(1 hour) Road Trip

vol. 001 - Fat Tomato Summer (has arrived!)

I’m writing this from my back patio as golden hour approaches. Birds chirp. Tires drone across Main Street. One block away, a dog barks. The clanging wind chimes lend a vague serenity.

Life is tasty.

Life is tragic.

It’s June, and the mitochondria in every cell of our collective beings scream in unison - TAKE A BREAK! But we can’t. Not really. We’re not kids anymore. Life does not slow to a sticky stall just because the calendar says it’s June.

But lean in - I have a secret…

((we are still allowed to play. we are still allowed to dream. 15 minutes in the right sort of light can absolutely count as a break.))

If we care enough (we do!) we will find a way to save our summer selves, one wide-awake, truth-telling moment at a time. We are the bosses of this one delicious, demented life.

We have a say.

For the next 8 weeks, I’ll be sending out a fat slice of tomato, sprinkled with salt (so to speak.) Each edition will include a classic summertime feeling (because we get to decide how we want our lives - and our summer - to feel.) There will be simple recipes, playlists, recommended reads, favorite things, and straight talk from a perimenopausal mother of 3 hungry kids, in the midst of revolving political crises and other associated maladies. (See: ants, humidity, lethargy, and who keeps eating all the good snacks???)

If you’re a paid subscriber, you’re all set. (Thank you!) If you want to join us, I promise to make it worth your $10.

Welcome to Fat Tomato Summer, 2025

(1 hour) Road Trip - vol. 001

Forecast:

Mild + hazy with golf ball-sized apricots.

Weights:

1. The wobbly wheels of justice in LA, Gaze and the Elkhart County courthouse.

2. General fatigue.

3. June is expensive.

Counterweights:

1. Ruby graduated and started her first two college classes!

2. We hosted a “graduation” at Holy Alliance and it was everything.

3. Indiana Pacers! (I’m a sporadic but enthusiastic fan, when the moment requires it.)

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Is there anything more iconic than a summer road trip?

Most summers, as a kid, I made the trek to Pennsylvania to stay with my cousin. Once, when I was in Junior High, my mom loaded the three of us kids into our Pontiac Sunbird and drove us from Ohio to California, with only the help of my sixteen year old brother, who had just gotten his license. I spent most of that journey on the floorboards of the backseat (the late 80’s were an era all their own and no one - not even 2025 - could them anything) devouring Gone with the Wind because it was the thickest novel I could find at the library.

I have neither the opportunity nor the will to recreate a road trip of that scale this summer. But I am craving bite-sized adventures. Say what you want, one hour counts as a road trip. Anything counts, when embarked upon with a spirit of low key gusto.

Yesterday I informed my family that I would be spending my evening driving North to view the rare, low-slung strawberry moon. I recommended, but did not require, attendance. In fact, later that afternoon, when one child grumbled, “But you’ll just say I don’t spend enough time with the family if I don’t go!” I released them (and my ears) of all whining.

“I don’t want you to come if you’re going to be grumpy about it.”