Goodnight...Sleep (Air)Tight

by Cathy

Ahhh...summertime. We Chicagoans wait nine months before summer births itself to us in the truest sense of the word. I've enjoyed the cooler than scorching temps this summer had to offer but seeing as the heat and humidity are raging this week, I'm encountering the dreaded domestic conflict that comes with turning on the A/C.

What's the problem with doing what every other warm-blooded human does when the heat and humidity reach 100%, you ask? The fact that my husband prefers to sleep in a tomb. In fact he prefers to live in a tomb. When he's home alone, the lights are never on, the windows are never open, the air is stifling and he's couch-hunched in the dark living room covered in a blanket sipping on tea. My teenager is exactly the same way, I am coming to discover recently. I'm sorry but I was not made to live and sleep in a Rubbermaid container of a house.

Bedtime in summer has come to be one of the biggest points of contention in my relationship. Who knew that once the bedtime struggles with the kids ended, I'd have THIS bedtime struggle to contend with? Since the hubby refuses the turning on of the A/C unless it's 100% humidity, 0% wind and temps in the 90s at midnight, I have to live with having the windows open. He lays there wrapped in a down comforter and I, parched tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, an ocean building between my boobs (or as I like to refer to it, "A River Runs Through Them") literally basting in bed, sweat slowly building an outline of my body around me on the sheets.

I throw my covers over on top of him, zombie walk my way to the thermostat and when the click of the air kicks in, the hubby spurts out some tongue clicking of his own and robotically reaches for the down comforter - yes, that still sits at the end of our bed in the midst of summer - and envelopes himself in it like a bear hunkering down for the winter.

I've spent countless summer nights sleepwalking my way back and forth from the thermostat lest I cause anyone in the house to catch their "death of a cold", always concerned about turning the dial to juuuuusssttt the right temperature where it kicks in periodically but not toooooo often. I've awoken after those mornings from my half-assed sleep looking like a slicked up pufferfish.

The other day my girls and I got into my mother-in-law's car and the air was turned up to "freezer" on the dial. Even I thought it was a smidgen chilly. They mouthed to me from the backseat that "it's freezing in here!" and hugged themselves into the embryo position, teeth chattering. I, on the other hand, was sprawled out in the front seat enjoying the blast of cool air all while wondering how my husband managed to grow up in a house where his mother enjoyed (gasp!) turning on the A/C. I looked over at my mother-in-law knowingly and thought, "She gets it. She's normal!" Then I promptly decided that age and A/C levels are in direct proportion to each other; the older you get, the higher the A/C gets cranked.

And you know what that means....it will all be tomb much for husband. That's when I'll tell him to go sleep at his mom's house.

Sitting Shivers

by Cathy & Patti

Charlotte: Where are we going to go?

Ray: I'm thinking Alaska.

Charlotte: Alaska?

Ray: Yeah, it's cold and Mexicans don't like the cold. I say we act like white people and disappear and let our lawyer do the talking.

~ From the television series The Bridge, 

which in part, has to do with Mexican drug trafficking

--------------------------------------

Cathy
As our parallel universe lives would have it, we both married Latino men. Mine, J, is part Mexican. Patti's, M, is Argentinian. Latino men, apparently judging from the warm climates their ancestors hailed from, don't fare well in cold weather, as further proved by the quote above. They enter a darkness where no Happy Light can reach. In fact, they become winter beasts of sorts, that transforms them into bitter, miserable, grouchy, whiny, complaining little mean girls who consistently ask why we the hell we live here and not in Miami.

I'm not thrilled about the arctic plunges Chicago weather takes us on a consistent basis now either. I'm not enjoying my parched skin and the literal crackling of my facial wrinkles forming overnight, or the dryness of my cotton mouth which wakes me up in coughing fits, or the fireworks show that ensues via static electricity every time I move. But I deal with it. I power through it. Hell, my ancestors hail from Greece, the land of abundant islands, sea and sun and Patti is Argentinian and Italian, so same pretty much goes for her. And WE quietly deal with it. However, men being men, they can't handle it. It falls into the same category as being sick.

The other day, I walk into my living room to find this:

The Hobbit? Obe Wan Kenobi? Nomadic tribal elder?

Now clearly, the sheer over-dramatization of J's reaction to the cold is laughable. I stifled my chuckle and as it seemed fitting, I simply greeted him with a "Shabbat Shalom".  Minutes later, Patti and I were LOLing and commiserating via text at how alike our enrobed bundles of misery really are in terms of the literal mourning they go through each winter: the death of summer.

And the texts went on:

PATTI: "By the way, I don't think M and I will still be married after this winter. He is worse than ever with this weather. I cannot take his crankiness."
ME: I get the same from Rabbi Elder over here on a daily basis too, don't worry.
PATTI: They should sit shiva together!

As if luck would have it, they planned a coffee date a few days later without us girls knowing a thing until I happened to call J for something completely unrelated and lo and behold, he was commiserating and shiva-ing with M at a local coffeehouse. I promptly texted Patti to see, did she know about this?

PATTI: Of course not. I'm sure they will just sit there and kvetch about the weather.

I had no doubts about that and I'm certain they kvetched about us as well.

Patti
..as if they had any good reason whatsoever to kvetch.

I'm not quite sure how I could possibly illustrate to the fullest the life I lead from November to April. It is one in which my normally quite "macho" husband is grouchily tucked into corners of the couch and the bed and other cushion-y surfaces, blankets wrapped to the point of swaddling 'round his shivering body, and I pretty much wave a mental goodbye to the man I love and, with heavy heart, say hello to the Winter Monster. There is no light, only darkness and snow and lots and lots of f-bombs.

Here's the thing: As superficial as it may seem, I love tights and turtlenecks and cute leather boots. I love seasons with their breezy, blue-sky summers and silvery, snowy Christmases. And most importantly? I'm pale. Unlike my perpetually tanned husband, I am perpetually transparent and, rather than become golden in the sun, lean toward purple scorch. Therefore, no matter how monster-y the Winter Monster gets, I can't find it in my seasons-lovin', pale heart to up and move to 365 days of OMG I'M SWELTERING and MELANOMA-ING.

The result? I have to deal with Grandpa Bitches-a-Lot.  When Cathy sent me that picture of her own Grandpa Bitches-a-Lot, wrapped up like a Hobbit/Obe Wan Kenobi/Nomadic tribal elder, my heart swelled with kinship for my friend. She knew. She knows. She lives it just as I do. She has her own Winter Monster, one whose moans of discontent rise from within the swaddled walls of his misery for 7 months out of every year.

At first, when I heard the two Winter Monsters had gotten together, I worried. I pictured them both sitting there, scarfed and hatted and multi-coated and shivering, and I knew their shared kvetch-ing would only lead to one-way tickets to Miami - with or without their MUCH better halves. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the Winter Monsters are also Summer Mourners and, as grieving brothers, they need one another. They are their own support group, of sorts. So let them kvetch. I'll just sit here and sip on my cozy winter tea, turn up the heat, and cuddle up under the fuzzy blanket I never get to use.

Before Sunrise

by Cathy

As if waking up in a subzero tundra of a city isn't bad enough, we in Chicago have to contend with the idiosyncrasies of the sun and its temperamental cycles - namely, refusing to break the day open on a city submerged in negative wind chills and arctic gusts. And when it does decide to grace us with its presence during the winter months, it prefers for us, mere humans, to wake it from its stubborn slumber rather than the other way around - a rather unnatural phenomenon.

Chicago already awakened before winter's sunrise

Instead of feeling the warm light break through my bedroom blinds and gently roll its way up to my face, kiss my cheek and open my eyes, it is nowhere to be found these days. This abandonment of sorts leaves me to my own awakening devices, consisting of a shrill alarm clock, a chilly bedroom and darkness just as evident as when I lay down to sleep. There is absolutely no incentive to wake up on a cold, dark day - especially when heaven comes in the form of a cozy, warm bed.

I realize that many people, my dad included, have been waking up before sunrise regardless of the season, since the beginning of time. They are at the mercy of the hours their jobs command. I remember lamenting as a child to my mother, after hearing the front door of the house close and awakening to see that it was still dark:
"Wow. Dad leaves when it's dark and he comes home when it's dark."
That seemed so wrong to me at the time and not much has changed about the way I feel about it now.


Thankfully, the days have begun to lengthen once more and the sun is gradually creeping out of that seasonal corner it hides in. Until the days grow to be 10 feet tall once more, we will awake, reluctantly, begrudgingly, unnaturally, before sunrise. Our hearts gloomy, our thoughts rooted in that glimmer of hope that comes in the form of spring not too far away.

Dream Boating

by Cathy

It has always beffudled me that as a true Chicago native, born and raised, I have yet to know anyone who owns a boat here. Maybe it's because those people are few and far between, given that owning a boat is an incredible investment to make since Chi-town's temperatures don't allow for boating nine months out of the year.

Now, I've been on my share of boats, ships, catamarans, water taxis, fisherman's boats, speedboats, paddleboats and even kayaks, but not once, ever, have I boated my way out of a Chicago harbor. Until this past weekend.

We were invited to come aboard by the parents of my daughter's classmates. We'll just call the dad (and owner of the boat) Dr. DJ because although he's a dentist by day, he moonlights as a casual DJ, playing gigs at our school functions, on his boat or at his house. In his past life, he must have been Jimmy Buffet although he resembles an older version of Sean Cassidy with long, sun-blonde, streaked hair.

As we prepared for cruising, we made sure all coolers were secured in place, all kids had their vests on and all hands were on deck. Literally. Once out of Diversey harbor's safe walls, Dr. DJ punched it to full throttle ahead. Our hair whipped around us wildly as Lake Shore Drive was zipping by and the skyline became a watery blur. Although the jet skiers were loving the hilly waves we were leaving in our wake, my girls were a little freaked. This was the first time on a speedboat for both of them and after wailing the entire way up the shoreline past Navy Pier, Ari finally settled down enough to go from frantic to clutching scared:

to first captain:

Come aboard. We're expecting you.

After the whirlwind fly-by lake tour, we turned the boat around and headed to where we were going to drop anchor for the afternoon - a quiet, shallow spot further north, off the beaten waters and away from the beachgoers. We tethered our boat to another boat, (a friend of Dr. DJ) and spent the day frolicking San Tropez style. The kids took turns jumping into the water off the bow; they went paddleboarding:

they went kayaking:

And the adults took in the precious last rays of summer, with a drink in our hand, a smile on our lips and a sway in our stance as we danced to tunes courtesy of Dr DJ. Think I'm kidding? Behold:

Yes, that is a mirror ball.

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "This is a serious party boat."
"Aren't all boats party boats?" Dr. DJ yelled back over PitBull's drumbeats and raps.

I guess they are. After all, isn't that what Charo was doing on The Love Boat?

Capten Estubean! Cuchi Cuchi Coo!!

While we might have been one Charo short of a true Love Boat experience, we had no shortage of Captain Stubings, Isaac the bartenders or even Gophers, as we waded back and forth between the boats sharing libations and laughs.

Towards the end of our stay, I sprawled on the spacious, custom-made bow cushions, closed my eyes and imagined I was boating off the coast of France somewhere, and if I squinted hard enough, my imagination turned the skyline's buildings into majestic mountains hugging the waters. I let the waves rock me into their rhythm as I took in nature's wonders above and below me. What a beautiful day to dreamboat.

Microbursts and Power Outages

by Cathy

Last Saturday afternoon, we got hit with a "storm" or a "microburst" as some of my neighbors put it, that lasted about eight seconds. The damage it did? Well, four days later, it's still being cleaned up.

It began with the sky darkening, you know that ominous darkness that Mother Nature shrouds us with when something big is looming? So I braced myself for some serious downpour, but instead, as we lay relaxing in our living room, everything outside shifted. Literally, a burst of what seemed like all four winds hit at once and swayed the trees much further than by nature, they are meant to sway. This wind was LOUD. Then, we heard a series of thumps, cracks and thuds. And for the finale...with a faint click, all the lights went out. Then silence. Just like that, it was over. Eight seconds was all this took. Drizzle was now starting to set in.

"WHOA!" screamed my kids, their faces now plastered to our living room windows. Bella was busily Instagraming pictures of a large tree branch that was now splayed all over our front lawn.

"Yeah, that was craaaaaazy!" I marveled looking out onto the street. The only thing I saw was that branch and thanked God that no other parts of that tree had landed in our living room. Even Joe was snorted awake out of his afternoon nap to assess the damage. Luckily, it wasn't that bad. Or so we thought.

"Mom! How am I going to go the birthday party in this rain!" said Bella, looking out at the now flood-type rain coming down.
"Honey, we'll just have to wait it out," I said, busily searching for candles and a flashlight.

Ari started running around like a chicken with her head cut off, half out of excitement to light candles and hold the flashlight and half out of fear that we had no lights.

When the rain stopped, Joe was ready to drive Bella to the birthday party and Ari wanted to go along for the ride. I waved goodbye as they shuffled through puddles on our deck as they headed downstairs towards the garage. A few minutes later, I heard voices out back. I looked out and saw Joe and the girls huddled under an umbrella in the alley talking to some neighbors who were walking their dog. Then more neighbors joined in and there was a lot of pointing and gawking being done.
"What the....?"
I slipped on my flip-flops and headed downstairs to join them. On the way through the garage, I had to step over a giant outdoor rug that had flown from someone's deck onto our lawn and lay crumpled like a sad, magic carpet at the entrance of our garage door.
"What's going on?" 
"Mommy!" screamed the girls in unison. "Come and see this! You have to come and see this!"

My next-door neighbor's SUV buried under a mangle of live electric wires and a snapped tree from two doors down

"Holy..." I didn't know what to say.
"Luckily he wasn't in it," said one of the dog-walking dudes.
"This is quite something," I managed to say. "Obviously, this is why our power went out?"
"Yeah," said dog-walking dude #2. "And it's just our area here. These guys on this side of the alley still have power. It's just our corner here," he pointed out.
"Have you seen the front damage?" piped up dog-walking dude #1.
"Front damage?!"

We walked around to the front of our street, being joined along the way by yet more neighbors in pairs, arm in arm, with their their dogs, kids, wagons, strollers, all emerging like ants out of the shelter of their anthill, ready to assess the damage.

There are two cars behind this one; the second car's windshield was smashed to smithereens

"All of this damage from an eight-second storm?!?" I mused out loud.
"A microburst," he corrected me.
"B-b-but that's like a mini tornado," I said.
"Can you believe it?" said the neighbor whose property withstood the most amount of damage. "The tops of the trees shifted and then snapped off, shot upwards and landed here," he said pointing to the massive limbs laying in the street, on cars and in his back yard. "I had never seen anything like it before."
Shit, me neither! Well, braid my pigtails and call me Dorothy; I had never been in a tornado before.

An hour later, there was a fire truck out front, coming to assess the danger those lives wires were posing out back. Turns out they were touching the wooden deck of the nearby building and since the transformer was popping sporadically, the threat of fire was a possibility. An hour after that, a police car came out back, parked in our alley, turned on the flashing blue lights and held vigil around the downed wires, preventing people from walking by around it and cars driving past it.

"How much longer until Com Ed arrives?" we asked Officer Bored disrupting his video gaming for the umpteenth time to get a handle on the timing.
"No ETA yet," he repeated himself.
"Are you going to hang out all night?" we asked him politely.
"Until ComEd gets here," he said.
"But people who have been calling in have said that they may not be out here for two or three DAYS," I informed him, rather concerned about the food in my fridge and meat in my freezer. (This is what Greeks worry about - food.)
"Well, let's hope not," he said with a chuckle.

Knowing that they would be hanging out and prioritizing our downed live wire situation made me feel a lot better that ComEd would be out here sooner rather than later. Sure enough, in the dead of the dark night with the blue strobe lights of the police car piercing our eyeballs in the blackness, I heard the droning engines of trucks followed by the BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP due to the reversing of said trucks. ComEd must be here!! I squealed as I jumped out of my half-ass sleep to check out back. More flashing lights, yellow this time, and men in coal miners hats and jumpsuits were scurrying about.

What time is it? I was thankful I had a manual wristwatch and in between flashes through the kitchen blinds, I tried to check  the time with one eye half shut. 3:40a.m. I got back into bed, now thinking that should the lights come back on, this place will light up like a Christmas tree. Sure enough, around 5am I was awoken by a bright light, thinking it was morning. I found the lights lit full on in our living room and up and down our hallway, right outside my bedroom door. I got up to see Joe snoring through all the hooplah on the living room couch since Ari insisted on sleeping in the Big Bed with me and a lit flashlight.

"Pssst! Joe!" I loudly whispered in excitement.
He overdramatically, as usual, snorted awake, jumped to his feet and asked "What's wrong!?!?" all in 2.5 seconds. I should nickname him microburst.
"The lights are back on!"
"You woke me up to tell me that?!"
"Yes, you were totally out in a fully lit room! Boy, you must be tired," I said, half pissed that he had been sleeping like a rock all night while I was up monitoring candles, kids and ComEd.
"Ya think?!" he said as he settled back down to sleep.

I shut off the now imposing lights and headed off to bed. Tomorrow, we will all see things in a different light.

Windows & Eyes Wide Shut

by Cathy

I love two things: sleep and nice weather.

I love them even more when I can get them at the same time. However, Chicago weather rarely allows you the opportunity to crack open the windows of your house because the temperature here goes from 30 degrees to 90 degrees overnight - which means you can have the heat on one day and the air conditioning on, the next; no natural air flow.

When all the weather Gods decide to smile down upon Chicago and all the planets align and the earth is at the most precise point on its axis to where I get to throw open my windows and let some natural air flow into my stale, incubated home, I revel in the act. Once the crack is heard and the humidity-swollen windows unseal themselves from their frames, I lift them high above my head like an Olympic weightlifting champ and take in the summer breeze that blows through my hair as I shut my eyes and smile widely - much like those women do in those commercials for anything from chocolate to shampoo.

Having the windows open is a perfect compromise for me and Joe because he H-A-T-E-S the air conditioner much like a vampire hates holy water. At night, we settle in for a comfortable night's sleep, feeling the cool breeze flow in as we snuggle under the summer blankets and sleep like a babies until...

...someone's godforsaken, f*&^$ing car alarm undoubtedly will go off at some insane time of the morning - every morning I get to sleep in. WEEE-OOOOOOO-WEEEEE-OOOOOOOO-WEEEEEE-OOOOOOO-WEEEEE-OOOOOOOO and on and on until I start dreaming, half-awake, that I am releasing the safety on my rifle as I prop myself out of that open window and aim at the alarmed car - alarmed by some phantom force that comes out only to nudge cars into shriek mode and annoy me when I have my windows open and trying to sleep in.

...one of my neighbors decides to mow the lawn (again, at an insane time of morning - don't these people ever sleep IN?) with the loudest electric lawn mower on the face of the earth, then uses a leaf blower to blow debris off his property and onto mine (I never understood the purpose for those damned things) and then uses an edge trimmer to get his lawn to look more manicured than my nails will ever be. And now...I'm up.

...one of the 1,397 dogs within a one block radius of my building will inevitably see that phantom force haunting all the car alarms in the area or maybe just notice a bee buzzing by, but they will bark their hearts and lungs out until they are satisfied with how well they've done their dog duty for the day. This is usually followed by the owner's urgent, reprimanding requests to stop. So it will go like this: bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, howl, bark, bark, bark-bark, bark, howl, bark, bark-bark-bark, bark..."Timber! Stop!" Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark-bark, "TIMBER!" And guess what? Now, I'm up and annoyed as hell.

...you know how in Cinderella when the sweet, little chirping birds gracefully and beautifully sing-song the sleeping maiden awake in the morning and braid her hair and make her bed and give her a bath and help get her dressed? If a bird is going to do all that for me, then that's the only time it's okay for it to sit on my windowsill and shriek out it's little chirping bird call. Otherwise, it should go sit on the windowsill of the dog owners/landscape artists who are already awake and bringing down the neighborhood.

...and finally, I know they're just doing their jobs but when the garbage and recycling trucks come through at 7am and of course, they need to reverse, because who can always drive straight ahead down an alley, right? When they reverse through the crossroads of my back alleys, the automatic safety feature kicks in to alert the entire neighborhood that the truck is reversing with a series of BEEEEEP-BEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEPS. Then there is a pause as he straightens out the truck, only to reverse again: BEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP. "WHOA!!!" screams the spotter to the driver, who can't see what he is inches away from hitting. We get this TWO mornings a week - once with regular garbage pick up and once with recycling. I know, I know, I should be thankful that we HAVE garbage pick-up and that I am not living in squalor being swallowed up by my own wasteful consumption. But can't they do it at lunchtime?

Of course let's not forget the fire trucks, ambulances and kids that wake up at the ass-crack of dawn who are out playing and screaming and fighting while their bleary-eyed parents are face-planted in a mug of coffee the size of a flower planter and too tired to shush them down.


I am well aware that I sound like a cantankerous old fart and you would think I'd be used to all this by now given that I was born and raised in Chi-town. However, when I was younger, I could sleep through a world war. Now that I've had kids my body has programmed me to hear a pin drop in the middle of the night.

Maybe it's my age. Maybe I'm getting to old for city living. Maybe I ought to move to the suburbs. Or maybe...I should just keep my windows sealed shut FOREVER so I can get some shut-eye.