{"id":681,"date":"2010-08-10T14:26:33","date_gmt":"2010-08-10T21:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mamamonk.com\/?p=681"},"modified":"2010-08-10T14:26:33","modified_gmt":"2010-08-10T21:26:33","slug":"thankful-tuesday-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/michaboyett\/2010\/08\/thankful-tuesday-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"Thankful Tuesday Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

It\u2019s Thankful Tuesday. I spent last night participating in one of the great American summer pastimes. I joined my husband, my brother<\/a> and my sister in law at a Giants\/Cubs game. We ate hotdogs and garlic fries.<\/p>\n

We also drank hot chocolate. Aimee and I covered our legs with a blanket. We wore three layers of clothes, mittens, and I sported a lovely yellow winter hat. Yes, this is month of August in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always been a summer girl. I love being hot. I love pools and air conditioning and stopping at the snow cone stand and playing outside all evening with shorts on. My favorite memories are warm memories. My birthday, my husband\u2019s birthday, my son\u2019s birthday, Young Life camp, childhood sprinkler days in the front yard. I appreciate fall. I\u2019m thrilled for spring. Winter is necessary. But the world is most itself in summertime.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I was tentative about summer in San Francisco before we moved here. Mark Twain told me the little I knew: \u201cThe coldest winter of my life was the summer I spent in San Francisco,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

My husband had recited Twain\u2019s quote to me last summer while we packed our living room. I piled books in boxes, soothing myself with the notion that Mark Twain was always melodramatic. I could handle a chillier summer. Here\u2019s what I didn\u2019t understand:<\/p>\n