Chicken’s Air-Conditioned Corner

For a while, in the heat wave, it seemed like Chicken had disowned us as his family. On the one hand, it sort of seems like it was a long time coming, and on the other hand, it seems like an unavoidable and immutable part of our relationship. He was skulking about the backyard passive aggressively, skulking about the terrace passive aggressively, flickering his tail passive aggressively. It can be hard to tell when skulking is just skulking and when it’s passive aggressive, but I taught middle school for a season of my life, and it’s a skill I’m proud to have. It was all getting a bit much.

It turns out that Chicken’s tolerance of us is proportional to the air conditioning. Once we got it fixed, he was attacking our ankles and tearing up our couches just like the good old days.

In any case, we got the air conditioning fixed. It’s a temporary fix right now until a part comes in, but let me tell you, we will take it. It’s hard to believe it’s already mid-July—it feels like the summer just began.

There have been some plans we vaguely had that are maybe too late to move on this year, what we can and what we’re going to do for the rest of the summer, and that’s okay. We’re trying to enjoy this time as we have it, eat watermelon on the fire escape, watch raccoons in the trees, listening to podcasts as we sharpen all the pencils.