DIMyself!

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Summa Summa Summatiiiiime

Well, summer was upon us.  But as the mornings have gotten colder and the nights darker, and we are all once again forced to share the road with the horror that is school buses (busses?), it's hard to argue that it's fading quickly.  With Labor Day right around the corner, it's undeniable that 2012 is on its slow death march to winter.  Soon we'll all be over raking leaves like we're over the heat now or we were over spring rains.  Hell, I'm already over snow.  I'm kind of a seasonal affective hipster like that.  "Oh... wintry mix?  Yeah, I was really into that in like June but it's so mainstream for November.  I'm getting pretty into tornadoes and spring flooding these days." 

I know what you're thinking (other than, "wow, that weather hipster joke went on pretty long") "But Anna," you're saying to yourselves, which is arguably a little weird since you're alone in front of a computer screen, "you love Fall!"  And to you I say, "Well, you, friend, are right.  And please don't forget that I am still trying to make A-boogie catch on as a nickname."

But.  I DO LOVE FALL.  Seriously, what's not to love?  You get to drink beer that tastes like cinnamon, everything is made of pumpkins, hayrides are real, sweaters exist, and on Sundays you get to watch football.  All day.  Fall.

I don't love summer.  Don't get me wrong, we're on speaking terms and all but on the whole it sort of blows.  Who wants to be hot all of the time and then suddenly freezing when you enter any public building?  Masochists, probably.  Definitely Nazis.  Most noted Racists.  If you love summer and you're still reading this, you may or may not be a communist.  Summer.

That being said, this was a great summer.  First of all, the OLYMPICS happened.  I was pretty subtle about it while it was going on, but I truly and deeply with every fiber of my being love the OLYMPICS.  The worst thing about the OLYMPICS being over is everything.  The best thing about the OLYMPICS being over is that it is a mere seventeen months until the NEXT OLYMPICS.

And how about America, amirite?  We've had the best summer.  We kicked ass at the OLYMPICS.  We landed on MARS and our spaceship (rover?  Marscar?) is live tweeting.  Tweets in space.  2012.

Ladies are having a great summer too.  We won something like all of America's gold medals (no need to fact check, I'm sure this is right).  Plus many of us went on vacations and most of us got tans.  Sure, we can't be president, but we did all get to read erotica about kinky sex and we didn't even have to go to literally any website to do it.  No no, we made them put it in a book.  Because we like our bondage porn with a side of classy.

But more importantly than that or any of your summers, I've had a great summer.  I've wiled away many a crafternoon.  See below:

And I've canned vegetables like it's going out of style (40 years ago). 

I also took the opportunity this summer to get really snobby about community supported agriculture and Farmers Markets.  I have eyed many a Kroger tomato with disdain, and I went through a pretty sizeable cabbage phase.

Now sure, my own garden was sort of a disaster.  My plants got very tall.  But as many among my vast readership are gardeners and surely know, tall wasn't really what I was going for.  Yes, I was in fact hoping that these plants would produce vegetables.  For eating.  But this was not to be.  In a strange turn of events, those plants I was sure were bell pepper plants even turned into zinnias.  Ever the experienced gardener, I waited weeks for peppers to grow from the fist sized orange and pink flowers.  "Maybe it was just a new type of pepper," thought I.  Spoiler alert: it wasnt.

Note the subtle differences.


So yeah, I didn't get to go on a vacation or buy any fancy new things, and I worked some long days, but among the weddings and the cookouts, to the glow of the fireflies and the beauty of my favorite wild orange tiger lilies, I was open to new experiences, and since this blog is your life advisor, you should be so this fall.  Just say yes.  Even if it's to something as trivial as trying all the types of cheeses at the Farmers Market or something vastly important as getting together once a week to play a children's recess game.

Change is scary but the excitement is greater than the fear.  And sometimes, if you're very lucky, you get zinnias where you're expecting bell peppers.