First Day of Summer Style. . .

The view from the front walk this morning. Just look at that sky! The lawn isn't too bad either. The results of twice a week mowing with a mulching mower since mid-May and an application of Milorganite, a slow release organic fertilizer 10 days ago. We've also had considerable rain this spring, which really helps grass, plants, and trees.

Today marks the official start of Summer! Let's all leave behind the dark, dank, cynical, and nihilistic world of hard-boiled private detectives, scheming dames, and two-bit losers for just a minute and do The Snoopy Dance.

The Grand Duchess continues to endure real hardship in The Pacific Theater. She has had her obligatory volcano hikes and taken in a beach or two at sunset. Her hiking boots were immaculate since I moisturized them before she packed. Yesterday, she flew to another island where the actual conference takes place. Opening convocations and related schmoozing were yesterday evening. Time seems meaningless in this case since I can't even figure our what day it is in Hawaii.

Meanwhile, back in real life, The Young Master and I have a largely unstructured day planned. I'll mow after 3pm once the sun is lower in the sky, and we plan a bike ride around the neighborhood before dinner this evening. Tour de Cul de Sacs as we refer to it. Twice around the five or six cul de sacs and connecting streets that comprise our neighborhood takes an hour or so, an idea length of time in the saddle for a nine-year-old. Very little traffic by that point in the day too.

Afterward, father and son will split a pizza for dinner and see where the evening takes us. No doubt, the latest Geronimo Stilton story will figure prominently before bedtime. Tomorrow, our usual big weekend breakfast, followed by Tae Kwon Do -- he has his yellow belt test Monday evening next week -- and a piano lesson. Otherwise, the weekend is wide open.

Hear that? Ah, Summer!

-- Heinz-Ulrich

The upper half this bright, sunny, and cool summer morning, a seersucker number.

And the rather spindly lower half. While I've got a pair of faded red shorts, one in olive green, and a couple of pairs in Madras patterns, most are in various shades of khaki, some with pleats, some without. It's very easy to go to my dresser in the morning and toss on comfortable summer gear with almost no thought involved. Dressing in a reasonably presentable way need not be complicated, guys. Yes. I know. All snide thoughts about bird legs are acknowledged and excused.

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Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall. I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation. Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold. Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario. But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich

The Power of Ideas. . .

T he end is nigh! The autumn semester/term approaches. And while we still have almost two months of summer left according to the calendar, "Summer is over and gone," as the crickets sang in Charlotte's Web . At least for those of us who head back to the classroom in less than a month. In advance of a meeting with my program director late Monday morning, I spent about 40 minutes total during the weekend to jot down several ideas about planned workshops and related activities for the coming 2024-2025 academic year. At an opportune moment, I mentioned "I have a few ideas," and opened my leather portfolio. My director was highly receptive to almost everything I suggested, and we had a very productive planning session for just over 90 minutes. Just about everything I sketched out on Sunday aligns with his own ideas. It's nice when meetings go that well, and two related things occur to me in hindsight. One, it pays to exercise forethought, take, and de

A Lazy Saturday at the End of June. . .

A sleepy first half of the weekend here at Totleigh. Warmer and quite humid ahead of an approaching cool front here in Mid-Michigan. Perfect for yet another pair of chino shorts an a seersucker shirt -- tucked in of course -- with the usual leather deck shoes and ribbon belt. Otherwise, not much accomplished beyond a page or so of writing and monkeying around with audio settings for an upcoming podcast episode. However, I was not completely useless yesterday! I made a huge fruit salad for dinner, which the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed a short while later at the table on the back porch. The Young Master, as is his wont on Saturday evenings, took his dinner on a tray in the TV room upstairs where he whiled away a couple of hours on Flight Simulator, flying some sort of commercial airliner to some destination across the Atlantic or Pacific. I would have loved that sort of technology at about nine or 10 way back during the late 1970s, aka The Stone Age. As it is, my sister and

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