Picnic!

As I wrote last week, the next couple weeks are the lazy part of summer for me. The hectic string of entertaining-festivals-family gatherings that consumed our June and early July has passed; what's left is a sweet lull of summertime before the end-of-season canning craziness kicks in. I am fully conscious of how fleeting this time is. To that end, I am making the most of these weeks when summer is moving slowly enough to pause, take note of, and enjoy.

Patrick and I hadn't really had a proper picnic since our first flirty year of couple-hood. Those were the lavish, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind, involving brie and stuffed olives and bakery focaccia. For this one, more planning, and therefore less money, was involved.

It was still lavish, mind you, just no brie. I pulled the "menu," as it were, out of an old Vegetarian Times. Mediterranean pressed sandwiches, with roasted eggplant, zucchini, and bell peppers; picnic caviar, which was really a tasty corn and bean salad; and jam bars made with last year's apricot jam. Add a couple of fresh peaches and a bottle of chardonnay (naturally), and it was heaven.

The light was lovely. The wildflowers were blooming. I had a glass of wine, and spent the next several minute teetering around tipsily with my camera, wobbling in and out of focus, cursing, exclaiming, and snapping pictures.

It was one of those nights where it seemed hard to get a bad picture. I love those nights.

When the wine was drunk and the pond was circumnavigated, the bullfrogs were befriended and the joe pye weed was admired, we cruised home in Patrick's old convertible, at least one of us wrapped in a picnic blanket against the cool evening air.