To Tracy and Kelly, as we are just days away from the longest day of the year… summer solstice 2025

Today, it’s getting out of bed and making lemon bars, and coleslaw, to celebrate Jack and Nori. Jesse has the ribs cooking at home and Nori’s, making baked beans and blackberry cobbler.

For the occasion, I thought of putting a mask on my face and plucking my chin hairs, but I’m not sure I even have time for that and besides, nobody gets that close to me anyway to see whether I have chin hairs or large pores or wrinkles. But, I will, for certain brush my teeth and my hair.

We’re expecting rain on Friday and Saturday. And so the temperatures have been dropping into the low seventies and the fifties at night, so what to wear has me in a conundrum. I know for sure I will wear my acrylic oyster barrette in my hair and take a long-sleeved sweatshirt to Jack’s house.

I suppose I can do laundry while I make the lemon bars and the coleslaw. I could maybe do some reading or do some scrolling. It’s more likely that I will do the latter.

If I’m driving, I should get my car washed because it’s covered in sap from the maple trees and dust from the road construction. The combination creates a sparkly but dull finish, that makes my car look as though it has sat in the barn for decades. Only the bird poop on the hood, falling from up high in the maple trees, gives it away as a car that lives on the street.

Maybe Ancel will drive instead. Either way, I will dread Highways 26 and 217. I will silently wish that Jack still lived on 25th and Ainsworth. But laughing and loving will make me forget that we have to return home on these dreaded highways.

Sitting here on the bed is not getting the food prepped. But sitting here on the bed pretending that I’m talking to you girls face to face makes me stay here a minute or two longer.

Tomorrow I’ll be going to Pho Van for #52, Bun, with chewy, sticky pork skewers and crispy rolls filled with vegetables and undisclosed proteins on noodles flavored with fish sauce.

Saturday, I’ll go meet with a bunch of women and play, I think it’s called, Cards Against Humanity. I haven’t decided what to make yet for me and others to eat.

And while all of these pleasures go on, I’m torn at heart and of mind and my hair turns ever more white around my face, wetted by my tears, as WW3 is being played out on neighboring continents.

I will breathe. I will breathe out prayers into the universe that this madness will end. But as David Byrne has written in his song, Burning Down the House”… “Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.”

My joy is in knowing you and loving you and knowing that I am loved in return. I hope you’re safe, healthy, and at peace.