Arnold Palmer

When we were kids, one of our favorite summer time quenchers was the mix of Tetley tea and lemonade concentrate that our mom would stir up in half gallon batches. It must have been thirty years later that I learned the concoction had a real name. Now I often order a half-tea half-lemonade when I am out for a lunch, and when the waitress nods and says, "Arnold Palmer?"  I smile and nod in return. Nothing is quite so refreshing.

Today we were on our way home from the pool when we passed a specialty popsicle cart. The kids, Richard and Annabelle, ordered right up, but I wasn't so sure I wanted anything so sweet. "They have an Arnold Palmer," my sister pointed out, and right then? My resolve started melting.

In the end, I carried away the first Popsicle I have eaten in over 20 years, and let me tell you, friends, the frozen tart lemonade tempered by the icy brisk black tea was absolutely delicious.

Injured Pride

We were on our way home from the High Museum of Art yesterday when I took a little tumble.  There was a curb, an uneven sidewalk, a dog, the sun in my eyes,-- all of it came together to literally trip me up. I was on the sidewalk before I knew it.

Unfortunately, there were several witnesses. In addition to Heidi and Annabelle, at least four other people asked me if I was okay. I brushed off their concern as I dusted myself off. "I'm fine, really," I said. "More embarrassed than anything."

"No worries" the doorman in front of the building said. "We've all been there."

His kind words did not take the sting away, and my skinned knee hurt almost as much as my pride. "I will get you a band aid when we get home," four-year-old Annabelle promised. "It might be cool," she added to comfort me.

I was all patched up a little while later as we waited for Richard's school bus. The minute it pulled up to the stop, he and his friend Jake bounded off. "Hey guys!" we greeted them. "How was school?"

"Good," Richard said.

"Cool band aid!" Jake said.

I felt better already. 

What's the Buzz?

This hot droughty summer has produced a lot of reports of  climate change and what we might expect from a warmer planet. Long term and short term predictions of "the new normal" are dire. Just the other day I heard that because of the warm winter and the hot summer, we were looking at an insect population explosion that would probably last into November.  "Just think of the mosquitoes!" the report ended.

I didn't have to think too hard. I've never seen so many as we saw when we were in Maine in June. Even the locals were complaining. On the other hand, the bees in our garden have been plentiful, their colony strong, and yesterday on the ten hour drive from our home to Atlanta, I saw more butterflies than ever before, hundreds of yellow wings pressed into the August sky. There have been lots of dragonflies around, too, probably because they eat mosquitoes, and the chorus of the cicadas is strident, invigorating the lazy summer afternoon.

More bugs? Doesn't have to be a bad thing.

Slippery Statistics

Yesterday when I was setting up my calendar for the coming school year, I took a minute to review our snow day policy. Several years ago, after we got socked with a huge snowstorm that kept us out for over a week, our system responded to the lost time by adding 4 minutes to every school day, and they never took them away. That's why even though we only go 181 days, we have four days to spare and still make the state mandate of 180.

Admittedly, that calculation is just another example of the fuzzy math we educators are encouraged to use when "objectively" measuring just what it is we do all day. Still, I won't complain. According to Accuweather, it looks like we just might need those extra minutes this year:

Big Snows for Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and New York Next Winter

Baby Steps

Last week I ordered my planner for the 2012-13 school year, and today I filled in all the important dates that have been published so far. It was a simple enough task, but I confess to feeling a twinge of excitement for the year to come.

Especially when I wrote "Last Day."

I'm getting there, though.

No News

This afternoon when we were on our way home from seeing The Bourne Legacy, our local public radio station broke into programming to alert listeners to the fact that there had been another mass shooting, this time near the campus of Texas A&M University. We sighed, and spent a few minutes speculating about this recent rash of attacks. Copycats? we wondered. Could the fact that some recent gunmen have survived encouraged other unhinged souls to plan their own offensives?

I considered the movie we had just seen; the body count was high. We live in a society that not only views violence as common and often justified, but also as entertainment. Not only that, but firearms are readily available. Survey after survey has shown that, collectively, we do not have the will to curb gun access. The second amendment is consider a third rail in electoral politics. In the wake of recent shootings pro-gun sentiment has actually risen, along with some catchy tag lines.  

100 million gun owners didn't kill anyone last week.

Things would have been different if someone else had a gun in that theater in Aurora. 

I braced for the gruesome coverage of the latest tragedy, but it didn't come. There were reports of yesterday's PGA tournament winner, Gabby Douglas and Michelle Obama visiting the Tonight Show, and Helen Gurley Brown's death at 90, but there was not a mention of any shootings on either the local or national news programs that I watched this evening. Its omission was so glaring, that I checked on the internet to see if perhaps the radio station had somehow been the victim of a hoax.

But, no. People died today in Texas when a gunman open fired on them. It just isn't news.

I ♥ Ratatouille

And it's a good thing, too, now that our garden is finally coming in. Tonight I was able to prepare the dish completely with homegrown ingredients.

Now that's fresh and local!