Ten Things That Make Me Happy This June

1. Those nice cuties behind the counter at Pita Inn. "Are your daughters driving you crazy?" asked one with a smile when we came in, after the park, on our second long day of summer vacation. He knew, even with our good manners on, he just knew.

2. The gorgeous pie photos in the June issue of Martha Stewart's Living. Raspberries over chocolate ganache in a chocolate crust. Apricot with coconut. Strawberry lemonade with a graham cracker crust and barely-there meringue. Plum and blackberry with black pepper and Chinese five spice! Are you dying yet? I want to make them all!

3. The sweet scent of just-cut peonies filling the kitchen.

4. Needing nothing, no jacket, no wool socks, no clunky snowboots, nothing but optional flip-flops and a pair of sunglasses to step outside. Or skipping the flip-flops for a soft walk in the new grass.

5. Seventy-four degrees.

6. The delicious organic lunch menu at Sweet Dreams Cafe in Glenview. Vegetarian friendly! In the mild suburbs!

7. The way Ryan Reynolds roars "Green Lantern's LIGHT!!" in the trailer of what looks otherwise like a pretty lame movie.

8. Anticipating Ryan Gosling in Crazy Stupid Love. The Steve Carell storyline looks like a downer -- please, somebody, give my beloved Julianne Moore something more to do than mope -- but ooooo, that Ryan Gosling. I watched The Notebook -- the entire godawful thing -- for him. I did. I did!

9. Lisa Kudrow (playing awkward-funny mode, like her Valerie Cherish in The Comeback, rather than cutsie-funny as she did in Friends) in the online series Web Therapy. Quick, improvised and hilarious, with great partners like Bob Balaban and Meryl Streep.

10. And this, from Mia:


I'm the boss of my mind!