Celebrate the things August brings

As August dawns with its 90-degree sunrises and its still and sticky air, we are tempted to wish it away. To hark wistfully back to July, when summer was still a novelty, and vacations were just over the horizon. Or yearn ahead to autumn, when the slightest change of a leaf’s color will get us a little giddy, and the prospect of football on a chilly night or a Sunday afternoon can push us over the edge of excitement.

But instead, let’s plant our feet in the here and now and embrace August. Yes, sweaty, stagnant, who-invited-you? August, which probably could use a hug right about now.

With that in mind, here are five ways to show the love; to make this eighth month feel special (and us not quite so crabby).

Eat it up

Is there a month when ice cream tastes any better? Or Popsicles (whose annual day on Aug. 29 no doubt contributes to the reported two billion treats sold annually)? Of course not.

Grapes, too, hit their peak in August, which is when sugars in each little bite-sized morsel are at their concentrated tastiest. Plus, sandwiches were invented in August. So salt and pepper a homegrown tomato — it’ll be at its tastiest this month — and put it between some nice chewy bread. Thank you, sun. Thank you, heat. Thank you, Earl of Sandwich.

Ogle the sky

Early last month, my best childhood friend was in town visiting her 95-year-old mother. We all went to brunch, and her mother, Sammie, whose detailed memory is legendary, remembered a summer road trip a bunch of us girls had taken to New Braunfels decades ago (a trip, by the way, I barely recall).

After dinner one night, Sammie recounted, the car wouldn’t start. The month was August; the temperature was ghastly; we were stuck. I can only imagine my mood. Yet my mother, Sammie said, craned her neck and said, “Would you look at the sky? Is that not beautiful?”

Yes, the sky is beautiful. In the event you need further proof, or would just like even more reason for celestial celebration, stay up late on Aug. 11, 12 and 13. That’s when the August Perseids (a meteor shower, for us non-astronomical types) will be at their glorious peak. So for an hour or two between midnight and dawn, put a blanket onto this sweet earth and get ready.

In the darkest skies, according to EarthSky.org, you may see 60 meteors an hour — SIXTY! And while you’re at it, you may just gasp a little to think of all the other earthlings doing the exact same thing — sharing the jaw-dropping splendor of this late summer sky.

Sweat it out

You can look at sweat as a visible reminder of how stifling August is, and thus use it as an excuse to plunk onto the couch and binge-watch Antarctica documentaries.

Or you can take the our-bodies-are-amazing (which they are) approach and venture out into nature (preferably before the sun rises or after it sets), trusting your body to do what it needs to do: namely, sweat. That’s because when our core temperature heats up, sweating is what cools us down.

“When we sweat,” says Dr. Riva Rahl, preventive medicine physician at Cooper Clinic Platinum, “our sweat glands open, and water — plus salts/electrolytes, minerals, ammonia and urea — is excreted onto the surface of our skin. Because a wet surface cools more effectively than a dry one, the water and other elements on the surface of the skin allow our bodies to reduce temperature by evaporative cooling.”

Nurture good nature

Everything in your garden is probably crunchy and brown by now, if it’s indeed there at all. But August opens its arms and its soil to anticipation in the form of broccoli! Bush beans! Lima beans! Sweet corn! Pumpkins! All you’ve gotta do is pop some seeds or seedlings into rich and ready soil like the experts at Texas A&M Agrilife Extension Service explain (check out dallas-tx.tamu.edu for ideas).

Go ahead and give peas a chance, too — black-eyed peas, to be specific. Then when New Year’s arrives and you’re munching the harvest you’ve saved for that very day, you’ll look back and maybe feel all warm and wonderful about August.