A post full of sighs

Hi guys.

This has been one of the sweetest summers I can remember here in northeast Ohio, with mild temperatures, breezy blue skies and the occasional dramatic storm to give it all scale.

Hamburger over Akron

I've walked miles and miles and miles during these fair days, many of them with the Goat along the Ohio & Erie Canalway Towpath Trail--such a gentle gift. I wish every one of you could come here and let me be your guide. We'd meander by bits of history such as the Mustill Store, through Akron's quirky downtown district, and take in my favorite stuff--walking through our infrastructure past and present. The trail goes underneath interstates, beneath towering bridges and past industrial relics. It's all next to that old canal, which was dug with shovels.

Akron underground

How I love this place.

The only thing missing from my August has been Ohio sweetcorn, eliminated as part of my new low-carb eating efforts. And as much as I love sweetcorn, the 20 pounds I've dropped is even sweeter.

At Gay Games DanceSport

The Gay Games were spectacular. You should have seen the ballroom dancing. The dancers radiated pure joy. Lil' OB and I were positively hypnotized by it, so much so that we both misted up. It was that emotional.



You don't see true kernels of freedom too often. But the gay rodeo participants? The athletes from Russia walking into Progressive Field without fear? Two people dancing with beautiful abandon and no judgement?

That's freedom.

Pretty girls on horses at the Gay Rodeo

Well my friends, that's all I know. The Goat's time off is coming to an end and Lil' OB is off to school next week (that kid's a senior!). I'm back at the desk working on yet another large business project.

So while I can't package up the summer's good karma and send it to quell the unrest in Ferguson or melt the guns in the Middle East, I can send some floating your way.

Onward, onward, onward ...

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The pharoah and other delights

Yes I am frozen in a solid block of ice and have lost feeling in my toes. Yes I am at work on a new blog post. No I am not going to preview it herein. Yes I am posting three pictures.

Enjoy.

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The long hot summer vol. four: the velvet of the morning

The last in the series.

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Call it the prelude to dawn.

The fecund air pushes through the open window, heavy with the scent of things alive and fighting to stay that way.

You blink awake, pulling your mind back from the tangled dreams, which are already fading but have left you sweaty and disconcerted. You and lay back on the cool sheets. The ceiling fan rotates above you, a benefactor. With one hand on your solar plexus and the other forearm perpendicular to your supine body like an antenna in search of a secret signal, you watch the dark leaves dance against the changing sky. Deep blue gives way slowly, changing into velvet that lightens one degree at a time. If you're very lucky, a pink or orange slash will bloom.

You breathe.

Sounds follow the sky's lead. The crickets carry the chorus as they always do, but at this hour, their sound moves from the background and defines the world with its even hum. The birds begin to stir. One chirp comes, then another and another until a warbler joins in. Singing and trills round out the symphony.

Just before the sun breaks over the horizon, the breeze tacks. It veers in your window and brushes over your skin. If you've dozed off a bit and are balancing on the thin plenum that separates asleep from awake, you might think it was a lover's caress.

You'd be right.

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The long hot summer vol. three: Mad Men

Dear readership: Your humble hostess has decided to correct a five year cultural lapse by diving into the critically acclaimed Mad Men, which she heretofore had not watched. Courtesy of the local video store, she's unraveling television's endless 60s cocktail party over this long hot summer.

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Oh sweet love of life.

Season one. Season two. Season three. Four discs each, 13 episodes per. The season sets are just as addictive as the Lucky Strikes dangling from Don Draper's fingers, as seductive as Betty's lush ruby lips and as intoxicating as a neat shot of bourbon pouring into a rocks glass. Best of all, there's no pesky seven day stretch between what just happened and what happens next.

Will Betty ever see Henry again? Is Joan really gone for good? Will Sal ever give in to his rainbow desires? Your answers, young Grasshopper, are just a click away.

You sit in your dark living room gulping it all down, remote on your lap. The images on the screen lull you as cooing secretaries float amid sets awash in the colors of Necco wafers, dotted with the primary reds, blues and yellows of their lovely frocks.

What to women want? poses Don. As if he had to ask.

Watch one episode, sleepy steamy Erin. Watch another and another. Watch and watch until the smoke curling from Roger Sterling's cigarette somehow floats out of the television and into the space before you. Breathe in these mysterious vapors as the beads of perspiration collect on your chest. Lay your head, bangs sweaty against your forehead, upon the welcoming cushions.

Don't fight it, sleepy Erin, just drift drift drift ... drift off into your thick hot dreams.

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The long hot summer vol. two: walking in a grocery wonderland

The continuing chronicles of surviving the 2012 heat wave without air conditioning.

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The hot trek across the parking lot ends with the parting of the pneumatic doors and an orgiastic blast of cold air.  The sensation is two-fold, with the first being obvious enough. The second is a deeper chill as the sheath of perspiration on your skin reacts to a sharply increased rate of evaporation. The effect evokes a subtle shudder.

The air. The blessed cool air. The air in the grocery store is cooler than any other air anywhere. After all, this store is brand new. Units are fully charged and undoubtedly the most efficient model available. So so so cool.

You walk slowly, much slower than is appropriate. You linger in the bakery department with no intention of buying anything, but just to bask in the brightness of the gleaming plastic containers of brownies and cookies. Happy yellow daisies top each lemon cake.

You reach into the featured meats case with absolute belief in the exclamation points on the sale sign. You roll by the seasonal display and sigh, then linger before the wedges of better cheese arranged just so in their special display case, miles away from the dairy department with its bags of shredded mozzarella. You select a brick of Fontina.

The aisles are a perfect grid, although you are not so well behaved, weaving through them in a haphazard pattern. You pass over the mundane rows of pet food and instead turn down the canned soup aisle in order to channel your inner Warhol.

Frozen is a grand corridor, lined in steel and glass. You select nothing, but smile at the promise of effortless food nonetheless before spilling out into the land of milk and honey.

When you reach the end of the refrigerated cases full up with tubs of margarine and Cool Whip, however, a switch inside you toggles. Your legs and arms suddenly feel bare in the manufactured air. It's chill is becoming uncomfortable. The Pillsbury Dough boy's smile is a lie. You push the tube of crescent rolls back into the dispenser rack. You head to check out, you're step quickening. Goosebumps erupt on your thighs.

As you approach the exit, you realize you're anticipating the earth's blast of heat almost as much as you had anticipated the store's blast of cold just 35 minutes ago.

The feeling lasts for as long as it takes to traverse five yards of hot asphalt.

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The long hot summer vol. one: a sticky situation

No, we do not have air conditioning. Yes, it is hot. No, we're not getting it any time soon. Yes, we could if we were so inclined.

(Remember when almost no one had air conditioning? It wasn't that long ago. Remember when AC was an expensive option on a new car? Remember?)

The worst thing about not having AC is not the copious perspiration that soaks through tee shirts and turns otherwise supple tresses into a wet stringy mess.

The worst thing about not having AC is not the sweat that peppers one's upper lip with fine salty dots one collects with one's tongue along with a bit of foamy residue left over from a slug of ice-cold Pabst.

The worst thing about not having AC is not the steamy fitful nights or the condensation on a mason jar filled with iced coffee (and the subsequent coaster mandate), or the way chocolate bars turn limp and soft to the tooth.

The worst part of not having AC, dear readership, is forearm stickiness.

To be sure, the stickiness in general is annoying, with the corn silks sticking to one's sweat-sheathed legs during shucking (admittedly done outside, but you get the picture) and the formidable task of dressing after a shower. But the zenith of stickiness peril, dear readership, is when the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle (particularly one purchased for a dollar at a garage sale) stick to one's forearms (when one leans on the puzzle table to study a piece afar) and fall to the floor (sometimes even upon that of another room, depending on the degree of forearm stickiness) unbeknownst to the puzzler.

I shall leave the aftermath of said eventuality to your imagination.

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