... and then frivolous.

I don't know whether I've mentioned it, but the weather? In Chicago? Really sucks.

Take today. Here it is, almost June, and today's high was 47 degrees. Yesterday, when it was supposed to rain, it was sunny and warm with a high of 87 degrees.

Which meant that I spent a long time at a friend's Memorial Day party sitting in her backyard watching rabbits frolic over the green lawn while children played catch and a baby sat and pulled grass up and crowed with joy and the whole time, I was thinking "This can''t be happening. Somebody spiked my Diet Coke. I'm tripping."

And then this morning when I was scrambling around looking for hoodies and long pants for my children, because it was FUCKING FREEZING and looked like it might rain, I was thinking "Now this? THIS feels normal."

And this has made me realize--at long last--why Chicagoans go so mental in the summer. And I am not exaggerating. "Mental" is the precise word to describe the situation. You get a couple of days with decent weather and all of a sudden it's as much as your life is worth to try to cross the bike path along Lake Shore Drive. And if you're driving? You can't even get off the drive at Fullerton or Belmont. And Grant Park? Forget it. Don't go near it. There's a festival. I don't know which one--Gospel, Blues, Jazz, the Taste of Chicago, Venetian Night--but forget it! There will be a quarter of a million people there.

I've decided that I really need to enjoy summer my own way. Like maybe not so much with the grilling, because frankly, it doesn't excite me too much. And margaritas and rum drinks are too fattening. And those festivals with the crowds--eccchhhh, no thanks.

But every day, I'll make sure to do at least one thing I can't do in the winter.

Today I went out and cut bunches of lilacs--white and purple--and they are all over the house.

I ate asparagus at dinner. And strawberries for dessert.

I can't think of anything else I did, except for not wearing a coat when I left the house. (But at 47 degrees, I was wearing long pants and a sweatshirt. I like summer very much, but I'm not risking frostbite.)