Draining the dregs of summer

As happens so often when summer is off to a late start, September is trying to make up for lost time. So am I.
August was quite nice but  I was too tired to do much about getting outside.

I am still not allowed to bear 100% weight on the injured leg, but as long as I don't overdo it and wear the Zimmer splint I can get around a bit. 

The view above is what I see when I drag the zero gravity chair onto the ramp that makes the dwelling wheelchair accessible. I can do that myself now, yeah!

I get to lay back, smell the phloxes and bask in the mellow late summer sun. Heaven. 

I am cooking our meals again and juicing daily. The  Omega 8004 doesn't roar, it purrs. It is fast, thorough, easy to clean and reassemble. It can do other tricks too, like grind meat and make pasta. We will play with that in winter. 

Today was a glorious day. We enjoyed the weekly market outing in the sun. We got home around 1. A week ago that would have been it for the day. Today I rested till 2, then made miso soup for lunch and put the groceries away, rested some more, and made a simple but sustaining meal. Buffalo burgers with pesto, tomato and cucumber from the garden, salad with tomatoes, green beans and onions from the garden, corn on the cob from the market. We had it on the deck at a set table with our good friend Beverley. It was the first time since June that I had done anything like that. It sure feels good to be more myself again. 

This was probably the last truly warm day of the year. The forecast calls for some rain tomorrow, with a return to sun but cooler next week. Whatever the future holds, this day has been well and truly milked. I have said that before. But then, it is something to strive for daily, isn't it?

Summer, at last

Originally posted to Multiply August 11 2011

It may be over tomorrow. Some thunderstorms are brewing and they will be followed by cooler air. But we did get a taste of summer, including a bit of beach weather. It hasn't rained since Sunday a week ago, and the temperature finally hit 30, at least once.

That August lazy feeling is creeping up on me. Today The Boy and I went to the beach South of town to meet the cousins. We had a great time. Yesterday the two of us went to the village beach, but alas. The rungs to the ladder that gets people up on the floating dock have gone missing. Without them, he can't quite get up on the dock, which means he was BORED. Not all of us are blessed with the ability to make friends on the spot. Thank Earth for cousins!

What is it about sunshine sparkling off blue water? It perks me up like nothing else. Of course it is always better with real ocean but the big lake will do.  I have not gone in beyond my thighs. The water feels colder every year anyway, but this year it didn't start warming up till August first, when the nights started to seriously lengthen.

But even if it ends tomorrow, we have experienced the Summer Feeling. The worries of the world seem far away. Articles of clothing and garden tools have been left outside without being ruined. Meals are built around fresh garden produce. Most important of all: Time stops. For a few blessed weeks, it is Summer, and that is all that matters.

A monopoly summer

Originally posted to Multiply July 21 2011

B.C. is having a cool, wet summer. We have had them before. This one is at least changeable, with some sun in between the showers and not too cold.  We are not being flooded or burnt out of our home, and the woods are loving it. There is no need for shlepping garden hoses around either. While I miss true heat, we should be grateful.


But what do we do with a grandchild on vacation when it is not beach weather? We play Monopoly, that's what. The grandson and I have been enjoying vigorous battles. The score is 7-7 so far.  He is at the other grandparents now, we have joint custody for the summer. :).


The game takes me back to rainy vacation days in summer houses in Noordwijk. My oldest kid brother Jaap and I played it endlessly. I hardly ever won, no matter how good my strategy or how promising my possessions. Somehow Jaap always managed to produce a stash of money that he claimed to have surreptitiously saved. Silly honest me believed him.
It simply never occurred to me that someone would systematically cheat, something he cheerfully confessed to about 40 years later. Both my brothers believe that cheating is an expected part of  game playing. I do not. Foolish naive me. 


K got the game for his 9th birthday, when he was still obsessed with Sponge Bob Squarepants. How does anyone come up with characters like that anyway? Like my SIL said, "substances must have been involved.." We digress. I finally know the order of the place names, vehicles etc in that version. But the Dutch version is engraved in my DNA. The following is just for my own entertainment. You can stop reading now.


"Ons Dorp" (Dorps straat, Brink) 
Arnhem: Steenstraat, Ketelstraat, Velperplein.  
Haarlem: Barteljoris straat, Zijlweg, Grote Hout straat.
Utrecht: Neude, Biltstraat, Vreeburg
Groningen: A-Kerkhof, Grote Markt, Heerenstraat
Den Haag: Spui, Plein, Lange Poten
Rotterdam: Hofplein, Blaak, Coolsingel
Amsterdam: Leidse straat, Kalverstraat.


PostScript:
The Boy spent some birthday money on a new version. I HATE it.
Canadian version: Instead of picking cities for each colour with real street names each colour group has a random bunch of cities. What is expensive Vancouver doing in the cheap light-blue section?
But what I really hate is the electronic banking machine. Instead of the cheerful shuffling around of pretend bills non-bankers seem to spend half their game time waiting for the machine to deal with cards. It also make it harder to keep track of your money. I wonder if this is a deliberate ploy by The Powers That Be to get us all used to the cash-less society?