Summer's kiss

I'm off Mondays during college football season, and Amy took the day off to rest as well. We ran a few errands in the morning, including buying a highly-recommended glider rocker for basement baby soothing. She slept most of the afternoon; I worked outside. Got a lot done -- including cutting the grass with my new no-engine hand mower. Nice. Did a little reading as well, from the late David Halberstam's "The Breaks of the Game," which includes this passage that fits the day perfectly:

In late summer the weather in Oregon is lovely, warm and dry, as if conjured up by some Chamber of Commerce to atone for the wetness past. There is a sense that you can see forever, or failing that, at least, and with ease, to the awesome mountains that surround Portland. The air is clear, as if from another, preindustrial, age, since potential polluters fear the power of Oregon's ecologically alert citizenery, and after the long gray months so recently past and so soon to return, it seems a special gift. On days like this it is inconceivable to stay inside, inconceivable to work, and there is a feeling that no business is being transacted in Portland at this moment, that an entire state may be on vacation.