Hot enough to burn a hole in you.

 P, with a few of our first zucs and our outrageous corn, pumpkin, tomato and zucchini plants in the background.

This almost seems mean... but I'll do it anyway ;)

So, its been a bit, well, warm, in our home states.  I can only imagine what that fourth floor walk-up feels like right now in NY.  And I can only too easily imagine the suffocating blast encountered when walking out the door in Kansas.  What we never imagined, moving here, is tossing on a cardigan... in July.

Now, I hear that this is an unseasonably cool summer.  So, we could expect a little more warmth next year (assuming the winter isn't so morosely dark in penance for such summer perfection that we flee in tears before then...), but it still won't touch the humid misery we're used to in July and August.   It is, in a word, glorious.

The nights are so cool that an open window leaves us peacefully sleeping under sheets, despite the daytime, sun warmed second floor bedroom.  The main floor is cool all day, I've even used, gasp, my oven.  In July!  Painlessly!

After a lifetime of hot summers, E and I are, honestly, shaking our heads in wonder every day.  It just doesn't seem right.  Fair.  Possible...

And gardening (one of the things I most looked forward to after so many years with just a window ledge or fire escape) couldn't be more different here than in Kansas either.  Our lovely rental yard, that, according to our neighbors, has been ignored for the last three years, is bountiful.  The coolest things keep popping up, without any encouragement:

Found:  climbing the fence.  

I've been hacking back the grapes so that they don't take over the entire yard (literally).  Ditto the catmint, the flowers, the raspberry bushes and the hops.... I'm used to pampering plants, watering every other day due to drought like summers, covering for crazy summer hail storms.  Here, I've turned the hose on... once.  We'll have a few days of sunshine, then maybe a cooler day for a break, then, just as the plants seem like they might need a sprinkle, we'll wake to a light drizzle that sends down just enough to satisfy for when the sun emerges later that day.  Its eery, really, to get such bounty from so little effort.  Its also a blessing, since bending over to weed or water is so very undesirable right now :)  I worry its planting unreasonable gardening expectations in the child though :)  Who is Loving the idea that he is growing his own food.  In fact, he thinks there's so many zucchinis and pumpkins coming in, that we should start selling them to the store across the street ;)

As a side note, the child is still enjoying his outdoor access immensely, especially with the lovely (sorry, Mom!) weather.  So much time is spent at the fire pit its almost silly.  If its not with matches, its with his trusty magnifying glass (thanks, Aunt Alicia!!!)  He's coming up with all sorts of experiments.  My favorite from this week was his attempt to build a contraption over his homemade fire that would boil water :)

His least favorite was his experiment with BB.  Would BB burn if the magnifying glass was pointed his direction?  Yes indeedy, the pink polyester monster does burn.  And, despite P turning the pointed rays away from the monster as quickly as possible, the poor thing was still left with a large (enough) burnt ring.

I can't express how much the child loves this creature.  Were I not so tired, I would do a sweet little BB photo montage here, since he's been in so many photos over the last four years.  Out of laziness, I'll just use the one P shot the other day, after sitting all of the BB's together.  He said they looked so cute together, he just had to get a picture.  Unfortunately, I think he was bouncing about too much for the phone to focus;)

Each has a purpose.  There's Wet BB, he's the larger lumpy one on the right.  He enjoys long walks in the surf, being sprayed by the sprinkler and the occasional bath.  There's Little BB, who enjoys riding in trucks.  There's Medium Sized BB there in the back, who enjoys being drug along on long walks (by a string) and attached to P's pants (with his permanent safety pin accessory).  And then there's just BB.  He's the star of the show, the main monster.  He gets the most attention, but when he's nowhere to be found, the others play back-up.  Notice, the missing mouths, the mangled arms, the paint splotched ears, the shaved fur and the lumpy bodies.  That all spells l-o-v-e.

It was Wet BB that was burned.  And P was mortified.  He tried to be tough.  He tried to problem solve it (call the company and ask them to send us some regular BB fabric?  Use the not-quite-right pink fleece we have and get it really dirty, shave it free of its softness and then sew it on?)  Eventually, he grew pretty mad at himself.  That's a new thing.  For the longest time, P was pretty sure he was perfect.  In fact, this last winter, he heard a children's song that said something about how nobody's perfect and he was (I'm not even kidding here) quite confused :)  This time, he was confused about why he would do something so dumb.  Yuck.  Its hard for me to watch him lose his perfect innocence :(

After plenty of processing, we did surgery.  He got out his trusty doctor's kit, gleefully, yet worriedly, gave BB a large shot of anesthesia, right in his new hole... and half looked half covered his eyes as I stitched up his best buddy. (I heard him ask the neighbor boy the other day, "Do you want to meet my best friend?  His name is BB.  You can meet him and my mom will play with us.")

After a few more "shots" and some "medicine,"  the monster was saved.  P said he'd learned an important lesson.  And I secretly ordered one of the last BB dolls around off of Amazon that night....