Summer in the City

Here I am Monday morning, sunburned, stiff, fed, spent, happy. Summer in the city. My nose is so sunburned I think it looks a bit like Jimmy Durante’s—thin-skinned and a little raw. I used SPF 55 but was out in this gorgeous Minnesota weather all day, every day, from 6 a.m. until dark. We worked and played so hard at our house that we all fell sound asleep at night and snored a storm, and I imagined our house puffing in and out like a cartoon.

I love that my weekend started on Thursday, with a terrific happy hour at Pazzaluna in downtown Saint Paul: $3 Ketel One martinis with margherita pizzas for $3.33 each. We sat out on the busy sidewalk patio and talked about favorite drinks, favorite authors, and favorite work stories while the rush hour traffic rumbled by. I saw a man get on a bus and the back of his T-shirt read, “Ask Me About Jesus,” and I remembered him from one of my morning rides.

Sometimes a couple of martinis is just what the doctor ordered. Oi vay, though. Sometimes they sit in your body and toxify all your organs so that the morning after, even if you just have two, you feel like Keith Richards after a night with groupies at the Courthouse Hotel.

What better day than this to start in on my new training program for my August Quetico trip? Last year I went on my first Boundary Waters canoe adventure with a group of wilderness women and the same bunch is going again this year. We camped and canoed the border lakes in October and I fared just fine but I want more strength and stamina for our summer trip this time around. Last fall it was okay to collapse in the tent after dinner back in October—the cold weather made us all tired. It even snowed on us during one paddle. This year I want to go further and longer and still have energy to swim and play before bed.

So I started out Friday night with the old walk/run routine, jogging along Highland Parkway after dusk, no moon in sight, just the steeple from Gloria Dei shining bright, a cathedral of white in the night sky. (Remember when I interviewed for that job and all the Lutherans said to me, "Why you live right next to Gloria Dei." And I thought, "Gloria Day, who's she?")

I run late so no one will see me and think “Hey, isn’t that Tyne Daly out there? What, is she running or walking, I can’t tell?” Turns out some friends of ours passed me in their minivan and one of the kids apparently called out, “Hey, don’t we know that lady?”

It’s been so beautiful these mornings--65 degrees and all the day lilies are blooming. What is gardening in July? Deadheading, weeding, feeding all the potted plants, thinking about which plants are in too much sun, which ones haven’t had enough, tending, tending. Sunday morning I had this woodpecker chipping away at our oak (is it dying, our majestic oak?) while I snipped the bush roses, and I felt lucky to have this graceful space right here in the city.

We’re all reading new books in my family and after our long days in the sun, we sit together in the air conditioning with peach tea and fresh corn chips from El Burrito Mercado. Our books stereotype us: hubbie reads John Sandford, I read Canoe Country Camping, daughter reads Andrea Dworkin, and son catches up on the Harry Potter backlist until his Amazon shipment and the new Potter arrives July 22. It could be a scene right out of a Nora Ephron movie, except our books don’t altogether define us.

Last night my husband and daughter pulled out all the camping equipment and went over a checklist of things to bring with her on her trip this week. After a long day of baseball, my son and I read books until bedtime, propping our hardcovers on the coffee table like hymnals on the pew, looking over once and awhile at the two handling compasses and lanterns. One by one we say, I’m going to bed, Yeah, I’m going to bed, too, and before we know it the weekend is over. Summer in the city. Glory be this summer in the city.

(Rita's picture, a gift for my daughter)