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.

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.