Dear Feastlings,
How it’s still this hot I still don’t really comprehend, but I’ll say this: even in the midst (is it still only the midst? I fear it is, and in fact can only HOPE that by now it’s at least the midst) of the pandemic, there are still little gobbets of joy to be discovered, even when we’re all masked, even when we’re not visiting our best-loved friends and family, and even when just a trip to the grocery store means it’s time to change out of sweaty clothes. For me today it was two boys, maybe eight or nine, with a two-liter bottle and a bicycle pump, up to what they clearly hoped was dramatic and not entirely well-behaved. It cheered me up so much as I bicycled by that I circled the block to see whether there was in fact drama or mischief to be had from it, but all I got on my second lap was a suspicious sidelong glance, and I elected to let it happen without a witness. But doggone if seeing two kids up to the kid stuff I did when I was eight or nine wasn’t the best antidote to the heat and the pandemic and the daily copious dark downpour of news. My suggestion to each of you: find some young mischief. Watch it. Or create it. But that dumb sense of clueless wonder where it overlaps with dorky shenanigans masquerading as science and experimentation sure did the trick for me today. I hope those kids went back into the house soaked in water, and maybe food coloring, and the happiness that comes with intentional harmless misconduct. Now I want to go buy one of those water rockets I begged my parents for at Thrifty forty-eight years ago.
Anyhow, when you’ve finished shirking your responsibilities for the afternoon, my next suggestion would of course be to treat yourself to the dinner that you didn’t make (here’s a menu to consider,) and maybe raise a glass to recklessness, indiscretion and jiggery-pokery (here’s a wine list, and remember, these include a $12 corkage on 750 ml bottles that’s waived when you’re not dining in.)
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and find some harmless trouble to lose myself in. Have a lovely Sunday.
Doug