"PAINT A VULGAR PICTURE"

11pm- Think, I'm so tired, I think I'm actually going to be able to skip the insomnia schtick tonight and get some real sleep. Ahhhh. Write Jewcy post. Scowl at shower that still doesn't work and be glad I showered at Baby Neptune's earlier in the day.

Midnight- In bed.

1am- Just barely begin to drift off when I'm jolted awake by WHHHHHPOOM! CLINK CLINK CLINK! Which sounded like the union of a cannon, wrecking ball and construction site. I jump to the window and see not one but three maybe four water main and sewer covers spewing water. I have to admit, it's kind of a spectacular to watch my street turn into rapids with chunks of ice.


1:20am- Fret that the water has risen so very high and is threatening my car. Contemplate running outside to move car, watch neighbor with the same idea attempt to leap over the water (which has now risen high enough to cover the sidewalks on both sides of the street and is splashing against our buildings) and land in calf-deep ice water. Decide maybe moving car is a bad idea.


1:35am- Watch neighbor parked a few cars ahead of me rush out in wellies to move her very tiny car. She gets a few feets and the car dies and gets towed away. I begin rethinking my plan to let my car stay put. Then, think that maybe letting it sit in high but still-ish water is better than moving it even for a minute through sloshing water and return to thinking moving car is a bad idea. Send out a slew of text messages and Twitter tweets in hopes someone else is awake who can validate this idea I have.

2am- Exchange a few text messages, get my idea validation, watch the pretty snow falling, feel solid in plan to leave car, especially after remembering I'm insured for replacement value, flop back into bed. Reassure cat who has very perker up ears and very wide eyes at this scene. Look out at the snow falling, and though my window is up too high to see the vehicles parked onthe street below, I watch the lights from the CTA, I-DOT, I-DOT snow plows, police, fire, EMT (why?), City of Chicago, tow trucks, reflecting off the snow as it falls and it looks like disco snow and that made me laugh to think about flashing disco snow. Vehicles leave one by one, though the water is still going everywhere and the street looks like a river. Somehow drift off.


3am- Awaken to metal on metal THUNK THUNK THUNK then KA-PEW and there is suddenly water pouring from my shower and tub. Okay! A working shower, sweet. Realize the drainpipe is still frozen, bail this water into the sink, leave it dripping, flop back into bed.

9am- Take an actual shower with hot water in my own shower. Bail water into sink. Sigh.

10am- Realize that a water main broke several blocks north, causing a large area of sidewalk to fall in on itself, cars to fall in and wash away and that my flooded street was the least of the city's worries. Big time.