A Perfect Day For Bananafish

Part of my morning routine, intermixed with a double dose of caffeine and lavish application of The Best Pain Cream In The World, involves an inquiry of the electronic imp known as Siri:

“Hey Siri, what’s the weather today?” This being Florida, her usual response is a depressing mixture of over 90 degree temperature and over 90 percent humidity. This morning, though, she blew me away with “It’s currently cloudy and 75 degrees in Kissimmee. Expect mostly clear skies starting in the afternoon. Today’s high will be 80 degrees and the low will be 68.” In other words, although late to the party, it is finally autumn here in Central Florida. Monsoon season yesterday, and today I might need a sweater by evening.

(The weather this time of year is a little something we keep secret from the tourists. Since Robert and I spent our honeymoon at a pre-EPCOT Disneyworld exactly 44 years ago, we sort of figured it out, and since even monsoon season in Florida is better than frostbittten toes on the Long Island Railroad we moved here, lock, stock and a barrel of kitties, 27 years ago.)

After hearing the weather report, my very first thought was that it was a perfect day for cucumbers. Yesterday, despite high humidity that left me sweating like an NBA player in the last 2 minutes of the fourth quarter, I managed to make some preparations to the beds for starting cucumbers from seed. This happens to be adjacent to the space that was overtaken by a couple of rogue cucumber plants this past spring. The original space has been filled in by slow-growing and annoyingly fruitless strawberry plants. I’m ready to see if I can recreate last season’s cucumber razzle-dazzle, starting on this perfect day.

You may know that from time-to-time my brain plays silly tricks on me (like interpreting the mechanical whine from a small desk fan as the sound of Joe Garagiola announcing a Yankee’s game) and today was no different. I thought “a perfect day for cucumbers” while my brain took an unlicensed time jump back to the late sixties and brought up “a perfect day for bananafish.”

J.D. Salinger - more than just The Catcher in the Rye.

I’ve been playing catch-up with my cooking this weekend and damn if I don’t hurt like hell. I am going to plant the damn cucumber seeds and I am going to finish my last bit of cooking, if it kills me.  Assuming everything goes right, I’ll have a recipe for you later today, and maybe cucumbers for lunch next month.