Snow....snow....snow!!!!!

You know the line in "White Christmas" with Bing Crosby and the four of them (two men and two women) are on the train singing? At the end, they sing snow, snow, snow, snow in unison?Well, Scott and I have really been singing that today. We flew into Chicago November 30 - the morning prior to the BIG first Winter Storm of the season! And yes, it was a true winter storm and we got our taste of heavy snow. This morning in the very early hours, at one point, it was snowing and thunder/lightning which we thought was hysterical! We sat in our apartment which is completely windows from floor to ceiling and watched it pour down like crazy. Then we decided, what the heck! We are here, let's go out in it! We studied some maps and bundled up and headed for the red train, which is the underground subway system. We had to take it South out of the city and catch the #55 bus East bound to the Museum of Science and Industry. Well, we found the red train and we got on it. Well .... how do I say this ..... hmmmm..... okay. We are very, VERY white. I sat next to a woman who was shaking and she proceeded to tell me how she is homeless and been riding the system all night. Did I have any money so she could get off at Jackson and get some Church's Chicken? I told her I could probably help her. Of course, I had no cash. She asked again waiting for me to just hand her some money. So I asked her why didn't she go to a shelter? They wouldn't take her. It was too full. So as I sat there watching her head shaking and under controlled convulsion, I asked her when her next fix was. She was very high and you could smell the liqueur on her. She told me she has a nervous condition. I wanted to say, "ya think???" Scott had the money and he was standing hanging on for dear life as this subway is hurtling down the tracks at what felt like 60 miles an hour crammed between about 15 people. She got off at Jackson........It started to clear out at each stop. Another lady stands and starts talking very loud ..... yelling ..... she is homeless and just needs some money for food. Not a whole lot, just a little ... anything is fine ... if not, she has God and that is all she needs ... I waited to see if how people would respond and most would not even look at her. You know what the hard part was? We wanted to help. But what do you do when the whole train is full? I wished I had bags of food to just give out ... so many are high ... money will just feed the craving and not the need. It felt very helpless and very sad. We got to our stop at Garfield to catch the bus. That was another experience. We stood outside with it pouring down snow for 15 minutes after waiting 10 minutes in the wrong spot!!! We are so stupid :) We got on and at this point, I had lost feeling in my feet so it didn't matter. I sat next to this guy - he was toasty and very nice. He used to live in Tampa at McDill. Stop, go, stop, go. More get on, more get off. You have no idea how many people depend on the CTA to get around. The bell keeps ringing on the bus ... men in the back are telling them to turn the bell off .... irritably at best. We finally arrived at the Museum of Science and Industry. It was very neat ... watched a movie about how we all came from bacteria 8,730 feet below sea level because they found fossils from some thingy that is billions of years old and the earth is some star smaller than the sun that crusted over. Yep, it was herecy. So I disagreed with it the whole time out loud. We had lunch and saw 150 frogs. It really was fun ... I would love to take the kids at some point. We leave and decide taxi???? Nah .... let's do the system all over again! Now we know what we are doing! We catch the bus ... more stopping and going. Now lots of kids are getting on after school. We get to our stop to catch the train. We wait in the cold - thank God it stopped snowing. I have a lot of hair to stuff under a hat ... my hair looked ridiculous if you can image. The train comes and we hop on. It wasn't nearly as busy. We sit down ... yep, it happens again. This man moves back and sits down in front of this black girl who has on her headphones. He just keeps looking at her and then he asks her to remove her headphones. He says to her, "you don't mind if I look at you?" She looked like she was all of 16 years old. He had to be in his 50's. She put her headphones back on. He moves to a seat almost in front and sits and just stares and smiles at her. At this point, Scott is hitting my leg because I was ready to tackle him to the ground. He proceeded to take his money out and asks her to remove her headphones again. She did. He says, "You don't mind if I look? I have money." And he flashes his money at her. She puts her headphones on again and starts to make a call. The train stops. Scott looked at me and asked, "should I just throw him off the train right before the doors close?" Hmmmm..... think he has a gun? Trains pulls out ... now he looks at me and starts mumbling something we couldn't even understand. I stared daggers at him the best I could. He kept mumbling and we just looked out the window. I am not sure what I thought we would be doing .... I really didn't know what to expect. He moves back to the girl ... back to us ... and finally he got off. It was bizarre at best. We live in a bubble. And we have no idea what is going on in the world......the sadness, the sin, the evil .... talk later more. Wide-eyed .......