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Summer begins -- 05/31/11



The calendar may say that summer begins with the solar solstice on June 21st but people often say that Memorial Day marks the unofficial beginning of summer. I talked about that last year in my June 21st entry, about how when I was a kid summer (including bright sunshine and summer temperatures) seemed to arrive with the annual Memorial Day parade (except, of course, for there still being another four weeks or so of school left).

Sunday Jeremy decided to have a cookout. He fired up his grill and fixed a marvelous meal. He invited friends (a married couple with their kids) plus Janet & Tom (Nancy's sister and her husband). Jill had to work from 3 until 8 and Nancy (as I mentioned on Friday) was in South Carolina.

The picture below shows Jeremy at his grill.

Jeremy cooked corn-on-the-cob still in its husks, without even soaking it in water first. It came out just perfect. (Here he is husking the corn before serving... and yes, he is wearing gloves -- after all, he does have his food safety certification.)
While watching our three year old guest enjoying an ear of corn it suddenly struck me that children will no longer imitate being a typewriter while eating corn-on-the-cob -- they will not understand that metaphor at all.

Also attending were ten month old twins, a boy and a girl. Discussion of gender roles (and toys and clothes, etc.) brought up the recent news story about a couple who were keeping the gender of their baby a secret in order to keep people from being able to stereotype him/her.

Jeremy cracked us all up when he said "I cook, clean, buy food, and spend more than forty hours a week in a kitchen. I don't have an problem with gender roles."

Monday morning I drove up the airport and picked up Nancy, back from her weekend visit with her sister Karen (who has retired to South Carolina). Late in the afternoon she suggested that we should put the canvas roof and screen mesh walls on the back deck.

So we did... That's me on the stepladder trying to flip the covering up and over the supports.

And the project was soon complete.

Oh, okay, so it took a bit longer than "soon" but we eventually got it in place. After all, we've been doing this for years. I'm not sure how much longer though... the fabric is getting a bit worn... and the deck probably doesn't have too many more years left in it before it will need to either be repaired or replaced. We have talked about replacing it with a three season room but then there is the question of money. (Maybe I shouldn't retire in two more years.)

Ah well... Nancy and Jill and I ate dinner on the deck last night by the light of half a dozen candles on the table. Thus, I can definitely say, summer has now officially arrived at our house...

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