Friday, June 28: Heavy shower in the morning. Dark skies. Foggy. Low altitude clouds overhead. A damp afternoon. Light rain on Main street in Vineyard Haven doesn’t stop shoppers from filling the sidewalks and coming out of the stores. Stores are busy. Ferryboat horn. Skies lighten in the late afternoon.

Masquerade (Division A) and Avanti (Division B) took advantage of a shortened Sunday schedule to win their respective divisions on a foggy, humid day. Commodore Dan Culkin made the early morning call to cancel Sunday’s annual Tarpaulin Cove race and keep the fleet closer to home on Course 1, which was run in reverse — East Chop to West Chop, twice around.

“We’ll keep the lavender blooming,” guarantee the folks from Sequim, Wash.

There are a couple of birds that I actually do not like, amazing as it may seem. The two are the European starling and the house sparrow. Why, you ask? Well, neither species is native and both are overly aggressive. This aggression is detrimental to many of our native songbirds.

It has been my habit for the past several years of column waiting to jot down points of interest as I drive around. This past week, it has been nearly impossible to point out beautiful plantings because there are so many. Holy Hydrangeas! They are everywhere in full and glorious bloom. I’m not a slave to absolute blue. I love seeing several colors ranging from the palest pink to deep blue on one plant. Even when I load a particular planting with aluminum sulfate, it is not a sure thing. Mother Nature has a mind of her own.

Summer on the Vineyard, riding the wave of July 4th with the traffic, the roundabout and the endless cashing in on another winter of Island absence with three platefuls of fun, one wonders sometimes whether civility has been jettisoned. Perhaps then an evening with Amor Towles the author of Rules of Civility is in order. Mr. Towles, a summer resident of West Chop, will speak on July 11 at 5:30 p.m. at the Federated Church.

Charlie McDowell knows how to wear pastel, effortlessly. He also knows how to eavesdrop which is how he came upon this new skill. But most importantly, the young author knows how to write.

Mr. McDowell will read from his new book Dear Girls Above me, a roman à clef about how thinking like a couple of girls turned a single guy into a better man, at the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore in Vineyard Haven on July 7 at 7 p.m.

Pianist David Crohan will share the stage with summer resident Caroline Sky as they perform a concert to benefit the Island Elderly Housing’s Quality of Life programs on Sunday, July 14 at 7:30 p.m. The concert is at the Old Whaling Church on Main street in Edgartown. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and a meet-the-artist reception will follow the performance.

Tickets are $35 in advance and $40 at the door, and $15 for students ages 18 and under. They can be purchased at ticketsmv.com, daRosa’s, Alley’s General Store, Bunch of Grapes Bookstore and Edgartown Books.

Each week the folks at Cinema Circus show a series of short films on Wednesday evening at the Chilmark Community center. The films begin at 6 p.m. but the circus — complete with jugglers, face painters, stilt walkers, food and music — gets under way.

Kelleher Real Estate announces the addition of Kristin Zern of West Tisbury to their staff as a licensed sales associate. Kristin brings more than 20 years of experience in the travel industry as executive director of Travel Marketing Executives where she was responsible for event planning, membership, fund raising, education, marketing, technology and social media. In addition to her work in the travel industry, Kristin also brings practical real estate experience from her work in New York as a real estate agent and investor.