Yesterday we had the end of summer family party.\u00a0 The weather has been remarkably nice with temperatures in the eighties, beautiful blue skies and kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews filling the swimming pool and old folks smiling at memories of summers long past.<\/p>\n
There was some politics thrown in here and there.\u00a0 After all, it\u2019s in our blood.\u00a0 I joked about my impending campaign and how I\u2019ll need at least ten million dollars to assure my victory.\u00a0 But no checks were forthcoming.\u00a0 But most of the day and evening was taken up with grilling meat, containing grease fires, eating fattening foods and sitting around talking about the best parts of the recent vacations, kids going off to college and whose arthritic joints hurt worse.<\/p>\n
One of my sisters-in-law was marveling at all the various butterflies that were flitting around the aptly named butterfly bush that Camera Girl employs me to keep well-watered.\u00a0 And it was interesting that they had selected the party day to come out in full force to get the last nectar from this plant resource.\u00a0 It was one last reminder that nature rejoices in the summer almost as much as I do.<\/p>\n
By the time the last guest had left and I had assisted Camera Girl in wrapping up the leftovers it was 11pm and it was time to walk the dogs and lock the doors.<\/p>\n
Today we had the kids and grandkids back over to finish up the food and go swimming again in the pool.\u00a0 I grilled up the last of the burgers and we stuffed the kids with pie, lemonade, ice cream and cake.\u00a0 Remarkably, they never seem to get too full or groggy from all that sugar.\u00a0 They just head back to the pool or play some badminton or soccer.<\/p>\n
I was talking to their parents about school.\u00a0 They start school a week from tomorrow and the grandkids were not happy at all by this talk about it.\u00a0 I could see their faces fall at the mention.\u00a0 So, I quickly added that the pool won\u2019t be closing up until the day after they go back to school and they could come over every day they were allowed to if they liked.<\/p>\n
But it struck me that I remember feeling exactly the same way when school was looming over us like that.\u00a0 It was an awful feeling and at that moment I remembered what nine-year-old me felt like.\u00a0 Ah, the persistence of memory.<\/p>\n
We haven\u2019t had any real rain in over a month and the state is declaring a drought.\u00a0 My water comes from a well and since I live next to a swamp, I figure there\u2019s probably a trillion gallons of water still in there.\u00a0 Maybe a trillion and a half.\u00a0 That\u2019s what we call an engineering estimate.<\/p>\n
But the fields are as dry as a bone.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been watering the vegetable garden and the flower gardens pretty religiously but a lot of the flowers have given up the ghost.\u00a0 But that\u2019s what late August is; the beginning of the dying time.\u00a0 I guess I should be unhappy about the drought and the straw-like grass.\u00a0 But I\u2019m not.\u00a0 I always hope that summer will stretch into September.\u00a0 Sure, an inch or two of rain would be fine.\u00a0 But eighty-degree days and blue skies are as close to heaven as I can imagine.\u00a0 And soon enough the days will shorten and cool.\u00a0 It\u2019s inevitable.\u00a0 So, another week or two of summer looks good to me.<\/p>\n
I notice the Democrats are laying it on pretty thick about how the arc of history is bending toward their mid-term success.\u00a0 Blah, blah, blah.\u00a0 And the predictable Republicans are panicking about all this.\u00a0 \u201cOh no!\u00a0 The Trump selected candidates will go down in flames.\u00a0 Quick, make friends with the progressives!\u201d\u00a0 Feckless losers.\u00a0 People are telling me we must move to the middle.\u00a0 And I tell them there is no middle.\u00a0 There\u2019s getting what you want and there\u2019s folding like a cheap suit.\u00a0 Pick one.<\/p>\n
But the result will be upon us soon and I can deal with either eventuality.\u00a0 A true binary is upon us.\u00a0 We either win or lose.\u00a0 And I can deal with either result.\u00a0 But no more uncertainty.\u00a0 Either the American people throw off the Democrats or they don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
What a beautiful sunset tonight.\u00a0 It\u2019s a joy to see a day this beautiful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday we had the end of summer family party.\u00a0 The weather has been remarkably nice with temperatures in the eighties, beautiful blue skies and kids,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3366,818,1263],"tags":[342,253,2341],"class_list":["post-20107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-life-in-dunwich","category-ocf","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-new-england-summer","tag-summer","tag-traditional-family"],"yoast_head":"\n