29 degrees in the shade.

The idea of four distinct, mutually-exclusive seasons has always been a myth in Montréal: we have summer, winter and two brief, blurry transitional periods (April is muddy, November is sleety). Case in point: three weeks ago I was wearing a heavy, lined leather coat in the middle of the afternoon; now I'm sitting in my skivvies at 10:30 at night, sticky and slightly dehydrated.

I never get tired of summer: during the worst heat waves &mdash with the lethargy-inducing, strength-sapping, headache-fueling mugginess endemic to summers in this city &mdash I still can't bring myself to complain.

After all, the alternative is January.

Naturally, B's loving the weather: trees have buds on them, flowers are blooming all around her like fireworks frozen mid-burst and she can leave the house without being bundled in a quad-layer endothermic exoskeleton. Our new ritual of an evening walk after supper is one of the high points of her day: finally, an opportunity to mingle with the commoners! Watching her smile and wave at everyone she passes is pretty awesome, especially when random strangers &mdash other children, usually &mdash wave back. It's hard to remain completely absorbed in your own private misanthropic neuroses when a giggly ten-month-old is signalling, "hey! Let's be friends, even if only for a second!"