escape from the heat

Ecstatic, delighted, defeated, miserable? I probably cycle through all of those emotions in a single September day. I think a hot day’s super power is in how all-encompassing and omnipresent it can feel, blotting out memory and awareness of anything but the sweaty skin you currently inhabit. We must have stayed outside talking and playing gin rummy until 8 o’clock last night, until it was cool enough to think about eating — mosquitos aren’t too bad if you keep incense lit, and those last hours as the heat drains out of the garden are now the best part of the day.

So playing cards all evening in the garden is great, but maybe there’s other things to do when the day cools down?

  • This Saturday, September 7, you can hang out in the Getty’s Central Garden until 9 p.m. as part of Mother Earth’s Plantasia; free, no reservations required.
  • Also on Saturday, September 7, 7:30 p.m., LACMA is holding its annual late-night party Muse ’til Midnight; ticket details here.
  • Sponsored by KCRW, Descanso Gardens is holding “Three Saturdays of Experimental Music Under the Oaks” collectively titled “Silence at Descanso,” September 7, 21, and 28; ticket information here

So hang on, the heat will break soon. In the meantime, I know I’m ready for a few postcards from spring, from fog, from lush places, and I found a few after rummaging through photos from Mitch’s recent travels, mostly in California and a few in England. Because I find what a long, hot day really lacks is some cool contrast.

norcal dana bday may 2019 photo i-D4dxCst-X3.jpg
walk through a foggy forest in Idyllwild, California
May 2019 photos by MB Maher
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stop to carefully examine the stubble of lichen on branches
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manzanita norcal dana's birthday may 2019 photo i-dvQDbzx-X2.jpg
marvel at the delicacy of manzanita in bloom
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just a reminder that it is a lush, wet world out there somewhere
Sagehen Creek Field Station, California, August 2019
photos by MB Maher
mb/watts sagehen 2019 photo i-sNgrR3X-X3.jpg
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a reminder that it’s a fecund world — Hampstead Heath, England, spring 2019
photos by MB Maher
mb hampstead heath england 2019 photo i-tmDDGLT-X3.jpg
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3 Responses to escape from the heat

  1. Kris P says:

    Thank you, Denise! The first 2 photos reminded me fondly of our morning marine layer. I hope it returns to knock the guts out of the muggy heat Mother Nature has saddled us with the past week.

  2. Elaine says:

    Hoping your heat wave passes quickly into more comfortable Fall weather. I love the second to last photo of the tall trees and benches. Would give anything to be able to grow trees like that here.

  3. hb says:

    It was a miserable few days, but at least the “few” part was good. Lovely photos of cooler places are always welcome.

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