Choose Charleston

You know you’re in Charleston in August when skipping the weekly lawnmowing chores leaves the backyard a wilderness gone wild, grasses grown long enough to hide a herd of antelope.

That ’s what happens when the deadlines line up back to back.

But once I saw a sliver of opportunity to fire up the lawnmower, it was back to the salt mines, a return to manual labor for the writer, time to push through the shag.

We acknowledge, of course, that push through the shag would have another meaning altogether on Folly Beach, to say nothing of the U.K.

The lawnmower, self-propelled, takes a good bit of the manual out of the labor. It complained a few times as I walked it through the thickest stands of grass but it did the job.

Autumn, can’t you come on home a little quicker? I’m ready for pumpkins, color tours of the leaves in the foothills, cooler days, chilly evenings, and starry skies at night.

Music fans yearning for some soulful songs about the South Carolina Lowcountry can skip on over to Morgan Creek Grill tonight on the Isle of Palms. Carroll Brown and Clay Rice will be on the upstairs deck (enclosed) starting at 7 p.m.

Seafood, ribs, and songs over the water. That ought to do you for a Friday night.

I stopped by the John Ancrum SPCA off of Leeds Avenue today to browse around. There are oodles of adoptable cats, kittens, dogs, puppies, bunnies, and even a guinea pig available.

Today, I was looking for a kitten, male, robust enough to handle himself around our two older male cats. Sure there will be a bit of hissing in the beginning - territory and dominance establishing behavior, all that good stuff - but the hope is that within a few weeks they will all be buddies.

I noticed while I was there that the SPCA is having a benefit on August 24, 6-9 p.m. “A Furry Affair” art show and auction, packed with appearances by local celebrities, at the City Gallery.

Cool! Sounds like it will be an evening to remember, the cat’s pajamas even.

Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. announced yesterday that he will seek a ninth term in the coming election.

I did not personally attend the announcement at Ackerman Park so I can only assume that the gathered crowd kind of looked at him, then at one another, shrugged, and said, “Uh, yeah, Joe… um, well, you ARE the mayor of Charleston.”

Or rather, “…you are THE mayor of Charleston.”

After 32 consecutive years of having him in office, it gets kind of difficult to imagine anyone else doing the job.

The South Carolina Aquarium does a fine job of portraying the natural diversity of the Palmetto State, all the way from the Blue Ridge escarpment upstate to the estuaries, beaches, and ocean way down here in the Lowcountry.

Through August, the aquarium might be your best bet for schlepping around to see some brownwater swamp. The building is air conditioned and harbors far fewer mosquitoes than the great outdoors, after all.

Of course, there being nothing like the real thing, the miles and miles of beaches between the Lowcountry and the Grand Strand are active as all get out as of late.

For beating the heat, beaches, barrier islands to kayak toward, and boating excursions all do the job well.

Charleston tends to be recognized as a rather polite, well-mannered, place to live or visit; a place where gentlemen would tip their hats to ladies were hats still in vogue and where doors are routinely held as a courtesy.

It has been mentioned more than once, however, in articles on the polite society of Charleston that our manners tend to become a bit less gentile when we are behind the wheel.

Try to merge into traffic on I-26 somewhere around exit 209 around the middle of the day and you’ll soon be telling a whole different story about politeness.

So we are kinder pedestrians than motorists.

It’s also been noted, on those occasions when local media has experimented with allowing online readers to add commentary to news stories (or when online forums have been built to discuss local issues) that politeness tends to be kicked out the window along with the rest of the trappings of civil behavior.

This, it should be mentioned, is hardly unique to Charleston.

Fine art photographers and admirers of the same, take note.

William A. Davis III will be at Alterman Studios this evening, as part of the Second Monday Lecture Series (Free, 7 p.m., call 577 0647 for more information).

This lecture will include a showing of his travel photographs from across the Northern United States (New England straight on over to Washington state) as well as from the Southeast.

This weekend is looking to be a great time to catch up on indoor activities, fun out of the sun. What can you do in Charleston this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday without crisping up like a fried pork rind? Here’s a half-dozen possibilites:

1. Catch Merle Haggard at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center ($45.50, Friday, August 10, 8 p.m.)

2. Take the ch’urns to the Charleston Museum for an “Around the World” multicultural adventure ($10 adults, $5 ch’urns, Saturday, August 11, 10 a.m.)

3. Sit down with Southern author Josephine Humphries at the Charleston County Library to learn the whats and wherefores of being a novelist (Free, Saturday, August 11, 10:30 a.m.)

4. Go for a Sunday drive in the country with the windows up and a/c cranked. Use binoculars to catch a close-up of roadside attractions and historic markers (Don’t laugh - I have seen people in RVs doing exactly that).

5. Go see a foodie flick on the big screen - Ratatouille for the young or young at heart foodies, No Reservations for the romantic foodies, The Simpsons for the Quik-E-Mart foodies.

6. Alternate reading your favorite book with catnaps and Fudgesicles all weekend until reality returns Monday morning.

With another scorcher on our hands, we’re going to have to cowboy up and just ride this one out today.

There is the temperature (high 90s), the heavy cloak of humidity, and the “feels like” temperature (hot as Mercury’s metatarsals after a sprint in the Circus Maximus).

Dress in light, loose clothes to ward off the prickly heat, glug lots of clean, cool water (carry a bottle if you need, naysayers be darned), and lay an offering at the shrine at the base of the A/C unit.

There will be definite haze slipping in between the sunshine and the surface sometime this afternoon but we can’t expect much of a break in the heat until the thunderstorms proper return, possibly tomorrow. Even then, hot hot hot is the word.

I’ll be biting my nails, wringing my hands with worry, every time I flip through the latest issue of Charleston Magazine from here on out.

Society editor extraordinaire Ida Becker just launched a crash-hot new daredeviling in the Palmetto State column called Living on the Edge.

Me, I’m sitting at home with the latest issue of Backpacker and a few ideas bouncing around. She’s out there in the world with a whip and a chair, telling those lions to mind.

Doubly clever and delightfully daring, Ms. Becker is the kind of elegant young gal who might of an afternoon favor a spot of skydiving, plan a trek off to Tibet, and later lure the fête set toward her lens for a bit of clicky-clicky, perchance at an evening soirée on Church or State.

That, and she’s a good writer.