Lazy Days of Summer
On our refrigerator hangs a list, with entries made in three different people’s handwriting and four different kinds of ink. It’s our traditional Summer Wish List, on which we write down all the things we’d like to do in the vibrant, rockin’ Bay Area over the summer, when the kids are out of school and we finally have some time to get out and enjoy a region that draws tourists from all over the world.
See how not one entry on the 2013 list is crossed out? Pretty impressive, huh?
That’s because as of August 9, we have managed to achieve bupkus from the Wish List. And given the schedule for the next eighteen days until school starts, the window of opportunity to hit even one of these events has already closed. We’re book ending the summer with visits East to see various family, so for all intents and purposes, summer is done.
The Summer of 2013 will go down as one of the lowest-activity on record. Not that I’m complaining.
Our big family achievement this summer was to blitz through Season 1 of Friday Night Lights in ten days. It is nigh on impossible to find a show that a Boomer, a Gen Xer, a teen, and a tween can enjoy in equal measure, but FNL hit the sweet spot. For a week and a half, between one family vacation and the day the oldest kid left for camp, we all hit the big blue couch at 7:30 pm to see how many episodes we could get through, always saying we’d watch just one and then cramming in three instead, early morning meetings be damned.
I swear to you, I could turn this entire blog into an ode to Tammi and Coach Taylor and their solid, middle aged, sexy marriage, but I will spare you that.
Just know that as a mom, those hours of family television watching felt blissful to me, and not only because of Tim Riggins. As our oldest daughter starts her second year of high school, I am keenly aware that, exactly three summers from now, we’ll be buying things for her dorm room and figuring out how she’ll get home for Christmas break. This family time that I’ve taken for granted for so long suddenly has an expiration date sooner than that on some of the cans of turkey chili in my Emergency Kit. We are fast approaching a time beyond which getting all four of us together will require coordination, driving, the taking of vacation days from jobs. So to be able to just move from the dinner table to the couch, and have everyone want to be there at the same time, feels hedonistic to me.
The other big activity this summer? Reading in bed. Our house is configured so that the living room, dining room, kitchen, and master bedroom are all on the same floor. I know that in other houses, where the bedrooms are on a separate floor from the public rooms, people probably don’t spend the hours between five pm until bedtime already in bed. They probably read on couches or sit in the kitchen.
The thing is, my bed is super comfortable, and warm, and looks out onto treetops where squirrels do crazy acrobatics, and there’s a giant stack of books next to it. (I’ve gotten all up in Goodreads this summer, find me there if you haven’t already. I want to see what else I should be reading.) And my bed is right on the main floor, steps from the front door and next to the kitchen.
So if I’m not upright doing something like cooking or working or walking the dog, I am Always. In. Bed. So is my husband, but it’s not like that because he’s either reading Velo News or playing Scrabble on the iPad. I swear, we are just like the Swoosie Kurtz character in the David Byrne movie “True Stories,” the lady who lives in her bed (though we don’t have a TV in our room, or a robot to feed us.)
The kids always look for us there first when they come home from ballet or a friend’s house, only later checking the family room or yard. Close friends have been known to come in through the front door, straight down the hallway, and climb into bed with us for a chat. It may sound weird, but what sounds weirder to me is sitting on a couch in the living room to read when you could be doing it under the covers, the dog snoring contentedly nearby.
We didn’t go the Santa Cruz boardwalk, we didn’t take the dog to romp in the Pacific Ocean at Half Moon Bay, we didn’t go watch the catamarans sailing in the Bay as part of the America’s Cup. We didn’t cheer any Bay Area teams. We went to a couple movies. We sat in bed and read. We lumped on the couch in a big Kho-pile and watched Friday Night Lights, and we’re already counting down the days until everyone is home again so we can watch Season 2 together. We made sloths seem hyperactive.
It’s only early August but to me it feels like summer’s over.
And I wouldn’t change a thing.
Once I started thinking about True Stories I couldn’t stop, so today’s video had to come from the movie. Plus, because obviously our summer was wild.
Ok, sorry to ask again but I promise it’s the last time…if you can spare a vote for me at the Circle of Mom’s “Top 25 NorCal Mom Bloggers” I sure would appreciate it. You can vote every day, in case you were looking for something fun to do with your summer weekend. Just press the magic pink button, below.
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