Every year I think summer goes too quickly. But this summer is passing with very alarming speed. In July, I asked where June had gone, and it was a sincere question. Now next week is August and BlogHer '11 and the week off I thought was so so far away and then after that the little angel will be back in school, and I'm sitting here staring at the calendar vaguely remembering trips back to Iowa and fireworks and watering plants and a few languid afternoons treading water at the swimming pool and little else -- it's an actual blur.

I sometimes wonder what's happening to my memory.

Clearly the problem is rushing. When I rush, I don't really live in the moment. I started out summer doing a great job of not rushing, but in the ensuing months, life happened and it all went ass over ankles out the window.

I had a dream last night I looked outside and it was sleeting. In my dream, somehow I'd missed my last chance at sailing and biking and Halloween and Labor Day and every fun thing about fall, and I was spitting mad that it was winter. (I hate winter. I try to be more loving toward winter, but it's a really tenuous relationship necessitated by my insistence on staying in the Midwest.)

I woke up angry and blinked and looked outside and realized it was already 88 degrees before 8 am, and I was happy about that. It is mind-meltingly hot, and it has been for weeks, and it will be 100 degrees today and 102 tomorrow and I'm GLAD. It means I didn't miss everything, and I still get to go to BlogHer '11 and then take a week off (blessed, sweet week off, I'll miss you Internet, but I won't be here the week of August 8 because clearly I need to live in the moment away from distractions) and have my end of summer. I still get to experience the evenings when the light turns gold and the air finally starts to cool off and the last few barbeques are enjoyed with friends and their end-of-summer, we-don't-really-tan-anymore glow.

This morning was all Marley's ghost for me. THANK GOD. I almost missed it.

On Wednesday, I was working late when I got a call from Beloved.

His truck had apparently stopped going VROOM while he was driving the little angel home from technical rehearsal in another suburb.

And it was 11 degrees outside. My two favorite people in the whole world, stuck in the cold with no heater and far enough away to scare me.

I left my laptop on the floor, all the lights on, Petunia staring after me in puzzlement. I was halfway out of town before I realized I really didn't know where I was going. I drove up the highway for twenty minutes before I saw their weak hazard lights barely flashing on the side of the road, a dying firefly. I was picturing the little angel inside wearing her ballet tights and crying, freezing. I couldn't get turned around to the other side of the highway fast enough. 

When I pulled up behind them, the battery was so dead it kept tripping off the auto-theft protection and locking the doors, so Beloved had to pull the little angel out of the truck on the driver's side as thoughtless cars whipped past at 60 miles per hour just feet from their bodies. She was wrapped in the blanket we'd bought to give to charity that Beloved had in his back seat. She wasn't wearing tights -- she was dressed in jeans and boots -- but she was freezing, if cheerful. We all climbed into my warm car and waited for two hours for the tow truck to arrive.

It was the alternator. It's fixed now, $427 later. All that matters is that my people are warm.