Go home mp3 player, you are drunk

This is my new favorite cocktail for summer: English cucumber muddled with grapefruit white balsamic vinegar + gin + sparkling water + ice. So much yum. And so refreshing when it's 100 degrees out. Which it has been here A LOT. Oy.

We are mostly staying indoors and trying to remain cool, which means I have been reading a whole heck of a bunch of stuff. I liked Jenny Lawson's memoir very much, along with the fourth Armand Gamache novel by Louise Penny and Johnathan Tropper's One Last Thing Before I Go. Right now I am reading and loving Steve Earle's I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive, which is about a drug-addicted back-alley abortionist in 1960s San Antonio who is haunted by the ghost of Hank Williams. I know, right? That right there should tell you everything you need to know about whether or not you might want to read this book. I recommend it, if you like that sort of thing.

I bought one of these ridiculous contraptions after a months-long internal debate and I'm here to tell you, it has changed my life. I am spiralizing the hell out of EVERYTHING now, mostly zucchini and cucumbers but it works for other stuff, too. All those cold pasta salads I used to make are now made with cucumber "noodles" instead of pasta. All the hot pasta dishes I used to make are now made with zucchini "noodles" instead of pasta. I'm sure I'll get bored with it eventually, but today is not that day. I should note that when I bought it the price was about 10 bucks cheaper than the price that's showing as I write this; I'm not sure I would have paid that much for it. But I do love it, ridiculous as it is.

We are all kind of bored with summer, I think. P is finding it no fun to cut the grass in triple-digit temperatures, C has no idea what to do with himself given that college classes don't start until late August, H is spending her summer learning to drive (fun!) and having her wisdom teeth out (not!), and I am annoyed that it's too hot at dinnertime to sit out on the patio while the food grills.

The gin helps, though. A bit.

In other news, I think there's a ghost in my machine because there's been a whole lot of this happening lately:

My mp3 player: "Ramones followed by Simon and Garfunkel followed by Misfits followed by Johnny Cash, yaaaaay!"
Me: "What? No."
My mp3 player: "John Denver, Nine Inch Nails, Cat Stevens! Wheee!"
Me: "NO."
My mp3 player: "Metallica, Louis Armstrong, Beastie Boys!"
Me: "Argh!"
My mp3 player: "Helen Reddy! Black Flag! Patsy Cline! Judas Priest!"
Me: "QUIT IT."
My mp3 player: "Captain and Tennille, lol!"
Me: "HOW DRUNK WAS I WHEN I PUT SONGS ON YOU?!"

Yeah. I don't know. Hope your summer is going well. Or winter, for you antipodean types.