Five Things I've Been Enjoying This Summer

1. Cracker. This old British crime drama starring Robbie Coltrane (aka the guy who plays Hagrid in the Harry Potter movies) is the best. A big fat deeply flawed criminal psychologist wheedles his way into the minds of society's most disturbed members. I wish I would've watched this show before I went to library school -- I think I would've been a better reference librarian then. If you catch my drift.

2. Vanilla bean lemonade. Get this at the Juice Garden at the West Side Market, across from the chocolate-covered-everything and popcorn stand.

3. Madeleine L'Engle. Most people only ever read A Wrinkle in Time. Which is a good book, don't get me wrong, but there's so much more. Her books are charmingly didactic and companionable and full of wonder. I love them.

4. Badminton. I like to play in a long skirt, like some Gilded Age heroine.

5. Queen Anne's lace. I know this stuff is technically a noxious weed, but it reminds me of my earliest childhood in a neighborhood gone slightly to seed. I love it growing wild next to the train tracks (earlier in the season, there was a ton of honeysuckle blooming wild on old, sagging chain link fences, too). There's such a sense of wilderness here in Cleveland, unlike in New York where everything's perfectly manicured.