Call Your Dad, Then Call Mine

[S]ummer Solstice is my favorite day of the year.  The day that officially welcomes Summer.  It’s our (us northern Earth dwellers) longest day, tilted all the towards the sun, spinning round and round through space.  It feels like an extra special day to enjoy bare feet in the grass and warm sun on our shoulders, so let’s!

I’ve spent some very good days this month learning to love Philadelphia.  Between the gardens and parks, murals, fountains, good coffee, and great people… it’s been an easy place to love.  I say that now.  In Summer.  My blood might be too thin for  Philadelphia winter.

Above, Amos Lee and David Gray at The Mann Center of Performing Arts.  It’s our time for long days, outdoor concerts, picnic blankets, wine in plastic cups, and sweat behind our knees. Let’s live it all for as long as we can.

More important than the warm breeze at our backs… it’s Father’s Day!  Call your father.  While you’re at it, call my father.  Share the gratitude and love.  Happy Father’s Day, Dad!  Thank you for teaching me how to pay my bills and make really excellent biscuits.  Life skills for…. life.

The world this week has been hard on the heart.  Here are some links that range from heartbreaking to rather trivial.  It’s the world we live in:

•  This week, nine black men and women were murdered at The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.  These murders are hateful and racist, senseless and tragic.  They should be confounding in this day and age, but here we are.  This, from The New Yorker’s David Remnick:  Charleston And The Age of Obama.

•  Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church: a living landmark.

•  “IF Giulia Enders had not contracted a mysterious illness as a teenager that left her covered with sores, she, like most of us, might never have thought much about her digestive tract, except when it was out of whack. She might never have enrolled in medical school, either, and she almost certainly would not have written a best-selling book about digestion last year…”  A German Writer Translates a Puzzling Illness into a Best-Selling Book.

•  The book?  Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ

•  Putting A Price Tag On The Stress Of Having a Child.  Coooolll.

•  Cheating Sleep.  How to get one over on biology and body chemistry.  But wwwhhyyy? Sleep is so precious.

•  For our summer travel consideration:  The Best and Worst Airlines, Airports, and Flights.    

•  Get personal, be vulnerable, and tell the unconventional side of the story.  Frankly Speaking:  How I Learned to be Heard.  

•  Papa Says.  He is my father and he is always right.

•  Tracy turned me on to Thrive Market and now I’m hooked.  Healthful kitchen products, really great prices, without yet another trip to the grocery store.  One of my very favorites:  this coconut oil.  

•  Chloe Sevigny got a hold of some stickers.

•  Seeing as it’s the first day of Summer, I’m working on my Summer Bucket List:  all the happy things, big and small I want to do and see this summer.  So far I know I want to make my own kombucha (thanks for the inspiration Tracy!), and find a lot of excuses to wear these sweet JCrew heels.  Don’t worry, the list will be more meaningful than drinks and shoes.

•  Two Weeks of Status Updates From Your Vague Friend on Facebook.  We should all be rolling our eyes at ourselves.

•  Dark Chocolate Dipped Sugar Cones.  Too easy and too good.

Have a most lovely day!  Go on and live it!

xo Joy