Summer in the City

Something I’ve noticed about Pacific Northwesterners:  when it comes to enjoying summer, we grab the bull by the horns.

If you live in a year-round sunny climate, you can’t understand the crazed desperation we PNW-ers feel when the sun is finally out.  We go running.  We go biking.  We play Frisbee in plaid shorts and Toms.  We drink mojitos on outdoor patios.  We buy fresh local fruit by the ton and let the juice run down our chins, sticky and warm.  We let the sinful bliss of UV-rays decimate our delicate, blue-veined skin, free at last from layers of clothing.  We become little sun crackheads:  frantic for our next fix of Vitamin-D.  While folks in Phoenix can barely leave their indoor AC to brave the 112-degree dry heat from the house to the pool, we happily strip down and swim in the frigid Pacific.  While people in SoCal pull down their blackout shades, we wake up at 6:00 A.M. with the sun, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.  While you’re on the couch watching The Real Housewives of New Jersey, we’re out in the yard playing bocce ball with a local ale in one hand and an organic grass-fed beef hotdog in the other.

This is what I love about living in the Pacific Northwest.  This is also why my blog has fallen by the wayside.  But there’ll be plenty of time to catch up in November, when we’re once again driven indoors by inclement weather…

In the meantime, here are a few of my summertime raves.

Michael and I stopped at a Target mid-roadtrip to buy the Arcade Fire’s third album, The Suburbs. Lighter than their previous, hauntingly heavy works, this album screams summer without failing to deliver the lyrical depth we’ve come to expect from the critically-acclaimed Canadian ensemble.  Noteworthy tracks include “The Suburbs,” “City With No Children,” and “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).

 

 

All I can say about Aziz Ansari is that I hope he googles his own name to find out about my celebrity crush on him.  He is an MTV-watching, Facebook-savvy, Kanye-listening, Mighty Ducks-referencing comedy genius, and his stand-up is currently the only CD in my car.  XOXO to you, Aziz.

 

Wow, did it really take humans thousands of years to come up with a sunscreen you can spray onto your body?  Answer: yes.  But it is pretty awesome.  Especially in SPF 55.  This rave goes quite well with my next…

 

 

Running in the sun.  It is like a sweet, sweet drug.  And after I sweat it out, I treat myself to…

 

… a chocolate-banana smoothie.  I blend 1 scoop chocolate protein powder, 1 frozen banana, 4 ice cubes, and about 4oz water.  While I don’t stick tiny umbrellas or spears of fruit in mine like the lady did for the smoothie pictured here, it is still pretty “ding-dang good,” to quote my father.

 

 

That’s enough for now.  Time to go run through a sprinkler!

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