In as much as I sit in front of a computer screen to pay for the bad habits I've picked up, habits such as eating well and reading, I still enjoy and appreciate the world outside of the four walls of house and transportation that most folks tend to ignore. I prefer to judge my time in this world by the slower pace of the seasons even while I am forced to recognize the constant tick and tock of Man's relentless schedule. But this weekend was the Summer Solstice, the point in the season where the amount of daylight in 24 hours was at it's greatest and my outdoor time was spent, for the most part, on the patio.

Reneé and I tried to make it for some boat time on the lake but all of the boats were rented so we came home instead. I spent part of the afternoon on the patio reading Ursula K. Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea. And, as I sat reading, far off rumbles began and the sky darkened as though Night were trying to take back some of Day's Solstice time, and a gentle rain began to fall. As the sky darkened even more and the rumbles neared the darkness was rent, time and again, with jagged spears that appeared almost like concentrated sunlight stabbing through the gathering darkness to fend of an attack on this, Daylight's most soveriegn day here. And then the storm was past and the sun shone brightly and 'twas pleasant.

Last night, however, after true night had fallen, a tad earlier than the night before as Night began to take back what Day had gathered over the last half year in the eternal see-saw of night and day that has existed from before Man looked up to even notice what was going on, another storm came on. This one with rain drops that were fat and heavy and stung, with hail in some places, with wind that whipped about with the occasional wail of a bansidhe. It was almost as though the night were saying, "Now, as I regain my rightful place and we begin the slide into Winter's depth, know that I shall remind you that it can be cold."

Portents? Perhaps. Though maybe more portential of global warming than anything else.

Peace, gentle readers