A Tropical Heat Wave….Nana certainly Can,Can Can!

Don’t you think veranda sounds so much nicer than terrace?  Come to think of it, Nana is not fond of Deck or patio either.  Lanai can be pleasant if one is in the South Seas or just hosting a Hula themed soiree.  I guess there is always gazebo or as Nana’s dear friend Truman Capote, I mean Harper Lee says in his/her terribly clever book, “To Kill a Mockingbird”, a scuppernong arbor.   Nana thinks she recalls that the aforementioned scuppernong arbor was also bandied about in the play “The Bad Seed” by little Rhonda who seems so mannered and then kills people.  Nana has a friend Eugenia who is a bit like that, only she kills at Mahjongg, not in a life threatening sort of way, still and all it does seem a bit disingenuous to be that mannered and win all the time.     I suppose Cabana could do in a pinch though it really should be south of the border (ba dah bump) or piazza would be fantastica if one were in Italia visiting familia and adding a’s to everything.   Nana barely can abide a porch or balcony though she does enjoy a finely crafted balustrade and an atrium is for sure more palatable than courtyard.  Let’s just end this by saying though all of these words might lead to keeping one cooler it is defiantly ‘kooler’ to utilize a colonnade. Portico, or stoa rather than a covered walkway or God forbid a stoop.

The unfortunate heat wave of late has Nana thinking about the dogged days of summer.  She knows that the heat does not bring out the best in many people.  Nana is not merely talking about the perspiration or “glow” that one might achieve on a more than tepid day, but the angst and fits of pique that can accompany such thermostat settings.   Very Warm days can lead to less than patient people and longer than normal lines at the Ice cream truck which normally leads to a less than favorable combination.  The heat is a major character in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”, and “Street Car named Desire”, which leads one to wonder if Tennessee Williams, who was not from Tennessee but Mississippi, (So why not Mississippi Williams?), didn’t have a special insight into how the hot humid days of mid-summer can affect the human condition.  Seems to Nana that there might be a thesis brewing in this idea?   Please feel free to pilfer her idea, as Nana’s days of thesis-ing are behind her.  If some of you are thinking that they might want to make some sort of snide comment about Nana’s use of the word “Behind”, and/or you were thinking of saying something about her somewhat ample derriere, then let her tell you something….you people are all rapscallions and should put a sock in it…Oh, Sorry, it was the heat.  It got to poor Nana.  Hopefully Jagoda, the girl Nana has in to tidy up and such, is hurrying in the kitchen to get her a frosty Beefeater martini with a lemon twist rather than an olive giving a nod to the balminess. This, she is certain, will calm her nerves on this blistering day.   Jagoda is a nice, if somewhat stern looking, young lady from Croatia and her name translates to strawberry in English.  Every time Nana thinks of it she is reminded of a quote that she will attribute to the lovely Dame Edna, “you don’t get a face like that from eating strawberries!”  Nana has never told Jagoda this story because to quote Blanche DuBois,” Deliberate cruelty is unforgivable, and the one thing of which I have never, ever been guilty of.”  So, until we’ve all had a few sipsies and calmed down from the swell of intemperate weather let us all take a deep breath, and take this ridiculous slap from Mother Nature in good stride and not out on one another.

Cheers dears and stay “kool”!