News is where you find it

Watch the news – listen to the weather reports. But look outside, too. What you see is what you get.

But often it’s not what it seems…

Chicago’s all a twitter about its latest blizzard. While the blizzard warning holds until 3 pm today and we may not have seen the worst yet, I figured I’d check out the damages.

I woke fairly late and the sun was obviously trying to make an appearance – oh, no, that groundhog will see his shadow after all!!

Here’s what I saw from my front window:

Ok, So, I can’t see the sidewalk or the lovely bushes we planted to line it. But it could be a lot worse. I figured I’d go out and see, first hand, just how cold it is and how much digging I’d be doing.

Out the back door, where my car is parked, this is what I found…

That’s my car…the second one from the left with the windshield wipers sticking up above the snow!  Looks like I’m going to be home-bound until Spring. Of course, that’s not so bad. I work at home. I’m not particularly anxious about digging out of this. Heck, I lived through the big one. Back in 1967, we had 23″ of snow and the city came to a complete standstill. The reports say this is only the 3rd worst blizzard has seen in recorded history. So it can’t be all that bad, Right?

But wait- there’s another side of this story…Things aren’t always what they seem. I’m not making light of this. It is a serious storm that hit us. And I know reports across the country are reporting horrible impacts on the city. 

But having lived in different parts of the country, and talking with others about how weather is reported, I’ve learned that things aren’t always what they seem. Here’s a perfect example of how news doesn’t always get the whole story.

Shovel out? Hey, I can do this!! Stranded? Not really. Slowed down a bit? You bet!