Rosemary is a Slutty Herb.

Here’s the thing about summer in Chicago: I just want to do everything outside. No matter how hot it is. If you can even imagine waiting on a train platform for 20 minutes when it’s 20 degrees, you can understand wanting to spend every single second of a Chicago summer outside. I like to play in the dirt. I like to plant things and garden and I really like to hang out in my yard. Sometimes other people do, too. One of my friends visited recently and when she got back to the East Coast she messaged me to say, “By the way, I really miss your yard. I tried sitting in mine the other day with a glass of wine and it wasn't the same. It was just meh. So I drank in my kitchen instead.” I love her.

Another friend has tried to convince me to turn my postage stamp of a lawn into an “edible yard.” I said, “A what? I don’t eat grass. Drink your juice, Shelby.” Her name isn't even "Shelby." Which is not actually to say that my garden is not at all edible. That is also not meant to sound naughty, but it does. I’m going to tell you about my herbs.

First, rosemary.  All tall and welcoming, reminding you of her presence when you brush up against her, all “Hi, I’m Rosemary, wouldn’t you like to put me on some chicken? Maybe a nice pork tenderloin? Perhaps some potatoes.....?” And that proud roseMary keeps on growin’ well into October. Super hardy and totally delicious, rosemary is the sluttiest of all herbs. It will go with almost anything.

Next, basil. You can be a little fussy, basil, especially when it’s hot. You get all wilty, like a Southern woman with the vapors. A nice cold drink of something and within minutes you’re back on your feet. Just like a Southern woman with the vapors. I will never forget when I went to a concert in the park and you were in a limoncello lemonade that rivalled the broadway songs on stage for my attention. And that is HARD to do. You were cleverly disguised as an ordinary bottle of lemonade but I knew better. And soon enough, so did everyone else.

Now, dill. Dill, dill, dill. Why, dill? Why. Why do you half-heartedly grow? Why do you mock me with your spindly stalks that could barely flavor a teaspoon of cream cheese for my lox and bagel and then turn brown minutes later? Why aren’t you trying? You break my heart, dill. You’re a weed, for god’s sake. Act like one. Act like....

Mint. Talk about a weed. It does make its presence known. Brush your hand over it, and mint lets you know it’s there. Here’s what I love: after a rainstorm or a watering, mint-flavored air creeps in through the windows and swirls all around you. “Make a mojito!!” mint cries. “Toss me in some fruit!” mint begs. Mint just wants to be loved. That’s why it grows everywhere...so that you don’t forget it. Ever. We’ll talk about the psychological neediness and neuroses of this weed another day. Right now I’m going to introduce it to my friends Vodka and Lemonade. That's what I call "adult fun."

I'm a Ninja.

I am. Not in the traditional, black-silk-pajama-wearing, breaking-into-high-security-mansions, art-stealing way. I'm a ninja of the mind. Ok, of my mind. 

Which is why, when I couldn't get into my yard because my gate was inexplicably broken as if after having worked perfectly well all weekend it decided it was French and therefore to go on strike, I decided I could scale fences. Like a NINJA.

The thing is, I don’t like to be kept from things I want to do. And the other day I really REALLY wanted to sit in my yard. Have you seen my yard?

It includes contemplative dogs enjoying lavender.  

It was nice, it was warm, it was Tuesday....you know what, the why doesn’t matter. The point is, my gate was as broken as the European financial system and I couldn’t get in, no matter how many times I stamped my feet and pushed on the door and rattled the handle and yelled at the fence and tantrumed in the early evening. Same with the banks.

For a second I considered just going back inside and waiting a while before trying again. You know, the “turn it off and then turn it back on” method I use on everything from my laptop to the blender. I mean, this always works: my laptop always goes back on, the blender always makes me a margarita. 1 + 1 = 2. But I knew.

I was going to have to climb over that fence and open that wretched gate from the inside. Just a like a ninja.

No big whip, right? It’s only like a 6-foot fence. Which by the way, you cannot vault yourself over by just standing on a kitchen chair. Lesson 1, learned.

Sitting outside my gate on the aforementioned kitchen chair, ignoring the people walking by wondering why I was sitting on a kitchen chair in the middle of the sidewalk, I of course realized I needed a ladder. And it turns out, someone to hold it because it turns out I had to stand almost at the very top of the ladder to swing myself up and over, one leg on the ladder, one leg dangling over the fence, balanced on my hands in a bizarre fence-beam routine, and then lower myself down (thereby shocking every gym teacher I've ever had since I never could do a chin up) onto an outdoor storage cabinet before dismounting onto the patio. Lessons 2-6 learned in quick succession.

Lesson 7 is that a victory dismount pose is less effective when your friend can’t see it because she is on the other side of a traitorously locked gate.

Lesson 8 is that the evening is a little bit lovelier and the wine tastes a little bit better when you have to work a little bit harder to get it. So go get it.