Summer Time Blues J. M. Strother I find I enjoy summer less and less as I get older. Funny thing is, I enjoy winter less and less as I get older too. Yep, the only two seasons worth a hoot are spring and fall. The reason I dislike winter is simple, really. It boils down to one thing. It too darned cold. Summer, on the other hand is a more complex animal. Oh sure, temperature is part of the problem. I don't like the heat. Never have. Never will. But it's not just the temperature that gets to me. And I'm not talking humidity here, though it's no fun either. Summer is that time when, in our household, all semblance of a normal routine is shot to Hell. Since no one in our family has ever been a morning person, when the enforced routine of getting up for school evaporates, bad habits quickly set in. My wife and both kids tend to sleep in. Not eight o'clock sleep in, nor even nine. I'm talking eleven, noon, or even beyond. And since I still have the enforced routine of going to work every day that means I often come home hungry only to discover that the kids ate lunch at two-thirty or three and couldn't possibly be hungry for dinner until at least seven. Oh boy! Then there's the garden. When the weather gets too hot, face it, no one wants to go out in the garden and weed. So before long the yard starts to get that slightly neglected look. If it's a protracted heat wave, it gets that very neglected look. And if it's a heat wave with an accompanying drought, it starts to get that very dead look. The gardens could care less about protracted cold spells in the winter, or even a protracted cold spell with an accompanying drought. It's just not the same. Since I love my gardens I do what I can to ward off a summer disaster, but dragging a hose around day after day has it's own downside (besides the tedium). I put the hose out in one spot for about twenty minuets at a time. I'm told twenty minuets is not long enough by my gardening friends. To get the deep roots I should leave it on for at least thirty. But if I did that I'd never get done. We have a lot of gardens. So it's twenty minuets, move the hose. Twenty minuets, move the hose. Not only is this damned inconvenient, I have to fill that twenty minuets with something, and that something usually ends up being hanging out in the kitchen listening to NPR. Now NPR is is not the problem, it's fine. The kitchen is the problem. I tend to gain weight during the summer, something I largely attribute to watering the garden. I guess I really need to think about moving somewhere with more amenable weather. I don't have a clue as to where, but somehow a song keeps going through my head... A law was made a distant moon ago here: July and August cannot be too hot. And there's a legal limit to the snow here In Camelot. Can someone please show me the way?

Nice prose and a joy to read! And might I answer you with a heartily offered amen. I used to enjoy the summer when my summers consisted of trips to visit my family in Florida and suffering the heat while basking in cool ocean waves. Now they mainly just consist of heat I have to walk through on my way to my car and then around the workplace. It just doesn't have quite the same feel to it for some reason. When you find that path to Camelot, I hope you put up a sign with directions before you leave!

A delightful read, friend Jon! Your wish for Summer to be gone, And Winter, too, I must say, I agree; they must both go away! What does one do when one Bakes till one is well-done? Or shivers with shameless cold Like a Bedouin at the North Pole? Nay, 'tis Fall, and Spring forsooth, Moderation's fair forms, so ruth, The elixir of life to us now Who have no energy to leap like cows. Pause But stay! 'Tis Springstorms accursed That cause innocent modems to burst, And it was in the Fall that I fell Ill, with a throat sore as Hell! Zounds! The whole year is alive With controversy worse than a hive, I am confounded, alas and alack, I am too old and cannot turn back. Age, thou merciless, fell foe Of waistline, and harmless toe, Thou hast blighted our very souls, And made us fearful of heat and cold. And so I sit here and write To forget the year and its slights, For let me add, the incessant rain Is dripping into my tired brain. Blessed is he with seasons, but four, We have five, and that's one more Than what you guys have; worse luck, To sit here and pretend I'm a duck. If that sign's not a dream, and put up at all, Please be so kind as to give me a call. At the time of writing, the guest room has part of its wall an inch and a half thick in white mould. I have never seen anything like it. But seriously, great read, Jon. :) I do miss reading and writing humour in these days of frenetic activity.