You know it's Spring when the cigarette buds start to appear...

Yesterday officially was the first day of spring and we awoke to a light covering of fresh snow and a lovely Google Doodle of a little man (who bears an uncanny resemblance to my other “Super” half) making flowers magically appear from what, to snow-weary Chirish eyes, looks like our backyard until a few days ago.

To be fair, a more realistic doodle of things sprouting from the Chicago snow banks would be cigarette trees, going by the huge number of cigarette butts which have emerged from the melting ice packs on the streets.

So far the only fields of green I’ve seen were the hordes of be-hatted, be-scarfed and be-jewelled St Patrick’s Day revelers who filled the streets last weekend. And yes, the river did look like a psychedelic bed of clover.

But the city is definitely emerging from its winter chrysalis. Along the lake shore, the runners are back, stretching their wings after several months literally spent on a treadmill. And if I, in any way, doubted the Irish heritage of our new home town, the swiftness with which the locals are donning shorts and bareing their legs the minute the temperatures rise above freezing has convinced me that I truly am in Chirish-land.

Perhaps one of the biggest signs for me that Spring is here was a solitary male member of the 'metallus detectoris" species that I spotted yesterday amongst the trees in Lincoln Park. Known for its distinctive high shrieking call, this elusive creature emerges when the snow has finally melted, spending its days wandering the grasslands in the search of materials with which to feather its nest.

This particular specimen may have been a little premature as while the snow may be gone, it would take a metal grinder not a detector to break up the ground. And while this is not a huge issue for those of us with only a small backyard and in no rush to unearth the garden trowels,  for the maintenance teams at the city’s baseball fields, drastic measures are being adopted.

At the US Cellular Field, home to the White Sox, the crew is facing 30 inches of permafrost. If that sounds like some hairdressing salon disaster, the remedy does even more so. Essentially the ground staff are using something akin to a giant hairdryer under a tarpaulin to blow hot air on the frozen pitch in an effort to thaw it out before the season opener on March 31.

From an energy-saving point of view, where are the city's infamous long-winded, full-of-promises politicans when you need 'em! 

Chirish-land shows its true colour - all 40 shades of it....

If we’ve been feeling the effects of global warming over the past few months, at last we’re about to embark on a period of global greening, even if we can’t quite yet see the grass through the snow!

St Patrick’s Day is just around the corner and Chicago is participating in Tourism Ireland’s annual "Global Greening" campaign which sees iconic monuments such as the Sydney Opera House and the Pyramids in Egypt all given the green light. 

Buildings and skyscrapers all over Chirish-land will adopt several of the 40 famous shades (as opposed to 50 infamous ones) in the week running up to next Saturday’s parade and the celebrated dyeing of the Chicago river.

The first thing that pops into your head when you see the Chicago river is that it is green already. Honest, it is. A nice murky, soggy welly-boot, moss-covered-wood-‘cos-it’s been-raining-non-stop-for-two-weeks green. But apparently it gets greener.

The story goes that in 1961 the Business Manager of the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers encountered a workman in Irish green-splattered overalls. He discovered the plumber had been using a green dye to test for waste leakages in the river and the idea for turning the river into an apparent field of clover was born.

The first year, around 100 lbs of dye were used and the "clover" hung around for a week. More recently, worries about possible pollution caused the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers to rethink their dousing and today around 40 lbs of vegetable dye are used, the recipe for which is as closely guarded a secret as Coca Cola. 

The powder dye is actually orange so you just need some white in there and there's the Irish tricolour. Which could be provided this year by floating blocks of ice as we'll only be seeing daytime temperatures climb above freezing in the week before the big event.

Having lived through a few St Paddy’s Days in New York, I’m almost immune now to the luminous-green hats, beads and flashing sunglasses that invade the shops this time of year. The Shamrock Shakes are back at McDonald’s and the supermarkets are pushing corned beef and cabbage (don’t ask). I did have to look up the ingredients for an Irish Car Bomb cocktail as it was a new one on me. Needless to say, it sounds as if it should taste as awful as its tasteless name.

I’ve been warned that the top of our wee road is a no-go area the day of the parade because the rest of the city will have been on the go there since 8am. In particular we’ve been told our go-to local Irish pub, the nicest I’ve been in outside of the Emerald Isle and provider of real Irish bacon, sausages and tea during early morning Premier League football matches, is a very definite no-go-to. 

So we’re planning to give it a miss parade-day and instead slip over there for a quiet dinner and wee drink the following Monday night when all the shenanigans have died down. Why that Monday? Only because it’s actually St Patrick’s Day!

Polar bares and river rabbits

On pain of boring everyone rigid about how frigid it still is here in Chirish-land, the Arctic conditions are at least allowing one upcoming event to live up to its name.

The Polar Plunge is held annually in Chicago to raise funds for the city’s Special Olympics. As the name suggests, it involves a plunge (or a paddle) in the wintry waters of Lake Michigan. Usual attire is a swimsuit and little else, giving a new meaning to polar bare. Last year, the water temperature was a balmy 32 degrees Fahrenheit which is basically freezing in Centigrade. This year, the concern is that it will be frozen – literally.

As of the middle of February, some 88% of the Great Lakes were covered with ice, the highest percentage since the mid-1990s. We had a few days last week when temperatures nudged into the positive column and everything started melting. That was fun. It was a bit like a sunny day in Northern Ireland in the summer. People started wearing shorts and tried to use their BBQs. Except the tops were still frozen over.

But just like summer in Northern Ireland (as in “What did you do last summer?” “Oh, I went to the hairdresser that day”), our “spring” was short-lived and we’re back to Defcon 1 duvet coats and Dangerous Temperature alerts.

Interest in this Sunday’s Polar Plunge is heating up however due to the participation of Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel and comedian Jimmy Fallon. Emanuel was the first on board after promising to take part if Chicago schoolchildren read more than 2 million books in the Summer Learning Challenge.

Fallon, who just took over the Tonight Show this month from Jay Leno, was then lured into signing up after Emanuel promised he would appear on Fallon’s show if he took the plunge. Fallon is now calling himself “Swimmy Fallon” and says he will be wearing a suit and tie. Apparently Emanuel is asking for a recount of the two million books, just in case.

The forecast for Sunday is suitably polar – temperatures of around minus 10 degrees Celsius and snow showers.  But the temperature in the lake is currently around minus 1 so it will actually be warmer in the water.

And at least Swimmy and co won’t have to worry about the giant attacking fish that people have been emailing me about recently. 

That stems from a report Chicago is looking at how to prevent Asian carp overrunning the Great Lakes. The carp, introduced to the southern US in the 1970s to keep catfish ponds clean, are now in public waterways such as the Mississippi river. 

Thanks to their impressive rate of reproduction, they have become known as river rabbits which is doubly appropriate as they can also jump. But not quite a bunny hop, rather up to three metres into the air. And into nearby fishermen. According to the Environment Protection Agency, there have been reports of injuries ranging from black eyes to concussion. And the fishermen didn't look too good either!

The good news is that scientists have only discovered river rabbit DNA and no actual carp in the Great Lakes and in reality current numbers are thought to be very few, if any. So the only things leaping out of Lake Michigan this coming Sunday should be the very cold and very brave Polar Plungers. Woolly hats off to them all. 

Dibbing, dabbing and nabbing - a Chicago winter continued

You’d have thought there wouldn’t much use for beach chairs in the snowy wilderness that currently is Chirish-land but you’d be wrong.

Walk along any residential street and you’ll see vacant fold-up plastic pews in bright green and orange, just waiting for their owners to return. This is the Chicago winter tradition of “dibs” – reserving your street parking spot on the basis that that hour you spent shovelling it clear entitles you to leave for an unlimited number of hours without anyone else taking it.

It doesn’t have to be beach chairs - upturned wheelie bins, kids’ outdoor sit-on toys (because they won’t be using them for at least another 2 months), there’s even a photo somewhere of a statue of Jesus saving the day – or at least the spot.

Calling ‘dibs’ is not legal. Chicago streets are public property but authorities usually turn a blind eye to dibbing after heavy snowfalls when it can take some time for side streets to be cleared.  But woe betide the brave soul who ignores dibs etiquette and nabs the spot. Reported “punishments” for offenders range from burial by snow (the car that is, not the driver) to the more extreme slashing of car tyres.

This winter already is in the top ten snowiest since records began in the 1880s so I can understand the frustration of the dibbers and the nabbers. Getting a car dug out is no mean feat when you have to contend with the walls of snow cleared from the sidewalk on one side and the bank of snow pushed to one side by the snow plows on the other.

So far we’ve had just under 62 inches of the white stuff this winter  – that’s over 1.5 metres to us aliens. And with temperatures well below freezing (today is the 20^th  below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, that’s minus 18 Celsius in alien-speak), all that deep, deep snow isn’t going anywhere just yet.

But signs spring is around the corner are emerging on the snow-plowed streets. For in Chicago, the gradual approach of spring is heralded by the gradual loss of car springs - and burst tyres and bashed wheel rims, all thanks to the arrival of the pothole.

It's a bit like a Whack-a-Mole game except that you're swapping critters for craters. Some 625,000 potholes were filled in last year but we're off to a flying start in 2014, with 100,000 dabbed in already thanks to hard-working crews who are out 7 days a week. You can even plot their progress like some video game thanks to the special pot hole tracker website launched by the city showing their latest 7-day "score". 

I tried to find the website and was distracted by www.potholestore.com which markets “only the ripest and freshest crumbling asphalt from around Chicagoland”. With Valentine’s Day coming up, I was sorely tempted by the bags of PotholePourri or the chance to name a pothole after my loved one thanks to the International Pothole Registry.

So long as he doesn't interpret it as meaning our marriage has hit a bump in the road! 

Super Bowl traditions - wings, wacky wagers and widescreen TVs

It’s that time of the year again when days are measured as countdowns to the big moment, when all conversations converge on one topic and when we aliens head to the slopes for a weekend skiing trip as a) we have no idea what the fuss is all about and b) we know we’ll be the only ones there, at least on the Sunday. 

Yup, it’s Super Bowl time.

This is our 6^th Super Bowl and as usual, we do at least know who will be playing - the Seattle Seahawks from Washington state and Colorado's Denver Broncos. So no prizes for guessing which state we’ll be skiing in for REALLY quiet slopes.

But also as usual we have failed in our attempts to understand why the whole nation pretty much comes to a standstill on the big day. TV coverage begins at 2 pm local and runs until 10:30 pm – in between, there is a half-time show from (this year) Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, an interview with President Obama and numerous commercials all vying to be the funniest, the saddest or the weirdest while paying the TV company up to $4 million per 30 seconds in their efforts to do so.

Oh and somewhere in there, there’ll be an actual game, where the time on the clock will count down from 60 minutes but which will take between 3 and 4 hours. More amazingly, it has been calculated the average NFL game has only 11 minutes of actual play.

But there is no denying that these are some of the most American 11 minutes. Average viewing figures for the Super Bowl have exceeded 100 million since 2010 and there have been calls for Super Bowl Sunday to be made a national holiday given it unites Americans in their love of football.

And the love of a good party. The popularity of Super Bowl parties means that total food consumption this coming Sunday is only second to Thanksgiving. Except that pumpkin pie is replaced by pizza, sweet potatoes by chips (as in our crisps) and turkey is replaced by chicken wings. An estimated 1.25 billion of them, according to the National Chicken Council’s 2014 Wing Report, up 20 million from last Super Bowl. 

Apparently if you laid all 1.25 billion end to end, they would stretch from the Seattle Seahawks’ home on the west coast to the New Jersey stadium where the game is being played  - some 30 times. Given they’re wings, I’m assuming that’s as the crow flies.

Most parties take place at home, with apparently nine out of ten viewers watching the game at their own or a friend's house. This is great for TV retailers who sell 7.7 million TVs in the week running up to the game, according to the National Retail Federation. The most popular are 50 inches or bigger  - as in the width of a double-sized bed. 

Other Super Bowl traditions include betting on just about everything and anything. Last year a record $99 million was wagered through the sports books in Nevada, the only state where sports gambling is allowed. But that is estimated to be only a tiny fraction of total wagers placed illegally. This year bets are being taken on key game changers such as what hat Bruno Mars will wear to start his half time show and will any of the members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers be shirtless during the performance. 

There is one major break in tradition this year in that this will be the first outdoor Super Bowl in a “cold-weather” environment. If you have been following the news recently, you’ll know that cold this year in the USA has taken on a new meaning. There had even been fears of a Snow Bowl but current forecasts are for temperatures just about in the positive column, Celsius-wise. And it will help that on every seat will be a “warming” pack with a cushion, muffler, gaiters, three pairs of hand and foot warmers, lip balm and a pack of tissues. That makes tickets, averaging around $2,600 each, a real bargain! Actually, apparently it is - supposedly the second cheapest Super Bowl in the last 8 years. 

Another talking point this year is the fact the competing teams come from the only two states in the USA that currently allow recreational use of marijuana. So this year’s Super Bowl has in some quarters been re-named Stoner Bowl, complete with the obligatory T-shirts, hoodies - and alternative party food recipes. 

Just in case you think we are being completely churlish and not getting into the spirit of our new home, we do aim to be watching the game with a bunch of other people while drinking beer and eating snack food. And dare I say it, even getting high - as in 30,000 ft high. For that's our Super Bowl tradition - a pre-Bowl skiing the bowls, take-off at kick-off and taking a gamble  - on whether there will be in-flight live TV.

Defcon duvets and chattering Chirish teeth - it's winter in Chicago

So you may have heard it’s been a tad cold here in Chirish-land recently. So cold that I should have renamed my blog chiberiachatters.com.

It’s really all our fault. I've mentioned before the arrival of the Sub-alien family on any new planet seems also to involve the arrival of other 'sub's as in subnormal winter temperatures (New York), subnormal summer temperatures (France), even subnormal rainfall (Brazil). And sure enough, our first real winter here and what do we bring - polar vortices with temperatures so low the whole Centigrade versus Fahrenheit thing becomes immaterial.

Not all of us are complaining. With 2 snow days off school already this year, Male Mini-me is enjoying that Christmas-Eve-like excitement on the night of a big snowfall or freeze, never quite knowing whether he will be granted that extra-special lie-in.

Except that he won’t. Because, according to the City of Chicago Municipal Code, all good citizens of Chiberia need to ensure their sidewalks are clear of snow and ice by 10 am if snow stops falling after 4pm. Or if the snow stops before 4pm, 3 hours later. Except for Sunday when you don’t have to clear. So that would make it a Snowy Day Snow Day if you see what I mean.

Anyway, Superalien has made it clear there is little point in having mini aliens if they’re not the ones shoveling up the fluffy stuff. Which didn’t go down too well until last weekend’s trip to the local DIY store resulted in the reincarnation of the snow blower left in our yard. And then the whole little-boy-playing-with-loud-machines-and spraying-snow-everywhere-thing kicked in. Oh and Male Mini-me wanted a go too.

For the females in the family, the cold poses another problem.  How to look pleasing when it’s freezing.

Hats had never featured in my wardrobe until we moved to New York where they became an odd-day accessory. Here they are an every-day necessity which of course gives rise to the problems of the non-rise ie flat hat hair. 

I’ve been fascinated by how fellow Chiberiennes have embraced the battle of fashion versus freezing, utilising ear-warmers, head bands and snoods to fend off the effects of minus 15 degrees Celsius. True their hair does indeed seem to retain some body and height but those little white icicles around each strand may have something to do with it. Personally I think Superalien has it right – easiest way to solve the problem of hat hair is lose the hair, not the hat!

And then there is the coat issue. I was reading the other day about what makes a real Chicagoan and one of the benchmarks was your choice of winter coat. The first stage is realizing that what has served elsewhere as your cozy winter coat for the last upteen years is only an autumn coat here - or a Defcon 3, as I prefer to call it.

You realize why everyone has those bulky duvet things so you buy one, a fashionable enough version, not too Michelin-Man-like and falling above the knee. You decide to go for a walk by the lake to celebrate your immersion. And then you realize that this is merely the Defcon 2 version and that you're only half-way there – you’re Chic but not Chicagoan. In fact you’re not 'a-go-an' anywhere. Because your legs have frozen.

No, for the true Chicagoan the only viable winter coat is the Defcon 1 - a long, duck down coat. As in it’s so long you have to duck down to find the zips at the bottom. Not exactly the coolest of looks but who wants to be cool with a wind chill of minus 30 degrees Celsius!

Chicago - the ultimate chillin' out city. Especially in the winter.