11 posts from June 2009

It's = it is. It's cold in here.

Its = belonging to it.  The furnace lost its heat.

Lose = misplace, fail. I lose my temper when I see stupid mistakes in professionally written pieces online.

Loose = not tight. The knot is loose and soon will come undone.

We have no fireflies, alas, and it's one thing I'd really like to see. They sound enchanting.

Marshmallows! On a stick. Trying to get them *just* right--not burnt, but gold outside and melted inside. Watching the sparks fly upward from the fire and merge into the summer stars, beyond the silhouette of pine trees.

I didn't eat blackberries until I came to the coast, but filling up containers with them, while eating and eating, and realising we could pick them forever and never run out. (There are a lot of blackberries on Vancouver Island.)

Eating fresh peas and carrots out of the garden, and cherries from the tree. And yes, the fruit was warm from the sun, and so juicy and sweet.

Looking for Ogopogo on summer holidays. Never found him. Or her. It?

Riding in an old RV where we as kids lay on the top, watching the road. The window gradually would become more and more bug-spattered, and whining for my dad to clean it with a squeegee at the next gas station.

Grandma Waterstreet sneaking quarters to us, and my cousin and I could go buy a chocolate bar, some candy and a Freezie. With a quarter!

My husband says: the summer being so long and stretching out so far ahead and actually getting bored.

Can you imagine time passing that slowly again? I blink and a whole season slips by. (One of the reasons to slow down, and enjoy summertime.)

I was writing up a little list of "things to do this summer", including both the large and small (get the front yard looking great, swim in a lake, eat watermelon) and it brought back other summer memories.

Some of my favourites: Staying up late, late in August and sitting outside with my mother in the dark, watching the meteor showers and talking. The clink of ice in her glass and the glow of her cigarette in the dark. The "oooh!" we shared when a "really good one" streaked across the sky. This funny little tub of tanning butter I had for about five years and spread on every summer while lying by the pool. The scent of that little tub is such a powerful trigger: one whiff and I'm 15 again.

Corn on the cob, watermelon, barbecuing steaks, burgers, and potatoes. Staying downstairs in the afternoons because it was so much cooler in the "basement". Walking barefoot--gingerly at first, then by the end of August, my feet were all "toughened up". Hopping along when the pavement was hot. The smell of campfire smoke, the smell of newly mowed lawns, the smell of big, fat raindrops hitting the dry sidewalks. The smell of lakewater. The feel of sunburn. The crack and rumble of an electric storm in the afternoon.

This summer, I want to experience some of that again--but it's not like it was when you're a kid. No more long, endless days. But I'm still making my list: I'm going to swim in a lake, go for Sunday drives just to see and explore, eat watermelon, and sleep naked, among other things. I'm going to try and avoid the sunburn, though!

Summer reading, in progress:

We Were the Mulvaneys - Joyce Carol Oates
The English: A Social History, 1066-1945 – Christopher Hibbert  
She's Come Undone - Wally Lamb 
That Singing You Hear At The Edges - Sue MacLeod 
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury 
Quartet - Jean Rhys

Summer, 2009, read:

The Last Juror - John Grisham 
The Girl, The Gold Watch, and Everything - John D. McDonald
Good Faith - Jane Smiley   
The Hour I First Believed - Wally Lamb 
The Stand - Stephen King
The Private Patient - P. D. James
World Without End - Ken Follett

Summer reading, in progress:

The English: A Social History, 1066-1945 – Christopher Hibbert  
She's Come Undone - Wally Lamb
That Singing You Hear At The Edges - Sue MacLeod
Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury
Quartet - Jean Rhys

Summer, 2009, read:

The Last Juror - John Grisham
The Girl, The Gold Watch, and Everything - John D. McDonald
Good Faith - Jane Smiley  
The Hour I First Believed - Wally Lamb
The Stand - Stephen King
The Private Patient - P. D. James
World Without End - Ken Follett

It's quite astounding how well the sound carries.