Happy Christmas Eve from Chicago! I’m writing this a couple weeks in advance. Assuming everything goes as planned I am at my parents’ apartment getting ready to go to super fancy downtown church for their Christmas Eve service. But I wanted to give you a quick update from Chicago, my life, and all that. And also a nice story for Christmas Eve!

Kirre sent me a lovely note after my last post about what she’s doing and how things are going for her, and she mentioned me “fighting facism”. Which is kind of true? But in reality, it’s very plodding and a lot of standing around and waiting just in case something happens.

The closest I came to actually seeing action was shortly after I put up my last post. I was working from home, sitting in my living room, and I got an alert that there were whistles going off on my corner. I grabbed my whistle and ran out the door and saw a young woman with pink hair across the street also with a whistle. I called out to her that I just got an alert with the intersection but no details. She confirmed and said she actually saw the car, and her alert said they took two men at the parking lot a few blocks away before turning into my street.

We both walked fast in the direction they’d gone. It took us past the elementary school. The kids were on the playground and the recess teachers were using whistles to get their attention, which made both of us jumpy. Right after that, a woman zoomed past us and yelled out that she’d heard they were going back down the next street, she was patrolling in her car. She zoomed ahead and started honking and yelling “La Migra” out her window.

We got to the main street and decided to split up, the pink haired woman would go back into the neighborhood and I’d walk down the main street. I passed a group of day laborers waiting on a corner and tried to warn them, but before I could say anything an elderly white woman standing next to them stopped me. She got the alert too, and went out to stand corner watch next to the day laborer area.

Another different car pulled up next to me and asked if I’d seen anything in the neighborhood, I reported that I didn’t know anything, she said she’d heard they were heading east and was patrolling in that direction. Her last alert said they were hiding in the residential streets to try to avoid the patrollers. So I headed back to my house, might as well patrol in that direction as anywhere else.

On the way, I stopped to verify. I did that a bit early on, when I was still unemployed and available during the day, and 90% of the reported sightings were false. I saw some workmen fixing a sidewalk near the parking lot where the two men were taken, so I stopped and asked if they saw anything. They said yeah, it was awful, two guys just got taken, and they gave me the details of the vehicles and stuff to pass on.

I pulled out my phone to send in the information and walked right into the nice new concrete they’d just finished laying. And of course because I’d run out of the house, I was wearing my yucky slouchy crocs which slipped right out into the concrete. The guys were super nice and hosed my shoes off for me and I went squelching home. And on the way got another alert that they were spotted back on my street a few minutes ago. So if I hadn’t run out the door, I could have been useful and my shoes would still be dry.

So yeah, that’s the most exciting active thing I’ve done. Got my feet wet and ruined a sidewalk and missed everything. But on the other hand, counting me, that was 5 regular people who hit the streets within seconds of an alert going out. That’s a nice story, that makes me proud of my city.

Besides that one excitement, it’s a lot of corner keeping (standing on a corner wearing a whistle outside schools, churches, food pantries, etc), giving out flyers to businesses, doing food deliveries, and generally waiting for something to happen again.

And now, Christmas! There’s a push to make Christmas as good as possible for the families that have been affected, some food drives and toy drives. I signed up to make cookies for a bake sale fundraiser. And I get to spend two days cocooned in at my parents feeling all safe and cozy. Unless we all get another alert.