My Summer Recap

Once again summer has come to an end.  Well, okay, summer still has three weeks left (I consider it to be over on Labor Day), and the daily temps will stay quite “summer like” for at least that long, but summer sports are over, fall sports are starting, and the kids all have their school schedules in hand and head back to class this week.  Summer is over.

Which means my family and I will sit around the dining room table the night before school starts to have our traditional “End of Summer” talk.  We do this every year, and it’s pretty much our way of recapping everything we did this past summer, mostly to remind the kids that they HAVE in fact had a VERY nice summer.  This is especially important to do as my kids, like I suspect many other kids on the final night before school starts again, are like Dead Men Walking.  So we talk about everything we did over the summer to remind them that it really was pretty kick-ass. 

We actually try to do the same thing during the weeknight family dinners we have with our “What Did You Do Today” talks to remind them that they actually did have great days (and to find out what they have been doing).  Often times those don’t work out as well as hoped, as my older son usually responds with “I did nothing today, and I learned nothing,” and my younger son always starts out with “I woke up, went to the bathroom and took a piss.”  My wife and I are actually debating whether to put an end to family dinners and simply let everyone eat in front of the TV. 

But the “End of Summer” talks are usually filled with lots of pleasant memories.  Of course only the boys recap their summers, as no one wants to hear how Mom directed a Satellite Media Tour or developed a press release or how Dad converted linear footage into square footage so that he could generate a price for mechanical insulation . . . . . well when I had a job that’s what I did . . . . so I thought I’d recap my summer right here for all of you.

Little League Baseball – Helped coach both my sons’ house league and travel league teams, including seven games in Cooperstown, NY, and in all probably coached close to 80 games.  I got into two arguments with coaches during the year and one of them was our own head coach, went to the wrong field twice, and have developed such an impressive farmer’s tan that I’m not sure if I should be embarrassed by it or post pictures of it on the Internet.  All I’ll say is that if you ever wondered what someone would look like after wearing golf-shirts, ankle socks and basketball shorts outside in the sun for four straight months, look no further.  I also have fallen in love with medicated body powder (after having been introduced to it through other coaches), and in fact credit it with saving my groin area from serious, life-threatening chafing.  Unfortunately I’ve become addicted to it and can’t stop using it.  I’m writing this blog while sitting in a small pool of body powder.  It’s wonderful.

Daily Walks with the Dog – Must have walked 100 miles this summer with the dog.  Of course he got fleas somewhere along the way, and it cost me over $200 for the vet to confirm this and to prescribe the proper medication, but we did go on a lot of walks.  I also lost him for a brief moment in the North Branch of the Chicago River, but I did find him downstream minutes later. 

Endured Two Different Power Outages – The first of which lasted three full days, and forever changed the way I operate my garbage disposal.  Since that power outage I now run the disposal even if there’s a piece of bread crust in there.  I will NEVER leave food in there again.  After three days of wet, rotting food sitting in the disposal . . . . well let me say that the smell coming out of there was as impressive as my farmer’s tan.

Tempted Fate on New York Interstate 90 – On our way home from our trip to Cooperstown, my son accidentally lost his new baseball hat out the window while we were driving 75 mph down I-90.  We had spent hours in downtown Cooperstown looking for this particular hat the day before.  So of course I pulled over and started running down the shoulder after the hat.  Though I was successful in retrieving the hat, I was buzzed a number of times by large trucks and very fast moving cars, most of which were honking their horns at me.  One guy flipped me off.  It didn’t hit me until later that I was running down New York Interstate 90 in a Ted Williams Boston Red Sox t-shirt.  There’s dumb, and then there’s that.

Didn’t Have Sex Outside – I swore that I would have sex with my wife outside during a massive summer rain storm.  And as luck would have it the summer of 2011 was one of the wettest in Chicago’s history, and yet I never made it out of the bedroom.  As my son would say “Epic Fail.” 

Lost a Variety of Electrical Gadgets – Due to one of the many severe storms this summer, some sort of a power surge hit the house, and as a result our home computer, the XBOX 360, the Wii and the dryer were all fried.  Gone.  Dead.  Now actually that’s not entirely true.  The home computer, the XBOX 360 and the Wii are a total loss, but the dryer still has one heat cycle that works.  Go figure.  Of course the heat cycle that still works is “Fluff Air Dry,” so it takes me about three hours to dry a load of wash, and don’t even ask how long it takes to dry beach towels.  Ridiculous.

Developed a Love for Camp – No, I didn’t go to camp.  In fact, I hated camp when I was younger.  But I will say that camp saved my sanity this summer.  My youngest son, who needs constant entertainment at all times, went to day camp for seven straight weeks and loved every minute of it.  It was worth every penny.  I have nightmares about what would have happened if he was home with me every day.  I wind up in jail in some of those nightmares, asylum for the insane in others.

So, adieu to summer.  It was a good one, and we’re all still speaking to each other, so I consider it a success.  Bring on the fall – get the kids out of the house and get the paddle season started!