Sunday, June 12, 2005

Suddenly Summer

I go away for a week, and look what happens.
Seriously. I left in cold, soppy rain, after a week of either indifferent clouds or more water-from-the-sky, and more or less leave the area, all to return to this:
The garden has exploded. It's 85 degrees all the time, the house is sweltering, and there are piles of clothes (winter to be put in the attic, and summer to be put in dressers) all over the place, but at least I don't get electric shocks from the car anymore.
I have also completely missed the peonies.
They're my favorite flower, right down to the ants that always seem to be crawling in them. Trust me, if I was an ant or something approximating that size, I'd LIVE for Peony Week.
But I'm too big to curl up into a peony, and they have bloomed and dropped already.
I suppose I can't lament my absence too much; I spent the week aboard the lovely Maverick, a 38-foot sailing yacht, with a crew of surprisingly un-scurvy guys. Now, I'm well acquainted with the ocean, having spent every summer of my life on Cape Cod, and I can pilot a Boston Whaler (a small, open motorboat), but I've never been sailing before, so a week circumnavigating the Delmarva peninsula is akin to chucking oneself in the deep end of a swimming pool after mastering only the dog paddle.
The log of that trip will be blogged soon, as will an account of the wedding I attended yesterday. But for now, I'm just going to enjoy the cool breeze that keeps the mosquitoes away, and the fresh lemonade in the fridge. Suddenly, it's summer.