You have exactly one week before my birthday arrives. Hopefully you’ve already picked out your gifts. (And remember, the Tom Ford Rive d’Ambre has already been procured, and I’ve excised the two Hermes selections from the list as they were not quite what I expected. In fact, there’s only one Tom Ford scent I want (and I want it really badly): Plum Japonais. As for birthday plans, I finally have one. Initially, I wanted to fly West – it’s been a few years since I’ve been to San Francisco, so that was my first choice. I also considered San Diego and Seattle, since I haven’t been to either since the 90’s. In the end, though, costs proved prohibitive. And since we did the Boston/Provincetown trip for last year’s birthday, I’m keeping it simple and close to home. Not every year can be a banner year, and quiet birthdays are sometimes more sweet. Especially when Tom Ford is involved.

As for the actual plans, I’m thinking of heading to a garden, an outlet, and a dinner – and I’ll have the details and photos after it’s done. In the meantime, have a look back at last year’s birthday fun in Boston and Provincetown.

It drops into the yard and alights upon the cup plant, forgoing the butterfly bush oddly enough, or maybe it hasn’t noticed it across the yard. High in the air, at least a foot taller than me, it rides the gently undulating stalks. The afternoon sun squints through the pine trees as the monarch feasts upon the nectar of the lemon-hued flowers. A cicada beats in the distance. The sounds and the scenes of summer. It is not quite done with us yet. It is reminding me to slow down. I do pause there, holding the sight, watching the butterfly work.

They travel thousands of miles – all the way from Mexico I’ve read – and they’ll continue on through Maine. We’ll see them there in October, a riot of striped orange on magenta cosmos or deep purple asters, swarming the gardens by the shore. Against a bright blue sky, they flit and flutter, assured of their magnificence, deceptively cloaked in the most frail-seeming of flashy outfits, but such armor has brought them all the way across the continent.

Vestiges of the caterpillar remain, because you can never completely shed your past, no matter how far you fly, no matter what costume you wear.

This is all that remains of a once lush and robust pot of sweet potato vines. In one night, a groundhog stripped every last leaf from what had once been dense and gorgeous growth. At first I suspected a rabbit – they are notorious for decimating a garden in one fell swoop, but it seems the groundhog is a far worse menace. Andy saw the culprit chewing on a bush in the front yard, and it looked like the thing had been trying to burrow under the fence. Somehow, it had gotten in during the night, and feasted upon this poor sweet potato.

The next night, after I had put the pots close to the house and on pedestals, Andy saw the beast climbing onto a bench beside a plant, practically looking in the house. Andy peered out and the creature didn’t budge. (I had read that putting up a mirror would be enough to deter them, as they were supposedly scared and skittish. Not so – at least not this rabid, bold escapee from hell.) Andy barged out the door and scared him off, but it took more than a stupid mirror. (And who in the hell is scared of a mirror? Humans aren’t the only vain ones on this earth.)

The next day I spotted the animal in the garden by the pool, munching on morning glories. I opened the door and clapped my hands and it took off. A few minutes later it was back, spotted by Andy, who promptly threw a shoe at it. ‘This is what it has come to,’ I thought. At least I hated those shoes.

I read that fox urine works as a deterrent, but if I can’t get my own niece and nephew to pee on cue, a fox sure as fuck isn’t going to do so. I read too that human urine worked to keep them away, but peeing all over the patio just felt wrong. A number of people suggested just shooting the thing, but according to Andy we’re not allowed to use firearms in the backyard (he may have just been making that up to deter me. Not all beasts crawl on four legs.) I couldn’t bring myself to shoot anything anyway, so for now we’re just staying vigilant, keeping the potted sweet potatoes up in the air and close to the house. The next step would be a trap, and if another patch of flat-leaf parsley gets stripped we may go that route – but once it’s in the trap, what do you do? I don’t think it’s legal to release them anywhere else… not that legality has ever been a concern of mine. Hopefully the thing will see this post and know enough to stay away. Hey, if it worked on Starbucks it could work on the groundhog. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

We’re in some bar/restaurant in the Lower East Side. They make some mean tequila drinks here, and how we ended up on tequila after all those Manhattans, I’ll never know. It is January or February, and I left my favorite scarf in the taxi, but I won’t discover that until later. The bar glows, warm and bright in the middle of the night, and my friend Chris is shooting the shit next to me. My cocktail is cool, but spicy hot, and we’re reminiscing of warmer climes, of a vacation in Puerto Rico, the beaches of San Juan, anything to get through the chill of a New York winter night. An incongruous glass of cognac, a $300 bar tab for two, a waitress named Yahaira, and loads of dookey love. The nonsensical meaningless in-jokes of a friendship going on two decades.

Afterward, a couple of slices of pizza, with a side of ranch dressing for Chris. ‘That’s so gross,” I tell him, before busting up in laughter. He shrugs and eats it down. The hours are young – only one or two – but it might as well be mid-day. We’ll take it now and sleep it all off later. We’re still young enough to do that, still unattached enough to get away with it. We walk a couple of blocks. Robert Pattinson spills out from some hole-in-the-wall, alone and seemingly unrecognized, but I feel foolish telling him what a good job he did in ‘Harry Potter’, so I simply stare a bit and move on. Chris has no clue who he is anyway.

It’s been a good night, but we’re out of money, and running out of energy. Maybe we’re not young enough anymore.

It seems a recap or two has escaped me in the early days of August, mostly because I’ve been out of town and busy with, well, real life. But when the goldenrod starts blooming by the roadside, and the nights begin to cool down into the 60’s, it’s a reminder of the passage of time. Fall will be upon us next month, and in anticipation of that I’ll work a little harder to get back into the swing of things. Onto the past few weeks, and what you’ve missed if you were out enjoying the summer days.

Our summer vacation was in Maine – it started with some magnificent food in Portland, a moving marriage ceremony,  and even more food. Andy and I both fell under the spell of Portland, and vowed to return.  From there we went to Ogunquit, where we were greeted with flowers exploding around every corner. Of course, there was some amazing food there too, and we got a beautiful day at the beach before the moon turned everything upside down, and I walked the Marginal Way at midnight.  A parting glance at Stonewall Kitchen left us with the memory of beauty.

For the most part, I’m a law-abiding citizen, which is why I was shocked when I got thrown out of Starbucks.

It’s important to smell good, even – and especially – in bed.

Be careful what you wish for.

Not all cocktails are winners, because not all bourbons are created the same.

The poached egg. It works wonders.

There were Hunks galore, with the shirtless likes of Tom Daley, Ben Hunt, Nick Jonas, James Deen, Matthieu Charneau, a Tom Ford model, and a bunch of classic Speedo shots.

Wow, I must have graduated from high school when I was five.

Boston maintained its magic and mystery.

There is no better balm for the soul than good friends, old and new. I didn’t want it to end.

This birthday wish list already needs to be modified, as I couldn’t resist purchasing Tom Ford’s Rive d’Ambre during a tax-free Massachusetts weekend, and the two Hermes scents didn’t quite pass muster.

You’ve got style, that’s what all the girls say.

And thanks to you, yes you, this site just hit a milestone.

Its wings were torn, far less than perfect. I could tell from a distance, and hesitated even getting my camera. But it stayed on the butterfly bush, carefully pulling out its nectar, going about its business, and not minding a little human accompaniment. I hurriedly went inside to get the camera and came back out to grab a few shots. At first I wondered why I was bothering. The goal of most nature photographs is a glimpse of perfection and beauty. Why document the tattered and torn? But then I felt an affinity to this magnificent creature, the Grizabella of the butterfly world, who seemed perfectly content to flutter about, posing in its less-than-stellar state, and I loved it all the more because of it.

We are so quick to tear things apart when they fail to be what we want them to be. Who knows what this creature has gone through to reach such a state? Who knows the trials and tribulations of what it’s like to have your wings torn to shreds? And who has surrendered a perfect beauty to something other, and had to go on tending to life, procuring nectar, soaring to survive? Not me. I’ve been lucky in that respect. This butterfly, I think, is the most beautiful butterfly of the summer.