Summer Progress Report

This morning I experienced my first power outtage of the airconditioner season. It was mercifully brief, but long enough to knock out the elevators and activate the emergency lights in the stairwells. How do I know? Because neither had reset before it was time to leave.

That's one more of those experiences that let me know it's really summer. What else is on the list?

• _ Hear the cicadas sing at night.
• _ Buy an ice cream from a paletero on the lakefront.
• X Watch fireworks from monshu's deck.
• _ Walk to work in shorts and change to slacks in the mensroom.
• X Eat ripe mulberries off the tree.
• _ Catch a firefly and let it go again.
• X Lie helpless in a puddle of my own sweat.
• _ Play horseshoes at a picnic.
• _ Turn on my airconditioner.
• _ Ogle shirtless construction workers.
• _ Rent a canoe.
• X Painfully sunburn the backs of my knees.
• _ Play frisbee in full sunshine.
• X Eat charred meat from a charcoal grill.
• _ Weissbier mit Schuss trinken.
• _ Get drenched to the skin in a toad-strangler.
• _ Take a dip in the Lake.

I checked off some of these at the Highland Games weekend before last and was looking forward to checking off some more at profundojoe's Pride Weekend picnic, but he lacked the bloody-mindedness to carry through with his plans in spite of the imperfect weather. (Another year of Chicago climate should toughen his resolve, don't you think?) Oh, well: Still more than two full months to get to all that.