welcome to Summer in the Northern Hemisphere

or as we call it in Tallahassee, "monsoon season"

Yeah, it's officially Summer now; that ol' Solstice done come an' gone, 15 minutes after sunset on Sunday.

I guess that means it can also "officially" get hot outside. Well, the average high temperature at my house back in April was 82 F.; in May it was 90 F., as it continues to be so far this month. Thank God for the June Monsoons. The temperature drops real nice when a thunderstorm blows through.

Moving on ... Father's Day turned out somewhat different than I expected. My kids called me, which I hoped for but wasn't confident about. My dad didn't respond to my e-card, even though I received an e-receipt saying that he had picked it up. But then I didn't call him on the phone either. Nice, eh? Hoping for a call from my kids but not calling my dad!

My kids each left a message on my answering machine (I was still asleep and had the ringer off). I called back within half an hour, but my son had already gone out. I talked to my daughter for about 15 minutes. The emotions overtook me and I had to let her go; we hadn't talked in several months and Father's Day always makes me depressed anyway. It's always a surprise to me when my kids call or even send an email. They are always happy to talk to me when I call too, no matter how long it's been since we've spoken. We haven't lived together for nearly 8 years, and for most of the past seven years we've only visited a couple of times per year (and often only for an afternoon).

Last evening I talked to my son. We yakked for about forty minutes. By the time we talked, I had gotten a grip on my emotions; they were uncontrollable when I talked to my daughter earlier in the day.

My children make me very happy; they are talented, brilliant, have great personalities and are (if a father may say) slim, fit and good looking. In them I see the best of both my talents and their mother's talents, but magnified. They also exhibit a few of the bad habits their mom and I used to have, of course - I hope they don't exceed us in that area. I'd prefer that they don't even come close to what we did in the "party" zone.

And, thank goodness, neither of them seems to be nearly as disturbed as I am.