Summertime (and the livin' is easy)!
The Scribe hates hot weather. Let’s just start with that. And the Fourth of July weekend is going to be hotter than a firecracker on fresh black pavement—in full sun. And, as detective Oscar Grace explained in the movie Body Heat (written by Lawrence Kasdan, who also wrote The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi), hot weather tends to make people grouchy and do funny things:
We’ve got more of everything bad since the [heat] wave started. It’s the crisis atmosphere. People dress different, feel different, sweat more. They wake up cranky and they never recover. Pretty soon people think the normal rules don’t apply. They start breaking them; figure no one will care cause it’s emergency time.
One way to deal with hot weather in the Pacific Northwest is to find a body of water, such as the Columbia River, Oneonta Gorge, or the Pacific Ocean, and pass the day sipping cool beverages and listening to music. And there are plenty of great summer songs. For example, those inclined toward the classics might choose George and Ira Gershwin’s “Summertime”:
Summertime, and the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’, and the cotton is high
Your daddy’s rich, and your mamma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby, don’t you cry.
Or how about the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Summer in the City”:
Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn’t it a pity
Doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city
All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head.
Of course, you could also stay cool by finding a dark basement and studying the rules of capitalization (like the Scribe does). Here are the rules that apply to what you just read:
Do capitalize Geographic regions (e.g., the Pacific Northwest).
Do capitalize rivers, oceans, mountains, islands, etc. (e.g., Pacific Ocean, Columbia River, Oneonta Gorge).
Do capitalize songs and movies (e.g., Body Heat, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Summertime, Summer in the City).
Don’t capitalize seasons (e.g., summer).
And generally, don’t capitalize job titles (e.g., detective Oscar Grace).
Stay cool out there …