How I Spent My Summer Vacation*

I stared out at this*2:



Tried to ignore this (not for the faint of heart or stomach).

Did this:

Read these:

Came home to this*3:



(Sigh)

*Summer vacation generously supplied by Mr. and Mrs. Dark Garden, to whom we are eternally grateful, but not so much as to adopt their TV viewing habit (Oh, yes. I saw you two watching wrestling and I tried to convince myself that you were doing it so I would comment on it until I actually heard you discussing the program like you watch this on a regular basis at which point I immediately took up smoking, binge drinking and hard drugs because now I realize there is absolutely no hope for the world and I might as well die young {ish}.)

*2 Believe it or not, we were at Outerbanks -- nice North Carolina beaches. I will not take my camera to the beach. But you all know what a beach looks like, right?

*3 Our neighbor IH across the street naively took a dozen. She told Dirtman, "no more for awhile," not realizing that her acceptance of said cucumbers has automatically contractually obligated her to receive cucumbers every day until the end of the growing season -- unless, of course, she sends back the card we mail her to opt out for a days' worth, which I have a feeling will probably get lost in the mail. IH suggest we put out a table with the extra produce, but I have a feeling that's a good way to lose a table and not much else.

*4 We would also like to acknowledge Heir 1 for staying home and taking care of all the animals and plants without making me feel guilty about it, even though Zsa Zsa was on one of her yogurt and farina diets, Topper gets the runs whenever I leave, Abbey was finishing being in heat and Salt continuously slipped off to peruse the neighborhood. Miraculously, dogs and cats are all happy and healthy and one, in particular, still qualifies to enter a convent (were she not canine, I guess...).

Sigh...

...It's not that I'm not grateful for all I have, but I'm sort of pining for last year's vacation. There will be no vacation this year because, hopefully, Ms. Zsas will have her very own litter brats to look after, which means I will have her litter to look after, which means Mamma K will have all of us to look after.

Now, the House of Never-ending Construction (where the painting is still not done, nor is it likely to be anytime soon) is not exactly the worst place to have to spend a summer. But you know how it is when you're home -- you just have to do all those nattering chores even though you tell yourself you're going to "get some sun" so you don't have the only pasty complexion in the Food Lion where the Mavens of the Tanning Salon stalk the aisles acting like their glow comes from playing tennis all day.

So today I'm remembering fondly when, for two weeks, all I had to worry about was keeping the Heirs out of my pina colada.

Sigh...