West Zimbabwe, Chicago

The good Lord must have been in a crappy mood when he created Chicago.

I have endured days of snow, ice, single-digit temperatures, digging myself into parking spaces, and out again. I have slipped and I have slid on foot and in car. Another blizzard is blowing in tonight. I have had it with this miserable, horrible, plain old yucky weather.

To make matters worse, we pay outrageous sales taxes and the highest gas taxes (or at least prices) in the country, yet our corrupt and incompetent government doesn't see snow removal as a very high priority, unless it's an election year. I drove around my neighborhood for half an hour last night trying to find a parking space not being reserved by lawn furniture. And you thought Blagojevich was bad? You're doin' a heckuva job, Daley!

But our politicians aren't as bad as the anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi sleaze who went on a spree this past Shabbat, vandalizing the synagogues in our neighborhood with graffiti and throwing bricks through their windows. I had fantasies of returning the favor coupled with shudders of fear, thinking of my own children's safety.

How did my husband ever talk me into this? Chicago is what Africa would be if it were a thousand miles further North: a snowbound banana republic. G-d merely snickers at my prayers. "You think this is cold, bubbelah? I'll show you cold!"

I really lost my patience this morning when I drove into Skokie for a HipHop Aerobics class (don't ask). Every street in Skokie was plowed, including the sides of the street where people might park were all buildings and homes in Skokie not graced with actual off-street parking spots. The sidewalks were all plowed, too. I drove back to my side of town, returning to streets lined with mounds of black snow piles large enough to swallow the cars of anyone foolish enough to stay parked on a main street when the plows went by.

Main streets get plowed in Chicago, not the side streets where most people live without garages. Residents must shovel their cars out of their parking spaces, and shovel their way back in. Most Chicagoans shovel out their own parking spots and leave lawn furniture there to mark their hard-fought territory. We had the misfortune of parking in a spot that had a piece of lawn furniture removed by someone else. An angry man with a pregnant wife showed up at our door requesting we get out of "his" spot.

I suppose I should be thankful people here don't carry machetes or Kalashnikovs here. If they don't plow soon, it may come to that.

I was so mad about the whole situation I called my state representative, who was probably too busy trying to impeach the governor; and my alderman, who was probably in hiding, lest we come after him with pitchforks. If I had one, I would. I expressed my concern as a highly pissed-off constituent to the aide who answered the phone, and then really let him have it when he blamed the mayor.

What good are any of yous? I asked in my best Chicagoese.

I'm trying to embrace the winter, as my husband suggests. He thinks if I enjoy a few days on the slopes, parking in my neighborhood of West Zimbabwe won't be so unbearable. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around that logic.

I'll admit we did have a wonderful time on winter break in the glorious Wisconsin Dells. It was great just to get out of the crazy city. We made a point to get all major tasks out of the way beforehand, in order to truly enjoy a relaxed break together.

And it was relaxing. For four days and three nights I didn't set foot into a kitchen. I didn't cook, I didn't clean, and I didn't have to think of a million and one ingenious ways to keep my children entertained. I just went along for the ride, sometimes careening down the side of a snowy hill in an innertube.

The greatest challenge I faced on the inner tube was dragging the kids up the slope in boots that kept my feet warm, but had zero traction. We made it up thanks to the kindness of strangers, and my kids enjoyed a great science lesson about friction and gravity.

The best part of the trip for my son was learning how to ski. During grad school, I went with some friends up to New Hampshire and took skiing lessons for a day. Despite being a strong-limbed athlete, I never got the hang of it. But my husband and I thought it would be a grand opportunity for our nine year old boy. We signed him up for a private lesson, while my husband got in a few warm-up runs. He took to it like a real champ, and was swooshing down the medium level hills in no-time, red-faced and exhilarated.

We repeated the indoor water park one day, but mostly kicked back and relaxed with new friends.

The vacation culminated in a New Years Eve party for the kids, and a separate one for the adults.

My hubby and I dropped of our little party-animals,

and snuck out to catch a movie, making it back just in time for the last dance or two. I dragged my husband, kicking and screaming, onto the dance floor, and then we picked up the exhausted and elated kids and called it a night. My baby was so tired, she fell out of bed in the middle of the night with a big, loud THUD, and slept on.

And like all good times, it was over way too fast. We hung on to the last day or two of our winter break the best we could. I took my kids and a dear friend of ours to the Field museum on the last day before school started.

We made a beeline for the children's play lab and got there in the nick of time before they closed.

We explored parts of the museum I hadn't seen yet, like the underground tunnels,

the gem room and a South Pacific Island exhibit that looked at life on a small island, which apparently, is much harder to survive than you'd imagine.

That it, of course, unless you've tried to park on the snowy streets of Chicago.