balcony garden, redux

All I want to do is sit out on the back porch with the finches and breezes and swinging chimes, snacking on hummus and reading escapist novels– but I’m chased indoors by the broiling sun.

To work. Preserved by air conditioning and sucking down jars of cold water.

Just now a voracious gust attempted to yank the propped screen door off its hinges. Then suddenly everything is still, heart-shaped moonflower leaves swaying as if spent.

balcony garden

I’m worrying my tomatoes may never ripen this year. It’s been unseasonably cool.

Another year and I long for the abundance of garden tomatoes in the Augusts of my childhood–fat slices sluiced with balsamic vinegar and olive olive and scattered with black pepper and scissor-cut basil.

doomy

Hell, as that single searing jaunt through the Mojave Desert in the middle of July in a Renault Le Car sans AC attested, would be hot.

Under general heat advisory, Floyd and I hunker down inside next to the single chugging window unit. We maintain a cooler distance than usual, minimizing unnecessary activity. Larger mass of water consumption is notable on both our parts.

Lesson of the day: when the hot, grim, viral apocalypse descends, warlord kings will command access to clean, fresh water.

Which only makes the entire sold-out state of Michigan’s surrounding lakes so doom-drenched. Our largest Great Lake, so deeply voluminous and stormy clear– expendable in the name of commerce and industry.

Whee.

I have American History X out from Netflix. I’ve ordered it for some reason (Ed Norton), having recalled it (Ed Norton) as brilliant (Ed Norton) if nigh-unbearably grim, which today I think perhaps I should forego, for all the (sigh) Ed Norton.

squeaky

I have that squeaky-sinus thing, summer cold, yadda yadda, and it’s making me cranky. The spouse grows weary of my standard litany of plaint.

The aging, freon-scented window unit keeps things bearable in darkened rooms. Cicadas revs up for August.

I have decided to stop giving away good work for free. Let’s call it cranky and angry and be done with it.

I flop down on the unmade bed and lie texting confessional Facebook posts and then deleting them. It bugs me that Facebook makes it a fucking labyrinthine puzzle to figure out how to set my privacy settings so that certain people can see absolutely nothing about me or my life, motherfuckers.

Any minute now my nostril’s gonna squeak again.

Also I’ve wept about four times already today. Woo.

summer comin’

sunny warmer late spring days mean basking, face up, eyes closed out on the back porch.

container garden in the works…

sitting in the sundazzle and painting toenails with ridiculous sparkly colors is requisite…

as is lots of tasty grilling…

summer fare

salsa– my favorite standard: onion, tomato, tomatillo, cilantro, lime, olive oil, salt & pepper.

Summerfare1Summerfare2Summerfare3Summerfare4Summerfare5Summerfare6Summerfare7Summerfare8Summerfare9Summerfare10

sun tea, a floral blend: white tea, lavender, chamomile, orange rind, iced with a sprig of thyme–

Summerfare11Summerfare12Summerfare13Summerfare14

and, finally, dinner, with ribeyes grilled by the grillmaster and organic baby greens with shaved aged goat cheese from the glenwood farmers’ market:

Summerfare15Summerfare16Summerfare17Summerfare18Summerfare19

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

of summer and friends and babies

golly. it’s the first time in what feels like a Very Long Time that I have lain in bed in the morning and tippity-tappety meandered around catching up with people in the virtual realm– especially my mom- and mom-to-be friends jen and laurel and hanh. I expect the evident common denominator here is more than a little attributable to being a woman of a certain age, entering a domesticating stage and considering issues of, well, just what many of the women I know are doing around this time of life: having babies, writing, juggling various identities.

also, likely, due to the fact that I’m on the cusp of my first real roadtrip vacation in a very long time, all based around a dear friend’s wedding– next week we’ll be hopping in the car and meandering out to new york for my gorgeous friend thisbe’s backyard wedding hoo-ha! I’m totally totally excited for the free time and excursion with my darlin’ and the chance to see good old friends who live too far away to visit more frequently. we’ll be going into manhattan for a couple of days of art museums and staying at the home of one of my very oldest and dearest friends masha, with whom I went to boarding school. right now both chris and I are busy trying to tie up loose ends and arrange for backup on work projects while we’re gone– it’s a bit of a scramble. and for some reason or other I bought a gallon of milk the other day right before vacating. silly sarah.

we have a new tent and a new air mattress to put in it, and we will be kamping at the KOA kampground right near the wedding site along with a slew of other revelers. I’m having gleeful visions of firepits and smores and jumping in the swimming hole out back of thisbe & jay’s place. proper summer. I’ve been craving it. for all my proximity to a great lake, it’s a doggone shame that I haven’t thrown on my suit and jumped in it since last year. swimming and sloshing around in great fresh bodies of water is without a doubt my A #1 favorite all-time activity. the unfortunate thing is that the lifeguards on the chicago beaches won’t let you go out above where the water hits your knees– very aggravating, though I do get that they have a job to do and a swarming populace with iffy water skills to manage. but sometimes you just really want to get in over your head, yknow?