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Summer's here so days to start getting shorter

Enjoy the sun and forget about losing the light

Bummer. The summer solstice has just occurred, and you know what that means. The days are getting shorter.

OK, OK, I realize it's a gradual process. I realize that summer has finally arrived, and with it, the pool parties, the beach barbecues and the patio pina coladas. I realize that the ballparks, the playgrounds and the oceanfront cafes will be full to capacity in the coming days. I realize that it will be some time before I give up the sandals for the snow boots and the shorts for the shawls.

But just as we've spent months building up to the longest day of the year, we'll now slowly be riding the slide again. Minute by minute by minute.

"Days will be getting shorter soon," I pointed out to the husband just last week. He was in the process of staining the deck.

"Well," he said. "Aren't you a downer?" He was, he said, giving the deck a facelift because we had all of the summer ahead of us.

We'd eat out there. We'd play cards out there. We'd sip wine out there. If at all possible, we'd brush our teeth and wash our hair out there.

The schoolchildren had just been released for vacation and folks everywhere were poised to take off for the cottage or the airport, he added. What was wrong with me? "I hear you," I said. "I love the first day of summer. It's the best. It's just that, well, we're going to slowly lose bits of daylight now."

In a perfect world, I said, the sun would sit still for a few weeks. The days would not become one minute shorter - not for a while, at least - but stay the glorious way they are now.

In a perfect world, I continued, summer would last two months longer, and we'd be walking barefoot and inhaling Popsicles well into October. Come Halloween, well, the trick or treaters would be prowling the streets wearing sunscreen, since there'd still be daylight at nine.

"Doesn't work that way," the husband said. He continued his work on the deck.

"I know that," I replied.

"I'm just dreaming out loud."

"You know," said the husband. "It's kinda hot out here. I could really use a lemonade."

"On it," I said. And with that, I decided that the husband was not only thirsty, he was absolutely right.

I'd deal with October weeks down the road. Lemonade season is finally here.