Eating outside is one of the great delights of Chicago Springs and Summers. After a long cold winter, you’re ready to get outside and enjoy the sun while you’re eating your meal. On a personal note, everything seems to taste better when cooked or at least eaten outside. We have a beautiful backyard and I love sitting outside and soaking up the sounds and scents of summer.
At my last job, my best friends and I would head to Starbucks a couple of times a week and in the summer, we’d sit outside and enjoy the weather while we talked about jobs, kids, life, and anything else that struck our fancy. Those were some incredibly special memories and I cherish the memories of those warm summer days sitting outside and enjoying the day. My last day at that company, two of my friends met me at Starbucks and we toasted my tenure there as well as the new things that were in my future.
Even today, if my friends and I go out for lunch in the spring or summer, we’ll often choose to eat Al Fresco as it seems to make the experience a lot more lively and more fun. I went out for lunch just last week with one of my new coworkers and we enjoyed burgers and conversation as we discussed our company and what we thought the future might bring.
I have a beautiful back yard at home and we really enjoy eating outside and enjoying our beautiful Magnolia tree, Maggie, and our fairly private backyard. Unfortunately, this year every time I was ready to go outside and enjoy a meal something came up: it was raining, it was too hot, there were bugs, I had something else to do, etc., etc., I know a lot of those sound like excuses, but at the end of the day the purpose of eating dinner outside is enjoy myself and relax and if I’m sweating bullets or swatting mosquitoes, I’m not going to be relaxing and am going to spend the entire time wondering why I’m not inside in the air conditioning.
It’s the full moon outside tonight and I was on my way up to bed when the backyard beckoned. I cut up an apple, filled a glass of wine, and headed outside to light the tiki torches and soak up the moonlight. I hadn’t realized until I was outside that Maggie’s leaves were almost touching the table or that there were no birds chirping at night, but plenty of crickets. I sat and sipped my wine, ate my apple, and enjoyed the cool moonlit air.
There is something magickal about a evening when the summer is just turning to fall and sitting there enjoying the calm, I felt truly blissed.
Cairn by Cairn 