Where are my shorts?

It's 43 degrees outside and it's like a heatwave. Seriously, I'm ready to break my shorts out of storage. We've been stuck in sub-average, sub-zero, sub-human weather for nearly a month. Just last week, Clare blogged about it being -4 out, now it's nearly 50. Ahhh, Chicago weather, you gotta love it.

I will say though, this being my first winter without a car, I am enjoying it. Sure, it sucks having to go over to the local grocery store for my foodstuffs as opposed to the Dominick's that I'm used to. It wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that

1. Their bell peppers look like they've been kept in someone's trunk for a couple of weeks before they make it to the store.
2. They only have rotisserie chickens on Mondays, and by 5:30 they've been under a heater for four to five hours.
3. They're trying to work a "Target Greatland" kind of angle and it's not working. In the past month they've had TV/DVD combos, motorized scooters, propane grills, closet organizers, vacuums and Super Bowl merchandise on sale next to the produce section.
4. Their ground beef is a nice reddish-pink...for the first quarter inch or so. Once you get inside it's all brown. I don't know what that means, but I don't like it.

Now on the other hand, the Big Apple store just south of me gets things right. The produce is always fresh, although the produce manager can be a bit creepy sometimes, and they're just there selling food. I would head over here more often, but their meat counter is so good I'd probably blow my entire food budget on steaks (on second thought, that doesn't sound like a bad idea).

I digress, enough about the grocery stores in my neighborhood. Winter has been colder than I can remember it being in a long time. Clare kept saying last winter that it wasn't so bad. She isn't say that anymore. Luckily though, she has Big Coat and I have Puffy Coat, so we've managed to stay warm.

All that's over now, at least for the next week anyway. It's supposed to be in the high 30s, which means I can go out with just my wool coat and a scarf, as opposed to a sweater, puffy coat, two pairs of gloves and a knit hat or two. Hopefully the weather will hold, but this being Chicago I'm not holding my breath.

I've meandered a bit in this post, but I think that's because I can finally feel my fingers again. To those of you braving the cold, good luck and stay warm. If you're in a more temperate locale, I'll hold my tongue before I say something ungentlemanly. Meanwhile, I'm off to look for those shorts.