Tidings

Dear Readers,

Just so you don't worry, here I am, healthy and happy. So far, I have been enjoying the summer, despite alternating days of horrendous heat and torrential rain here in the City of Humidity and Nonstop Activity.

The very good news is that the 100-plus-year-old brownstone that I live in is finally getting wired for air conditioning. (Sometimes patience, or inertia, does pay off, it seems. I've lived here for twelve years. Every summer, when the heat comes, I think about moving. Then I look around a bit at what apartments cost around here and I resign myself to another summer of panting in front of the fan.)

I came home tonight to find that the maintenance crew had made their way up to the fourth floor, where I live, and had broken through the baseboard in a wall just across from my doorway. Protruding from behind the bookcase that sits against that wall is the end of a coil of metal tubing. Also there is a carton with what appears to be a fusebox of some sort, waiting to be installed. I'm not sure how this is going to resolve into a setup that will allow me to have air conditioning, but I am taking it on faith that it will.

Also I'm embarrassed that the workers got to see the disarray in my apartment, but I suppose they'll live. As will I.

I have been seeing friends, playing volleyball on Wednesdays after work and Sundays in the afternoon when I can and when the weather is good. And going to yoga. Last Tuesday evening I went with a friend and her husband to hear a group that does sea chanteys at the seaport. (Say that five times fast. . . .) On Thursday I went with another friend to hear someone we know read from her novel-in-progress, as part of a group reading. Then I realized that I had done those exact same two activities last June, with the same friends. Continuity, once again. I kind of like it.

I had a good day with my brother recently, too. The weather was beautiful and we walked all the way to the beach from where he lives, me pushing him in his wheelchair, about three miles, I think. He has been in better spirits lately and seemed to enjoy the day. I pulled out my newish digital camera and asked him if he wanted to try taking a picture (he did a lot of photography before he got sick). No, he indicated good humoredly, I should take some pictures. I did, and showed them to him on the little screen. Then he indicated that he wanted me to take a picture of us, looking at the camera. So I put my head next to his, put one arm around his shoulders, stretched the other arm out as far as I could, and snapped. The first one was a closeup of his forehead. We both laughed, and then I took another one. I got both of our faces, but his was too close to the camera, and pretty distorted. He liked it anyway. Then I took a third one--the money shot. My face is not completely in the frame, but his is, in the center, and there is a tree on the other side of the frame. "Look at that," I said, "pretty artistic, huh?" Agreeing, my brother laughed and said, "Oooooh" (think long u sound), which is one of the few things he can say, but which he manages to use to convey a range of reactions, from enthusiasm to irony. This time it was pure enthusiasm.