Picnic basket full of goodies...

Spread out the blanket, swat the ants away. It's time for a midsummer picnic. Here is a sampling from under the Saran wrap:
*Check out a couple recipes on marthastewart.com, for fruit ambrosia and cold chicken
pasta salad with tomato, basil and feta. Also try brewing iced tea with loose tea - Upton's
blend "East Frisian" is an Assam/vanilla blend. Sweeten with brown sugar. Yum!
*For a deep belly laugh check out "Flight of the Conchords" on YouTube, especially
their "Business Time" and "Albi the Racist Dragon." While on YouTube, dip into "The
Office" leftovers with "Domo Arigato, Mr. Scotto."
*For a hammock-laden, idle, lazy summer pursuit, check out addicting game's "Impossible
Quiz."
*Oh bliss, oh joy! Over the Rhine has posted the entirety of their new album, "Trumpet Child," on their homepage, overtherhine.com. My favorite so far is "Trouble." The album is less
country than a couple others and more old-timey saloon inspired, slash European tightrope
walker. The title song Trumpet Child, however, hearkens all the OTR ghosts of former classic blend. Listening to the new album is like a letter from home.
*Play "Take" or "Take Two" with Scrabble pieces. It's basically speed scrabble, where you can continually edit your construct as you "take two" more tiles once you've used all of yours. It's tough when you get several tiles piled up and are frantically attempting to reconfigure your puzzle.
*Stock up on calamine lotion. For the first time ever, I have a summer scouting merit badge - poison ivy. (p.s., I'm allergic to the world.)
*Learn to skip stones. I finally learned this weekend. Now, instead of thinking I'm hopeless with throwing things, I know how to Huck Finn it with the rest. What a perfect July skill.
*Trade red,white and blue for black and white: I just took in "The Thin Man" and "After the Thin Man." Nick & Nora's company is quite lovely on summer evenings with crickets and cicadas buzzing in heavy humid air.
*Rummage around in an antique store or two: what fun, trying to discover the functions of
unfamiliar old objects, trying on a vintage hat or two, reading sixty year old letters, talking
yourself out of buying old milk bottles. On the other hand, milk bottles would be cool vases...hmm...
*Locate an old-time drugstore, complete with stools from which to sip a root beer float. I guarantee if you live in the midwest there's one within driving distance.
*Gather friends and read parts of a classic play or novel, accompanied, of course, with
Assam-vanilla/brown sugar iced tea.
I hope that you try at least one of these. Allow yourself a bit of classic firefly leisure and
let me know what turns up in your picnic basket. Share it with the rest of us.