The monarchs are here. Ross said he saw a beautiful specimen a few days ago, and this morning as I walked back from the farmer’s market and the liquor store (equally essential errand stops) with beautiful finger-sized purple eggplants in my bag and a six-pack of India Pale Ale in my hand, another fluttered over my head. I know the winter is hard, but friends, when summer brings fireflies, crickets, and monarch butterflies, it’s hard not to love where you live.

On Tuesday night, the city gave us another gift. After an anniversary dinner whose highlights were a plate full of incredibly creamy scallops and polenta and an intoxicating lemongrass-scented crème brûlée, we walked over to Grant Park and laid out our blanket under the deep indigo sky. There we watched Felix Ungar and Oscar Madison whistle, wheeze, and weep on a screen at the other end of the grass. The night was not only cool, but actually cold—and sweet with summer wind. The sounds of the movie bounced off the tall circle of buildings behind us, creating a faint echo which would have been annoying if the fact of it wasn’t so amazingly neat. Every now and then we’d turn our heads to watch the spire of the Sears Tower pierce the liquid clouds.

It all quite made up for the gigantic plaguey clouds of tiny flies we had to pass through in order to arrive in the park. I wish I could say I was an equal-opportunity insect-lover, but plaguey clouds of tiny flies don’t really move me (except in that they make me jump and go “Arrrgh!”).

Anyway, up to and, frankly, including the part where the second toe on my right foot went completely numb from the cold (did you know this odd bodily malfunction could happen during the summer? I did not, but now I know how extreme my lack of healthy circulation is), it was pretty wonderful. So thanks again, Chicago. I might need to keep saying that as much as I can until you turn on me at the end of the year.