Monday night s'mores

The air is chilly and the sliver of moon hasn't risen yet. It definitely feels like fall when the neighbors call to invite us for a campfire and s'mores on a Monday night and we need jackets and sweatshirts. We sat out at the foot of their hill, adding wood to the fire, catching up on the last several months, and mushing toasty marshmallows with chocolate between graham crackers. My strategy is to shove my piece of chocolate into the center of the warm marshmallow and end up with a gooey, melty mess, sans graham. Delicious. Is it really fall now? Is summer really over already?

The dog, Rudy, is wagging his tail and avidly staring at his ball-on-a-rope, hoping that I'll throw it for him. Dogs always seem to misread me as a lover of mutts, but no luck, they've found a cat lover instead. So Ralph pulls the toy away and tosses it over and over and Rudy streaks off, all speed and muscle and energy. Elizabeth, our friends' toddler, who hasn't quite decided we're trustworthy enough to talk to, has marshmallow in her hair, and their newborn boy makes smiley eyes at us and chews on his fist. I forgot how good this sugar and chocolate mess tastes, all sticky and smokey tasting. It started to rain a bit- a cool, chill rain that makes the fire feel even better. Can summer really have passed so soon?

Walking back across the street, I can't believe how deep the darkness is. It's only by the feel of the gravel underfoot that I'm confident we're still on the driveway. My hair smells like campfire and I'm looking forward to flannel sheets on the bed and a down comforter. Sleep always sounds better when there's cool air coming in the window. It's when we finally close the windows that I'll give in to the end of summer, but tonight will not be that night.

Summer Eating

The thing that I love best about summer is how exercise makes all food taste just about transcendent. My husband and I spent yesterday canoeing the Lamoille River. It was a long, lazy paddle down a relatively swiftly moving river and the day was perfect. Sun all day long and bugs kept at bay with a steady breeze. It was a lazy paddle, but the four hours in the sun were enough to make us both ravenous when we finally hauled the canoe up the riverbank through a ridiculously luxuriant carpet of poison ivy.

Dinner at friends' house and it was perfect summer eating. Burgers on the grill, steamed beets from the garden dressed with balsamic and salt, salad that most of us didn't get to because we were so full after all the rest of it. Gin and tonics. Finished off with a long soak in the hot tub beneath a three-quarter moon. Summer indeed.

Blueberries

Have I mentioned how hot it's been lately? I know this sounds ridiculous to people not living in the northernmost states, but 86 degrees and humid is just about 6 degrees after where I start to melt. I just don't do heat very well. So I'm coping as I can. And this afternoon, that meant blueberries. Lots of blueberries.


I love how they look in this photo. The dusty bloom on their skin, bluer than seems possible, amazingly, beautifully, resolutely blue. I had a handful on the way home. I had a handful while we made dinner. I had a handful after dinner. And I'm eating a few now. Seven pounds of blueberries won't last long. Ralph eats them faster than I can. We don't even bother with pancakes. No smoothies. No blueberry muffins or cornbread with blueberries. We just eat them plain. And with a breeze coming in the window, a whole day with no rain, and CBC jazz on the radio, I suppose I'll cope with the heat after all.

The Pleasures of Afternoon Coffee

So I went through a bout this spring of not drinking coffee. I've never been a heavy coffee drinker, one cup in the morning, every morning. That's not terrible, right? Well, not drinking it certainly was terrible. Horrible headaches everyday for a week that hit right in the middle of my usual afternoon slump. On an ordinary day, the two o'clock hour is hard for me. I lose focus, start drifting, and generally have a minor crisis of motivation. Lack of caffeine added what felt like a ten ton hammer knocking on my brain to that ordinary hiccup in my day.

But here I am, back to my wicked caffeinated ways, drinking a cup every morning. And my drive into work is once again enjoyably contemplative as my brain slowly comes to life. But what I want to talk about now is the afternoon cup. The cup that I'll occasionally reach for when those afternoon lulls hit. And how much better it always tastes when it's summertime and hot in my second floor office and the coffee is iced. Like on a Friday afternoon when things are quiet and warm and the fan pushes the air around sluggishly, not cooling off much. Like today, for instance.

I'm not shy about sharing. I'll freely pull colleagues into the lure of the afternoon jolt. And this afternoon's caffeine produced brilliant results in the form of the following brainstorm: coffee ice cubes. Yup, you got it. Is the genius of this idea apparent to you yet? I bet it is if you've had your afternoon caffeine. No waiting for the coffee to cool before pouring it over ice and no watery coffee those times when you can't wait. Brilliant. I'm giddy with anticipation. Or maybe that's just caffeine.

Much-needed Lemonade

It's hot. It's humid. Everything feels damp. We were out today in the full-on afternoon hazy heat and I was not digging it. It was nice to be out of the office, no doubt, but really??? Is this the best we've got this summer? Ugh. On the way home, it rained intensely, briefly, and did nothing to alleviate the muggy heat. And now it's just heavy gray skies that will fade to night with no relief.

So what I want to talk about now is lemonade. The kind that you find in a shop along Main Street, towards the end of the strip. The kind that is made while you wait. In a tiny little candy/ice cream shop in St. Albans. On the way back from a steamy afternoon's walk around a farm field. The kind of shop that serves huge banana splits with lots of whipped cream and the kind that sells Lemonheads, my childhood candy of choice, and penny candy in jars. The kind of lemonade that is packed full with ice and that is tart, crisp, and fresh, as pretty much nothing else has felt today, myself included.

We ordered four of them and slurped them through straws on the way back to Burlington, with the air conditioning on. That feels like summer.