Don’t Look Now But Labor Day Is Upon Us

The traditional last weekend of summer is here. It seems funny since it feels like I just took the Memorial Day steaks off the grill. Did we even celebrate the 4th of July? It all went so fast I can’t remember. 90 days of summer fun has floated away like the mist of the spray from the suntan lotion that doesn’t work and that I only got to use 3 times anyway. It’s the weekend where I feel I should cram in all those summer activities I didn’t get to do before now.

I won’t worry too much about the pressure of making up for lost time this weekend. Here in So Cal the summer weather extends to almost Halloween, so I’ve still got some time left. This year my summer “yet-to-do” list is extensive. I haven’t had lobster yet, only went swimming once, never flew a kite, didn’t plant anything new and the closest I got to the beach was Sea World, just to name a few. I did get to work an awful lot though. But that is nothing to rejoice about, is it?

Soon the leaves will begin to change colors marking the beautiful start to Fall. Although where I live the leaves are there one day and dead on the ground the next. There is no colorful transition period that people celebrate and travel hundreds of miles just to see. If they haven’t started already, kids will be back in school in a few days. Before we know it, stores will be displaying their Halloween merchandise and then by mid-October there will already be Christmas stuff on the shelves and egg-nogg in the grocery store’s dairy section. You had better not blink or the year will be over before you’ve had a chance to prepare for it!

If you can, try to stop, sit down, grab a cold drink and relax this weekend. Most of us get an extra day to say goodbye to summer, which is always a special treat. There will be backyard barbeques, parades and those last weekend getaways. For us Southern Californians who care, it’s NASCAR race weekend. I’ll be celebrating my last weekend of summer squished together with 100,000 other folks in 100+ degree weather watching what my friend Matt calls “The Roundy-Round.” When I stop to think about, I’ll need that extra day on Monday just to get my ears to stop ringing!

So enjoy whatever you have planned for this Labor Day Weekend. By this time next week, you’ll feel the urge to rake leaves, pick apples or attend a harvest festival somewhere. Good-bye summer, we hardly knew ye.