Having Too Much Fun, If Possible

And the second act of vacation begins.

With more guests and 14 hours and nearly 37 minutes of daylight, today was all about the summer solstice.

Over pancakes and bacon at breakfast, one guest mentioned that he'd woken up at 5 a.m. to find it was completely light outside and felt a bit unnerved. The sun took its own sweet time setting over the sound and dropping out of sight reluctantly, like a hammy vaudeville performer who gets pulled off the stage with a hook. At 9 p.m., we could still distinguish the ocean from the blue velvet sky with no difficulty.

Because of course we were sitting outside admiring that scenery.

I recall this time of year when my five sisters and I were young and our bedtimes fell long before daylight gave out. It seemed so unfair to have to try to go to sleep when you could still see blue sky through the bedroom window.

What sticks in my mind is a time when my bed was positioned beside a window and I remember kneeling in bed, my arms propped on the window sill, staring out into the backyard entertaining visions of a time when I'd be allowed to be outside while summer nights were so light.

A forecast of severe thunderstorms didn't stop me from walking after breakfast, although I had no takers on my invitation to come along. The loss was theirs.

The overcast sky and dire forecast are no doubt the cause of so few people being on the beach today, but anyone who was out enjoying the day would attest to the practically perfect temperature of the air, neither too warm or cool.

A favorite guest has suggested that the ideal temperature scale would not be Celsius or Fahrenheit but a new scale based on body comfort temperature, which would register as 0 on the scale.

He thought it was a brilliant concept but I foresaw issues with deciding what "ideal body comfort temperature" might be to assign that value. I know men who would find 58 degrees eminently comfortable while those of us with two X chromosomes and less muscle and fat would be in teeth-chattering mode.

Besides, no one wants to think about science at the beach. Or at least I don't.

No, I want to focus on finishing my second book of the week - Phyllis Robinson's "Willa: The Life of Willa Cather" - discussing a compelling New Yorker piece on Prog-rock (for the last time, Pink Floyd is not Prog-rock, kids) with a couple of guitarists and devouring a divine lobster and shrimp salad at the bar at Steamers while a jazz guitarist played a few feet away from our stools.

Unlike a traditional second act, mine has had not a single complication and the dramatic interest already arrived in Act One. What remains to be seen is how everything is neatly tied up in the final act.

Fingers crossed that the run is extended.