Blue Sky Times: Pet Adoption, Winter Market and the Florida Olympics

Daylight saving time has once again darkened Chicago’s winter. It can be difficult to focus on the blue sky above us when it is overcome with darkness before 6 p.m. Though this may not seem like a victory, the news column is here to remind you joyful and bright moments still persist even when it’s a little harder to see them in the dark.

Longtime Shelter Resident Adopted

A 5-year-old black labrador was adopted in Delaware after 1,007 days in the shelter, ABC News reported.

The black lab Tessy was adopted by Jeanine Walker-Porter and Jeff Bush. Walker-Porter told Good Morning America she was immediately drawn to Tessy after hearing about her at a local fall festival in her neighborhood. She said Tessy’s story “broke her heart.”

Tessy had been adopted from the shelter twice before but returned both times. Tessy has spent the last two years in the Humane Animal Partners receiving training before her adoption Oct. 20.

“When I saw Tessy, everything that I wanted everything and everything [Jeff] wanted went out the window,” Walker-Porter said. “We knew, ‘This is our girl.’ We knew that she was the one for us and we knew that she was completing our family.”

Winter Market

The Rogers Park Winter Market has officially opened for the season in the Culture of Safety Dojo and Wellness Center as of Nov. 5, according to Alderwoman Maria Hadden’s Nov. 4 newsletter. 

The Culture of Safety Center, located at 6961 N. Clark St., opened the market in an attempt to encourage Rogers Park residents to shop local, according to the newsletter. The market is open every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

All participating vendors are women or LGBTQIA+ owned businesses and are selling everything from dessert and jewelry to makeup and health supplies, according to the newsletter.

The Florida-ist Man

In an homage to the beloved “Florida Man” meme and Floridian’s reputation for generating strange headlines, a new competition called the “Florida Man Games” will be hosted early next year in St. Augustine, Florida, according to the Associated Press. 

Events at the competition include the Evading Arrest Obstacle Course involving local sheriff’s deputies, the Beer Belly Sumo Ring, Category 5 Cash Grab which exposes participants to hurricane-equivalent winds, a mullet contest and Chicken Coop Bingo, according to the contest website.

Tickets are currently available for the Feb. 24 event, and Pete Melfi, a local journalist and the event’s organizer, told The Washington Post he expects up to 10,000 attendees based on ticket sales. Melfi said the end goal of the competition is to create an opportunity for people to embody their favorite “Florida Man” stories without any of the legal consequences.

Have a wonderful week everyone and remember, as Todd Ruddergan once sang, “Somehow, someday / We need just one victory and we’re on our way.”

This story was written by Isabella Grosso, Lilli Malone and Hunter Minné

Featured image by Lilli Malone / The Phoenix