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When an electronic thing breaks — hair drier, waterpick, fridge, or dish- washer — unplug it. How do you unplug a dishwasher? I have no idea, but I won’t ever leave a broken one plugged in for six weeks, that’s for sure.

About a year ago I briefly had  an idea that I would like to lease a new Volkswagen TDI, one of the models now at the center of a massive fraud scandal. I decided against it, opting instead for a Chevrolet Volt.

Volt drivers, the dealer told me when I was first looking at the car, are a kind of cult. Nearly 12 months into the three-year lease I signed, I know what he meant and might add that we are a smug cult now that Volkswagen has been found cheating on emissions tests.

A thick wool outdoorsman’s sweater made by Barbour of England — a gift from a family member who visited Great Britain a lot around the year 2000 and 2001 — has been my husband’s favorite for years. So as his birthday approached a few weeks ago, I decided to buy him another in a different color. A simple task given the simplicity of Internet shopping, right?

I don’t know if it’s that I’m finally getting it, but I’ve begun to feel more akin to nature, which, yes, includes rats and bats, and, of course, those wonderful languorous slugs about whose lovemaking I wrote a few weeks past.

The fashion police are making a steady exit from the Village of East Hampton, New York, this September 2015. Also: The National Guard is being considered as a remedy for the poor post-11 p.m. behavior that took place in open view on the streets and beaches of Montauk, New York, this past summer 2015. A group of National Guardsmen may station on Montauk for the summer of 2016 as a deterrent to bad behavior.

Abby Jane Brody, The Star’s gardening columnist, came into the upstairs office this week and told us about a horde of beetles that had descended on the milkweed in the native plant garden at Clinton Academy, next door.

At a time of year when everything — the lack of crowds, the halcyon weather, the start of school — coalesces to underscore how good the life we lead is, we might tend to take it all for granted. But despite manifestations of extreme inequality (some members of our community depend on food pantries to eat, while others invest in second — or third, or fourth — homes that are far beyond anything we might have considered reasonable in size and cost only a few years ago), we share so many privileges here on the South Fork.

Several outstanding young athletes have decamped recently, preventing me from recounting in florid language their triumphs every week, but Godspeed, I say, for, as has been shown in the past, mileage generally must be logged if great athletic ambitions are to be realized by East Enders.

The first photograph of mine that was published in this paper was, I believe, in 1979. It was on the cover, and it was of Pete Kromer, a haul-seiner and a friend, kneeling on the ocean beach at the end of a giant bag of weakfish while simultaneously tossing two in the air to his truck.

Ellis, our 5-year-old, started kindergarten last week. And, since he attends school where, and in the same building, I did when I was about his age, a lot of memories are being stirred.

For year-rounders, summer is not generally the time for relaxation. Beaches and outdoor pursuits beckon, but for us working stiffs, the nonstop revelry of July and August feels like an endurance test.

I was thinking of calling the Hampton Jitney to see if I couldn’t get them to wrap one of their buses with a photo of me and fellow septuagenarian Gary Bowen, winners this past Sunday of East Hampton Indoor’s men’s B doubles championship, but modesty prevailed.

He is Jamaican. He is a big man, tall and broad. He gets on in Montauk with me at 7 a.m. We both sit down in front, where there is more legroom. We are riding the 10C.

It would be best if I spared our eldest child my emotional confessions, but the house is now very different with her packed off to school in Delaware.

Quahog chowder for 100? That’s right. In years gone by, with the bay beach in front of our house, we did things in a big way. The chowder was a hit for a couple of summers and then — oh, dear — we made a bouillabaisse. The latter recipe is lost to history because we wanted to forget about it.

On the eve of my father’s birthday my son arrived with two daughters exceedingly lively and between Pepperoni’s and Sam’s we sported free at the edge of the sea.

I’ve heard it be said that the secret of life is the passage of time. What you do with that time is where the secrets are kept and it’s up to us to find them. For those of us who live here year round, our time will soon be ours again.

September brings with it clear skies, open roads, a sense of calm, and peak hurricane season. This year’s official forecast is for a moderately active Atlantic during the period, but records going back to 1851 show that for Long Island, as well as the rest of the coastal United States, from Texas to Maine, now is the time to keep a weather eye out, so to speak.

Two quote-unquote wo­men’s events took place here last weekend. The first was sponsored by the East End Women’s Alliance, which was active between 1971 and 1992 and staged annual Women’s Equality Day programs in August. The second was a fund-raiser for Eleanor’s Legacy, which encourages and helps, in its own words, “progressive, pro-choice women” to run for political office in New York State.

“Jack, you’ve got to see this,” Mary called out from her perch on the porch. “Yo vengo, yo vengo,” I said, moving sluggishly from the couch. And there, on the chimney, by the side of the little porch, it was.

Whenever I call my mom at our home in Portland, Ore., she always gives me the latest news happening on our block, which for the last several years has included a controversy after a permanent unisex bathroom (the cleverly designed “Portland Loo”) was installed in the neighboring public square.

About year ago, I am still embarrassed to admit, I missed a letter from Hillary Rodham Clinton. The thing is, I am not all that great about dealing with personal mail.

There are no political controversies that stir as much personal anguish than those that involve Israel, or perhaps to be more precise, those that are the result of that nation’s policies and actions.

We’re almost on the eve of our 30th anniversary, and I must say it’s gone fast.

What were they thinking when they sped by me on the Napeague stretch one Sunday morning this spring? What were they thinking when they honked but did not stop?

We first learned there was a problem with our home address earlier this year when a guest was noticeably late for one of our kids’ birthday parties.

It was with utter dismay that I was again made aware this week that the country to which I have pledged allegiance since childhood continues to engage in force-feeding, which is — quite rightly — considered torture by many in the medical profession.

“Cuidado,” I said to the guys who were digging holes for deer-eschewing perennials in our garden plot, a large arced one at the edge of our front yard that I’d abandoned years ago when the deer began to come, “Nuestro gato es enterrado alla.”

My parents met in New York City while working for the same accounting firm. I always thought theirs was a boring story: meeting at one of the most notoriously dull jobs, getting married six years later, having three kids, and living happily ever after.

Sky watchers say this week’s Perseid meteor shower will be a good one. This is the annual show of sparkling streaks that last year was obscured by the light of a full moon.