It's so hot...

...even the birds are panting.

I didn't know they did that, but they definitely do. Rob and I tend to sit in one of the Art Institute's gardens for lunch, along with the sparrows (who are now so used to us that they're getting cheeky, especially the one with no tail who will come very very close so she can eat the bread in peace because none of the others are brave enough). There are a whole gang of this year's youngsters, along with their long-suffering dad who is still pestered to feed them, so at first we thought they just had their mouths open to make dad feed them, but no - on closer inspection their little chests were heaving in the same way that dogs' chests do when they're panting. Poor little things (also very cute, in a funny sort of way. I've become quite attached to them).

Just to let you know how hot, it was 94F at 9pm on Monday as we were coming home from seeing Camera Obscura, and it was noticeably cooler than earlier in the day. Eek.

I really hope it's cooler this weekend, because it's Lollapalooza weekend. Festivals in the sun are undoubtedly better than festivals in the rain, but festivals with heatstroke are probably quite unpleasant. Fingers crossed.

Anyways, here are some more photos. It wouldn't let me post any more yesterday for some reason known only unto itself - the little "upload photo" window kept coming up blank, which is really not useful.
The first three are of one of the Art Institute's gardens. One day there was a woman in there with a statue (above) that she would put somewhere and take photos from the other side of the garden, much to the confusion (and delight) of tourists who often posed with it for photos of their own.

This one is of me in the condo. Rob was playing with the camera and the "Pick a colour" function (which has some other name but I don't remember what). It's quite fun isn't it?

Then we have the black and white thing, which is also good.