All in a Summer's Day

Sometimes I sit down to write my daily post and nothing comes to mind. (Okay, that actually happens a lot!) Usually, if I leave and return to the task, I'll have an idea, or at least a concept, or a snippet of conversation to report. Today, though, nothing worked, and it seemed like the long days of summer vacation paired with the limits of Covid might get the best of me. Nothing happened today! I concluded with frustration.

One of the great benefits of writing every day is the record I have created, and it occurred to me to review my posts for this day, July 28, since I began my blog. Perhaps I might find inspiration in the past.

In 2009 I was on Mt. Lemmon in the Catalina Mountains just south of Tucson, where the temperature was 115. The temperature at the top was 79.

In 2010, I was in Ely, Minnesota, just outside the Boundary Waters and home to sanctuaries for both bears and wolves.

In 2011 we paid a visit to the Newseum at the end of one of Josh's summer staycacations with us. I'm pretty sure that was the summer of the Segway, tour, too, and Madame Tussauds, and the Capitol, and 2 movie marathons (Marvel and Potter), and the great hamburger crawl.

In 2012 I baked up a summer tart with produce from my garden.

In 2013 we caught Baz Lurman's version of The Great Gatsby at the Draft House.

In 2014 I took Isabel on a hike in Great Falls NP. I had just returned from San Francisco, and Heidi was still there at a conference, but fortunately? I brought that beautiful NoCali weather with me. It was low 80s and no humidity.

In 2015 I was recovering from my colonoscopy the day before, but fortunately I had elected to take the sedative, and only enjoyed "the best nap you'll ever have."

In 2016 we were on the road from DC to ATL, taking Richard and Annabelle home after their summer visit.

In 2017 we were in Atlanta hanging Krispee Kreme donuts from a broomstick for a little friendly eating contest between Richard and Annabelle.

In 2018 I was scootering around the Tidal Basin. Birds were new and all the rage, and as Josh put it so accurately, way more fun than you think they will be!

Last year we were moving into the condo in Rochester, MN that would be our home base while my mom received treatment at the Mayo Clinic. It was a stressful time, but the place was great, and even though it let me down later, I grew to love the city, too.

And this year? I went to the garden before 8 this morning, had waffles with peaches and blueberries when I returned, walked the dog with Heidi, painted some rocks, did a workout, meditated, and went to the pool. Tonight we are having homemade pizza for dinner.

It's been a good day, after all.

A Cure for the Cleaning Lady Blues

We had finished a few miles walking around DC with friends, but a quick check of the time told us that our cleaning lady would still be at work dusting and vacuuming if we went right home. The cool air conditioning washed over us as we debated our next move. "I wish we knew a good place to take Lucy swimming," Heidi said.

"What about that dog beach in Annapolis?" I reminded her, punching the query into the map app on my phone. I discovered that it was only 35 minutes away, and so we headed east toward Quiet Waters Park. It was nearly 100 degrees when we got there, but the path to the river was wooded and shady, and most importantly, short. Soon we joined a half dozen other dog owners on a sandy shore of the South River.

A light pleasant breeze blew off the water and a pair of Osprey scolded us from their nest on an old piling out in the water. Lucy bounded into the river immediately, splashing with the a couple of Golden Retrievers, a cute black puppy, and three labs. She spent a good half hour fetching a stick, and when we could tell she was finally tired we returned to the car.

I had spotted a seafood market on the way in to the park, and since they were advertising lobster rolls for lunch, we had to stop. A pound of jumbo lump crabmeat and a couple of lobbies later, we were on the road home, with no doubt that our house would be clean and that we would make the trip again soon.

Postcards From the Pandemic

"I need 2 noodles to float now!" one of our neighbors laughed this afternoon at the pool. "It's that quarantine weight gain!"

"I know what you mean," another neighbor replied. "At first I was pretty good, but the longer it goes on I'm like, Salad? Um, no! Where's the ice cream?"

"I like to call it the Covid 15," her friend agreed. bit ruefully, "but I'm afraid it's getting pretty close to 19."

Where They Are Planted

I always have an assortment of herbs and flowers growing in the eight hanging baskets that sway gently on their hooks in the breeze out on our balcony. I have a few pots on the decking as well, mostly herbs, but sometimes lettuce or beans or sunflowers grow out there, too. This summer I added marigolds, portulaca, and snapdragons, the same flowers my mother grew every year in our garden when we were kids.

In dry weather, the baskets and pots require daily watering, and even with the rain we've had the last few days, I've been out there pruning and weeding and dead-heading. It's more of a joy than a chore, though.

It was my mom that showed us the magic trick of finding the seeds in the flowers, and ever since I was a little girl, I have relished snapping the dry blossoms from the marigold plants and plucking them apart from their base to reveal the half-inch seeds. Likewise, I love the tiny pods on both portulaca and snapdragons that burst with a satisfying crunch to release a thimbleful of teeny seeds into the palm of my hand.

It always seems a shame to waste such potential, and so more often than not, I open my hand and cast the seeds into the wind, wishing them luck where ever they may land, and wondering a little bit why the world is not more full of flowers.

Out of a Hat

We were walking the dog through our neighborhood this morning and chatting aimlessly about this and that. "You know what I haven't seen any of this year?" I said to Heidi. "Rabbits!"

She nodded thoughtfully.

"Even with all the walking we've been doing, I haven't seen a single one." I shrugged. "Some years there are so many, and others? No!" I shook my head. "I wonder why?" But before we even had a hypothesis, we were on to all the fruit trees in this particular stretch of the neighborhood. Peaches, apples, or pears seem to grow in almost every yard.

And so we continued pleasantly on our way, with one random observation after another, until we had looped around and were headed home. Turning a corner, we were confronted by a huge rabbit hopping our way, right down the sidewalk. We stopped, and the rabbit did, too, almost as if to say Abracadabra! before disappearing beneath the low branches of a fig tree.

Post Pandemic Plans

Right around the time everything around here was closing, They started putting up signs in a newly-constructed building down the street that a Silver Diner was coming. To be honest? I'm not a huge fan of the place. I'm not a huge critic, either, though, and I understand that they have made an effort to locally source some of the ingredients for their mostly cooked from scratch menu, so that's a good thing.

And there's something about the place, maybe how close it is or how normal it seems, that makes me fantasize about walking down there for breakfast on Saturday, or stopping in after a run for some well-deserved meal. Bacon and eggs, burger and fries, milkshake-- I'll have it!

So every time I pass that way in the car, or on a walk with the dog, I note the progress. The Opening Summer 2020 sign has never faded or changed, in fact it was joined by a Now Hiring poster a few weeks ago. And just yesterday, I noticed that they had taken down the window wrapping, and there were actual people moving around in the classic chrome interior.

"They're going to open soon," I told Heidi.

"Would you actually go?" she asked.

"No way!" I answered. "Not until a vaccine." I sighed. "But then?" I continued. "I'm going every weekend!"

Another Break in the Weather

The western sky looked ominous as we headed out to run a couple of errands. Brigades of steel gray cumulus clouds seemed to be marching toward us. By the time we headed into the grocery store,  clouds like dark mountains towered up and up thousands of feet and gray wisps swirled just above our heads.

"That looks like it's trying to form some rotation," I said to Heidi as the glass doors whooshed behind us. There were not many other shoppers, but we all stopped when we heard the first rumble of thunder, because it sounded awfully close. Heidi and I were in the water aisle when the store went completely dark on the next crack. We could hear rain pounding on the roof as the emergency lighting flickered and then came on.

All the refrigerators and freezers remained dark, though. "I don't know if the registers will be up to check us out," I worried.

"At least the music is back on," Heidi laughed, and she was right; You Had a Bad Day bopped out of the ceiling speakers as we made our way to the front of the store.

There was no one in the self-check area, and every single monitor read Lane Open, so we went ahead and started scanning our groceries.

"Is that open?" an employee called from the service desk incredulously. "Is it really working?

We gave her the thumbs up, and soon everyone in the store was coming our way. We finished bagging our goods, and pushed the cart towards the only unlocked doors. It looked like a typhoon on Gilligan's Island outside, and stranded shoppers were huddled much closer than six feet from each other as they looked out in dismay.

"Let's wait this out in by the doors in Produce," I suggested to Heidi, and so we did, standing by the locked entrance, checking the weather on our phones, Rain!, looking for a bit of a break in the storm.

15 minutes later it was still raining really hard, but I'd had enough of waiting, so we made our way out to the breezeway, and I made a dash through no longer torrential, but merely drenching rain to the car where... the door wouldn't open!

My fob did not unlock the door either by touch or by pressing the button, and so I made another wet run back to where Heidi stood, and we returned to the store to problem solve. Eventually, I remembered that the fob has an emergency key within it, and I went back out into the rain, opened the door, silenced the alarm, and started the car.

Twenty minutes later, we were home and dry again. None the worse for wear, and not even a little bit annoyed, we watched the storm through the windows, eyes relaxed in the muted gray light. The walls and walkways were washed clean; the trees and plants seemed a little battered, but also plumper and greener. It's been a hot, dry summer, and any break is kind of a relief.