I can see clearly now

[muckefuck]

I sincerely feel sorry for any of you who are not in Chicago right now. It really doesn't get any lovelier than this. Everything is in full leaf now--when I wake up in the mornings, I can't tell if it's overcast or not on account of the shade from the maples--but it's clear, cool, and sunny. Sunday I saw my first mosquito and haven't noticed any more since.

I am still getting used to the clarity of our freshly-washed windows. We finally broke down over the weekend and bought a squeegee on a pole, so the outside faces of the upper panes got their first actual cleaning since we moved in. (There should be some way of tilting these in to clean but I haven't figured it out yet.) Not perfect--monshu says we really need to drag out the stepladder and go over them with a cloth--but the difference is so amazing I worry about songbird fatalities.

Storms blew in yesterday evening to moderate the summer-like temperatures. (Supposedly it got up to 28℃, though perhaps not in our neighbourhood.) The first wave was barely a drizzle; I stood on the back steps with the cat in my arms and he wasn't bovvered. If anything, I was more annoyed at getting wet than he was. A couple hours later, with thunder booming and rain falling in sheets, it was a different story--but even then he spent a minimal amount of time cowering in the closet compared to when we first got him.

monshu asked me why he's so scared of storms, and I replied that storms are pretty dangerous for small creatures in the wild. But if some domestic animals don't seem to be bothered by them, then it can't be instinctual behaviour per se. Did his mother take him to a safe place in the corner of a closet when he was a kitten?

Comments

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I always thought late September was the prettiest time of year in Chicago, but late spring isn't bad either.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Usually we don't get a "late spring", so it's easy to forget how lovely it can be.