Wait, what's this? I actually have a half hour to write?!

Well hello there! Summer is fully underway. Countdown enthusiasts will note that we're at T-57 days till school starts. Between piano lessons (mine and theirs), tennis lessons (mine), swimming lessons (theirs), playgrounds and play dates and various other activities -- including In Which The Bean Swallows a Nickel and We Go To The Hospital, and In Which I Dye My Hair An Alarming and Unintended Shade of Orange, and the popular favorite, In Which I Mow The Lawn Yet Again -- I've let blogging take a back seat for a while. But we are still here, and all is well, despite the rare screaming fit that gets one of us exiled to the deck in the rain.

Ah, the rain. I think I'm the only person on Cape Cod who truly savored our cool, cloudy June, and who is still loving the not-too-hot temperatures -- and occasional sun, even! -- in July. We haven't turned on the air conditioning even once! That's so great. I just don't get the craving for hot hot hot in summertime, though I could always use a brief dose of it midwinter.

Actually, summer in general can have me feeling a bit lonesome and out of sorts. It feels a bit like Christmas, in that everyone likes it except me, and I get to feeling even more out of place than usual. I especially dislike long days sitting at the beach, squinting under the searing sun and surrounded by littering tourists and their whining brats. No, thanks. You can have the beach in summertime. I'll wait till Labor Day.

In the meantime, there's lots of other cool stuff to do, and we're doing a fair bit of it and having a grand old time. Hope you're having a terrific summer too, whatever shape that takes for you!