the living is easy

Ah, summertime.

What a lazy July I've had. Honestly.
Apart from working an awful lot, there really hasn't been all that much going on.
It's been a blissful season of sunshine, of romance, of relaxation.

I've concocted gourmet meals, some nights; other nights, I've snacked on veggies and dip and crackers and cheese for dinner. Along with J. (because it's become rare that we spend more than an evening or two apart) I've sampled many new wines, mostly sparkling white or rose. Something about summer makes me long for chilled, sparkling, pale shades of white or rose wine in my glass.

I've boycotted the gym (until September, when I will be going hard core to make up for all this yummy, lazy living) and exercised only minimally by running 3-4km with J. once or twice a week. Light exercise, to say the very least. It's lovely, if somewhat guilt-inducing, to be so intentionally inactive, and I will probably be longing for exercise come September.

I've become addicted to Mad Men. After the purchase of a beautiful 42-inch LCD television several months ago, J. and I discussed in depth which series we wanted to watch on DVD this summer. Mad Men was the definite winner. It has certainly not disappointed: we're now only three episodes away from finishing Season 3 on DVD, just in time to catch the beginning of Season 4 now airing on television.

I've had restful weekends of fun in the sun with good food and wine and great friends and family. Beginning with our getaway to Ottawa the first weekend of the summer, J. and I have spent our July weekends engaged in the following activities:

• spending a night in Guelph for J.'s friend's birthday pig roast, including a late-night sleuthing adventure around an unfamiliar town in search of a set of misplaced keys;
• babysitting the beloved children of two of my very best friends while their rockstar daddy was away on tour and their frazzled mommy had a day off to get glamourous and celebrate at a childhood friend's wedding;
• keeping J.'s mom company with Scrabble and gourmet dinners while his dad spent time in the United States visiting his sister and her family;
• watching many episodes of Mad Men at home and a number of movies in theatre (Despicable Me, Inception, Salt, to name a few) on rainy weekend days;
• driving up north in J.'s truck with my parents, listening to the Jays game, J. and my dad in the front, my mom and I wedged into the back seat of his 2-door pickup truck;
• playing games of volleyball and soccer with my sisters and several of my cousins at my family cottage.

Now, this weekend, we're off to J.'s family cottage for a weekend of total seclusion, including more gourmet meals (homemade lobster rolls and tomato and pimento salad, to name just a couple of the recipes I'm dying to try!) and more good wine.

We're both excited to have a weekend away this summer in one of the places where our story really began. His cottage was our getaway on two long weekends last year, when we were attempting to begin our relationship long distance: J. was living and working in Ottawa, at the time, and I was here in Toronto. We were just getting to know each other, just beginning to fall in love, just learning how to be together (not that we're old pros at it or anything now). It's a place that holds memories we both treasure dearly, memories that are beautiful and magical and fundamental to the foundation of our relationship.

Both my pen and my keyboard have been silent of late.
Perhaps August, with its proposals of productivity, its promises of provocation, will beckon me towards further creative output.

For now, I am enjoying the crickets chirping.
Summer silence.

Summertime, and the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin' and the cotton is high
Oh! Your daddy's rich and your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby don't you cry

One of these mornings, you're gonna rise up singin'
Then you'll spread your wings, and you'll take to the sky
But 'till that mornin', there's a'nothin' can harm you
With your daddy and your mammy standin' by

Summertime,
George Gershwin