by James Glaser
July 2, 2004

I like fall with all the pretty leaves falling down and I like winter, with the cold silence and who doesn't like the first melting days of spring, but summer, summer makes you feel alive.

Last night with the full moon reflecting off the lake, I went for a midnight swim. Yes, the water was more than brisk, but when the air temperature is lower than the water temperature, that water feels good going in.

Because of the heat, each morning I can count how many new tomatoes I have on my plants and I am picking up about seven new ones each morning. In just the last week many flowers have started to bud and the lupines are in full color.

Wood ducks are starting to get their young out of the nesting boxes and down to the lake, while all the other ducks are swimming with theirs already. We have a big population of fawns and are they ever dumb, but even I have to admit that they are, so cute.

Early this morning I saw a pine martin on the bank toward the lake and he looked at me with real intelligence in his eyes. I think he was happy to see the warm weather too. The hummingbird feeder has to be filled every other day now and do they ever fight.

I am finding it hard to live here alone, because there is no body to share things with. Sometimes Charmaine would come running in the house saying, "come out here right now, you are not going to believe this." One time she found a young fox asleep in the sun by the garden, another time it was a bear cub up in a tree, or maybe it was a new flower that just opened up.

I was going to go fishing one day last week and Charmaine always had the better tackle box and in fact she was the better fisherman, (I never admitted that) so I opened up her box and there was a note to me that said, "Jim, if you are so bored that you are going fishing, it is time for you to find a woman. Love Charmaine."

Well I think I will work on that. I guess I'm not really ready to find a "girl friend" but I would like to find a friend who is a girl. I have a couple of buddies I can hang around with and bullshit, but buddies are not the same as doing things with a woman.

I am thinking that I would like to go out to dinner with someone, hey, I wouldn't mind going dancing. I never liked dancing until I met Charmaine, and she made it fun. So I guess life goes on and I will see what happens. I have not a clue about what to say to some woman or even how to meet one.

I had a neighbor lady tell me, "Jim, all you have to do is pray and God will provide you with a woman." I told her that I prayed hard all the way through high school, but that prayer was never answered. She failed to see my attempt at humor.

So, it is summer and anything can happen in summer.