You Cannot Be Serious

Forty-eight hours ago, my husband, son, and I were helping my parents with some yard work. The sun was shining, the temperatures were in the upper seventies and I was a little bit tempted to break out the shorts.

So glad I didn't fall for that one.

It is now snowing. Snowing. Two days ago I was actually contemplating baring very white, not to mention hairy, legs to the world and now I'm sitting here watching frozen dandruff fall out of the sky on my poor little daffodils.

When is it ever going to end?

My hometown has a lot going for it. The pizza is awesome (despite what Jon Stewart says), Lakeshore Drive is breathtaking, and The Magnificent Mile is, well, magnificent. If it wasn't perpetually entrenched in the throes of a new Ice Age, Chicago would be a great place to live. If San Diego's weather could somehow be miraculously imported (c'mon, global warming - where the heck are you?), maybe I could even stop daydreaming about living in Italy. Okay, maybe not but I'm frustrated enough at this point to entertain such an idea.

All I know is, I've had enough. And I know I'm not alone. Even the die-hard winter fans I know have had enough. Spring, stop teasing us and get your butt back here.

And stick around this time, will you? Please.

Spring?

I haven't seen a daffodil or tulip outside my window (although they have popped up in my local Trader Joe's). The trees are still bare (or, in the case of the dogwoods outside my living room window, dead.) And we still have a couple of mounds of snow at the end of our cul-de-sac. But, I didn't care.

I broke out the barbeque grill.

Yesterday, when the temperature hit a balmy sixty degrees, I couldn't resist the urge to dust (chisel) off the old Weber and throw a couple of pieces of chicken and a mammoth Costco strip steak on the weathered grate. If I had known how to whistle, I'm sure I would have done so as I cleaned out the ribs-we-had-last-October's ashes still residing in the bottom of the kettle. (What? You clean your grills at the end every season?) As I readied the black giant for duty, I didn't even care that I was doing all this work for a single meal. I knew this sunshine tease was scheduled to last all of forty-eight hours with the weather gurus promising a return to the forties (and possibly yet more snow) later in the week. But none of that mattered. The winter that seems determined to never end had given me a break. There was no way I was going to let it slip through my fingers.

Tomorrow, I might have to crack out the crock pot again. Or I might be forced to defrost the chicken soup in the freezer just to get warm. But, for one glorious moment, I had a meal that didn't involve comfort food; that didn't involve scrubbing a frying pan or a hefty enameled Dutch oven; that actually did involve a salad.

Summer can't be far behind.

Is This Really the End?

Today, I put on a pair of shorts for the first time in seven months. That they still fit was the first cause for celebration. The second, was enjoying an April day that topped eighty degrees. Just a few days ago I wrote about the vice-like grip of winter and the feeling that spring would never actually arrive. But that's Chicago for you. One day you're grabbing your down coat to fetch the newspaper off the driveway and the next you're sitting on your deck in a tank top. (Okay, I don't actually own a tank top anymore. No need to expose those flappy, Grandma waving arms; we have new neighbors).

So, what did we do with this lovely day? I can't believe I'm going to say this but we went to the garden store. Along with fifty-thousand of our closest friends. No, we weren't there to buy plants. I'm not that crazy. I know I can't plant anything around here until Memorial Day. But we did need new patio chair cushions. Seems as if some resourceful squirrel family in the area is now enjoying a very plush den (?) with what used to be the stuffing of our former outdoor seating. If we were going to enjoy this day sitting down, we were going to have to brave the crowds in search of replacements. After roaming the three aisles housing our choices, we quickly (as quickly as I can choose anything) settled on a red and gold striped pattern that looked like something we could live with for the next eight to ten years and headed home to throw a couple of gorgeous NY Strip steaks on the grill.

Life doesn't get much better. But if I ever get my hands on those high-living squirrels, they better be ready for a fight. They owe us $120.

Enough Already

Okay. Yesterday it was 71 degrees and today was 41. I've had it with weather that cannot make up its mind. Is this Spring? Are we on our way to summer? Or have we been sucked into a 'Groundhog's Day' vortex of the winter that just will not die? I'm starting to think it's the latter.

You'd think I would be used to it by now. I've lived in Chicago most of my life and, when I got the chance to escape, I ended up in England where the lack of sunshine was enough to make me want to take a dive off the London Bridge (if it hadn't already relocated to its sunny new home in Arizona). Maybe that's one more reason I'm so enamored with Italy. Among other things going for it, there seems to be an endless supply of sunny days without the joys of twenty-seven inch snowfalls and winters that last for six months.

I've dealt with this winter for long enough. I just want to pack up the heavy sweaters. I want to deposit the hats, boots and gloves in the back of the closet. I want to turn off the heat. I want to take the extra blankets off the bed. Oh, wait. I forgot. I live in Chicago. I can't safely do any of those things until May. But, if I'm lucky, I may not need any of them again until September.