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Cliff Notes: Summer in the city is just fine, thank you
  
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By CLIFFORD PUGH
Even by Houston standards, it’s been an unusually brutal summer. But whenever I start to complain, I think of snowy winter scenes in Chicago and New York and I console myself with the thought that you don’t have to shovel sweat.
Actually, I think we get a bad rap about the weather. For seven months of the year, it’s pretty spectacular here. Even during the height of these summer months when everyone complains about the heat, I confess, I kind of like it. Though I commiserate by e-mail with friends who have escaped to Aspen, Park City and Vermont, I secretly feel morally superior. Let them bask in 58 degree weather; we’re the ones with true grit.
Over the years, I’ve learned a few tricks to make the summer more bearable. Run errands early, wear loose cotton clothing, drink lots of iced tea, and find a cool escape to a movie theater or swimming pool. But the best secret to surviving the Houston summer: It’s all about the shade.
Three times last week, I got lucky while searching for a parking space. I found a spot partially shaded by a tree in parking lots at Kroger and PetsMart and along Market Square near Treebeard’s restaurant. Each time, I felt like I had won the lottery when I returned to the driver’s seat and it didn’t stick to my back and legs.
I also found shade at Discovery Green at, of all things, an outdoor yoga class. More than 50 people showed up last Saturday at the downtown Houston park for the free session. The early birds found the best shaded spots on a stage; the rest of us set our mats on a nearby wooden walkway half bathed in mid-morning sun. It was the ultimate in “hot” yoga, with a light breeze occasionally punctuating the still air. With awesome views of downtown Houston in nearly every direction, I refrained from closing my eyes during most poses and soaked in the scenery.
Discovery Green is the summer’s real discovery. For once, Houston planners did something right. A couple of weeks ago, on a warm summer night, I lolled on the grassy lawn in front of the stage while a jazz band featuring the city’s best high school musicians performed. Kids were dancing in nearby fountains, while off in the distance hundreds of people were shaking their hips to the beat of mambo music during a large outdoor Zumba class.
It was a Houston summer experience I hope to repeat.
Thinking pink
Ian Rosenberg and Mike Sammons, the owners of 13 Celsius wine bar, have come up with another great way to beat the heat. They recently hosted a “Pink Party” to tout the virtues of rose wine as the perfect summer refreshment.
More than 300 guests, most dressed in various shades of pink (heavy on the seersucker and paisley), sampled dozens of varieties of rose wine and sangria, and munched on tacos freshly made by Mi Lindo Huetamo from a truck parked behind the bar and grilled gourmet hot dogs provided by T’afia’s Monica Pope.
The hosts linked the event with the Beth Sanders Moore Young Breast Cancer Survivors Program at M.D. Anderson because the color pink is so closely associated with the fight against breast cancer. And Moore was thrilled to get the word out about early detection and treatment.
I’m not a big fan of rose, but I must admit that the chilled beverage is the perfect antidote to the long hot summer.
So is reading a good book. So last week I squeezed into the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, where Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin discussed his new memoir, “Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon,” with Channel 8’s Ernie Manouse before a standing-room only audience at Brown Auditorium.
“This room is fuller than the moon,” quipped Aldrin, who was the second human to walk on the lunar surface 40 years ago.
The former astronaut, who looks remarkably fit at age 79, likes to joke around. When asked what comes to mind when he looks at the iconic photograph of him on the moon taken by fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong, he replied, “Another example of being in the right place at the right time.”
But his book is not all fun and games, as Aldrin writes candidly about his rough adjustment to life after returning to Earth and his long struggles with depression and alcoholism.
Actually, I think we get a bad rap about the weather. For seven months of the year, it’s pretty spectacular here. Even during the height of these summer months when everyone complains about the heat, I confess, I kind of like it. Though I commiserate by e-mail with friends who have escaped to Aspen, Park City and Vermont, I secretly feel morally superior. Let them bask in 58 degree weather; we’re the ones with true grit.
Over the years, I’ve learned a few tricks to make the summer more bearable. Run errands early, wear loose cotton clothing, drink lots of iced tea, and find a cool escape to a movie theater or swimming pool. But the best secret to surviving the Houston summer: It’s all about the shade.
Three times last week, I got lucky while searching for a parking space. I found a spot partially shaded by a tree in parking lots at Kroger and PetsMart and along Market Square near Treebeard’s restaurant. Each time, I felt like I had won the lottery when I returned to the driver’s seat and it didn’t stick to my back and legs.
I also found shade at Discovery Green at, of all things, an outdoor yoga class. More than 50 people showed up last Saturday at the downtown Houston park for the free session. The early birds found the best shaded spots on a stage; the rest of us set our mats on a nearby wooden walkway half bathed in mid-morning sun. It was the ultimate in “hot” yoga, with a light breeze occasionally punctuating the still air. With awesome views of downtown Houston in nearly every direction, I refrained from closing my eyes during most poses and soaked in the scenery.
Discovery Green is the summer’s real discovery. For once, Houston planners did something right. A couple of weeks ago, on a warm summer night, I lolled on the grassy lawn in front of the stage while a jazz band featuring the city’s best high school musicians performed. Kids were dancing in nearby fountains, while off in the distance hundreds of people were shaking their hips to the beat of mambo music during a large outdoor Zumba class.
It was a Houston summer experience I hope to repeat.
Thinking pink
Ian Rosenberg and Mike Sammons, the owners of 13 Celsius wine bar, have come up with another great way to beat the heat. They recently hosted a “Pink Party” to tout the virtues of rose wine as the perfect summer refreshment.
More than 300 guests, most dressed in various shades of pink (heavy on the seersucker and paisley), sampled dozens of varieties of rose wine and sangria, and munched on tacos freshly made by Mi Lindo Huetamo from a truck parked behind the bar and grilled gourmet hot dogs provided by T’afia’s Monica Pope.
The hosts linked the event with the Beth Sanders Moore Young Breast Cancer Survivors Program at M.D. Anderson because the color pink is so closely associated with the fight against breast cancer. And Moore was thrilled to get the word out about early detection and treatment.
I’m not a big fan of rose, but I must admit that the chilled beverage is the perfect antidote to the long hot summer.
So is reading a good book. So last week I squeezed into the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, where Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin discussed his new memoir, “Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon,” with Channel 8’s Ernie Manouse before a standing-room only audience at Brown Auditorium.
“This room is fuller than the moon,” quipped Aldrin, who was the second human to walk on the lunar surface 40 years ago.
The former astronaut, who looks remarkably fit at age 79, likes to joke around. When asked what comes to mind when he looks at the iconic photograph of him on the moon taken by fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong, he replied, “Another example of being in the right place at the right time.”
But his book is not all fun and games, as Aldrin writes candidly about his rough adjustment to life after returning to Earth and his long struggles with depression and alcoholism.
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