To read an excerpt from the book, please click on the following link:

ashaveilbook.blogspot.com

An excerpt from The Pleasure Palace, my romantic comedy, can be found here:



Saturday, July 22, 2006

it is hot

It was well over a hundred today at the Ponderosa. Tomatoes ripened, seemingly within hours, on the one tomato plant I put in this year. The agave, being a desert plant, is happy, two stories high, and preparing to burst into bloom. The roses are lovely, as long as I keep them watered. Nothing like a wilted garden to also wilt one's spirits.

Mr. Strega, Faustus (our fur child), and I hightailed it to Santa Cruz, then up the coast to Davenport, where we bought a flat of strawberries. Now we're back at the Ponderosa, where the air is as hot outside as it is inside. We can hear neighbors talking and cooking outside; their voices echo off the canyon walls. We're making a cold mango-shrimp-rice noodle salad for dinner, which we will probably eat outside on the deck.

I realize other parts of the country are doing far more terribly with heat right now, and so I won't complain further. I am grateful for all the fans in the house (no air conditioning, which we actually would need only a couple of weeks out of the year), no blackouts right now (we often get them in this rural area), and a gorgeous night sky for stargazing.

There's a trick I used to do with my kids that they still remember: I would allow each of them to put a clean, folded sheet in the freezer (the sheet can be put in a plastic or paper bag, so it doesn't get last month's leftover ice cream on it). At bedtime, they could take the sheet out and put it over themselves for a little bit of coolness.

I hope you kids don't forget that! :)

No comments: