Karen Stevens made it easy on a frigid Thursday for customers at her drive-through coffee stand in Grayslake: Regulars didn’t even have to roll down a window to order their morning brew.
“They know I know what they want,” said Stevens, who operates Karen’s Expresso Caffe, a shop only a little larger than a phone booth. “We don’t even converse until everything’s ready to go. They quickly hand me my money, and I quickly hand them their drinks.”
Most folks adapted to January’s polar swan song the way they always do: By bundling up, cowering in their heated cars, spending more time indoors and, inevitably, fighting bouts of cabin fever.
“I think the biggest thing about having cabin fever is when they do go out, they go crazy,” said Liz Carpender, 30, of Mundelein, as she watched her son, Henry, 5, and daughter, Halliday, 2, charge through kid-size tunnels at the tot playground in Westfield Shoppingtown Hawthorn mall in Vernon Hills.
“They’re bouncing off the walls because they’re so bored at home,” Carpender said.
With its high of 4 degrees, Thursday was the coldest winter day recorded at O’Hare International Airport in seven years, WGN-Ch. 9 meteorologist Tom Skilling said.
The past eight days “will go on the books as the coldest January 22-29th period since 1980,” Skilling said.
There might be some relief this weekend, when temperatures could rise to the upper teens, said Robin Smith of the National Weather Service. Temperatures were expected to remain in single digits until Saturday, he said.
“We are not looking for temperatures to get above the freezing mark through next Wednesday,” Smith said. “This is nothing out of the ordinary.”
Cold as it is, this winter, like most, doesn’t call for extraordinary measures, just a little imagination.
Many schools did away with outdoor recess this week. Geralyn Stoner, 31, a teacher at Kidsland at Kemper preschool in Long Grove, looked for a way to bring winter indoors.
Stoner dumped a few buckets of snow onto a tublike “sensory table” for her toddlers, who scooped it with small shovels while talking about the concepts of “hot” and “cold.”
Since the cold snap hit, business at Dinorex, an indoor amusement center with locations in Arlington Heights, Crystal Lake and Addison, has increased 20 percent, owner Manny Rafidia said.
Usually, about 10 to 15 kids show up on a weekday for the rides and games. But “today, at our Arlington Heights location, we have over 50,” Rafidia said.
It was a different story for Greg Hempel, manager of Suncoast Motion Picture Co. in Vernon Hills, who said the weather had taken a bite out of his DVD rental business.
“Sales are hanging tough,” he said. “People aren’t even coming out. I’m always amazed [at the reaction to bad weather]. I’ve lived in the Chicago area all my life, and this is how it is.”
The single-digit readings made things feel downright balmy at Lang Ice Co. in Willowbrook, where workers wear insulated coveralls and the indoor thermostat is set at 25 degrees.
“They’re glad to be where it’s a little bit warmer,” distribution director Bob Rusthoven said of the factory’s 20 employees. “But they still want to go home.”
Marty Dubina, deputy director at the Brookfield Zoo, noted that a cold winter day can be the best time to pay a visit. Families who show up practically have the staff–and animals–to themselves.
Libraries welcomed the cold with open arms and shelves.
At the Waukegan Public Library, January’s book circulation has exceeded December’s, and the Friends of the Library will hold its annual Chill-Chaser Book Sale next week, public relations and marketing manager Elizabeth Stearns said.
“The weather always makes people want to curl up with a good book,” Stearns said. “It works for us.”
At the North Shore Senior Center in Northfield, more than 200 people defied the cold to play bridge and attend art and jazz appreciation classes, said Joan Proell, director of leisure and learning.
“We hear griping all the time about the weather, but they’re griping and they’re here,” Proell said. “I think it’s important for them to be here with friends.”
In Grayslake, some young children heading to the bus stop Thursday morning got a lift from mom because it was too bitter to stand outside.
“It’s too cold to bundle the kids up to a point where they can’t see, so we just pile into the van,” said Rachel Tusing, whose children are 6, 3 and 2 months old.
Back home, Tusing and her 3-year-old have battled cabin fever “by holding a lot of imaginary tea parties,” she said. “You give a wave to the neighbors from your window and go about your day.”
At Karen’s Expresso Caffe, Stevens tries to serve up hope along with her coffee. She has replaced her Christmas decorations with bright lights in the shape of tulips, and a sign outside her shop is counting down the weeks–only seven–until spring.
