The smell of suburbia in the summer

I live fairly close to the city center of the 9th to 8th largest city in the U.S. But it is still a suburb-- we have lots of lawn mowing on the weekend, soccer moms, mini-malls.

I am contributing to the smell too, today, to grill some nice tuna steaks & some asparagus, on hickory chips.

Grilling. The metallic sweet smell of lighter fluid burning off as the coals get hot. Then the smell of chicken, or steaks, or as in our case, tuna, seared to perfection on the outside and then cooked inside to taste (or in chicken, safety!) BBQ sauce getting on the grill at the neighbor's next door. There was a cloud of smoke hanging so thickly in the front yard that I actually walked out for a minute to see if there was something nearby on fire. The white cloud hovered, dissipated, and streamed down the street to inspire other neighbors to pull out the grill.

This is summer. And it's all the more sweet in that it's getting near to be over. (Not that we stop grilling outside here in Texas even in our rather mild winters....)