Queen of the Bondo

I’ve never been much of a summer person. I sunburn easily and wilt at temperatures higher than 75 degrees. I’m not sure why I keep insisting on living places that experience hot summers, although my aversion to heat does explain my penchant toward places like England, Newfoundland, and Seattle.

But this year I’m looking forward to summer evenings. To sitting on the front porch amid pots of basil, lime basil, mallow, and heliotropes, reading Agatha Christie or Philip Pullman until well after dark, listening to the crickets and probably also salsa music from someone’s car stereo up the street, which doesn’t bother me as much as you think it would because it just reminds me of living in Queens. To puttering around in the back garden, fussing over moonflowers that won’t grow, tending to pitiful Charlie Brown tomato plants, arranging ferns and Corsican mint under the arbor, figuring out WTF to do with all these radishes.