These roses–half cut from my yard and half filtched from my neighbor’s (it’s been vacant for two years–someone’s gotta love the roses!)–are perfuming my living room. It’s the peach colored one, the hue that reminds me so much of Nana Nunu, that wafts about the room.

And if that, and an eight-mile run with kick still left in the end, and a mighty steed grazing on grass while I sit atop the gravel pile reading The Chaperone isn’t enough, there is this:

Everyone told me I’d planted too many peas. I was–am–certain that there is no such thing. Sure, the shoots are falling over with lethargy and lack of proper support (I’ve got plans for you next year, pea trellis!) and yes, there are so many that N and I might not harvest them all, but half of them get eaten before they even make it in the basket!

He looks so innocuous, that boy. He’s as silent and hearty as a slug, munching away on the other side of the bed.

There’s beauty in a row of peas in a pod. Like early recruits, all lined up, ready for summer service. What can we make today, Ma’am? Fresh or lightly buttered, Ma’am? The task–if it can be called that–of zipping open the pod and plopping out the little orbs is joy in itself, especially if shucked in the sun, wearing shorts, with a cold beer on one side and your beau on the other.

And then, of course, there is the eating. There will be this tonight. And later this. And next week, for the long road trip to Long Beach, these.

Don’t these languid days, what, with their ambrosial aromas and days stretching into evenings and dusks at ten p.m. and globes of green goodness–don’t they just nearly bowl you over with giddiness?