Bloggin from the hammock.

Another post from the hammock, which generally means I'm feeling self-indulgent and nostalgic. It was hot here today, and as with heat under clear West Coast skies, the real heat peaks late and stirs this odd hot wind, back and forth bothering the trees. It's like opening the oven to check on a cake and the wavy blast almost knocks you back. That was today, at least from when I left work until now.

I made a very indulgent dinner and burned each part of it: tomato sauce (onions left to sweat on too high a flame while I picked oregano, marjoram, and kale from the garden), white beans and kale (again, flame too high while I moved the sprinkler), and grilled polenta (turned the grill up after the first sides didn't sear well). Today was the second class in my swim lesson session, for which I've dropped my whole schedule for the next two weeks. One of my resolutions for the year was to do a triathlon, so I am finally set on that course. The lessons are remedial but the time in the water is worthwhile.

Donna arrives home to Portland tonight, and like the entire environment of the greater metro area, I feel electrified.

I've tried to think of stories in parallel, but I'm lost in pleasures of the senses tonight-- the taste of cold, spicy asparagus pickles, the firm night breeze and taut hammock rope, the smell of night flowers blooming after the burn of a triple-digit day. I don't think I experienced these things well enough in my worried childhood, and so now I delight in their depth. It's that or some commuted sense of shame when I'm the only one over 12 years old racing after soap bubbles, splashing in shallow creeks, or staring with wide eyes at a many-legged insect on the hunt.

Make up for past summers spent indoors.