Yup, I’m in the swing of it alright. Stella Silver got her groove back; She’s settled in and loving the sweet spot of summer. No more auto pilot glances down to my left wrist around 2pm thinking it’s time to get to the bus stop. No more speeding home to the mailbox hoping and praying that there’ll be a letter. Nope. That was so June. It’s August now which means we’re in a different mode:
No Letter = No Homesickness. No Homesickness = Happy Kid. Happy Kid = Happy Mom. Happy Mom = well, you know the rest.
But………….Let’s not get too excited. There’s a tiny glitch in this equation. Effective tomorrow, the summer is over.
O-V-E-R.
Yes, it was here yesterday but tomorrow it’ll be gone. Finito mañana! Tomorrow, after seven weeks, my baby is coming home from sleep-away camp. Though the summer has provided me with a new sense of freedom having one less kid around, I’m chomping at the bit to get my hands on my boy and catch up on EVERYTHING! How was Songfest? Who won Color War? Let me see your fingernails!
If my overall level of productivity were to be measured based on the past seven weeks, I would be in major trouble. I can’t say that I did a lot, but I did do some things.
HERE’S A LIST OF THE FIVE THINGS I DID & DIDN’T DO THIS SUMMER:
1. COMCAST LOVES ME
Surprise. Surprise. I watched a shitload of TV this summer. I barely skimmed the blogging surface on some of the series that kept me up to the wee hours of the night. Banshee, House of Cards, The Leftovers. That was just the start. I did also catch up on four seasons of Game of Thrones. Talk about engrossed… I took binge watching to the next level. I found myself attempting to learn Dothraki and Valyrian, the make believe native tongues of the people who live in the make believe lands of Essos and Westeros. I probably said “Yes, Your Grace” a thousand times.
Walter White (a.k.a. Heisenberg) and Jesse Pinkman became household names this summer.
Is it strange that I invested serious brain power into what it would take to try cooking meth? Don’t answer that. My obsession with Breaking Bad was ironically on par with that of a real drug addict.
It begs the question, does life imitate art or does art imitate life? You decide:
When I would welcome friends into my home with the salutation, “Yo Bitch,” I knew I was done with my fictitious 14th century accent and moving on to a dialogue better spoken out of the mouth of a crystal meth junkie. When I showed up at the pharmacy to purchase a box of Allegra-D for my allergies, I became seriously paranoid that someone might suspect I was buying the meds to extract out the pseudoephedrine. One time, kleptomania got the best of me. I walked out of CVS without paying for nose spray. I’m pretty sure that was the moment I had channeled Marie Schrader wearing a black shirt instead of a purple one! Yup, I suppose I did steal. Nope, I didn’t go back to confess. Whatcha gonna do, Bitch? Citizen’s arrest me?
2. STRICT SUMMER DIET? WHATEVVVVV
I’m using my poetic license to say my strict summer diet didn’t go so well. The truth is, it didn’t go well at all. It barely even existed. The diet did get jumpstarted the day my kid left for camp, as the menu consisted entirely of alcohol and Xanax. Forty-eight hours later, I was already adding carbs, cheese, prosciutto, more alcohol, pasta and rainbow cookies to the meal plan.
Seven weeks later and six pounds heavier, I’m officially giving myself a big, fat “F” in the summer dieting category. The old cliché, “I’ll start a diet on Monday” didn’t happen. Even with one kid still home, we ate in more restaurants than perhaps the combined number of times we dined out the entire year. The consumption of liquor was just as extreme. It was hardly a dry campus at my frat house. Our pool became the pit stop for whomever, whenever and with no prior notice required because I did keep a stocked bar and a full fridge at all times!
We drank our way through the summer and laughed our asses off in between each bite of bread and every bottle of booze. Did it ever get old? No, it didn’t. Did it do any favors for my waistline? No, it didn’t but the constant laughter did give my abs a well needed workout. I will start that diet Monday. In September.
3. ROOKIE MOVES
I made some epic fails when it came to planning for Visiting Day weekend. I thought I would try to save a buck so I booked a late afternoon, connecting flight. While en route to the airport (in a torrential rain storm) I received an email that said our plane would be late. This delay would most likely have resulted in our missing the connection and the possibility of getting stuck in the layover city with no luggage was not a chance my husband was willing to take.
HE SAID: “Why aren’t we flying direct? And who flies in the late afternoon anyway? Especially during the summer…in Florida, when it rains everyday. You couldn’t find a morning flight?”
SHE SAID: “Well, it was a fortune. I was trying to save us money. You should be happy I checked the fares.”
HE SAID: “THIS is when you decide to start saving money??? Next time you should decide to save money on SHOES, not on airplane tickets to see our kid for Visiting Day. I’ll be in charge of booking the tickets from now on.”
After the lecture was over, my husband turned the car around, called the airline and rebooked us on the first direct flight out the next morning. I didn’t ask how much this change was gonna cost, but I’m assuming we didn’t save any money. Lesson learned.
I figured I was already in the doghouse so I did keep my mouth shut when HE SAID, “We’re leaving the suitcases in the car overnight. You are out of control with the packing. I tell you this every time we travel. Do you really need ALL that shit?”
The upside of fucking up the flights and having to leave the following day is that I did get to watch six more episodes of Breaking Bad that evening! Suffice it to say, my husband didn’t share my enthusiasm.
Arriving in the Berkshires for a four day mini retreat didn’t go as I had hoped either. I booked our getaway at a well-known Inn that was charming, quaint and located in the center of town. I figured we would chillax and take advantage of being away from the regular rat race of our normal lives. My husband took one look at the crowd at the Red Lion Inn, and politely insisted we chillax somewhere else. Before we even checked in, we were Red Lion checked OUT!
4. MASTERING THE SHTICK WITH THE CAMP PICS
I mentioned in a previous Camp Blog that there was no way I was gonna become a slave to the refresh button. And guess what? I didn’t! I can honestly tell you I was not one of those Moms who constantly checked the camp website. Do most parents click on every one of the hundreds of pics that are posted every single day? They do, don’t they?
So I won’t be nominated for Mother of the Year. Who cares? I wouldn’t have won anyway!
I might not have been willing to spend hours on end looking at a bunch of random pictures, but the good news is that my husband was more than willing to take on the task. He’d weed through the eight gazillion pics to find our kid. Afterwards, all I had to do was log on, go to the favorites folder and click away until my heart was content analyzing photo after photo of my little camper. I didn’t mind that part at all. As a matter of fact, I loved it and never once did I have to click the refresh button! Now that’s what I call teamwork! However…………..
The bad news is that on more than one occasion this happened:
SHE SAID: “Hey Babe, are the pics up yet? Did you look?”
HE SAID: “Yah. Check the folder. There’s a few good ones. He looks great!”
SHE SAID: “Ummmm, Babe? I just looked at the pics and I agree, that kid looks great, but that kid is not ours!”
If you’re wondering if I went back to double check the batches of pictures once I realized my husband was saving photos he thought were of our kid but weren’t, the answer is NO. I didn’t! If he missed a few, so be it. I can’t blame him. Everyone looks exactly the same anyway. Right?
5. RSVP: WE WOULD LOVE TO, BUT….
I did a lot of yoga this summer, but I didn’t do it in Europe, Park City or Aspen. Am I mistaken or did everybody in the free world go to either the Amalfi Coast, the South of France, Paris, Utah or Colorado this summer?
If I had a dollar for every person on Facebook who “checked in” at The St. Regis, the top of Ute Trail, or the bottom of Snowmass Base Village, I probably could have afforded my own room and tagged along. I know it’s none of my business, but I’m so curious how everyone gets the beaucoup bucks to take these lavish trips after paying for sleep-away camp. I mean, maybe I missed the memo on How To Not Go Broke After Paying For Camp So That You Will Have Enough Cash Leftover For Ten Days Abroad Or A Trip Out West To Hike, Bike And Do Whatever Else You Like In The Mountains.
You don’t think I’m constantly posting #read #like #share #silverunpolished for no reason do you? It would be great if the blog that began to help my mental health would start to monetize itself and boost my financial health so maybe just maybe I’ll be able to take a cray cray vaycay like that too!
THAT LONG LIST OF PROJECTS? HAAAAAAAAAA
By now, I would hope my unpolished friends know me well enough to know that I purposely didn’t add All The Projects I Intended To Do This Summer, But Didn’t to my master list above. It should absolutely go without saying that of course I had a punch list of projects, and of course I didn’t do any of them. Nada. Zilch. Zip. If Orange Is The New Black, I guess there’s always next summer to get my shit done!
The thought of seeing my son tomorrow means I’ll be up all night with eager anticipation. I’ll happily clean ’em and feed ’em and hug ’em until practically the point of suffocation. I will be soooo thrilled and relieved to have him home safely and soundly sleeping in his own bed once again.
JUST TO LET YOU KNOW… I do have an unpolished confession: I’m already secretly betting on how long it will take before things fall back into place. By fall back into place I mean yelling and screaming and fighting with his brother. I mean pushing and kicking and elbowing each other in the backseat of the car and speaking
at a piercingly high volume that I do not appreciate. I mean whining and complaining and giving me a headache about bedtime.
“Oh c’monnnnnn Mom, just one more show.”
I mean the drama over getting up and dressed and out the door to catch the school bus in the mornings. I’m not looking forward to the inevitable:
“Pleazzzzzze, can’t I sleep in a little longer and you can just drive me through the carpool line?”
I mean ALL of the crap I didn’t have to deal with ALL summer long.
Obviously, you know what I mean!
Conservatively speaking, I’m giving it ’til Sunday. Yah, that sounds about right. By then, things should be falling right back into their unpolished place, as if he never left!
And so it goes, as quickly as it came. Peace out Summer 2014. It’s been real.
Well said, looking forward to seeing Big Ben tomorrow!
Great article! excited to see my kids but miserable that summer is over! I feel like I’ve been on spring break! no responsibilities (other than work and exercise), no schedule (other than yoga and spinning), and no grocery shopping (other than wine)! Why would anyone want this to end! Can’t wait to hug and kiss them and smother them with questions and affection……but truth be told, we will all start counting down the days until next summer!
@courtney how true… how true… how true…
Amazing read… Even for a non camp mom!!!
ROAR!
Love it! My “summer” officially ends this Sunday….and I can’t wait!!
So true!! Us New Yorkers have 2+ weeks til school so it’s time to entertain the kiddos!! Mommy I need this, mommy can we do that, why mommy why!!! UGH can’t wait!!!!
The summer certainly went fast. So glad he had a great time. Can’t wait to see him!
Awesome!