Farewell to Summer's Joys

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: This weekend marks the official end of summer here in the US. Grade schools and high schools have already started, although many, like Youngest, had an easy first week, with classes only on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The college students who haven't already arrived on campus are moving in this weekend, and everyone whose office had summer flexible Friday hours will have to go back to the regular schedule next week.


Here in Maine, the temperature is already starting to lower, with more days only getting to a high in the seventies, and more nights in the fifties. It often feels as if a celestial switch gets turned on around the Forth of July and turned off right after Labor Day. What was left undone - a float down the Saco River, building a firepit - must stay undone until next summer.


I was having these somewhat melancholy thoughts because I was making my favorite late-summer treat, an open-faced tomato sandwich with Miracle Whip. What epitomizes the transient joys of summer like a home grown tomato? Our neighboring farm is bursting with them, and they let me take the ones that aren't pretty enough to sell at market, so I am gorging on panzanella, insalata caprese, crostini and good old American tomato sammiches. Of all the pleasures of summer, I will miss these tomatoes most of all.

How about you, Reds? What do you hate to say good-bye to this weekend?


RHYS BOWEN: Wearing white! Officially it is socially unacceptable to wear white after Labor Day, so I'm told. But it's my favorite color and it looks good on me, and it will stay hot in California for at least another two months, so I'm going to defy convention and keep wearing it.


Foodwise I adore cherries and this year has been a really long season for them. And local peaches and plums. And sitting outside on my balcony as the wind comes in from the ocean and cools things down and the lights go on in the valley below. But of course I cheat: when it gets cold and wet in California, I fly south with the birds and spend the winter in Arizona. A wimp, I know.


HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  There's something slower about summer, even though my life and responsibilities are exactly the same. I love to take walks during the day, see how beautiful the world is..it's also great in the fall, thought, and spring.  Sitting outside in our backyard by the pool, and floating on the air mattress things, and cooking out. Love that.  That the daylight lasts longer.  And in Boston, there's much less traffic (unless you are driving to the Cape between Thursday afternoon and Friday night, or returning on Sunday. NIGHTMARE.  And gosh, I love tomatoes.


LUCY BURDETTE: Cherries, peaches and blueberries at their peak--I will sure miss them. And once John beat back the onslaught of woodchucks, our garden has been amazing. We've been giving away gorgeous tomatoes left and right, and our neighbors run when we bear down on them with zucchini... But fall is nice too--no humidity, and the dog is willing to walk much further. And like Rhys, we flee when it gets too chilly! Already thinking about my friends in Key West:).



SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Will miss tomatoes, corn, peaches, all of the daylight, fireflies, cookouts, roasted marshmallows, walking around without a jacket.... But I'm not going to miss the heat. Also, as everyone with a kid still in school knows — it's time for the little darlings to go back.


JULIA: Oh, yes, Susan. As the advert says, "It's the most wonderful time of the year..."


HALLIE EPHRON: I won't miss the ants, but I will so miss the flicker (a great big woodpecker) who visits our stone patio to drill between the stones for them. I'll miss the huge pot of fresh basil on my back steps that I can squeeze-and-sniff for a shot of summer. Also the peaches a plums. They've been amazing this year.


DEBORAH CROMBIE: Don't talk to me about ants. I stepped in huge fire ant mound a couple of weeks ago. Ack. So I won't miss them, or the mosquitoes. It was so hot here into mid-August, and I was so busy with the book that I really feel like I missed summer this year. I am enjoying the last of the tomatoes. And basil!! I know we can buy fresh in the supermarket all year these days, but it's not the same as walking out on my deck and picking handfuls. And I will really miss the blueberries. Otherwise I'm looking forward to fall and being able to enjoy being outside again.

HANK: ANTS! Argh. we had the TEENY, almost invisible ones (I looked them up, pharaoh ants) all over our counter for one day. Just one day! Apparently the ants are freaking out with the drought,and  looking for water. I felt bad for them.

JULIA: Debs, you and I are climate opposites - I love fall, but I know it means my time outdoors is limited because... No, I won't say it. Not yet. Dear readers, what are you going to miss about summer? And are you doing anything to say farewell this weekend?

The Life-Changing Magic of Julia Tidying Up

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I may be the last woman in America to hear of KonMari, and that's okay; I'll own it. I had heard about some super Japanese organizing method back when Marie Kondo's first book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, was published, but the only thing I knew was A) it involved folding T-shirts like origami figures and B) it required you to talk to your socks.

Now, I am not a naturally organized person - far from it. I've learned over the years that the more detailed the system, the less likely I am to stick to it. Which is why, for instance, my tax file is a large picnic basket into which I throw all bills, papers, receipts, etc. that I might need by April 15. "But Julia," I hear you say, "It must take you forever to get all that in order come tax-time." The answer is yes, it does take quite a few hours of sorting and entering into a spreadsheet for my accountant. However, it took longer the years when I would sort my bills, papers, receipts, etc. into pre-labeled folders for one month, after which they were left strewn about the house until I started having panic attacks in March.

All of which is to say I was happy to let the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up pass me by. But no more! Yes, friends, I have seen the light, and Konverted. (Okay, that was a horrible pun.) I was following along in one of the blogs I mentioned yesterday as the blog author (blogther?) cleaned out and organized her closets the KonMari way. That doesn't look too complicated, I thought. So I checked out the book and read it.

One of Kondo precepts struck a chord with me right away. Her goal is not to teach you how to buy and use better storage systems; it's to get rid of enough stuff so the storage you have works. To achieve this, you don't pick what you're going to throw away. You choose what you want to keep - those things that "spark joy" in you. I decided to translate that into clothes I always felt good in, the items I got compliments on when I wore them, or the outfits I would put on and say to myself, "Damn, girl, you look good."

I wish I had thought of the blog and taken snaps when I sorted my closet! However, I've created a photojournalistic account of KonMari'ing one drawer - my black, gray and white summer things. (The book says take ALL your clothes out before you sort, but there was no way I was going to take two days to collect everything including the winter things in the attic. I'm quite comfortable with doing it a bit at a time.)

Here's my drawer before KonMari - not too bad, if you ignore the fact it's in my bathroom because my bedroom dresser was too full...

I took everything out and dumped it on the bed. The book says to put it on the floor, but I think maybe that's a cultural thing? Or maybe Marie Kondo doesn't have two cats who would eagerly walk all over her clothes and then lie down on them.

So the technique is to pick up each item and see if it sparks joy. My daughters (who believe me, could both use a heavy dose of KonMari in their rooms, which by the way they refused to let me photograph for the blog) pointed out no one's underwear sparks joy. (Well, not the stuff you actually wear throughout the day. There are a few specialty items...) But there's nothing wrong with choosing to keep things that have utilitarian value. I kept several long-sleeve undershirts because they keep me warm in my drafty house during the winter, and that sparks joy.

As you sort, Kondo says to give thanks to the clothing you're letting go, and to acknowledge the item has done its service to you. Since I, unlike Kondo, am not a practitioner of Shintoism, I chose to think about the people who might benefit from my donations. (My church sponsors a "St. Elizabeth's Pantry" for non-food items, and my town has a Community Clothing Closet - both of which are open to anyone who walks in.)

The Shih Tzu is of course optional to the KonMari process.

And here's my drawer after. You can't quite see it, but there's empty space in the back! Kondo instructs one to fold clothing in a very particular way, and I was too lazy to watch the folding videos on YouTube. So I rolled my shirts and sweaters like I would when packing a suitcase.

The final result: these are the clothes headed for the donation boxes! Obviously, that's from my closet and my dresser, not just the one drawer...  Around October, I'll bring down the winter clothes and take another crack at them. Meanwhile, I have yet to start the next phase of the decluttering and organizing: books. I expect that will be much harder than clothing. I'll keep you posted.

So tell me, dear readers, have any of you KonMari'd? How do you like to organize?

The Daily Bookmark

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: It's unusual for a blog to make the national news, but it happened recently when Gawker Media was forced into bankruptcy by a whopping $140 million judgement in an invasion-of-privacy case brought by Hulk Hogan. Now there's a lot of interesting background to this event, including a shadowy billionaire with a grudge who was funding lawsuits against Gawker's owner, but the upshot is that Univision bought Gawker Media's seven websites at auction earlier this week. Six of them remain, but the flagship site, Gawker.com, has closed.

Why this run down of media business? Because I am SO bummed that one of my daily stops on the internet is gone! I'd check in with Gawker every day,usually briefly in the afternoon and reading in depth in the evening. Now it's not there, I struggle with this information-age, existential blankness that has no name. It's like walking down the street to discover a smouldering hole where your favorite cafe was. Or learning that your local library has been turned into a parking lot. Sic transit gloria interrētis.

Fortunately, I still have several must-reads every day. We subscribe to three newspapers online, The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Portland Press Herald. I tend to read the first for opinion and arts, the second for politics, and the third for the gloriously wacky local news (much of it thanks to our governor, who is a choleric nut job.) Of the remaining Gawker Media sites, I love Jezebel, subtitled "Celebrity, Sex Fashion for Women." It has everything from gossip about the Kardashians and Real Housewives to investigative reporting about women in politics, campus sexual assault and income inequality. It has a strong "third wave" feminist slant that keeps me - who absorbed feminism in the seventies and early eighties - on my toes.

Also on my personal blog roll? John Scalzi's WHATEVER, which is, as its name suggests about whatever the award-winning SF author has in mind: science fiction, politics, publishing, cat pictures, ukeleles...the list goes on, and is all entertainingly well-written. On the more frivolous side, I adore home decor/home improvement blogs (you all may recall my home is 200 years old, which means at any given time, something about it needs improving.) Decor, like fashion, is very much a matter of taste, which in my case means no matter how beautiful the pictures or how well-written the prose, I'm not going to be bookmarking anything that features a boho, apartment in Brooklyn, Scandinavian modern or minimalist aesthetic. Instead, my recent faves are all about a bright Southern more-is-more look. I'm particularly enjoying 702 Park Project, about a young couple bringing back his grandparents' 1902 North Carolina foursquare house, and The Pink Clutch, written by a woman who looks a lot like me ten years ago, and prominently features bar carts and cocktail recipes among the decorating advice. My kind of gal!

How about you, Reds? What do you read while drinking your first cup of coffee, or while skimming your tablet before bedtime? What are your must-visit stops on the internet - and have you ever lost one, ala Gawker?

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Oh, I read Gawker, too! So sad... for blogs I tend to go with home design—am a fan of Decor8, Domino, and Design*Sponge. I also follow a bunch of the perfume blogs, including NowSmellThis, Bois de Jasmin, and Perfume Posse. I love it when people write about perfume—it becomes poetry in the right hands....



JULIA: Susan, I confess I have never gotten the allure, but I know several other authors who love to read and write about perfume, including MJ Rose and Denise Hamilton. On the other hand, I enjoy opera and classical music reviews, despite the popular saying that writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

HALLIE EPHRON: I never followed Gawker so I won't be missing it. I do subscribe the Boston Globe, The New York Times, and only recently since I am obsessed with this election, the Washington Post. AND the New Yorker (they send nearly daily posts which are usually excellent reads). Also the Huffington Post, even though there's  never much there that isn't covered better elsewhere. For laughs I read Tom and Lorenzo, fashion bloggers. And I follow my kids on Facebook (does that count?)

In fact, it's amazing that I have time to do anything besides read what's on the web. It's a terrible time sink.



JULIA: I read TLo too, Hallie!


HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Yeesh, this makes me feel out of it. We subscribe to papers: the Boston Globe, and the Boston Herald and The New York Times, which I read out loud to Jonathan the way to work. I get a fabulous email news briefing every day from the Washington Post, with great links, which I am addicted to, and the New Yorker daily posts.  I read TV Spy, about the news business.   And the RTNDA (radio television news directors association) daily newsletter. I follow the NYT, Wash Post and LA Times and The New Yorker and New York Magazine on Twitter, and that is surprisingly worthwhile. Hey, is Vogue on Twitter? Off to look.

JULIA: Yes it is!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I didn't read Gawker! Now I think I've missed something great. Damn. I do read The New York Times online everyday (and paper Friday-Sunday), and now the Washington Post, because I kept hitting my limit on the political stories. I get the Dallas Morning News on paper everyday because their online format is from the dark ages. I read mostly for local news, and the editorial page. And I get all kinds of things on Flipboard everyday. I subscribe to several cooking blogs but don't usually find time to read them, and just looking at my list so far makes me wonder how I ever get anything else done. Oh, and I try to check out the UK news everyday.

I'd really love the home decor blogs.  Hmm, wonder how I can squeeze a little more in...

JULIA: How about you, dear readers? What would you recommend to us from your daily bookmarks?