Good morning, Starshine

Yesterday's Adventures:

#1: EAT MUFFINS FROM BLUE SKY BAKERY. Submitted by Adrian Tomine, Optic Nerve Comics,
part-time Brooklyn resident, and part-time O'Connors drinker.

Blue Sky bakery is on 5th Avenue in Park Slope. It looks a little like an old-timey ice cream parlor. I ate a muffin for Adrian, and then I ate most of the other things they had too. I staggered out swollen and sleepy. My brother once complained, after I had eaten the last brownie in the pan, "you're a pastry whore."

#2: On the way to the bakery, I fulfilled the following submission: WALK AROUND THE BLOCK WITH YOUR CLOTHES ON BACKWARDS (submitted by David Greenberger).

I was wearing a t-shirt and running shorts, not really a backwards stand-out. When the very nice lady at the bakery asked what I wanted, she followed it by saying, with sweet concern, "Oh! Your shirt is on backwards!" I said, "Yes, so are my shorts!". She didn't know what to say to that. It occurred to me as I strolled toward the Tea Lounge, that on a street where I recently saw a man wearing a garbage bag and a pink vinyl shirt, backwards clothes will be overlooked. So I told the guy at one of the delis, as i bought some water, "My clothes are on backwards." He said, "backwards, forwards, you gotta do what you want to."

The rest of yesterday's adventures arose spontaneously, suggested by my friend Sean Howe, and by me.

#3: (at Prospect Park) "OK, let's play that we have to stay in the shade all the time."

Even at a park, this was not especially easy. An auxillary rule had to be made that we could take three large steps to get to the next patch of shade. I couldn't stop laughing. When we reached a point where there was no shade down the path to run to, I pretended to die a horrific blistering death in the sun. As we walked toward the nethermead, I told Sean that I had been the Wisconsin state champion tree identifier in junior high. And that I had worn my gold medal to SCHOOL the next day, thinking that everyone would admire me. Sean said, "I was a dork in junior high, but I wasn't STUPID!" The walk became a preoccupied one. Sean was quiet because he was worried about moderating a discussion last night for a panel of authors that wrote essays for his book. I was preoccupied thinking about where I would live if I was homeless (Prospect Park, in the summer) and then preoccupied by creating ice cream recipes in my mind (how can I incorporate gingersnaps without them getting soggy?). We walked on in silence until we decided...

#4: "LET'S GO ON THE PADDLEBOATS!"

And we will, maybe next week. But it was getting late, and it was hot. So then...

#5: "Let's eat icies!"
Eating icies is the best thing about many summer days. When I was a kid, we were allowed to eat one popsicle every day, on the back patio. We loved banana, rootbeer and blue raspberry. In the hot sun, they would drip sticky juice onto our knees. In most of my earliest memories of my brother, he has popsicle blue lips and blue teeth. If you were really unlucky, a chunk of the popsicle would break off and land on the bricks, where it would be mobbed by ants. Which wasn't so bad because ants are interesting. Now it's years later, and flavored ice is still a huge part of my summer. Uncle Louie G's stands are scattered around Brooklyn, including at the Brooklyn Cyclones stadium. Uncle Louie G is a quiet, kind man. He sits on a bench outside the Union Street stand a lot of the time, and his yellow hummer with the license plate ICES is always parked nearby. There are more than thirty flavors at Uncle Louie G's. The peach has real peach chunks in it. It tastes like summer.

Louie G made some good summer suggestions a few weeks ago, which will appear in future updates.

*These adventures typed while listening to The Doo Wop Box Set, Volume 1 (with thanks to Matt Raphael).