Peaches

Every year around this time, the smell of the early summer peaches stops me in my tracks.  I can’t resist them.  I can’t buy a bushel but a dozen should do.  They purposely put them in a paper bag because they need a few days and the wait can be agony. Of course once they’re home the smell just keeps getting stronger.

Finally! I have to eat one immediately and they never disappoint.  Peaches hold a certain food nostalgia for me, they are a direct link to my father and his way of making them into something special.

You can read all about that in a post I did several years ago when I first began writing about all those ordinary legacy moments; FATHER’S DAUGHTER MOMENTS: PEACHES

Cherish the ordinary moments, they are truly the stuff of legacy.

Superpower…

Superpower (1)

The concept of superpower implies seemingly impossible abilities. According to Wikipedia: There is no rigid definition of a “superpower”. In popular culture, it may be used to describe anything from minimal exaggeration of normal human traits, magic, to near-godlike abilities including flight, superstrength, projection of destructive energy beams and force fields, invulnerability, telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, super-speed or control of the weather.

 Doesn’t mean a mere mortal like myself can’t have a superpower, doesn’t mean you can’t have a superpower. My superpower is pulling together a meal for anywhere between two and eight people at a moment’s notice using nothing other than what’s in my pantry, the magic fridge (as my sister calls it) and a bit of Sunday afternoon mise en place. Or as I call it chop/roast/sauté therapy.

So while Sunday morning looks like this:

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Sunday afternoon looks like this:

Superpower (2)Superpower (3)

The result of this is the ordinary legacy moment of the week. That moment when my neighbors and I are chatting on the deck and we decide we’re all hungry. Minutes later we are dining on slices of lasagna made the previous day in a loaf pan, tomato-zucchini-mozzarella-basil salad with dark chocolate balsamic and olive oil dressing and for dessert the now famous angel food-blueberry-gelatin concoction that tastes exactly like you want summer to feel. Cool and refreshing. Nothing makes me happier.

Have a good week.

 

 

 

 

 

July 4th ~ Summer Begins

Old City Philly 2014 (3)

Happy Birthday America!  Thought it might be nice to take a look back at a moment, THE moment, in time.  Philadelphia, the birthplace of our nation, was a perfect place for a photo walk.  Spending a day in Old City Philly is always well spent.

 

Old City Philly 2014 (30)Old City Philly 2014 (20)Old City Philly 2014 (16)Old City Philly 2014 (41)To see the entire photo walk click here.

We’ve learned that not much happens on the blog during the summer so we’re going light, highlighting the best of summer through photos more than words.

All the while we’re going to stretch and poke and prod our format to see how we can wake it up, tell more stories, perhaps take on a new project.  By the time the new year starts in September, because isn’t that really when the new year starts?, we should have something new yet familiar, exciting yet comforting, entertaining yet informative…because we know like we know like we know that’s what makes a good story.

Enjoy a safe and memory filled summer…because, well you know.

 

 

Father’s Navy Hammock

reading in the hammock

Imagine, if you will, growing up in an old-fashioned sort of family, in an old-fashioned sort of family`s back yard, with trees and grass and flower beds and a hammock strung between two maple trees in a far, shady corner. Imagine you and your friends, when no one else is around, swinging each other as high and as hard as you can, stopping only when one of you swings all the way around and ends up lying in a heap on the grass. – July 28, 1985|By Elizabeth Maupin, Orlando Sentinel

It wasn’t exactly like that but damn close.  My friends weren’t really interested in my Father’s old Navy hammock but I was.  In the dog days of summer it was heaven on earth lying in the shade of the two maples with a book.  Summers back then didn’t seem nearly as hot.  Our backyard had a lot of shade, a constant breeze and the old maple was always in motion, rustling, reaching for the sky.  I could stay there for hours; my Mother always knew where I was and never bothered me.  If I fell asleep in it, so be it.

back yard

I’ve been hearing lots of irritable remarks about the summer doldrums lately.  I admit I’m not a summer person but this summer seems more manageable to me somehow.  We’ve had a lot of rain and my garden isn’t complaining a bit.  We’ve had cool mornings that are conducive to coffee on the deck, especially with the overhead fan whirring, which has been practically unheard of in summers past.

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I’ve become nostalgic for that hammock several times in my life.  My first apartment (a hundred years ago) was a third floor walkup with no air conditioning. The coolest part of the place was my tiny guest bedroom, or as I called it my sewing room. I often fantasized about hanging the old hammock in that room, coming home from work, taking a cool shower and crawling into it with a book. If I fell asleep in it, so be it.

Another time was in my first house.  We had a hammock but it was woven rope and it never seemed as comfortable to me as the old canvas one I knew as a kid.  It was a shame to have lost that poor thing to old age and rot.  If I recall correctly it was my Grandfather who was the one who wound up falling through it.

hooks overgrown

By the time our family no longer had any ties to the old house the maples had grown over the hooks that held up the hammock and only the memories of it remained.  There are days when the heat is high and the breeze is just enough that I would love to crawl back into that hammock and lose myself in a book.  That’s no longer an option but the memory of it serves as a reminder that summer is for using less energy, catching up on the slow things and enjoying obligatory lazing.