After a string of unseasonably warm spring days that had Chicagoans draping jackets over their shoulders and whistling as they walked to work, things took a turn. The temperature dropped. Clouds the color and size of battleships arrived from Canada. Snow began to fall. I was off from the restaurant two days off in a row—Sunday and Monday. I spent my snowbound mini-vacation in my low-ceilinged apartment reading novels on my futon, working my way through a video game titled The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past, and listening to the electric baseboard heater in my apartment tick like…