Quote of the Day (Sara Coleridge, on What July Brings)

“Hot July brings cooling showers,
Apricots, and gillyflowers.”—English poet and translator Sara Coleridge (1802-1852), “The Garden Year,” in Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children; with Some Lessons in Latin in Easy Rhyme (1834)
 
“Hot July”? More and more the last few decades, it means a heat wave—and it looks like this year will be no different, at least where I live.

Photo of the Day: A Good Spot in a Heat Wave

In my post yesterday, I extolled the small but real virtues of J. Hood Wright Park as an oasis of green in New York’s very concrete Washington Heights section. 

That earlier photo showed several groups using the park located between 173rd and 176th Streets, from Fort Washington Avenue to Haven Avenue; this one, which I also took Sunday, focuses on just a pair of people, able to enjoy each other’s company—in no small degree, by staying at least somewhat (physically) cool—with the help of all this protective shade afforded by a large tree.

Photo of the Day: Christmas in July

The image accompanying this post represents my attempt at mind over matter. If I look long enough and hard enough at this photo of the lawn in front of the rectory of my local church, I’m absolutely certain I can wish away four straight days of 90-degree-plus heat index readings.

Somehow, I’d forget that this past December, I had to shovel out my driveway for hours, then walk gingerly down my streets to avoid the ice, just to be in position to snap this scene.

Nevertheless, right now, the willing suspension of disbelief about this background would feel like a great gift, as I contemplate the last several days muggy weather...