That’s the song that the ice cream truck roving the neighborhood is playing tonight. And now, as it nears our place, La Cucaracha? I swear that’s what it is. Over the past few hot, holiday days, we’ve also heard “Pop! Goes the Weasel” and “You Are My Sunshine”—competing ice cream vendors, who knows? This is life in the city, post-Baghdad on the Columbia 4th of July festivities around the corner and down the street. It’s been an enlightening number of days.
I’m now in the backyard garden with cats, watching the shadows of the giant big leaf maples on the house, the paving stones, the cedar fence. The wind is up and it’s a gorgeous July night. So far, the Crow Family is MIA. After the past two days, when Sheryl was down for the count, unable to fly up out of the back alley, that is a very good thing indeed. A vining fuchsia bloomed pink and purple today. The front impatiens are watered and the trash is out on the front curb.
A visiting friend and I had a super breakfast this morning at the nearby Kennedy School. We walked to and from, and admired the mosaics and paintings and artifacts throughout that incredibly cool place after we ate. And I finally saw, at long last, the infamous soaking pool (free to our neighborhood’s residents) for the first time. Seems like anyone who lives on NE 22nd can soak for free. I think it will soon be time to test that out…
The white roses on the trellis climb and bloom and spread. The air is fresh and enlivening. I am so lucky to be here, now, in this spot, this moment. All this green. A year ago? Who knew? Saturday there’s a barbeque at our “old” house, a.k.a. Karen’s house, now rented by the Erins and Alix. We’ll go and probably be the oldest folks there. I love that about this neighborhood though. Before that, the Mississippi Avenue Street Fair. This town is maniacal for parades and fairs and festivals in the short months of summer. Cynthia said she thought our neighborhood looked like Berkeley, the part down by the tracks. I sit here in the waning sun, the waxing wind, the enveloping shadows. Feeling like a West Coast girl…
Interests: Reading, writing, not arithmetic. The art and craft of poetry. Photography. Vegetable and flower gardening especially heirloom bulbs and dahlias. Movies in real theatres. Theatre on real stages. Art in real galleries. Crossword puzzles and, of course, Wordle. Singer-songwriters like Aimee Mann and Patti Griffin. All kinds of music especially 1930s jazz. Venice, Italy! The Dude abides.
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