I've been working my ass off lately, and Chicago is trying to ruin everything.

Mah porch. Let me show it to you.


See? Isn't it cute? All red, white, and blue and New England-y and lobster-y?

OK, I admit that it's long and narrow, and since the nice new wicker sofa is placed almost exactly opposite the old beat-up futon frame (with the very faded denim futon cover) it looks like a railroad car. An extremely patriotic one.

But I wanted a porch that says "Poppy isn't from around here. Poppy hails from the Land o' Lobster. Poppy and Mr. Buxom spent their honeymoon on Nantucket."


I thought I'd show Chicago my New England roots, and what better way than to order a whole porch full of stuff from L. L. Bean? Right? But now Chicago has decided I'm some kind of uppity New Englander, and wants to ruin my good times. At least, I think that's what's up.

So Chicago, let's get this out in the open, shall we? I'm ready for some warm weather. Those pictures of the Pimm's Cup and tequila-on-the-rocks-with-a-wedge-of-lime that I posted last Friday because it was 80 degrees and sunny? A blip on the radar. The next day it was pouring rain and 45 degrees. I know this because I got frostbite on my toes when I wore flipflops to the garden center to pick out pansies and hydrangeas.


Chicago, I have been very patient with you. But my porch is ready. The yard has had its spring clean up. The new deck is built, and I don't think I'm being too high on myself when I say that it's awesome. My containers are almost filled. The new umbrellas and chair pads are pretty much ordered (OK, I'm still debating between brown and black as the major color scheme.)


In short, I have put a lot of work into creating a nice, Martha-Stewart-esque gorgeous summer lifestyle, and Chicago? You are not cooperating AT ALL.


I want the kind of weather that will have me forgetting about the existence of red wine, fires in my fireplace, and microfiber lap robes. It's almost May, Chicago. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Instead, you tease me with one gorgeous 80 degree day, and then you go all tweenaged girl on me--sunny one minute, stormy the next. You blow hot, you blow cold, and I am sick of this behavior, missy.


Come on, Chicago. You can do better than this. I know you can. After all, you're the home town of Michelle Obama's arms.

... 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.)

Cold. (Updated with Celsius correction)

I'm not one to whine much about the weather in Chicago. First of all, it's been done before--and better--by people who have lived here longer than I have.

Ok, I might be able to put a fresh twist on a bare recital of the facts--add a little zest to things, say, with a description of the way my hand got frozen to the car door this morning--but chances are, anything I'd say would have been said before.

But I want to tell you about today's parking situation, anyway.

On Sunday mornings, I park around the corner from the cathedral where I sing. The garage I park in is part of a development: there are a few shops, a Whole Foods, a Blockbuster, and an apartment complex. It's a typical one-block city development. Usually it's pretty quiet on Sunday mornings. And today, it was extra quiet because it was freezing--literally. When I left the house this morning, it was five below zero (27 C) or, to the metrically-inclined, minus 20.5 degrees Celsius.

After church, when I went to pay, the machine kept telling me I was using an invalid ticket. I tried four times, and the same thing happened every time. So I had to call the garage office on my cell phone, and they told me to go to the office.

When I arrived, things were pretty chaotic. There were two angry customers in the office, and two more customers yelling at the girls via cellphone. The girls were pissed off, too. Pretty much everyone was pissed off--even me. I mean, at first, I was sort of glad to have to go to the office, because this meant the problem probably wasn't my fault. (Because--let's face it, after all these years I know myself pretty well, and most of the time, IT IS.) But after a while, I started to get pissy, too.

I mean, I really shouldn't have had to make three separate phone calls just to figure out where the office was. But I did. And then when I finally got there, things were so ugly, it was like someone had let a bunch of aldermen loose.

At least with all the yelling going on, I found out what the problem was. Apparently the computer that runs the parking machines got so cold that it wasn't working properly. That's right--it was so cold the computer died.

So that's Chicago for you: a unique combination of freezing cold weather, dead computers, surly incompetence, rude assholes, and bloggers who don't know when to shut up.