Here it is Sunday night again. Someday I’m going to learn how not to fritter my weekends away because it seems like this time each week I look back on the previous 48 hours and think, “Really? Couldn’t I have done better?”

The weekend, as with all weekends, was not without its high points: Friday night, John, Sarah, Rudi, and I headed to the Sculpture Garden for jazz and a picnic. The weather wasn’t totally disgusting, which in July is always a blessing. The evening was nice — good friends, good food, good music.

And last night instead of accompanying Rudi to a cookout/welcome back party for one of his cyclist friends (with all the rest of his cyclist friends), I called up Susan and the two of us went out to dinner. Susan was my first friend in D.C. and she remains a dear one, so it’s always good to see her. We ate Lebanese food and talked and I felt better for having gone out with her.

Otherwise, I didn’t do a lot. I cleaned some (but not enough). I went to the farmers’ market. I knit. (Okay, I did learn a new knitting skill and that will be a post later in the week.) I watched Tour de France coverage.

I didn’t ride my bike. I didn’t go swimming. I didn’t read. I didn’t call any of my faraway friends to catch up. I didn’t make a cherry pie (although I did leave some cherries out on the counter overnight to become an accidental science experiment/fruit fly-mold incubator). I didn’t go to the garden. I hardly left the house.

The good news is that we have a vacation coming up in ten days. We head to New York for a final Mets game at Shea Stadium before they sell their souls to a banking behemoth. And then we head further north for our annual folk music/camping trip with Shelley and her family. We’ll also spend a night with my folks and with Gramma and maybe see some of our New York friends. Even if I’m pathetic that weekend, at least I’ll be pathetic with other people.

In the meantime, maybe next weekend will be better spent.

The thermostat I passed today read 95 degrees. I grinned.

It was not because I enjoy ridiculously hot, humid weather.

Instead it was because we were on our way out of town headed to the beach.

Wouldn’t you have smiled giddily, too?

We headed to Calvert County to North Beach, which is out near where I visited Karen last summer. The town has cordoned off a shallow sand bar for a swimming area and it makes for a pleasant, if only knee-deep, place to cool off.

Keeping with the previous post’s theme, we saw a nesting pair of osprey, a heron, lots of gulls and ducks, and a mama duck and her six ducklings. We also saw a few fish and a tiny clear jellyfish or two.

Shortly after we laid down our blanket, the skies clouded over and we heard what might have been a single rumble of thunder, so I quickly popped up to hit the water in case the folks running the beach wanted people to evacuate the water. Lightning and thunder never materialized, although rain did, so I just plopped myself down on the blanket after I came out of the water and laid it out.

A few hours later we decided to head home. Rudi took me along some of his bike routes, curvy, shady routes off the beaten path that I could see why he loves. We paused at a little mom and pop ice cream stand, where we both got delicious milk shakes.

We also stopped at a farm stand along one of the main roads, picking up a few peppers, the first peaches of the season, and two ears of corn that we ate salted and buttered with hot dogs for tonight’s dinner. Hot and sweet and perfectly summery.

As we meandered home, we stopped at a P.G. County shopping mall where Rudi found tea and a bathing suit and I finally tracked down a mirror and a pair of sneakers. I will now be able to ride my bike again and look at myself in the mirror without having to stand on the tub and lean in front of the medicine cabinet. Contrary to what you might think, that’s not a really flattering pose, regardless of what you’re wearing.

As we hit the District line, lightning forked across the sky, piercing the clouds so the rain could seep through again. It started as drips, but once we’d arrived downtown, the skies opened up and just — dumped. The good thing about storms like that, though, is they don’t tend to last too long, so by the time we reached home (about 2 miles later, but factor in lots of stop lights), it was back to drips again.

It really was a wonderful way to spend the final Saturday in June, 95 degrees, torrential thunderstorm, and all.

The New York Times reviews root beer in today’s paper.

One question: How do I get to be a taste coordinator for such an event?

Radio silence will continue for one more day as I attempt to recover the power of speech/writing. The plane into Baltimore was an hour late last night and the train was about 20 minutes late as well, so we didn’t stroll into the house until 1 a.m. Add to that a miserably hot day and I’m struggling just to remain upright, let alone to use my words in a constructive way.

(And, yes, we had a nice trip. Thanks for asking.)

Rudi and I are up in Connecticut this weekend, spending time with the folks and Gramma and meeting the recent puppy addition to the household before she’s a full-grown dog. I’ll be heading out sometime tomorrow to lunch with Karen. And we don’t fly back until Monday evening, so we get a nice (ridiculously hot and humid) long weekend out of the trip.

Posting may be infrequent as I spend my time sipping iced tea and chatting.