A great start to the summer

I'm pretty sure that most everyone sees Memorial Day as the unofficial beginning of summer. Now that I don't have (my own) kids in school anymore, I can start to see it that way, too.

So, that said, this has been a wonderful beginning to summer. Starting off by sharing a bottle of wine with my very best friend on Friday and ending up spending time with my very favorite veteran on Monday, it has been just about perfect. A little bit of rain hasn't even changed my perception of perfection.

In between, I've made a few loaves of bread; I've done some gardening; I've gone out to the farm to see what's growing in the garden there; I've enjoyed ample amounts of wine and some really terrific salads; we've enjoyed every variety of grilled foods; and lo and behold, I've even done some long-overdue cleaning. I also honored veterans from the Clinton area at their annual Memorial Day parade.

In addition, I watched a very interesting movie, "Food, Inc." I am not going to belabor that topic at this point, other than to say that if you haven't seen this, you should. I think I've pretty much beaten that subject to death, at least for the moment. And even though I said I was done with the topic, I do want to say that I have to disagree with the Stonyfield Farms Yogurt executive (former hippie) who thinks it's awesome that Wal-Mart is getting into the organic market. Because that's a million dollars worth of organic food on people's tables that wouldn't have otherwise been there.

For my part, I think it's damned scary. And that's all I have to say about that.

But it was also good, because I can pretty much bet on the fact that David will never read "The Omnivore's Dilemma" or "In Defense of Food" or "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral." But he watched the DVD with me from Netflix, and I think he was impressed. Like maybe that he agrees with me about Wal-Mart. And maybe he thinks $9 chickens aren't such an extravagance anymore. Just sayin'.

So, all in all it has been an enlightening and enjoyable weekend. The weather's been just awesome, for the most part (other than the past few questionable hours.) And thank goodness for umbrella-covered tables or gazebo-enclosed patios where we can enjoy our meals alfresco despite the rain.

And personally, I don't question the irony of the fact that it started raining at just about the time the local parade started, while the non-local parade had sunshine and warm weather throughout, without a single cloud. And a beautiful rendition of "Taps," to boot.