Summer...Quite

“Koop Island Blues” by Koop

Ah, summer. I love this time of year. If I could take anything with me when I eventually leave the southern California coast, I would most certainly take the summer, with its perfect weather and bronzed skin, its beach volleyball and strong sangria, its play of innocence and prey on innocence, all shoved into my suitcase. It is just this kind of summer that provides the perfect excuse to lower inhibitions and commit some sort of scandal.

And what besides too much sangria, you ask, begets a scandal?

Perhaps a smile that is just a little too confident or a look at a most (in)opportune time, and a door with a questionable lock coupled with the anticipation of being discovered. Oh, YES! Don’t STOP!

Or perhaps it’s having a secret---a really, big, fat, brazen secret that you are not at liberty to share with others, and yet someone keeps pressing you for the details, the juicy, memorable, self destructive details. Here, let me get you another glass of that, they say as they smile and pour with that flash of perfect white teeth.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s you knowing full well that you are actually guilty, completely guilty, and, without question, you would commit your sin again…and again…and again.

And then the slightest twinkle appears and that knowing look is shared as the door eases shut.

Sigh.

My season opener, last weekend, was just this sort of unforgiving and unrelenting scandal. I was swallowed up, chewed verociously to unrecognizable, and spit out on to the shore of reason with a moral compass suddenly hanging around my neck like that infamous albatross of yore. Could I blame the extra glass of sangria? Most likely. Would I relive this past weekend? Most certainly.

Too Much Strong Summer Sangria

1 part red wine
1 part cranberry juice
1 part orange-flavored liqueur
1 part rum
Chopped apples, cored
Sliced oranges, with rinds

Mix everything together. Let the mixture marinate at room temperature for a few hours. Chill. Serve straight up or over ice. Drink more than you should.