And tomorrow, I know, will be rainy at best.

This is going to be an ode to crazy Chicago weather blog!

Yesterday was really fun. I had to leave work early because two friends from Colorado, Tim and Tiffany, showed up at my office and needed to become acquainted with my place. I took them there and we made lunch, then we met up with Jon and walked around Chinatown for about an hour and a half. The weather was sunny and ridiculously humid, but otherwise nice. After Chinatown we all hung out the apartment the rest of the night. Around 7:30, it had started lightning, but the weather seemed fine. Then at 8:00 we had just started watching a movie when I heard sirens. I thought they were on the TV, but Shea came out of her room (Shea is from Alabama and thus familiar with severe weather) and asked if we heard them, too. We muted the TV and walked to the windows, and I noticed everyone on our street who sits on their porches were running into their houses (the weather wasn't even bad!) I HATE storms, they terrify me, so instinctively I ran for the basement of the apartment building. The thing is, our apartment has absolutely no internal rooms, and every single room and hallway has at least one window in it. When I got to the porch, my landlady was standing there (I almost gave her a heart attack with how quick I came up on her) and she saw me hyperventilating and shaking and took me into her apartment.

Jon was not far behind me, so we went and sat in her living room. I looked out the window and out of nowhere this massive gust of wind was bending the trees on our street at their middle and torrential rains came out of nowhere. I ran into her bathroom and Jon followed me to try to calm me down, and the landlady asked me to call Shea and have her, Tim, and Tiffany come downstairs, too. The landlady's 3 grandsons were there, and we noticed a cop pull someone over in front of the house. Next thing we know, there was a knock at the door-- apparently, the reason the cops were pulling this guy over was to tell him he needed to get into a building ASAP. So basically, it was a little party in my landlady's apartment for about half an hour.

Once the weather calmed down, Shea, Jon, Tim, Tiffany, and I went back upstairs to finish our movie. Around 10:00 I went to bed, only to be awoken around 11:30. The air conditioner in my room seems to amplify the sound of rain, which is what initially woke me up, but when I became a little more alert I realized the rain sounded like it was IN my room. I ran and turned on the light, and sure enough, rain was pouring in through the top of my window sill (not from my actual window). Luckily, Tim and Tiffany were still awake, so they came and held up towels while I ran back downstairs to see the landlady. She and her son came up, and he couldn't figure out where the water was coming from. The two of them went to the apartment above ours, and apparently, it was raining so hard/so horizontally that the rain was actually going in between the bottom of their window and the wall, and then dripping down into my window frame. They draped some garbage bags on the outside of her window to prevent the rain from going in, and that seemed to do the trick, so I went back to sleep.

It was such a crazy night, I have never experienced anything like it. I had never heard tornado sirens prior to last night, either, and it was one of the creepiest sounds I had ever heard! I'm just glad Jon was there to help calm me down because I was freaking out and I think I probably would have had a full blown panic attack.

Other than the crazy weather, yesterday was good on the whole. I definitely plan on taking a nap after work because I am EXHAUSTED after the flooding room madness of last night. Lauren and Kevin get in on Friday, and Tim and Tiffany don't leave til Saturday, so it should be an interesting night.