It's hot here in the 4-way stop town I live in. My dogs have dug up half the bushes in the yard making wallows for themselves in the shade. Each day they dig a little further down, exposing fresh cool earth for hot bodies. The cats arrange themselves like bearskin rugs, bellies down on the cement porch, eyes slitted against the glare and they barely move all afternoon.
Not much going on, the grass has stopped growing so fast and there is a lull in the frenzy to keep that jungle at bay. We spend our days indoors or up to our necks in other people's pools. We use sunscreen and bug spray, eat peaches and peanuts raw, go barefoot all day and lounge around watching old movies or reading stretched out in front of a box fan.
The kids are more subued, school time has lost the drama it normally envokes and they all sit and do their work, pens scratching paper as they work on a poem or journal entry or practice some math facts. Or listen to me read quietly, their usual jitters and shuffling gone. It's an odd stretch of days, these dogs days of summer.
Not that we have not been busy, I have taken advantage of my captive audience and gotten closets and dressers cleaned out, bookshelves purged and toys sorted. We have cleaned and painted and rearranged things in the house.
It feels like a time of waiting, the humid air damp with the promise of something more, the cooler mornings and evenings a relief. Maybe it's that expectations are lowered in the heat, suddenly a popscicle is about the best thing there is. Simple pleasures, fresh fruit, lazy afternoons. I love summer.
