This is a fascinating “obit” for Robert S McNamara.
Here’s Paul Krugman on health care. I’m getting real sick of hearing about Michael Jackson and Sarah Palin.
The humidity’s so thick I want to pick and hold it. Last night, I think, it rained. I think because when it’s dark I close the blinds in the kitchen, living room, and upstairs office (or all rooms that look to the front or side of the court). When I lived in Manhattan I never had to do that. Manhattan can be an oddly private place.

I was recovering from a wonderful weekend. In a world where almost every woman I know didn’t become a mommy until her mid-late 30′s (if she became one) CLo was a mommy in her late teens.

I always treated her daughter as a little adult because I haven’t really met a kid who wants to be treated as a kid. Consequently we became friends when she grew up.

Niece Kelly and a Gay family friend, Roberto–not Hispanic, were in for the weekend. I only bring up the Gay part because it’s a long time since I had one–mine all died and I remembered why I used to like Gay men so much. I kind of specialize in straight male friends but Gay men make me laugh easily and forget that the world has problems.* Niece Kelly and Roberto are Black and if we ran into people I knew I was planning on introducing them as my niece and nephew. I choose to think most people aren’t racist but too many people have said things about Black Bike Week…

Friday night we had a BBQ at CLo’s and W’s. Saturday night I made a BBQ–salmon marinated in V8, horseradish, onions, lemons and garlic–I developed this recipe one rainy day as it’s equally good roasted or poached. I sauteed onions, three types of mushrooms, peppers, and grape tomatoes in a bit of olive oil and when it was two thirds cooked added vinegar–any kind is good. It reduces the sauce and the vegetables can be a side dish or a sauce. I do that with chicken breast that I cook in apple cider, and fishes. I just don’t want it said that I have never given a recipe here.

I made a salad of course, and bought a coconut custard pie–deserts aren’t my thing. But everybody in the CLo&W family loves good pie (and are all in perfect shape anyway) and we’re sort of in competition to find the best. When I saw this one, I knew….and there wasn’t even a slice left over.

CLo & W are on dog with lung cancer duty so CLo drove us a block away from the fireworks and we walked onto the beach with our beach chairs, found a good spot and waited for the real fireworks to begin. They were magnificent. I had been a bit upset the NY fireworks were going to be on the Upper West Side–and I kept getting reports from New York on how they found the perfect spot etc. Of course they left at five PM, were the first people on the closed West Side Highway and the whole evening was devoted to fireworks.

The fireworks here were that way overused word, amazing. I sat there and thought “there’s no place else I want to be, and had I been in New York, I would have missed this.” We sat for awhile after the fireworks but people began setting off homemade ones and we’re citified enough to be scared of homemade ones.

W picked us up and we went back to my house where we sat in the side deck (the one that used to be toilet of Pia but is now all decked) looked at the sky and talked for hours. The house punch (I decided every house should have one) went quickly–firefly sweet tea vodka, stoli vanilla vodka, one quarter more limeade, and seltzer with cinnamon–basically because I add cinnamon to seltzer and don’t care what anybody thinks! The punch works.

I have loved the idea of long languid Southern summers since I first began to read and see movies. The sitting home and relaxing without feeling guilty or thinking “I really should be doing this…” The whole concept is new to me and I love it. I have rediscovered my inner cook and hostess.

If I didn’t have to walk my garbage three blocks to the nearest dump life would be perfect and that’s just a minor inconvenience. North Myrtle does have pick up services but you can’t leave the garbage in a trash can and possums do have a habit of tearing into the garbage. Eventually everybody is going to be issued a “roll” can and a recycling one. Since I tire of asking people if they could drive me and my garbage….

*This isn’t the time or place for a diatribe about AIDS, government inaction and how I lost two thirds of my friends and became very suspicious of “new people.”

I thought at the fireworks and after “this is it. This is the night I have begun to turn into a Southerner.”

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