Summer

My neck of the woods:

Camping

Lake Titicaca

Santa Cruz, Bolivia

 New Orleans

Museum of Popular Art (Mexico City)

Palacio de Bellas Artes (Mexico City)

Peaches

When I was a kid, my mom canned peaches and pears. We'd have boxes of fruit sitting in the basement for a couple of weeks while she canned (we did help her). And the peaches were sooooooooooo good. Honestly, canned fruit from the store is ruined forever. 

As an adult, I've tried and tried to find good peaches at the store, and it's always a disaster. They are always hard, and they don't ripen correctly. A ripe peach has this texture where you push on it and it dents, but there's a feel to it that you know means it is ripe. Peaches shipped to the store get this rubbery texture when you test for ripeness, it's just wrong. And they smell good but the taste and texture while eating the peach is completely wrong.

So, last Saturday I walked into a grocery store and they had locally grown peaches for purchase. I tested some, and they had the right ripeness texture, so I bought a week's worth, and man, was it worth it!!! They are just what peaches should be. I think I've only had one that had a spot that wasn't quite as good. It's amazing and my only lament is that I'm going out of this town this week and I'm worried that they won't still be available by the time I get back. 

I had so little hope for good peaches at all this year, because we've had a bad growing year locally, so this has been a lovely little joy for the week. Go, peaches!!!

Rain!!!

We finally got some rain this week. And, I've been trying to take a walk everyday, just to get outside and give myself a break. So, on Thursday I went for my walk, and because it was still warm, I took my umbrella instead of my raincoat. Turns out, it was also pretty windy, so that was a fun adventure. Also, umbrellas make it hard to see everything (in fairness, I think that is just a side effect of rain in general. Umbrellas, raincoats, they all make it harder to see). The result being it took me way longer than it should have to realize that there was an amazing full arc double rainbow going on. (The houses and trees and hill might have also been contributing factors, but that's not important. What's important is that I saw it). 

Sadly, I didn't have my camera, but fortunately I had my phone. And the pictures turned out alright. You can even see the double rainbow. I just couldn't fit the whole thing in without zooming out, and I can't zoom out without hearing my friend (and co-worker who taught me most of what I know about digitizing records) saying, "Never use the digital zoom!!!".

It rained on Friday, too, while I was at work. I headed up to the fourth floor and you could hear the rain everywhere, hitting the roof. It was so exciting! I love that kind of rain and really was tempted to go for a walk in it, work and dressier clothes be hanged. I got back to my floor and watched from the window. It was creating a bit of flooding towards the edges of the street, and my five-year-old self enjoyed watching a truck drive through it.

Yep, the rain sure was great. Here's hoping we get more!