Wait, You Mean It’s Over?

Well friends, the Beach Boys and the Buffett have been put away. I better clarify that. The Buffett as in Jimmy, not buffet as in I’m going to go back 5 times and only put one item on each new plate just because I can, has been packed away. The flags have been stored, the pool has been covered and the last wonderful BBQ has been conducted under the summer sun (blue cheese burgers, in case you were wondering). Ok, none of those things has actually happened yet, I mean I live in Southern California for Mother Nature’s sake. Weather wise we have about another month of summer out here. The kids are in school though, but they started July 28th, so summer in the ‘no school’ sense started over a month ago for us. At least Lucy and Ethel have October left so that they can be out of school for summer. Our summer. The So Cal summer. If I haven’t lost you yet, please feel free to read on. Then you can explain to me what I was trying to write in my clouded head, summer is over, what the heck happened to my Olympics and back to work funk.

And speaking of Brian Wilson. I have to take issue with Capitol Records. Not because their old building that is supposed to represent a record stack on a needle has aged about as badly as Connie Stevens (go ahead and Google both of them, I can wait), but because of the release date they chose for Brian’s new album. The creative genius of the Beach Boys records an album (CD, if you want to be all mid-90s on me) all about Southern California called ‘That Lucky Old Sun’ and they release it AFTER Labor Day Weekend? Isn’t that just as sinful (using sinful makes it sound really evil, as in the fruits of the devil evil – bonus readership points if you can correctly guess where that line is from) as releasing Bing Crosby’s Christmas Gold on December 26th? The answer is yes. I’m helping you answer because I know that I always appreciated someone giving me the answers when I was being tested. You honestly didn’t think I possessed the necessary skills to graduate from high school or college or even kindergarten on my own, did you? Obviously I am kidding - except for the kindergarten part. I was a big fan of naptime. Turns out you miss a lot of that fancy book learnin’ when you abuse naptime…

Well looky there, I strayed off topic. I really have to stop doing that because every time I do, I have to stop writing, go back and reread what I already wrote to figure out what my point was for the day and then usually can’t even tell. Then I get upset and frustrated because I’ve written half a post and reread half a post and still can’t figure out where I need to pick up next. And all of that just makes me go all Gustav (I know, it’s probably still too early to use it) on the first family member or phone solicitor that interrupts me. Of course spending an entire paragraph detailing all of this is pretty pointless too, I just wanted you to know. Let’s carry on.

What I wanted to discuss was the unofficial end of summer, I think. It’s odd because I look outside and it still looks the same as it did Monday. It still feels like it did Monday or July 17th or June 30th or August 23rd - basically every day this past summer. Except for Tuesday July 9th. That day was unusually cool. It even rained for a couple of minutes that night. You know what; the unofficial end of summer isn’t really that exciting.

Ok, writing about the end of summer wasn’t that exciting but the actual end of summer was very exciting. Let’s review. I burned myself while lifting my new hinged Weber BBQ cooking grid, with my bare hands. Then on Sunday, the hinged part got bumped and it slammed down on my index finger’s knuckle. I was tempted to turn my hand in the other direction and intentionally touch the hot cooking grids again so I could get those cool crisscross grill marks on the top of my hand that are all the rage in the nicer steak joints like Sizzler and Bob’s Big Boy. All those gas and propane jockeys out there may not have the same problem, but us charcoal guys face danger at every turn, or every flip of the burger.

Then there was the shocking political development that started the last weekend of summer with a bang or bangs, as in lady-bangs. Yes, the pun was intended, if you got it, which you probably didn’t because it was poorly executed. Even though I just mentioned execution, I intentionally do not discuss touchy subjects like politics or Clay Aiken on this blog, so I am mentioning what follows in a nonpolitical context.

I kind of tuned out of the real world over the weekend so I could enjoy summer’s last fleeting cornucopia of pleasure, so you can imagine my surprise when I started watching the news this morning and discovered that Tom McCain picked Tina Fey to be his running mate. Wow! I’m a huge Tina Fey fan so this is a very neat development for me. I’m sure it will energize his campaign and all, but in a very selfish way, I am a little worried about the future of one of my absolute favorite shows, 30 Rock. Tina stars in and writes that show and balancing a presidential campaign and a popular network sitcom is going to be tough, though I’m sure the one-liners in the debate will be very quote worthy. Hilariosity will ensue baby!!!!

And how did the summer weekend holiday end, you ask? Well here’s the deal. I was on the treadmill running 185 kilometers an hour Monday night; at least I think I was. I’m still having trouble with the whole metric conversion thing since I mentioned it to you last week. My wife was watching her soaps, or as I call them – her stories, when I heard a familiar voice over the 6 Million Dollar Man bionic sound effects that I always hear when running. I turned my head in time to see none other than Jan Brady acting on one of NBC’s midday stories, Dames of Our Lives, or something like that. Jan Brady! First Tina Fey jumps into politics and then Jan Brady ends up on a soap opera. I think I need to lie down, on my hammock, in the sun, with an iced tea and 3 packets of Splenda. Oh crap, I can’t. Summer is over now, remember?