Found: Summer

For those, like me, who have been looking for it high and how, I can confirm that it still exists: summer. It is mid-July, and he has been playing coy (why should it always be a she who plays coy? I know many a he that is an expert at this game...) but has finally decided that it's time to come out and play.

Friday was a nice enough day, but then there were the inevitable sprinkles of rain that we have become used to here in LondoNY. But Saturday and Sunday the skies opened, the sun shone through, and we were all very happy indeed.

True, I didn't make much of Saturday's sun. Went to the gym, went to the movies (saw the new Woody Allen film, which is not as bad as everyone says but not as good as one would hope), had some quiet dinner at home. I had been thinking to drag some some friends into the park to see the fireworks, which this year were in the Hudson River so the aforementioned park in this case would be Riverside Park. But living in that part of town, I saw police barricades forming, boys in blue streaming into and out of the park, and just about everyone else streaming in. I decided it wasn't quite for little old me and contented myself with listening to the booms in the distance.

Sunday was an equally glorious day, but this day I decided to grasp this summer by the...ah... hands (my metaphors are slipping badly here and veering into dangerous terrain...) and head into the park with friends for a picnic. It was warm but not hot, quite still. We found a shady little hill and listened to the mixing of music from Summer Stage and a nearby brass band. We sipped Alsation wine grape juice (wine is forbidden in the park -- didn't you know? And I'm not the kind of person to decant wine into water bottles, am I?), enjoyed the sun, wondered about the motives of a twenty something girl who was wandering around with a pet cheetah on a leash (ok - not exactly - it was one of those crosses between a wild cat and domestic cat that have become very popular lately), and enjoyed a leisurely afternoon.

And so summer has been found. And let's hope he's not letting go, just yet.

BB