A few nights ago, Maria and I resolved to have the Beegie Adair Trio accompany our grilled mango and jalapeño sausages.
I had just come up for air after a tight deadline as the sun was setting on a sweltering 40-plus-degree-Celsius day, which together with the preceding Monday and Tuesday orchestrated the three hottest days ever recorded on Earth.
It was nine o’clock, later than when we usually break bread at in the evening, then we remembered that last summer in Greece, this was around the time we’d start contemplating supper. Somewhere, nine o’clock was early.
We set up on the back balcony, mosquitoes be damned. Uncapped a Stella and a Corona, plated the sausages and paired them with Maria’s famous home fries, turned off the Weber, turned on the bluetooth speaker and waited for “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” to join our table.
The jalapeño did not disappoint (on the hottest days of the year, fight fire with fire, we say), and the cold beer more than adequately deputized for the sweat leaving us like river tides.
As for Beegie and her bandmates, well, they had to share the stage with the high-pitched squeals to the right of us from the kids in our neighbour’s pool, and the off-key karaoke singing the wind carried from two houses left.
We turned off the music and tuned in to the sound of summer.