Weekends in Early June

There is a heat wave coming on. I can feel my mind preparing for it. Tomorrow my body will begin to adjust. I think of how I can protect my offspring from getting too feisty in the heat. I think back to how I kept cool as a child. We had a clubhouse set up in our garage. The floor was a concrete slab, and the walls were made of grey concrete block. We would open up the bay door and sit on metal chairs inside the shaded structure. There were piles of National Geographic, and so began my love of other cultures. We would sit and read for hours, all the while drinking lemonade from paper cups and crunching slowly on the ice.

I long to replicate that structure. I imagine myself marking out a spot in the backyard, right alongside another shed. I would have to clear the land of any brush and vegetation, dig the footing with a shovel, dig and mark the foundation, set a series of plumb lines (is that what they are called?), check that the excavation is level, mix up some mortar in a wheelbarrow, put on some masonry gloves and lay the block foundation, score the seams evenly and check every side with the level. There are probably some other steps in between. It is fun to imagine all of the work that it would take to make a little concrete building in the shade.

Every year a few key discussions about coping with the heat are had:

"Should we get an air-conditioner? Just a little one, for the upstairs bedroom? "

"No, the window fan set on intake pulls in the cool valley air just like AC."

"Should we join a pool this year?"

"Yes, definitely."

There's talk of camping in the back yard. The kids want to light a bonfire, melt chocolate and marshmallows, stay up late and run around. I'm open to the possibilities of the summer.