I’ve been a “summer person” my entire life (what can I say? I’m a Cancer who thrives when crying softly in a body of water), but the chasm between how I expect summer to be and how it actually is has never felt more acute than this year. I live in Los Angeles, a place where our fine-weather frolicking isn’t confined to just June, July, and August, and yet I find myself complaining about the little details that make summer annoying—sand in my bed! Fruit flies in the kitchen! Ridiculously high energy bills!—instead of merely enjoying it.

Do I just need to get over myself and be grateful for my ordinary-yet-spectacular California life, in which I can eat fresh cherries from a stand off the freeway while watching dolphins play in the water at Point Dume with regularity? Absolutely—but that’

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