Missing: One Summer

We certainly have not been having much of a summer. Each morning, I have coffee on my front porch. It's been so cool this summer that the morning glories that usually cover the south side of the porch haven't progresses on their trek up the trellises. This morning, as I sat watching steam from my coffee rise, I noticed it was 48 degrees. In July. I suppose we are saving money, not having to use the air conditioner- we haven't even installed it in the bedroom window yet. But today promises lots of sun, so perhaps, just perhaps it will feel more like June and less like September.

The cool weather is good for moving furniture and also for reading. The past two weeks, I've been plowing through books in the afternoons and evenings, times when it would normally be too hot to do too much thinking.

The first book I finished last week was AJ Jacobs "The Year of Living Biblically." The book was Jacobs's attempt to live out all the rules and regulations found in the Old & New Testament, even though he is a self-proclaimed agnostic. The book started out on a tongue-in-cheek note, with Jacobs concentrating on growing his beard and forelocks as many orthodox Jews do. But as he progresses into discovering the meanings beind the rules, the book becomes a little more reflective.

"Out Stealing Horses" by Per Petterson was the second book I finished. I can tell you exactly when I finsihed this book: 10:00 pm on Saturday night. I will confess, I am a skipper- I often skip ahead in a book to see if it's going to go anywhere. However, though I tried to skip ahead one or two times (OK, three or four), I devoured this book instead, caught up in the intertwining story lines, fractured timelines and descriptions of Norway. I've moved Norway to the #2 spot of Places I Want to Visit; England is #1. I guess all those years in Alaska have immunized me from going to warm-weather places.

Today I'll be scraping windows down at the shop for a couple of hours. We are restoring windows for an 1800's farmhouse out in Orleans county. I've found that two hours of scraping and sanding are about all my elbows can take or I start to get Popeye arms. Since it's nice today, I'll be hanging laundry out on the line.