Midsummer Report Card

Summer is my least favorite season. It's hot. It's humid. It sucks energy and creativity right out of me. The myth of long, glorious carefree days spent in chlorine or sand died out about the time I had to take on summer work during college. Still, there have been a few bright spots. Let's rate the summer so far, shall we?

Thumbs Up:

• Our Atlanta Braves. Outstanding season, fellers! Whatever happens here on out, you've been a joy to root for this summer.
• Family time in Connecticut and New York City. The Brennan Clan is always fun to hang out with. Anticipating memory-making Bully Bartows family fun in August, with more wedding hubbub.
• Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. Best read of the summer. I highly recommend it.
• 1970's British TV Drama Fest. Duchess of Duke Street, Danger UXB, and Upstairs, Downstairs have kept me cool so far this miserable summer. (Thanks, Netflix!)
• Piragua cart at 116th and Lexington Avenue. Coming out of the steamy subway station into the oppressive air in Spanish Harlem, I dig for $1 and gladly pay it to the cart-guy for a coconut or mango icy treat. Yum!
• "Play Me, I'm Yours" piano art installation in New York City. Fabulous! Fun! Let's do it again!
• Garnier Fructis Full Control Anti-Humidity Hairspray. 'Nuff said.

Thumbs Down:

• Humidity. Humidity. Heat. Humidity. I don't too well in either weather condition, and combined? Well, they just put me in a vortex of surly laziness. Ugh. (And this one "Thumbs Down" trumps all the "Thumbs Ups" combined.)
• New York Public Library's dearth of class Southern literature available via audiobooks. No Flannery O'Connor or Carson McCullers. No Walker Percy. And the list goes on. Really? All sorts of light-weight bodice rippers and ranting conservative TV hosts' novelettes are ripe for download, but no classic lit from a mega-storytelling region of the world? Really?! This certainly shot to hell my goal of only listening to Southern classics on my iPod, I tell ya'. Bah!
• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. This won the Man Booker Prize? Yikes! Slogged through almost 200 pages before deciding that, yes, life was too short to waste any more time on this historical novel. Usually love a good historical novel, but she never pulled me in. One reviewer called it "spellbinding." Well, yes, if by spellbinding you mean eyes rolling back in head and nodding off every third sentence. Skip this, and reach for Cutting for Stone. Ignore the reviewers.
• "Play Me, I'm Yours" piano art installation was gone too soon. Should've lasted all summer.

Well, fortunately, the whole dreary season should be over in a couple of months. Until then, I'll continue finding tiny bits of energy in a cold beverage, a dish of ice cream, or in my favorite chair letting the air conditioning work its magic.

Pass the cold cider and deodorant, please.