Oh. My. Gosh. What a glorious day. It's 75 degrees on the second day of July. Seven. Five. Seventy-five. I can't even believe it. (And no humidity, which is even more amazing.) We have all the windows open and the back door, and with the ceiling fan on in the tv room, it's almost...wait for it...chilly.

Bliss.

Callum has been jonesing for some bamboo lately. He had Neel ask a friend of ours if we could cut a piece for him to play with, and he's been making all sorts of plans for that day. He took a ride with our neighbor Tyler to go get a sprinkler last night and on the way Callum apparently told Tyler all about the bamboo. Well, Tyler is about the perfect kind of friend a boy could hope for, because from the front yard of another neighbor's house we watched them come home from the hardware store and walk right into Tyler's house. Nothing unusual in that, but out they came a few minutes later with Callum holding two tall sticks of bamboo. Instant gratification. Callum says, "I'm gonna get some bamboo." And Tyler says, "I have bamboo. It's yours." (And what a gift! In the less than 12 hours since that bamboo got to our house, it's been a cannon, a pole vault, a probe on a spaceship and a gate for Lucy.)

Last week Tyler took Callum on a (sort of) high speed chase to locate the Ice Cream Van after it sped past our house. He does that for me too. Manages to get me just what I need when I need it. Those stainless steel counters that reflect all my cooking photos back at me? All Tyler. There is so much I need to say about this wonderful block in my own little corner of the world here. (And Rebecca, who is too busy today to even stop by - hi Rebecca!- is being remarkably patient about it.) But where to begin? I'll start somewhere, soon. Promise

I'm having dinner with a friend tonight, so it's going to be "Man's Night" at our house. Neel and Callum are going to have (birch) beer and frozen pizza and watch some mannish movie like The Great Escape. How can I seriously expect some lettuce wraps and an Asian Pear Mojito to compare?