those summer nights (tell me more, tell me more)

seven days of sunshine in a row! i know because i marked it on my calendar with a little scribbly sun. we are now on our third day in a row of gray and rainy. yesterday i didn't mind it; it downpoured thickly, an east-coasterly rain. i had the windows open, and caught up on laundry, and putting my disaster of a house back in order after all those days of sunshine and not being inside. thru the windows came the scent of the rain in the grass...the scent of the rain on the sidewalk, that steamy smell of summer wet asphalt, which always reminds me of when i was a kid, flash summer storms, and laying on the driveway to feel the heat until you couldn't stand it...

summer in seattle, and just about everywhere for that matter, means baseball games.

francis plays twice a week for his little league team (season almost over, is this what i have to look forward to for the next ten years? my aprils-junes spent sitting on benches watching francis play ball? not so bad, but no more sleeping in for the next 10 years of springs??? (sigh)) AND we've been going to quite a few mariners games, with good seats that greg scores at work!

this past week alone we had a little league game on wednesday, went to a mariners game friday night, little league game saturday morning, mariners game sunday afternoon, little league game monday night, and then again tonight! i never realized before how much a sport occupies your life. that's not even counting the baseball games that we can't attend and therefore: watch on tv! greg laments: "i think i may have just become a mariners fan!" francis is so cute; he parrots everything greg says about every player, and is very much quite serious about being an adrian beltre fan. he now has adrian beltre wristbands and an adrian beltre mariners shirt that he proudly wears to the games...

with summer comes long days, warm nights and long shadows...impromptu eating outside and hanging out in the yard. we of course have no yard, so are very happy when karen and stephanie host yard-hangouts at the girls house. this past weekend, the edwards were in town (janine,mark, and cutie-pie adeline) visiting before their summer stint at "beyond". so there was warm sun, soft grass, good friends and a delicious last-minute summer meal from safeway: deli-roasted chicken, tomotoes and avocado, mozzerella slices and french bread, cherries, and oreos thrown in for your inner kid. unless you're francis, then you are a kid.






then off to the new sculpture park downtown for sunset, which is the best time of day to go because 1.) it's after hours and virtually empty,

2.)everything gleams with that dusky orange hue,


and 3.)(if you're a kid, the best reason of all:) the night-time sprinklers kick on, to keep their public grass green! sprinkler+kid=wet!


and this, my friends, is the end.


it was a hard day's night...