Is
it Indian summer yet? Somehow I can’t shed my summer afternoon sleepiness. The
last two days, Jacob went home with buddies, and I came home, fresh from a nap,
and promptly went back to bed. Today I slept at least another hour.
Somehow
this summer I seem to have forgotten how to do Texas summers. Now that it’s
almost over—Labor Day marks the unofficial end for most of us—I’m back in the
swing of things. I’ve always, every summer, watered my porch plants first
thing. This year, my coleus (I have a shady porch) spoke to me in no uncertain
terms about its need for water. Jordan would come by in the late afternoon and
stop to water before she came in the house. Finally, about the first of August,
I got in the swing of things and watered every morning. Yesterday because of an
appt. that required an early departure, I forgot. By evening one coleus in
particular looked pitiful—though this morning when I went out to water it had
perked up a bit.
Usually
in summer, my front porch and the windows in the family room are alive with
geckos. This summer, my theme song is “Where have all the geckos gone?” I did
finally see on fat little translucent fellow on the window in the family room.
When it’s dark and the outdoor lights are on, their little bodies are
translucent. Once I had a gecko in my bathroom—every morning when I sat on the
commode, he’d come out to visit. I miss him, and I can’t help wondering if the
disappearance of geckos is like the threat to bees—due to all those pesticides we
use.
Another
summer thing I forgot—fruit salads, with all the wonderful summer fruits. I’m
not much on watermelon but I love a good, sweet cantaloupe, with halved
strawberries, sliced peaches, blueberries, and sliced bananas. Yet, it’s only
been the last two or three weeks that I’ve made fruit salads, and I noticed
this weekend that the blueberries were sometimes a little tart. I never put
raspberries in salads because they’re fragile and tend to get
overwhelmed—besides I hide them in the back of the fridge for myself. I don’t
buy mango either, as it’s so hard to cut up and the already cut-up fruit in the
grocery tends to be under-ripe. But I’ve let the best pf summer foods slip by
except for corn on the cob.
In
the spring it was usually too wet to be on the deck; then it was too hot. We’ve
gotten no use out of it since early spring, and I’m hoping fall will bring deck
weather. Jacob suggested tonight he’d like to get rid of the table and chairs
so it could be a play deck. Not likely. Weather had also prevented me from
putting the top down on my convertible, though that’s no unusual for Texas
summers. Lately, I can tell summer is beginning to leave because if I have to
go somewhere early, I drive with the top down—it has a lovely, soothing effect.
Will
I miss summer? Not the heat, nor the drought that is back upon us. But the fruits
and vegetables and the light summer meals? Those long afternoon naps and lazy
days in which I still got a lot done? Yes, I’ll miss those.
But
the October’s bright blue skies are pretty neat. And I have some fall flowers
about to bloom in my front yard.
