Summer is Here

I know summer is here when...

• my air conditioners run all day and my electronic bill is over $100

• a tick from my tree lands on me and I have to flush it down the toilet.

• all the flowers in my garden are done blooming and now all I have is weeds.

• I can film the sunset going down over Boston from the boat that goes to the airport.

• I eat too much over the weekend and regret the next day.

• I start pulling up weeds from the cracked in the pavement.

And yet even as I write this, thinking about summer, an electrician is hooking up heating cables in the gutters of my house as I prepare for winter.

But I really don't have many good things to say about summer.  The heat and the humidity are things I can live without.  There's more hours of daylight, I suppose that's good, unless you like to stargaze.

I think what I dislike most about summer, though, is it gives false hope.  It tricks you into thinking that everyday will be warm and bright and nice.  If you live in the northern half of the country, you know that's not true.  The cold is round the corner.  At least in the spring and the fall, days are balanced and varied, which is more like life.  Sometimes it's a good day and sometimes not.  There's light and darkness.  Warmth and cold.  With summer you get none of that, particularly during a heat wave.  The days just stretch on in unvaried, unending order.   I need more variety than that.  Maybe that's why I like to see thunder and hail, it breaks up the monotony.

And of course there's yard work.  Lots and lots of yard work.  Grass to mow; bushes and tree to trim.  Weeds to pull.  Seems like I've got more weeds than anything these days.

But I'm managing.  The second novel progresses slowly because of interruptions from other sources.  Perhaps I should weed out the interruptions next.  Now there's an idea...