Dog days of summer

I just checked on my kids' Doctor appointments. The youngest needs proof of a physical before she can enter Kindergarten, so that means everyone else is getting appointments over the summer too.

They're all scheduled the week before school starts. The first one is four weeks away

Whoa.

Four? As in, less than six? Ummm. OK. This summer thing is really getting away from me. (School starts August 21. Don't ask why. Really. It is the single most annoying question I get while buying cantaloupe melons at the supermarket. Yes, we start before Labor Day. We get out June 6. Deal With It.)

So far we've hung around the house, and gone to camp. This week we're taking swim classes in the afternoon at the City Pool, and then staying the entire afternoon so that Mommy can turn into some sort of gelatinous baked good. Sweaty, moist, and golden brown! Mmmm-hmmm.

Next week the complicated trips across country commence. Eldest daughter is in Manhattan with her grandparents. Next week I fly out with youngest, trade for eldest, visit some horses in Georgia, come back to NYC to pick up youngest and fly home with both. (whew.) Later on, Grandma will come out to pick up Young Son so that he too can have a week in Manhattan being spoiled by doting grandparents. (Oh hell. That means I have to put the Guest Bedroom back together for Grandma when she visits us.)

Somehow I had managed to convince myself in May that over the summer I would have time to compare and contrast two policy documents and then prepare a redlined composite version of both for Board review. Considering that each document is 4.25 inches thick when printed, and I'm spending most of my summer roasting poolside, I'm thinking that isn't going to happen easily. (See. THIS is why I need a laptop. Sigh.) Groan--I really need to pull that off though. Growl, mumble, mumble, grumble.

Somehow I had though I could Get Something Done this summer. (Idiotic expectation, that.)

Mostly, I think I need a vacation. From vacation. From my kids on vacation.


(I skimmed my archives the other day. I have written Very Little about books on this thing. I mostly moan and complain about how stressful my life is. I do READ books, and I do ENJOY books; somehow I need to make myself actually write about the ones I do enjoy. Because this was supposed to be a book-based thing. I think. Or not. Gah. I think the heat has poached my brain.)

OK--in the mode of saying something good about something I've read recently: I genuinely enjoyed Postcards from the Brain Museum by Brain Burrell. I think it took me about five months to read it, because I kept putting it down and picking it up. But it was a really neat history of the collection, study, and archiving of famous brains.