Beta bugs

Chicago has been having some beta testing problems. City weather recently rebooted Month version 3.06, March. It happens in Chicago pretty frequently: the weather resets itself on the wrong month. It’s actually May now, of course, and after a few tester days of early June type weather, Chicago reverted to a previous version to test for errors.

My birthday is in July. I like to do things that are air conditioned or that involve swimming to celebrate my birthday. One year, celebrating in Chicago, I had the coldest birthday on record. 65 degrees. Can you imagine? 65 degrees on July 5? I was miserable. All of my 65 degree weather clothes were in storage (ie: at the bottom of the clothing pile). It didn’t help that I refused to acknowledge that it was cold on my birthday, so I ended up freezing to death. We ran around on all of my self-planned birthday treats wearing shorts and t-shirts, not nearly enough armor against stiff lake winds.

I remember going to the Museum of Contemporary Art and then going to Chinatown afterward for dinner, and all I could think was that I couldn’t wait to get home and snuggle under a warm blanket. I bought a flimsy sweater in Chinatown, but it really wasn’t enough. I also remember not understanding the art exhibit of the two Thai Hindu wooden statues with a paper clip suspended on a string between them. It seemed like a pretty lame interpretation of the tenuous connections between modern people

This weekend’s weather has been a lot like the cycle of weather Chicago has been stuck in for several months. It only got bitterly cold over the winter a few times and mostly stayed pretty warm (for Chicago winter) and just gray or rainy. Same thing now. Moderately temperate, gray, and rainy. I’ve always thought Chicago was the right place to be settled down when global warming takes effect, because then the climate here will finally be tolerable. But if weather changes are just going to make Chicago drippy and chill, I don’t think I’m as eager to buy real estate as I was.