I forgot about this photo, which was taken in the late afternoon of November 13.

It was 23 hard hours of traveling for Professor Ceiling Cat yesterday, and all that after only three hours of sleep. He’s a tough moggie! But, when he awoke this morning, he saw a vision of Chicago, with the rising sun setting a few of the buildings aflame.

Taken a few days ago, and, of course, unmanipulated because I don’t know how to do that. You can see a plane from O’Hare at the upper left:

There will be much persiflage and little hard thought today, as the Albatross needs some preening, as well as spell-checking. This quote from Winston Churchill (who wrote far more easily than I did—in fact, he often dictated his books to secretaries) perfectly summarizes the experience:

“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.”

The monster is about to be slain. Sadly, I’ve never gotten to the “toy and amusement” stage. . .

But I digress. I wish I had taken this picture, but it comes from imgur, kindly forwarded by reader John. I’ve flown over downtown Chicago many times (that’s the way you approach O’Hare airport from the east), but I’ve never seen anything like this:

Heavy afternoon showers yesterday finally cleared up by evening, and there was some sun on the skyscrapers.
Storm abating:

Storm lifts:

We had a spectacular sunset on Saturday after a driving thunderstorm a few hours earlier. Two photos of Chicago: downtown and toward the University:

A sky of flames. The two buildings are the University’s business school (left) and a new under-construction building for the Laboratory School (a university-affiliated school with students from nursery school through high school):