Summertime!

We will just call this one a rehash, or a trip down memory lane.

It’s July and we are now firmly in the grip of summer here in LA. A grip that is not as firm as it is in other parts of the country, at least in my part of the City. Because for those of you who might not know, there are actual states (Rhode Island and Delaware, to be exact) that are smaller in size than the city of Los Angeles. If you include the County (since cities like Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and West Hollywood are in the county but not in the city), then it’s bigger in square miles than Connecticut. So on any given day there can be as much as a fifty degree difference in temps between, say, Santa Monica and Santa Clarita. Where I am is relatively temperate, thank goodness. Since humidity and I are not friends. Raymond Chandler might have written that our dry Santa Ana winds cause “Meek little wives (to) feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks” but a New York summer with 98° and 98% humidity would cause me to be making frantic phone calls to friends to help with alibis and disposal.

Mind you I do have pleasant memories of summer.

Not ours, but ours was like Michael Myers’

As a kid we would all pile into the big Ranch Wagon we had and go on summer drives. AC on of course, and since this was when gas was less than a dollar a gallon, who cares that we just meandered about. We’d stop at stores and look at things, and pick up snacks, and just wander. Along with us was our dog. a black Poodle named Jackie. Jackie was a purebred that we got for nothing because he was the wrong size: too big to be a miniature but not quite big enough to be a standard. His self-appointed job was co-pilot. He would sit between my Dad and Mom on the big bench seat, butt firmly against the seatback, nose in the AC vent and eyes peering over the rim of the dash to keep watch for other traffic or perhaps squirrels. There was a place along the route called the “Dairy Bar” a soft serve ice cream place in a small roadside structure that had a giant plastic cow’s head affixed to the side. We all had a cone, dipped in one of those chocolate or strawberry glazes that formed a hard shell, except for Jackie, who had his plain. (yea. Jackie had to have a cone. We were that kind of family)

Not our Jackie, but he looked like him

This being the days before the term “lactose intolerant” was known it took us a few trips to get that the ice cream wasn’t the best idea for Jackie: about 1/2 an hour after his nosh, Jackie would suddenly abandon his post to the furthest regions of the rear of the Ranch Wagon, which for those of you who know American station wagons of the early 70’s meant practically the distance from Santa Monica to Santa Clarita. 30 seconds later the smell of the life threatening poodle death farts filled the cabin, and AC or no, all the windows including the tailgate were lowered to clear the cabin of the fumes.

I do have other memories of summer: days at the shingle beaches in Connecticut, picking the wild blackberries that grew in the woods around our neighborhood. Swimming and playing tennis first at our local Country Club then at the local park after my parents decided they A) hated golf and 2) pretty much hated the people at the local Country Club. Or the almost comical fireworks for Fourth of July at the Three County Fair, which would have a local business sponsor a single firework that were set off individually, with the proper introduction. Which was sort of like having the national anthem sung by ten different people, each taking to the stage in turn, to sing one word of the lyrics. Summer thunderstorms that would cause flooding at the low point where Park Street met Pine and watching the cars sail through like galleons or even better (since we were devil children) watch them stall out.

Just to make this about perfume for five minutes (since this is after all Perfume Posse) I will remind myself of some of the summer scents that do it for me. Not just Annick Goural Eau d’Hadrien, one of the most criminally overlooked scents out there or even Hawaiian Tropic (or Bain du Soleil Orange Gelee, which is what your mom used) but ones like Serge Lutens Arabie or Neela Vermeer Bombay Bling. Both of which you would think would be deadly in the heat, but you’d be wrong. I’d go steadily in the application but in the heat (applied as everything should be, on skin and under your clothes) they’re like a secret embrace.

Okay I’ve gone on about everything from summer rain to dog farts. Your turn, Any summer memories you’d like to share? Scent recommendations? Coupons for lactaid? let us know in the comments.

Image of he elephants is of an art installation in Beverly Hills. Because, elephants.

Images: Wikimedis Commons, my iPhone, Pexels