Even though my car constantly smells like hot glue...

I do not often extol the joys of summer. I am not really a summer person, and so it is sometimes hard for me to see them, but tonight I'm lucky. The moon hangs so low that you have to tramp around in the dark to get a view of her. She's a thin moon: barely more than a sliver. But the color is a rich amber vanilla and I get the impression that she'd smell like smiling eyes and warm honeysuckle. I think tonight's moon would go with art deco theatre nights and emeralds, but I'm not entirely sure. I don't have much experience with either, truth be told. To set this moon, you must realize that it hangs amongst live oaks, Spanish moss, and chanting hordes of frogs and insects. Their rhythmic groanings, chirps, and calls recall dark monks in catacombs or the anxious rumbling of pre-teens waiting for Twilight movie to begin. (I can barely believe that I'm going to subject myself to that unsettling experience, but I am).

But summer moons and night smells are not the only joys this season offers. We can relish some tastes and textures in summer like at no other point in the year. Vanilla Coke floats are some sort of universal shortcut to my personal bliss. Fresh cantaloup makes healthy as much fun as evolution should have made it. Garden grown tomatoes must have been stolen from Mount Olympus just like fire; we mortals do not deserve their tangy/dripping/vital/fragrant goodness. I'd talk about the glories of grilled vegetables, was life not so cruel. Alas, this year I have not tasted them outside of a restaurant, and some foods deserve to be cooked at home. On the other hand, this year a very smart friend introduced me to sparkling white wine liberally doused with lime juice. It can take hours of stress and ten degrees Fahrenheit away instantly.

Farmers' Markets ought to be a summer joy, and they can be, but my latest trip to ours was severely disrupted by the last fantastic summer win that I'll give myself room to discuss today: thunderstorms. Repeated cracks of thunder and vicious forks of strangely colored light bring the good kind of drama to the already very necessary goodness of rain. We have then near daily this year; the next one's rumblings have started. They are perfect. Calm conversations can take on diabolical or heroic dimensions when the thunder lays its emphasis at just the right moment. They lull us into napping or inspire other antics. Nature gives us many metaphors but few are so always welcome as thunderstorms.
What all of this has been a roundabout way of saying is, happy Solstice. Enjoy the summer.