Summer Days

So for all of May this was the weather: 75ish, rains every four hours. This has been replaced with Summer. Our goal for the summer is to be outside as much as possible and to enjoy the weather. Yesterday we did a pretty good job of it.

We began our day by going to the Kensington Farmers' Market with friends and neighbors Hannah & Mel.

In short, Kensington is pretty cute. It has a nice little downtown that the downtown with a band sponsored by the historical playing bluegrass and swing on the brick sidewalk. The farmer's market has a lot: farm fresh meat, fresh seafood, artisan cheese, bread, flowers, baked goods etc. However, its weirdly short on produce, which is problematic...

Well stocked on cheese and flowers we rolled over to nearby Downtown Silver Spring (tangent - Maryland is the least-incorporated state in the Union and therefore uses census desiganted areas and counties to define space. So while we live in Silver Spring, the portion of Silver Spring we are going to from out apartment is 20 minutes away and involves going through an area called Wheaton. The census designated area of Silver Spring wraps around Wheaton like a big Pacman trying to eat a dot.)

The Downtown Silver Spring market is about three times bigger than the Kensington Market and is full or produce. It also has a large flee market section which has more than one used book vendor. Note to self - buy books used, save big.

In any case, this one had the produce we were seeking. Back to home...

Summer thing number two - the pool. Our apartment has a decent sized pool. It's rarely crowded and given the family demographics of our complex the deep end is almost always empty. It is amazing how much a quick dip can cool you down for the rest of the day. Our only complaint has the been the music selection. They tend to play a local radio station called HOT 99.5 which plays all of the trashiest pop. But not only is it the trashiest of pop, but apparently they only have one CD on repeat. So its the same 12 songs over and over. I'm assuming that the CD is so HOT that they have to leave it in the player to go over and over. In any case it all melts into the background pool noise of happy kids.

Last summer thing - just being outside. We have a balcony that's about 6 by 10. We've worked to make it more comfortable with flowers, a table, chairs, and a rug that really ties it together. It only took us three years to have a basil plant that didn't die in the first three days. This year's addition is solar-powered twinkle lights in the shape of the sun. In all it's a good space for a drink and a book after work. But on this evening it was cake, drinks, and twilight (not the book) for five people after dinner. Did you know that the bugs are out now too? Go citronella go!

So summer is off to a good start. Hopefully get some cooler days to go running or cycling as part of hopeful triathlon training.

Last random thing - can we please get some other national news story between Palin & Wiener? So done.