立冬

It's flurrying again, but I doubt it'll amount to much. We had our first real accumulation of the year on Saturday evening while I was at the opera. It ignored downtown completely. I didn't start seeing signs of accumulation until I was on the North Side (I lucked into catching a 147). Up in our part of Rogers Park, we seem to have gotten about an inch. I was in a contemplative mood, so I got out at Loyola and walked the street down to the Lake and back. Footing was treacherous: it was still warm enough when the snow began falling (monshu told me it started around seven) that it had partially melted and was refreezing. Plus I was wearing my dress shoes, which have some tread, but not much. A shame: there was no wind to speak of and I was warm enough in my cashmere and topcoat to have stayed out much longer.

Perhaps I would've, too, if I'd known how quickly the landscape would change back. The snow lingered on most of the morning and we even though we might see more come as we went to meet Diego and Uncle Betty for lunch. But the early flurries petered out and it warmed up just enough for the dead leaves and dying grass to emerge again. Later, it got nasty. The humidity rose and the wind picked up, so our stroll around the South Loop before the piano recital ended up being something of a bust.

It was late last week that the weather turned, the freezing lows becoming the daytime highs. We actually had a little snow in the night before Friday, but it only collected on areas of bare earth. Coming in this morning, the only remnants I saw of Saturday's fall were on the baseball diamonds in the park at Touhy and the Lake and the rocks between the water and road. Surprisingly, the Bradford pears at the development just before Calvary were just starting to turn, but a hard freeze shrivels even leaves which haven't fallen yet, so they won't be much to look at. Pretty much everything else is stripped to bare branches now. It may get a bit milder later in the week, but winter has arrived and it's not leaving.