A mild summer here in sunny California had folded.  Triple digit temperatures had visited for a week, reminding me of what I missed, or in the case of excessive heat, did not miss at all.  My best friend and her son, my son and daughter and their girlfriend and boyfriend as well as my granddaughter and the girlfriend’s son had been planning for a week or so to head off to Disneyland. Then, my best friend had to cancel (along with her son) because she is having problems with her back, and while the percocet she is on may have made Disneyland an even happier place, her discomfort didn’t allow her to even experiment with that notion.  And then, the heat surge and I finally admitted that I just could not, would not be able to trek around Disneyland in 100 degree, or even 97 degree weather.  This California girl who loves the sun, is no longer able to soak it in like the high school years of cocoa butter and baby oil.  But, I did not want to miss the opportunity of everyone together for a day, so we worked out to go to Ventura beach where it was thirty degrees cooler.  We would go to have lunch.  After some snipping and sniping by me  not wanting to occupy a single car with 7 other people because I thought it was too crowded, I was told to get in, given the front captain’s chair, and we started to Ventura, tension taut in the packed car.  But hours later, after a more than cordial lunch where we ordered the largest pizza any of us had ever seen and only could eat half; large enough to draw the attention of passers-by who gawked and pointed, we ambled along the pathway next to the harbor, the sea breeze enfolded us, and somehow cemented the boundaries of family.  When I saw the smiling tugboat I knew we were in exactly the happiest place on earth right then.  Disneyland would be there for another time.  When we all got back into the car for the drive home, it seemed a lot less crowded.