gray, cold, snowy winter I am beginning to believe I am going crazy.
Life goes on in Chicagoland when it is winter. People here don't clear off the grocery store shelves for a two-day event like they do on the East Coast. Here they shovel paths to their barbecue grills.
While growing up in Philadelphia, schools closed on the first inch or two in a forecast (maybe because we walked to and from school back then). Our local schools here have closed a record four times this year. My friend Lynne in Virginia said her daughter has had more snow days since she moved there than Lynne, a native Chicagoan, had in her entire life.
Virginians, like Pennsylvanians, run to get bread and milk in the house just in case the weather would strand them.
My mom, before moving into assisted living and then passing away a year ago, was one of the worst offenders of that panic purchasing. She didn't even drink milk, but would have my sister or someone else rushing out, to make sure she had milk in the house.
You do not want milk, or a ton of other perishable provisions, in the house if you are going to lose power for a few days. My sister just found that out when she was plunged into polar darkness for nearly a week in her suburban Philly home.
Another perk of living in the Chicagoland area is you can keep your groceries in the car for hours while driving around or even days if the power goes out. Don't try that in Orlando. Even in winter (it was going to be 85 degrees there today).
While the weather here is killing the retail economy, travel agents are all a flutter. Despite our major airport canceling 7.5 percent of its flights this winter, people are getting out of Dodge. Why they have come back is beyond me.
My husband and I will make another attempt to visit friends in Arizona later this month. Our first plan to escape the weather here for a weekend, was foiled three weeks ago by a plane cancellation. I had the optimistic pedicure and everything packed when the flight notice came in that afternoon. Ironically, not a flake or flurry going on here or in Scottsdale that day. But the weather around the rest of the country mucked up our departure.
The airline called it an equipment problem. Maybe the equipment was snowed in on the East Coast and the aircraft could not get into Chicago.
Guaranteed blizzard later this month when we attempt to escape for Scottsdale II.
My friends in Florida, who have done periodic health checks on us this winter without making jokes about the weather, have offered to host us. We just have not been able to get there.
One of my dear friends asked what I've been doing to stay sane. I recently traded my Sebring Convertible for a new SUV so we can get over the end of the driveway, where the snowplows sock you in.
Even when it is cold and gray you have to get out of your house for fresh air. Sometimes I go out to get the mail. I have been going to the fitness center and Starbucks.
I drink a lot of coffee (decaf because my eyes have been twitching), I watch too much TV. I read, I nap, I snack, I have become a house cat. Sometimes I write.
Today my friend D and I went for a reflexology massages. Her birthday gift to me. It was a good way to get the circulation going and got me away from the house. I don't think I would have enjoyed the outing if I had been sweaty. It was a good plan to go on a day when you were numb walking into the business.
Yesterday, while eating fantastic charred grilled cheese sandwiches (just like the ones I make at home) and homemade soup (is there a better winter lunch?), at my friend Sarah's house, we made an executive decision to get out of her house, pick up our friend Joan, and go to the movies.
Twisted: Went to see a sing-along version of "Frozen." Just wasn't cold enough outside.
We were the only three people in the theater. We watched most of the credits before forcing ourselves to go back outside to the car.
Breaking news: It may hit 40 degrees here tomorrow.
Sad news: It could snow again Saturday.

#KillTheGroundhog

Those of you who know me, know I would never really hurt an innocent animal (mice and snakes in the house, are an exception).
The Groundhog has got to go.
Stand down PETA! You are dealing with a woman who just doesn't want another six weeks of winter. A woman who wrenched her back this morning while learning to use a snow blower (because she should not be shoveling), so that she could make a much-needed haircut appointment.
Made it up and back on a handful of Advil and sat down to write this before a muscle relaxer does its magic.
I had already been thinking about the need for the big rodent's demise before the Chicagoland area got 50-plus inches of snow and started to refer to the Polar Vortex as the new state of the union.
The additional 6-8 inches that socked in our already shrinking driveway today only added to my frustration. Worst winter in memory (of course I did get to live in Florida for 18 years, where a hard frost is a reason to panic) . 
When we moved to the Midwest from Orlando 17 years ago, one of my new friends here couldn't believe it and would call me after every first snowflake to question why we moved here.
Weather aside, it has been a great relocation for our family. 
My real Florida friends have also stopped calling me between blizzards to see how the weather is up here.
That not-so-new-anymore Chicagoland friend now knows better than to rub in the weather. A hardy native, she is also willing to hunt down the groundhog.
Punxatawney (Pa.) Phil, in all his furry glory, "saw his shadow" on another gray overcast Feb. 2-day and sentenced us to six more miserable weeks of the weather that has packed an extra 15-20 pounds on a lot of my stay-at-home friends. My neighbor told me her Weight Watcher friend said she is suffering from "Polar Vortex eating." I feel her pain.
Couldn't have been the fact they woke Phil from his snug burrow and surrounded him with inquiring minds and intrusive cameras and lights that sent him down under for another six weeks?
My hairstylist and confidant pointed out that she heard the groundhog only had a 48% accuracy rate. Professional meteorologists at AccuWeather find Phil has only a 80 percent accuracy rate. NOAA National Climatic Data Center claims Phil has no prediction skills at all.
I am glad to see this is being researched and debated by finer weather watchers than I.
Several other groundhogs compete with the Pennsylvania prognosticator each year. In Washington DC they use Potomac Phil, a stuffed stand in, to make their own winter prediction. This does not surprise me.
I had to cancel my coffee group coming over for coffee and conversation this afternoon because of my back pain. Too bad they won't get to see my great haircut. Most of them were already out and about running errands and carrying on as the people around here do, despite the weather. It takes more than a few feet of snow to stop Chicagoans.
That is unless O'Hare shuts down.
My sister and 600,000 fellow Philadelphians are suffering without power right now. Might not be back up for a couple of days with all the downed trees and power lines.
A neighbor helped her exhume her car from the garage and she is hoping to get a train into the city to get a shower and be closer to her office for work tomorrow. You don't want to know what she has been texting me about the groundhog.
You know that expression let sleeping dogs… ? Next year let's let sleeping groundhogs do the same.