Via the revgals: Hot Town, Summer in the City...or town, or suburb, or hamlet, or burg, or unincorporated zone, or rural area of your choice---pretty much anywhere but the southern hemisphere, it's summer. (Australians and others, consider this an invitation to take a break from winter for a while.)
1. Favorite summer food(s) and beverage(s)
Coke over ice in tall glasses. And BLTs done the way my daddy taught me: lightly toasted white bread, miracle whip (not mayo) on both slices, green leaf lettuce (none of that iceberg), just-right-cooked Petit Jean bacon (not too crispy, not to undone), and big slices of tomatoes fresh from his garden. Too bad I can't get daddy's tomatoes...they wouldn't ship well from Chicago. But TheologyBabe has promised me some from her garden later this summer. YUM! Can't wait!
2. Song that "says" summer to you. (Need not be about summer explicitly.)
Hmm. Whenever I hear Indigo Girls' song "Ghost" I'm taken back to the summer of 1992, when I worked on the summer staff at a church conference center in the Texas Hill Country. (See that dam there across the Guadalupe? Sitting right there on the bank, that's where I kissed a girl for the first time...). "Rites of Passage" had just been released and it played on my tape player all day long while I cleaned rooms and changed beds. "Ghost," in particular, was a song that I sang over and over from inside, that seemed to express all the kinds of pain and confusion I was in at that time. The memory of that time is bittersweet, rather like the song. There was pain, but beauty, too -- amazing worship, that kiss, and some of the most beautiful land I have ever seen, which still shows up in my dreams even though I haven't been back since 1992.
3. A childhood summer memory
Every summer that we lived in Kansas, I played softball in the city league. I. Loved. It. My favorite memory is catching a long fly ball at the fence, off the bat of the best athlete in town, male or female, (and a very popular girl in my class, unlike me) and hearing the crowd cheer. When we drove through the town a few years ago, I made my parents stop at the ballfields so I could go stand in left-center field again. I scooped up a little dirt from home plate and still have it at home.
Yes, I am odd.
4. An adult summer memory
Floating in the Atlantic Ocean just off the beach at Tela, Honduras, bobbing with the gentle waves, telling a friend how I had the feeling something amazing was about to happen in my life. When we got back to our retreat center outside Tegucigalpa the next day, I met my cielo for the very first time. I wouldn't know for a few more months that that first meeting would eventually blossom into the "something amazing," but every time I think about it...wow.
5. Describe a wonderful summer day you'd like to have in the near future. (weather, location, activities)
I've just driven down from Aspen to Denver and there were so many places where I'd love to stop and explore (in fact, I had to force myself to stop stopping to take pictures, otherwise I never would have gotten home!). I'd love to retrace that drive with my cielo, and stop for pictures and picnics along the way.
Optional: Does your place of worship do anything differently in the summer? (Fewer services, casual dress, etc.)
HappyChurch is fairly casual already but I can tell they (some, at least) dress a little more coolly. There's no choir for the summer and I must say it's a little lonely up there all by myself.
