Stop fiddling with the thermostat

What's happening the last couple of days in Northern Illinois is completely unclear and utterly bizarre. I'm not talking about the behavior of our downstairs neighbor, because that has been strange and annoying for over a year now, not just the last few days. This morning he responded to Gabri's "Good morning! How are you today?" with "Going to earn money". Strange fella, but reasonably average for this neighborhood. There's a post forming in my head about that simple "how are you" question defining so many things American, so stay tuned for a down-to-earth Dutchman's perspective on this, soon posted on GABROEN.

Anyway, I'm talking about the weather. The weather gods are clearly fiddling with the thermostat, or perhaps just got themselves a fancy computerized one and can't figure out how to program it to daylight saving time. Whatever. Yesterday was a record high ever of 81oF (27oC), and temperatures at 11PM still lingered around 77oF (20oC). Very odd to be walking outside mid March in just a T-shirt, or nothing at all if you are a hairless dog. Today was another record high, but also a display of more extreme bizarreness: at 5PM Chicago topped at 80oF (27oC), but at the same time only 20 miles north, temperatures in our neighborhood were 35oF (20oC) lower!

Makes you quickly long for sun filled days strolling along a beach.



Today we apparently did not have to go all the way to Florida; 20 miles south along Lake Michigan would have worked just fine. I guess that also identifies the culprit: the impressive body of water of Lake Michigan is the thermostat of the weather gods. Depending on how the wind blows, we have bizarre things happening. But apparently it has little effect on the behavior of our neighbor - he's a strange fella no matter what.