Midsummer post

Since I've been posting so much about books lately, one might get the impression I'm holed up in the dark with a sweater and a mug of hot chocolate. Well, that might have been an accurate enough impression of our June, and even our early July was cool, but now...

Last night when I was preparing dinner, I had the sudden thought, "Why does this moment feel so Southern?" I looked down and saw that I was shucking fresh corn for a chowder, wearing khaki pedal-pushers with a blue sleeveless blouse (showing a pronounced "farmer's tan") and there was a gullywasher of a thunderstorm blowing in from New Jersey. Oh, that's because it's summer! We only turned on the window unit A/C this weekend, and even then, it really wasn't so much because of the heat as to drown out the loud, tinny Top 40 radio from the block party below. Our A/C is loud and it rattles.

It seems like summer's laid-back schedule is still new to us, too. We were busy until late June because that's when activities end here. Then we went off to Georgia, and then there was a little algebra to finish. But now we've settled into a nice, relaxed groove. C.Z. has taken to piling up in her loft with stacks of old National Geographics. She's reading about Antarctic expeditions, alternating with episodes of Wuthering Heights. (She says she can only take so much Joseph at one time.)

Meanwhile I'm piling up on the sofa with stacks of cookbooks, planning out how to use my CSA veggies. I've been cooking lots of new things, but it usually doesn't occur to me to take a photo until I'm done, and by that time, pulling out the camera would produce rolled eyes, so we say the blessing and eat instead like sensible people. I also forgot to take photos of my roofdeck planter, and it's starting to decline now, so I won't bother. But it's been a great year for herbs and little tomatoes.

C.Z. and I have both been taking turns lately rapidly filling out a laminated map of the world which currently covers the end of our kitchen counter. (It's a Sonlight Mark-It Map, which we rarely used at the proper time.) C.Z. fills it out because she just likes maps. "I suppose it's too late to be a Christopher Columbus now," she sighs. "Do you suppose the satellites missed any South Pacific islands?" I needed to update my geography to reflect the post-Soviet era. C.Z. puts me to shame on the "-stans." My tiny West African countries were a muddle, too, but I've just about fixed that.

Come to think of it, maps and Antarctica were two of C.Z.'s early childhood obsessions. Her main interest has been music for so long that I'd forgotten! But I'm glad she's returned to them, even briefly. That's another nice thing about summer.

And it may be time to rent Breaking Away. Bob has combined his continued study of Italian with a new cycling interest. He started biking about a month ago because he hurt a calf muscle and couldn't run, but then he decided that he really liked cycling. Yesterday he was out near the Carousel in Central Park doing about 19 mph on a borrowed hybrid bicycle (which he thought an improvement over his), and some guy in the next lane looked over and shouted, "Don't you think it's about time to get a new bike?" He and C.Z. have been biking every weekend. They plan to get me a bike, too.

This week, our plans are: Go to our knitting group, return to Jamaica Bay for another heron survey, and go out on the East River for a heron cruise at sunset (we volunteer to hold up signs and pass out binoculars in exchange for free admission). We've been catching up on all the doctors' appointments which we neglected during our twice-per-week physical therapy era last winter/spring. I've also been doing a few extra cleaning and organizing jobs each week.

I'll leave you with an image that brings the conversation (monologue!) full circle, back to winter, the season in which people hole up with books. C.Z. has taught herself to knit patterns (below are 2.1 projects she's done for our HFNY group), and now she has her eye on some Norwegian sweater patterns. We have just time enough to finish something before the cold returns!