Let’s just call it ‘very late spring’

Midsummer's Day Celebration. 4-10 p.m. June 22. Free (please bring a dish to share at potluck dinner and cookout). Shambhala Meditation Center of Atlanta, 1447 Church St., Decatur. 404-370-9650, www.atlanta.shambhala.org.

The humidity seems permanently stuck at 98. Unfortunately, so does the air conditioning.

Well, cheer up, Sweatlanta. The good news is, our typically beastly summer’s already half over!

Say what? How's that possible when most of us haven't even been to the beach yet? Our down parkas are still at the dry cleaners, and those expert astronomers at the U.S. Naval Observatory insist that the first day of summer arrives next week (June 21, aka the summer solstice).

Experts, schmecksperts … haven't they heard of Midsummer?

Suddenly, the "M" word's all the rage here. You almost can't turn your sunscreened self around without smacking into a reminder that the time to be tubing and tube-topping it is 50 percent gone:

For all these events' differences — there'll be booze and loud bands at the Zone's party, all-you-can-eat herring at Ikea's and a sacred items "smoke blessing" at the meditation center's — they have something else in common besides the "M" word: making us feel like hopeless slackers for not being halfway through our summer reading and Christmas shopping lists at this point.

No such nefarious motive in mind, chuckled Bob Richards, 790 the Zone’s program director. The annual free admission fest is an outgrowth of the “Bye Bye Buckhead” street party the station threw to celebrate its 10th anniversary on this same weekend in 2007.

Never mind that 790 actually launched in April 1997: "It's scheduled right around the summer solstice," Richards said. "The longest day of the year seems like a good time for a party."