Finding the Umm in Summer - Kelly

Sure feels like summer here: the first mosquito bites of the season, the first grass burr under(bare)foot, the car's AC breaking on the first 90 degree afternoon.

You need to know that summer is my least favorite time of year. I despise heat.

For five of the last seven years, I’ve escaped to my favorite home away from home, Ashland, Oregon. There I revel in cool mornings and evenings. I also get to hang with my friends in the Lithia Writers Collective.

What’s not to love?

Will I go this year? I don’t know yet, but I’m steeling myself for another Texas summer, just in case.

To psych myself up for that dreadful possibility and to make up for the first paragraph’s glum trinity, I’m determined to conjure some positive things about summer in my native state.

• Friday mornings around my friend V’s pool. She’s gracious enough to extend a standing invitation to the women of First Amendment Friday (i.e. our wine and conversation group), kids and all.

• Consumption of the year’s summer beverage with friends and family (in moderation, of course). Our standard Pinot Grigio (from Target! In a box! Go get some!) will likely, this summer be supplanted by a vodka concoction. The current contenders are sweet tea vodka, mixed with either water or lemonade; fresh squeezed grapefruit juice and plain vodka, with or without a salted rim; and blood orange Italian soda with vodka. My sister-in-law plans something that involves soaking pineapple chunks in vodka, too. Vote now for your favorite.

• Enjoying (in the morning, early afternoon, or at night) the patio furniture I finally talked The Man into purchasing at the end of last summer thanks to a ridiculous combination of discounts. Our patio is on the west side of our house, and if you sit there from 3-7 p.m., without shade, you will not be enjoying anything.

That’s three….do you have any to add?