Doing Nothing

The thing I like to do best in the summer is do nothing. When else can you get away with such bare minimums of activity and still feel okay about yourself? Honestly I'd be happy if all I did was sit quietly, alternately in the sun or in the shade—depending on temperature, and read John Steinbeck or something else good, and after a little while, maybe put the book down so I could watch the way the gnats are going crazy in a shaft of sun over the rosebush, or the bees in the rosemary, or the dog lick-nibbling his paw, or, or, or ....

It's fun to bookend those hushed hours with other stuff, though—like drinking iced coffee with cream through a pink straw, skating in the heat and then swimming the sweat off, sipping cool things on verandas under white garden lights, and so on. I'll probably try to fit some of that in, too.