88, 79, 96, 86, 95, 86

All in all, Thursday the 25th was a pretty darn fine day here in the Norristown area, and not just because the daily number in the Times Herald was the highly soothing one recorded in the title of this piece. It was also a good day for smelling the last of the Great Northern Catalpa blossoms, and a good day for appreciating the annual display of the Tiger Lilies, which the stupid books insist on calling Tawny Day Lilies.

What we've always called Tiger Lilies are, of course, day lilies, even though it's hard to believe each one of the thousands (tens of thousands?) of flowers stretching down both banks of the creek is a one day wonder that will wither in the night and be replaced next morning by a new blossom. It's not a one for one replacement, actually. It's more like a chain reaction that builds from a few to an uncountable proliferation of flowers each day, and then tails off slowly over the course of a few days.

But I was talking about Thursday, and how it was a good day; I was not meaning to dwell on the short lives and deaths of a multitude of day lilies. Thursday was also a good day for pondering why one of our cousins seemed to want to talk about nothing except his unconcern about aging when he came by for coffee with me and Jas a couple of Saturdays ago. And it was a good day for thinking over the fact that another one of our cousins made a point of mentioning his purchase of a burial plot when Jas and I called him last Saturday morning.

A burial plot! Burial plots are surely sold to old people, very old people. They're sold to people so old they need a magnifying glass and not just a pair of drug store reading glasses to check the ages of the folks enjoying (in a manner of speaking) their fifteen minutes of fame in The Norristown Times Herald obits. We have some older cousins. We even have a cousin in her mid seventies. But until last Saturday I would have thought we didn't have any cousins of an age appropriate for the buying of a burial plot.

During the conversation with the new burial plot owner we learned that the single plot is meant as a final resting place for two, which necessitated a conversation about the likelihood of ending up in the bottom bunk, so to speak, men being severely discriminated against in the life expectancy tables. We also learned that a crematorium will not simply wrap one in a sheet and shove one into its incinerator - a box is required. Which means that one must choose the box, two boxes actually - one big box and one little box. It was heartening that our cousin found a certain amount of humor in his discussions with the undertaker. He finally settled on the cardboard, excuse me, corrugated box.

Where's the global warming when you want it?

It's been a very unusual August this year up here in Pennsylvania.

I know it's been unusual because I haven't been in Sam and Deb's pool at all in August. Every other year since he and Deb got the pool I've found occasion to be up there floating around at least once or twice each August. We simply haven't had any strings of the 90 plus degree days and warm nights it takes to get that pool up to the 80 or so degree temperature which has become my minimum required comfort level.

Back in the old days I would happily go into the ocean down in North Carolina when the water temp was in the mid 70's. And back in the really old days I would inch into the ocean in Stone Harbor or Avalon even if the water temp was down in the high 60's or low 70's. Back even further, back way deep into the mists of time, I remember me and Sam and Jas spending long periods in the surf at Atlantic City unless the water was so cold your arches and ankles hurt from standing in it. But that was the ocean, and the ocean is different from a pool. A pool should be comfortable.

Mom and Pop only took us down the shore one or two days per summer back in those really, really, old days, so we approached the beach and the ocean with a certain amount of determination. We were singleminded in getting our full quota, and then some, of sand and surf and sunburn on those days no matter the cost in pain. And there was some pain, for back then before people knew about skin cancer we went to the beach without an umbrella. When Mom slathered the Coppertone of that era on us she was basting us like turkeys rather than swaddling us in any protection.

Me and Jas used to get moderate sunburns on our noses, shoulders and insteps, but Sam, lighter skinned, used to get as red as a lobster. You think I'm kidding, but him and Jas know I'm not. It's surprising he never got sun poisoning.

Marianne, after she arrived to go to the shore with us, spent most of such days in her portable playpen covered with a beach towel like a bird in a cage, so I don't remember her ever getting sunburned. I do, though, have a picture up on the other computer of her chubby little face and her chubby little legs and arms poking out of a cute two piece swimsuit; but I don't know how to put pictures on the blog yet.

I put that in about Marianne because I've gotten some flak for not including her on this blog when I write about Sam and Jas. But, duh, do the math! Marianne wasn't born til 1960 or so. And thus far I've mostly written about stuff that happened in the 1950's. Also, by the early 1960's Mom was plenty wise concerning our ways with toys and windows and bikes and pets and first generation TV remote controls and swivelling easy chairs and other things.

Mom would never have let Me and Sam and Jas out of her sight with something as fragile as a one or two or three or four or five year old. As a result I was too old by the time Marianne became available to participate in interesting events out of sight of Mom to remember her as a participant in many interesting stories, although there are a few. There is, for instance, the interplay of Jippon and Lion-Lion. I haven't gotten around to writing about that yet even though Jas and Sam and I were talking about Lion-Lion just the other week. We were wondering where he is, something we periodically do. We know where Jippon is, but we don't know where Lion-Lion is.

But I have digressed. . .

August is supposed to be hot. It was always really hot when I was a kid, and it was always hot before this year. And just to prove I can do investigative journalism I asked the lily lady the other day if she ever remembers an August as cool as this one, and she can't remember one either. The lily lady has been growing daylillies up there above Fairview Village since back when I first commuted to Fort Washington 33 years ago. Her gardens looked old then, and she looked old then. She has to be twenty, maybe even thirty, years older than me. She's so old I'm amazed each time I stop to look over her garden and find her still alive to answer her door.

So this is not just me. The lily lady said this is the coolest August she ever remembers. So where is all this global warming I've been hearing about?

There are now four cute little fawns gyreing and gimballing around the lawn

There are now four cute little fawns gyreing and gimballing around the lawns, and up and down the paths. Their happy sense of freedom and youth, and their air of utter irresponsibilty almost, almost, make me loath to envision their taut little chests adorned with the fletched shafts of the arrows which will soon be their doom. For they have again been at the daylily buds, despite the deer repellent I sprayed.

Gather ye lily buds while ye may little fawns, for thy hour cometh. This fall you will happily retire to the places under the apple trees for a little snack of fallen fruit and then you will be no more. You can no more escape your fate to become venison stew than Kim can escape his fate to spend dreary days and weeks, and months and years, at the St. Xavier school being filled with the book learning he needs to fulfill his destiny.

Lots of Activity in Collegeville last evening.

Lot's of activity in Collegeville last evening. At around 6:00 two very energetic rabbits entertained us with a shocking display of copulation on the lawn just outside the patio doors. The male of the pair has a big piece of hide torn off his butt, perhaps by a fox. Yet there he is, out in the open, giving testimony that love conquers all, even fear of the fox. Or perhaps he's been nibbling at the watermellon rind in the mulch heap.

Later in the evening two cute little fawns gamboled happily on the lawn very near the daylillies whose buds they have been nipping off despite the fact that daylillies are one of the few plants which have usually survived the depredations of their verminous ancestors. I smiled at their carefree antics because, unbeknownst to them, at the 4th of July picnic I gave permission for a new bow hunter to come and check out their haunts. May he plunge his arrows deep into their vitals, eat their raw livers and feast on their daylily bud fattened haunches.

Which reminds me, I hope last year's very successful crossbow hunter also returns, but the last time I saw him he was pretty resigned about the prognosis of his cancer. During a meeting in the woods at the end of the winter he told me he had harvested six of the hooved vermin and he was hoping for another. Bravo that he's allowed to use a crossbow under some kind of disability clause in the hunting rules. What an upbeat and brave fellow. And what a public servant to be quietly culling the vast piratical deer herd between bouts of chemotherapy. Whatever - I hope he survives, and I hope he and his family and his whole neighborhood feast on venison again this winter.