And the solstice is still three days away

Oh, you guys. Our summer has been so busy so far. It almost feels like it should be over already.

Son C has his learner's permit! For driving! So far I have let him sit behind the wheel of my car in the driveway and ease up on the break a little bit in both Drive and Reverse. Thrilling stuff, eh? He's been taking the classroom portion of driver's ed all month and has his first actual driving lesson next week, with an actual instructor who knows how to teach that, as I clearly do not. Once he's got a few lessons under his (seat)belt, perhaps I will take him to an empty parking lot and let him do donuts or something? Is that how it works? I don't know! I maybe shouldn't have been allowed to have children.

Daughter H just finished a very cool and rather prestigious film acting camp (her career goal right now: to be famous! that is a major in college, right?) in an adorable neighborhood that's very very far from the neighborhood where we live. It's the kind of neighborhood where you can walk to a tiny 1970s-throwback grocery store and a non-chain pharmacy and various trendy eateries and where an old man rides a bicycle down the sidewalk (and also occasionally right out in front of cars! I'm just saying, that totally would not have been my fault) selling paletas out of a cooler hitched to the back. I fantasized about moving there for two seconds before I discovered it's also the kind of neighborhood where, for the amount of money we paid for our 5-bedroom 3-bath 2-living 2-dining w/study suburban house with a big yard and attached garage, we could MAYBE buy a 1-bedroom 1-bath condo. With no yard OR garage. Heh.

But the MOST exciting thing that happened so far this summer was that a couple of weeks ago my brother, who lives two or three states away depending on which way you drive, emailed me to tell me he was coming into town for a visit and that he wanted it to be A SURPRISE for our parents! I immediately scrambled to make plans with them for the day my brother was arriving so they wouldn't be off gallivanting around someplace (they take a lot of day trips; my mom would have plotzed if she'd found out my brother was in town for however many hours while she and Dad were off antiquing in the Hill Country all day).

I cannot tell you the anxiety this caused me, trying to make sure the logistics of this would work out without spilling the beans to my parents. I totally avoided them for an entire week because I was so afraid I would blurt it out. (Do not EVER trust me with a secret; I am terrible.) But anyway it totally worked, and they were super surprised and we all had a really nice visit, yay!

I'm still having trouble getting my reading mojo back. I finished and absolutely loved Tana French's The Likeness, and now I'm reading Joshilyn Jackson's Backseat Saints, and I LOVE HER and the book is very good but I'm just slow getting into it for some reason. I think the combination of triple-digit temperatures plus high winds plus high humidity plus no rain for weeks on end is scrambling my brains in addition to making my hair all crazy. (Now I remember why I decided to shave my head this time last year! It's grown out just enough to look terrible all the time and annoy the crap out of me. Wind + humidity = NOT HELPING. Oy.)

Today I'm making a double batch of blueberry muffins (the traditional Father's Day breakfast in the saltycrunchy house) along with deviled eggs and freezer pickles for husband P's requested barbecue dinner tomorrow night. The poor guy has been working so many hours lately that I'm not sure he even remembers what the rest of us look like, so here's hoping we can get him to slow down for a couple of hours tomorrow. (Hmm, I might have to get him drunk. That will probably work, and he could use the nap.)

Happy Father's Day weekend to all you dads out there!