If this weather were my little sister, I'd probably be asking my folks for help: "Mom, May is doing that THING again! Can you make her stop?" By which I mean that the other day it was a little chilly and I was wearing a long-sleeve shirt come evening, which seems reasonable, and today it was high into the 80s and still above 80 (26.7 Celsius) after 10:30 p.m., which does not seem so reasonable. The next few days will probably reach 90 degrees (32 Celsius) and above for highs. We're suddenly speeding into the New York Summer Complaining Period, which looks like it will be a long and florid one. Early reports say that this will be kind of a beastly summer.

Birthday week has faded away; there was lots of cake. Delicious homemade chocolate cake with my brother and his family tonight, and last week a friend went to a fantastic Italian bakery (Royal Crown, in Staten Island) and bought single slices of seven or so cakes: cheesecake, chocolate cheesecake, tiramisu, strawberry shortcake, buttercream layer cake, chocolate mousse cake, a chocolate cream dome, and more. We had those as dessert to a dinner of salmon and whitefish spreads, hummus, and baba ganoush with fresh pitas from Damascus Bakery in Brooklyn, with a pitcher of jalapeno margaritas. It was pretty amazing, all together.

This is an old key, newly revealed, and ought to work like new - but with publishers these days, who knows. If you have trouble with it, please let me know.