Happy Summer Solstice!
Summer! For those of us in the northern hemisphere, it means sun and heat and longer days and being outside as much as possible. As a girl growing up in South Carolina and Wisconsin, summer meant riding bikes until dark and evening BBQs and seeing who could catch the most fireflies and counting mosquito bites. Summer mornings, always on a Saturday, started to the sound of lawnmowers and the smell of fresh cut grass the fans blew in through the windows - open before the heat and humidity of the day set in and air conditioners needed to be turned on. The cicadas trilled in the heat of the day; the crickets took over at night. Taking a shower only helped you to smell better because the humidity never allowed you to dry off. No one noticed. We were too busy telling stories and building forts and stealthily wandering from one house to the other in pursuit of whatever good guys vs. bad guys game we had concocted - while our parents sipped beers and martinis and bourbons on someone's pa