Already?

The only thing ruining my otherwise really swell weekend is the realization we start the eighth month of the year tomorrow and that, like it or not (and guess where I am on that question), most of the eagerly awaited Summer of 2011 has, like Jody, done got your girl and gone.

I hope your yesterday was half as gorgeous as mine, even if it got off to slow start. I did get to sleep in, which was sweet. I like to bank sleep hours on weekends to offset the quarter after three rise and shines I'm doing on weekdays, albeit not as easily as I once did. Yesterday was a get up and have blood drawn day-not like Adam with his fancy schmanzy lab and way-cool band aids when it's over. I got the 'hey we folded a gauze square in half and slapped a piece of tape on it and why the hell are you still here anyway?' approach to blood draws.

Outside, the day had started and it was a beauty. I went for a walk around parts of where I live, Norwich, Connecticut (I never get lost because the people who live here tell me where to go) and hiked along the Heritage Walk, which I love. It's mostly downhill from our house to downtown, or Chelsea as long time residents like to call it, and we're here for almost twenty years-longer than I have lived anywhere in my entire life (so far)- so I'm calling it Chelsea, too.

I got to hang out in Howard T. Brown Park (I have no idea who he is/was, but I like his park) and there were folks of every color and shape wandering around, some fishing, some feeding the birds, some watching their kids do one or the other with a guy with a hot dog cart and ice cold soda. Seriously ice cold and because of the sun and the higher humidity, certainly a brilliant idea as part of the pause that refreshes before I strolled past the Eyesore Parking Garage.

I'm guessing mid to late Eighties, we put a concrete utilitarian multi-story monstrosity across the street from the harbor so that anyone who might want to have a small business, perhaps a cafe or a bakery, with a view of the water would be completely fuqqed. Good job! And then, as the real estate bubble burst in the late eighties, and whatever businesses in downtown that had required parking either folded or moved, the parking garage not only remained incredibly ugly but added pointless to its resume. Turns out, all these years later, we're still fighting about parking.

But the walk back up past City Hall and where the Unitarian Church used to be and now the Spanish Church is there (do you think The Lord gets confused when His followers do that-or because He's omniscient, perhaps He already knew that was going to happen) and past St. Pat's on Broadway all the way to and then around Chelsea Parade was great. I had changed into a knockabout shirt before I started as I had feared getting sweated up and I did. I hate when I'm right.

I cheated a little later and drove to the Greeneville Spirit Day on Central Avenue. I can't figure out what's going to go into the not yet finished building from scratch a bit more than half a block down, on the same side as the Ravi Gas Station but I'll tell you this, that lady from the One City Forum meeting the other night is 100% right. There aren't a lot of crosswalks in Greeneville and by 'a lot,' I mean any. There's kids, everywhere, and crosswalks, not so much.

Thelma and Louise re-enacted D-Day by hitting the beach at Stonington and Sigrid came back with beautiful pictures of Watch Hill. I capped the day by deciding to stop talking about hitting Philly's, a five minute walk from my house that makes and sells genuine Philly Cheese Steaks, and actually getting one. I got a side of Pizza Fries without knowing what they were-I still don't but they are delicious and the cheese steak was the cheery on the sundae of a day I had for a Saturday.

-bill kenny