« June 04, 2005 | Main | June 14, 2005 »

June 08, 2005

Your everlasting summer

Last week I wore sweaters and it rained; today it was 90 degrees, the sky cerulean blue, the sidewalks cooler than the steaming streets but not much. Everybody was out walking at lunchtime and probably we were all wondering the same thing: why the hell didn't we take the day off?

Naturally because the first really hot days are here the air conditioner has ceased to function. On Monday night before we left for Moo's graduation/award "ceremony" (which consisted of herding about 200 people into hideously uncomfortable plastic chairs and forcing them to applaud for children whom they mostly did not know, and who looked almost exactly and eerily like each other in dress, hair and attitude, for two and a half hours), I had turned the thermostat to 75 degrees; when we got home while lightning played at the horizon and a storm was on the way, it was 80 degrees in the house and the air that was furiously blowing through the vents was lukewarm. "Tell them to take the fucking thing out and give us one that works," advised The Husband calmly while I left a message on the emergency line of the company that installed the unit not quite two years ago. That will be $8,000 please, and as an added bonus it will break down whenever the seasons change.

The company promised to send a repairman tomorrow, when I work at home, but instead sent one today when I was at work in the city. When I got home and saw the cheery "sorry we missed you!" note on the door, it made me very sad. Now it is 85 degrees upstairs and the fans are busy stirring the hot air around. Spike lies boneless on the kitchen floor; Jack sits in the livingroom, panting.

Herself is upstairs in bed and Moo and I are down here, where it's slightly less roasty. Tonight to get some fresh air we took Jack for a walk and the first fireflies of the season were lighting up the not-quite-summer evening. Moo and Herself caught some in their open palms and the world gradually got darker, though not cooler.

But really, I love this weather and I'm glad to see the long and longer days--another season coming around. A fall, a winter, a spring, a summer. Full circle, almost. In honor of almost-here, a poem by Philip Larkin.

The Mower

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.

Posted by JudyLa at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)