Thirty-five dollars of English Peas

This has been a weird summer. I guess all summers are weird. The weirdest summers are usually the best and this one has some things going for it. I went to Utah in June. June is nice there. It smells like jasmine or maybe roses. Flowers. We have pine fresh scent here in Flag but not perfume. Mr. Clean instead of Chanel No. 5. It was both cold and hot in Salt Lake so it felt like both spring and summer. There were fresh peas there although not in the quantities I had hoped. There were cherries and peaches although not as good as I remember them being when I lived there now 7 years ago. I'm pretty sure my grandma took all the good peaches with her when she died last year. But there were peas.

On the drive home from Salt Lake, Zoe, Max, and I shelled and ate peas for two hours. A good distraction from the 8 hour drive.

Back in Flagstaff, we usually go to music in the park but we've had plans on Wednesdays. Not music in the park plans. That is weird. For 3 years running, we didn't miss many and now, we've missed them all. We'd go today but the monsoons started yesterday. It rained. 1.87 inches at the airport--a record. Not at our house, but still. Lots of rain.

Speaking of rain, usually I sit on the deck and write all summer long although I'm pretty sure that's a myth since last year, we remodeled the deck. This year, there was too much wind to sit outside happily and now it's already wet. I'm not sure what year it was I wrote all summer long but that was a weird year too. Today, there are some neighbors rebuilding their deck very loudly which makes me not want to write at all. Even this typing seems precarious. Maybe it will rain and they will have to go inside (I am inside. Typing with the windows open. Hoping that we beat yesterday's record today. So far, only a few drops.)

Last year, I did find peas in Flagstaff at New Frontiers. I only bought one pound of them. Thus far this summer, I've bought seven pounds. At $4.99/lb, that's kind of a big expenditure but perhaps the best thing I've spent money on this year. Max and Zoe and I ate another pound just an hour ago. It's definitely near the end of pea season but maybe I can afford one more pound.

I've given up trying to afford organic blueberries. I like to eat, with Max and Zoe, a pound of blueberries a day. At $3.00/lb, I can afford this. At $3.99/pint--which is what they are at New Frontiers--not so much. Here's to hoping the good stuff in the blueberries trumps the pesticides.

Erik came home from China with some nice jade animals for the kids and an embroidered picture of panda bears that an artist at the top of the Great Wall stitched right before him. I have not had an embroidered picture of a panda before. I told him not to buy too many gifts when he was there because I don't want to support the ivory industry--Jade carvers and panda bear picture embroiderers I hope are immune to the ivory craze. I'm grateful for my pandas.

I'm not getting much writing done. Like zero. Less than during the school year. I blame the teaching and the book promotion and the end-of-the-school year business that doesn't seem to end. But there are these little blueberry and pea eaters running around who pretend to take naps but really would like to know what we're going to do for fun next and we haven't been to the concert in the park yet this summer so I think it's time for me to pack up our concert in the park snacks and go. It won't rain too much. Or it will. Either way, it will probably be fine even if a little weird and a little wet.