What a hot and humid summer it’s been, huh?

Stepping outside the front door each day has felt like walking into an industrial accident at the Tiger Balm factory.

Now that the weather is finally getting a little more comfortable, the time is ripe for you to make the most of the last weeks of summer.

Here are some ideas.

Attend a festival

The summer festival season is far from over in Fort Wayne and environs – as long as you’re willing to be broad-minded in your definition of environs.

•The second annual “Taste of the Arts” festival happens Saturday in various locales on and just off East Main Street. Expect a full preview of that event in Friday’s Weekender.

•MJ Fanvention, a convention devoted to late R&B superstar Michael Jackson, starts Thursday at the Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville.

Among the offerings is an attempt to stage “The Region’s Largest ‘Thriller’ Dance,” which sounds like it may be too equivocal to attract the attentions of the Guinness World Records crowd.

There will also be discussion panels featuring people who knew or worked with Jackson and a concert devoted to Jackson’s music with Melba Moore headlining.

For information, call 877-653-2658 or go to www.mjfanvention.com.

•August and September have traditionally been months for major food-related festivals across Indiana, including two pork festivals (in Kouts this weekend and in Tipton starting Sept. 8); a marshmallow festival (in Ligonier starting Sept. 3); a blueberry festival (in Plymouth starting Sept. 3); a popcorn festival (in Valparaiso on Sept. 11); a cornbread festival (in Mansfield the weekend of Sept. 11); and a melon festival (in Brownstown starting Sept. 9).

•Indy Irish Fest, a celebration of Hoosier-Gaelic heritage, happens at Military Park in downtown Indianapolis the weekend of Sept. 17.

•The Fourth Street Festival, Bloomington’s 33-year-old outdoor art festival, happens the weekend of Sept. 4.

Attend an art show for mature viewers

Piere’s and Device Tattoo are co-sponsoring an art contest devoted to tattoos called “Flesh Art.”

Successive stages of the contest will play out at the club this Friday and on Sept. 3 and 10. The finals are Sept. 17.

Prizes range from $250 to $1,000.

According to the club’s marketing director, Nathan Stephens, this is art that is “already on flesh” rather than art created live at Piere’s.

So, this may be the first art show in history where the canvases could be expected to pay a cover charge.

Device will also be doing non-competitive body painting on site, which brings up a question: If this contest had a movie-style rating, would it be PG or R?

“Maybe PG-13?” Stephens suggests.

See a concert that drips with nostalgia

Nostalgia gets a bad rap.

Established musicians tend to denounce the nostalgia stirred by their old songs in favor of theoretical excitement incited by their new ones.

But a smart band does what the Romantics did on Columbia Street recently – play its swoony ’80s hits in a swoony ’80s style and then sound as lean and hungry as the young Kinks for the rest of the time.

That was a fun night, and part of the reason was that it took place on The Landing, which has seen better days and looks like it is headed for better-er days.

A new video bar is opening there soon, although I must confess that I went to my first video bar 25 years ago in Niagara Falls.

(Apparently, these concepts take awhile to trickle down to Fort Wayne. But that just means that I’ll be able to indulge in some nostalgia. Nothing wrong with that.)

You can indulge in some nostalgia of your own when rappers Naughty by Nature perform on The Landing on Saturday as part of the “Downtown Street Party” sponsored by WJFX-FM Hot 107.9.

The gate opens at 6 p.m. and Fort Wayne’s own the Ready Set, who is too young to have stirred nostalgia in anyone but lunch ladies, is one of the opening acts. Admission is free.

For some nostalgia of a different color (namely pink), go see Fort Wayne’s superlative Pink Floyd tribute band Pink Droyd perform at Parkview Field as part of the Captown Concert Series (which is being organized by the folks at Come2Go).

The concert starts at 7 p.m. Sept. 2 and tickets, at $6, are available at the Parkview Field box office.

Commune in and with summer rain

One way to tell a kid and adult apart is to see how they each respond to a summer rainstorm.

Also, you may want to take into account height differences.

Kids want to play in the rain; adults want to get themselves and their kids out of the rain.

I remember jumping up and down in puddles as late as high school, although I did grow up near Love Canal, so some of them were on fire.

All kidding aside, being able to briefly shed your aversion to getting wet (and, dare I say it, muddy) is one way to feel like a kid again this summer.

Throw a themed party (try pizza)

I always admire people who have the creativity and energy to throw themed parties, like “Come dressed as your favorite ‘Eight is Enough’ sibling.”

The whole thing makes me feel too tired. I always end up paring back the theme, then paring back the festivities until my party consists of me sitting on a couch watching an “Eight is Enough” marathon.

It occurred to me, though, that one relatively easy excuse for a party would be to use it to settle a pizza debate.

My friends and I always argue about who has the best pie in town.

Ask each friend and/or couple to bring a large pizza from their favorite pizzeria.

Discard the boxes and do a blind taste test.

Create the ultimate summer cocktail

Every June, I try to get excited about margaritas and mojitos, but summer drinks leave me flat.

(Literally flat … after all, one has to drink a lot of them if he is going to authoritatively claim that he doesn’t like them.)

Mixers of cocktails are liberal users of the word “refreshing,” but I have yet to find a truly refreshing summer drink, alcoholic or non-alcoholic.

I admit that I have never tried lemonade mixed with iced tea, mainly because I don’t believe I have played enough golf.

Is it too much to ask for a summer drink that instantly makes a 44-year-old man with a mortgage feel like a 24-year-old man with a villa in Tuscany?

I think the perfectly refreshing summer beverage has yet to be devised.

The person who comes up with this drink will have his or her name spoken in every club and tavern in the country.

It’s the same thing that happened to his eminence, the most reverend Harvey Wallbanger.

Good mixed-drink resources can be found at www.bartv.com and www.liqueurweb.com.

Go to a drive-in movie theater

We have been haunted all summer by rumors that the Huntington Drive-In might not be with us much longer.

All the 3-D in all the world won’t change the fact that drive-in theaters provide the most distinct and comprehensive movie-going experience in all the land.

Go fly a kite

There is a fully assembled kite on my back porch.

It has been there all summer. It has never been flown. Every time I look at it, I feel guilty.

Don’t be like me.

Phil’s Hobby Shop (on Lake Avenue and North Clinton Street) is a good place to start your kite quest.

Make a summer scrapbook

I think this idea works best when you have kids.

They can gather all sorts of found objects and periodical clippings to represent what this summer has meant to them.

Adults tend to become so hidebound in their storytelling that it would never occur to them to apply white school glue to a cicada shell or a snack-food wrapper.

And a day might come when you open that scrapbook, see the words “Planter’s Cheese Balls” and think, “Whatever happened to those? Everybody seemed to love them” – which would start you down the long, rewarding road of snack-based conspiracy theories.

At the risk of encouraging packrats and hoarders, I think there is nothing that can bring clarity to a fond memory so much as a tangible object associated with that memory.

You can find many scrapbooking materials (except cicada shells) at Archivers in Glenbrook Square.

Or, just do nothing

People often claim they are doing nothing, but usually they are doing something, even if it is something as passive as watching TV.

We should all aspire to be Puddy in the “Seinfeld” episode called “The Butter Shave.”

Puddy and Elaine repeatedly break up, then make up, on a long flight together.

What tears them apart for good (or at least until the end of the episode) is the ease with which Puddy does absolutely nothing.

“You’re just going to sit there staring at the back of a seat?” Elaine asks.

Why, yes, Elaine. Yes, we are.

spen@jg.net