The long view

A scamper up the fire escape while supper was grilling gave me a dove's eye view of the terrace. I don't go to the roof often - maybe we should. For a drink or a picnic. Lockdown is very much roof time. We see lone figures on faraway rooftops, sipping drinks where people never sat or sipped drinks, before.

I like our view of neighbor's gardens, each one very much a reflection of a personality. And I love the Boston ivy covering most of the wall of the laundry building that all the gardens back onto. Life would be very different, aesthetically, without it. Its rich, textured green. There is a real fear of ivy on buildings in this country. It's beautiful, it's cooling in summer, it catches air pollution, softens noise pollution, and only damages a building if you really decide to rip an old vine off its support.

Supper was grilled lamb kebabs, molded onto fierce swords and flavored with terrace-grown rosemary and marjoram. Also a Waldorf salad (what can I say, I had a craving), and a potato salad with lots of dill, shallot, and sliced radishes, dressed with a vintage common milkweed vinegar.

A fighter jet tore past over the harbor behind me while I was up here - the sound always chills me. Earlier there was an unusual sighting of an AWACS. And, just as I was wondering aloud whether we might see it, the space station sailed north in the blue-black night.