Lazy hazy crazy days of summer

So to be blunt--it's as hot as balls. It is so hot, you are almost a prisoner in your own house. It is hard when you have an outside baby that you can't take outside, because after 5 minutes I am miserable and she looks like she is having heat exhaustion. I woke up today dreaming about moving to Montana and living off the land and being cold. And then I felt ungrateful. In a few months there will be a cold snap that will be cold and dreary and although I will love it, eventually I will crave the warmth of summer. So I decided to make a list of the things I love about summer.

1. I like to sit in my bath tub at night and listen to the crickets. There are no crickets chirping in January.

2. Doves. I like to lie in bed in the morning and listen to the world wake up, and in the summer the doves really coo in the morning and that is a lovely peaceful sound that you don't get on the cold days.

3. Bobby Mcgee/Janis Joplin- this is the song by mom always used to play when school let out and we would go crazy dancing around the house and the song doesn't sound the same to me when I am bundled up in a coat. It is totally a flip-flops and cut-offs song.

4. Cicadas. I like to sit outside in the evening and listen to them and you can't do that in the winter.

5. Every summer since I was in the 4th grade I have read To Kill a Mockingbird. I love it and I can't read it any other time of year.

6. You can't go off a rope swing in the winter. You could, I guess, but you would freeze your tush off and it wouldn't be any fun at all.

7. Tomatoes. I know there is a God because he made tomatoes. And if you grow them yourself and pluck them off the vine one minute and eat them drizzled with olive oil salt and pepper the next you'll be a believer too. And if you don't grow them, the ones in the super market just seem to taste better in the summer. We had some tonight, sauteed with olive oil and garlic, sprinkled with basil and poured on top of a grilled ribeye. You don't get a meal like that any other season.

8. The evenings are the nicest in the summer. If you sit outside on a glider or a porch swing with a glass of wine after 7, you won't care about the heat index.

9. Kids don't play in the sprinkler in the fall or winter.

10. Flavor-pops. Annabelle had her first one today. We were on the deck sharing one--she would suck out all of the juice out of a chunk I handed her and then give it back to me, in the form of a smaller chunk of ice. I would then give it to my idiot dog, who, because she is an idiot, would gobble it up without missing the sugar. That experiece alone has been worth every triple digit day this season.