Ah, summer in the city, my least favorite time of year here. Yesterday I got my first “Hey buddy, lemme borrow your bike!” [Does anyone actually fall for that?] Then this morning while watering the garden I received my first mosquito bite, courtesy of the invasive Asian Tiger Mosquito, the bane of my summer existence. Soon I will not be able to enter the yard without being swarmed and bitten to my near death. Trickling in on the email lines are the initial reports of random acts of violence committed by hordes of savage bored youth. Calm evenings on the deck are shattered by the incessant hovering and circling of the city’s police chopper. I try to block it all out and dream of living in a tree fort in the middle of an expansive tract of old growth forest. I fail regularly. But sometimes I succeed.