Last night we cooked dinner with some remnants of the four day weekend. I am looking forward to seeing zucchini, squash, rice pilaf, and hot dog on the cover of Gourmet magazine next month. After the grilling was done we were mostly left with the remnants of the vegetables. The fridge still is full of corn and asparagus. What’s for dinner tomorrow? Maybe corn, asparagus, rice and hot dogs.

On Saturday we visited Gloucester with Matt and Kate. When we arrived they were both hard at work mowing or chopping weeds somewhere on the property. We then sat, grilled, and chatted until Hattie and Jose arrived. Hattie mentioned that she had brought the regular desert and I told her that I was excited to eat her Rice Krispie treats before she informed us that the regular desert was apple crisp. We had brought some beers. I had planned to swim but it isn’t an easy proposition in Gloucester with the rocks and the cold water so I just walked around the rocks with Madeline up high on my shoulders.

I spent Sunday chasing girls and getting chased by girls in the pool. The girls were between two and five years old. It started when I threw some of the beach balls into the detached hot tub area, not hot, and we made a game of throwing the balls back and forth. The hard part was that the wind was strong enough that often a good throw would go far off to the left or the right. I suppose I was chasing more beach balls than girls. The other men were building PVC cannons and guns to launch potatoes into the air. I was more interested in floating a few inches beneath the surface of the pool. We were awaiting a storm advertised on the Internet with hail the size of golf balls that never arrived. At some point the kids and mother’s made home made ice cream in a ball from REI that gets super cold when you roll it and put salt and ice into it. Madeline enjoyed sucking down the bottom of the cone and munching on the sweet sugar honeycomb shell at the base.

We drove down to Marshfield for Sunday and Monday nights. On the way I was diverted to Home Depot to purchase a cover for the riding lawn mower because it was trapped in the mud. Dad was worried it would get rained on and rust when the hail storm that was supposed to come finally came. It didn’t. Monday was a good day to sit by the pool. Sarah’s friends came by including Jeff, Meredith, Matt B., Sarah K, and Sarah K’s sister. In their twenties there had been all sorts of drama among this crew of people with Jeff cheating on my wife, Sarah, with Sarah K. but now people were just floating in the pool having let the drama of their twenties out like a bunch of cooked vegetables. Matt got to drinking more than most and had an odd comment about everyone’s siblings but mine. I was too busy in the pool hiding under the water to notice. Jeff and I managed to move the lawn mower trapped in the mud. The new Mosquito Magnet my dad had bought had collected a few thousand bugs but it didn’t stop a few thousand more from launching out of the mud when the mower moved to attack Jeff and me.

Hattie and Jose came by on Tuesday afternoon. Hattie brought thousands of her famous rice krispie treats to appease me. I had liked the apple crisp. We talked about their upcoming marriage and having kids. It’s hard not to talk about kids when you have one. Not long after they arrived and we had eaten our grilled salmon steaks the torrential rain came down upon us. So we ran about putting away the umbrellas and hid inside to watch the downpour.

We took 3A home and the traffic was surprisingly light for a holiday weekend on the way home to Brookline. When we got home we had to unpack everything and drag those vegetable remnants back inside. The extra tax bill where the government had rejected some portion of our return was waiting for us as was the real estate tax bill that needs to be paid by August.

Gemini was sick from the beginning of the weekend acting lethargic and without her trademark constant bark. Sarah K’s sister was the new person on Monday and is studying to be a veterinarian. She looked at Gemini but I never heard the results. Gemini would barely be able to walk from inside the house to outside to pee so she just lay next to her food and water. She got the extra hamburger and some extra chicken. By Tuesday night, July 4th, my parents had taken her to an animal hospital. Mom said that the vet was clinical at first, letting my parents know that they could keep Gemini for observations, but the cancer was very far advanced. My mother asked if the vet would recommend euthanasia and that was the recommendation. So my parents were quite sad when I dropped off Madeline on Wednesday morning because they had just put a loved one to sleep. I gave my mom a hug but I wasn’t sure how to comfort them.

This weekend my family, parents and sister, are driving together up to Toronto to view the unveiling of my grandparents’ tomb stones. Sarah will stay home in Boston with Madeline. With death floating around I get to thinking that death is a great reminder to live fully and not waste healthy days. If there is something I want to do or see I should do it or see it without worrying about the wrong stuff, the reasons why not to do or see things.

I got another little dose of death by watching the Bukowski documentary Born Into This. Sarah wasn’t very interested in the file so she went to read the sequel to The Devil Wears Prada in the bedroom. The end of every documentary is usually the protagonist wasting away from a stroke or cancer. Maybe Hunter S. Thompson shot himself to avoid those slow dying scenes in his documentary. I was struck by a good poem during the movie that made me remember why I have recently come to fear Anne Coulter and her many raving fans.

The genius of the crowd

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

by Charles Bukowski